The end of the seventh (7th) century BCE birthed presocratic philosophy in the Greek cities of Ionia. Miletos was the starting point of presocratic thought and the foundation of the Ionian school. It represented the first philosophical thought in Ancient Greek. Up to that point, what was generally called "Greek philosophy" was almost certainly derived by the Greeks from Egyptian culture, particularly natural science (physics and math) which preoccupied Greek thought up to the time of Plato. By their own confession, the ancient Greeks seem also to have derived much of their philosophical theology from the Egyptians, as well. The Presocratics combined ancient Greek mythology with rational thinking and sought all the forces which compose nature. The natural presocratic philosophers explored the chief cause of the creation of the world, as well as all those forces on which the universe and humanity itself are founded. Presocratic philosophers lived and taught in Asia Minor, in Thrace, in Sicily and in South Italy. (http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/GREECE /PRESOC.HTM; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-socratic_philosophy#List_of_philosophers_ and_schools)
In the latter half of the fifth (5th) century, a group called the Sophists, "those with wisdom," shifted the inquiry away from natural science and towards the nature of morality and society. Socrates follows in the footsteps of the early Sophists in making ethics his primary topic. With this shift in focus and with Plato's overwhelming concern with ethics, Greek philosophy became primarily concerned with ethical and civic virtue. The Pre-Socratic Greek philosophers, are divided up into several schools. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-socratic_philosophy#List_of_philosophers_ and_schools)
THE MILESIAN OR IONIAN SCHOOL: Miletus, on the coast of Ionia in Asia Minor, in the sixth (6th) century was a prosperous trading center with numerous colonies. Milesian philosophers sought to explain the origin of things and the nature of change/motion through one primary material substance as the base or elemental foundation of all natural objects and the source of all motion. One such philosopher, Thales, purported that this primary substance was water. Another philosopher, Anaximander, defined the primary substance as "the unlimited" or "the indefinite." A third phiolosopher, Anaximenes, defined it as air. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-socratic_ philosophy#List_of_philosophers_ and_schools)
THE PYTHAGOREAN SCHOOL: Born in the Greek cities in southern Italy, this school of philosophical thought sought an intellectual foundation for a certain religious way of life. It was more abstract and mathematical than the Milesians and it was much more heavily influenced by Egyptian thought, mostly remaining completely obscure and impenetrable. These philosophers sought to purify the soul by strict rules of life. They believed in metempsychosis (the transmigration of souls to animals and even plants - reincarnation). They found the essential unity of things to lie not in a physical substrate (a surface on which an organism grows or is attached), but in number and numerical relations. For the Pythagoreans, the one thing that formed the substrate of all the infinite things in the universe was numbers. (http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/GREECE/ PRESOC.HTM)
Pythagoras of Samos - He is best known for the Pythagorean theorem and is known as "the father of numbers." He was the first to call himself a philosopher or lover of wisdom. The Pythagorean School bears his name and philosophical thought. (http://www.wsu.edu/~dee /GREECE /PRESOC.HTM)
Philolaus - As is the case with most other Presocratic thinkers, "any chronology constructed for his life is a fabric of the loosest possible weave." He was the first Pythagorean to write and disseminate any philosophical treatise. (http://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Pre-socratic_philosophy# List_of_ philosophers_ and_schools)
Alcmaeon of Croton – Alcmaeon was an Ancient Greek philosopher, a medical theorist and a pupil of Pythagoras. He also was the first to dwell on the internal causes of illnesses. It was he who first suggested that health was a state of equilibrium between opposing humors and that illnesses were because of problems in environment, nutrition and lifestyle. (http://en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Pre-socratic_philosophy#List_of_ philosophers_and_schools)
Archytas - An ancient Greek philosopher, mathematician, astronomer, statesman, and strategist. Archytas is believed to be the founder of mathematical mechanics. He was reputed to have designed and built the first artificial, self-propelled flying device, a bird-shaped model propelled by a jet of what was probably steam, said to have actually flown some 200 yards. (http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-socratic_ philosophy# List_of_ philosophers_ and_schools)
THE SCHOOL OF HERACLITUS OF EPHESUS - (in Ionia; contemporary with Xenophanes) saw change as the unity of all things; he took movement or the contrary tension of things as forms of the mutual resolution of opposites. The unity underlying all change and opposition, but not existing outside of change and opposition, Heraclitus alternatively called the Logos or God. With Parmenides, Heraclitus is perhaps the most important philosopher before Plato, for the idea that nothing transcends change threw a monkey wrench in Greek speculation about physics and metaphysics and has formed the foundation of Western thinking ever since. (http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/GREECE/ PRESOC.HTM)
THE ELATIC SCHOOL: Parmenides of Elea (in Southern Italy) founded the Eleatic School and taught that Being (or Existence) must be unchanging and unmoving, and so the changing world registered by our senses has no reality whatsoever and cannot be known at all (how can you "know" an illusion?). Only reason, without the senses, can lead us to the truth about existence, which neither moves nor changes nor has any parts. This is diametrically opposed to Heraclitus's view, and like Heraclitus's thought, the Eleatic school effectively wrecked Greek speculation about the nature of things for quite a few decades. However, the Parmenidean idea of the nature of reality would become the basis of Plato's thinking and would later become the foundation of the Christian theology of God. (http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/GREECE/PRESOC.HTM)
Xenophanes of Colophon – this philosopher ridiculed the anthropomorphic gods of Greece and believed in one great God, which was not physical but was all mind, moving all things by the force of his spirit without himself having to move (since mind was not physical, it couldn't move). (http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/GREECE/ PRESOC. HTM)
Zeno of Elea - A pupil of Parmenides, produced famous paradoxes which were essentially arguments supporting Parmenides's views. Just about all of Parmenides's contemporaries thought his theories a bit kooky and logically impossible. Zeno attempted to show that those people who believed that things move, change, and have discrete parts are the ones subscribing to kooky theories by demonstrating that motion and divisibility were logically impossible. Zeno's best-known paradox is the race between Achilles and the tortoise, in which Achilles may never catch a tortoise if it's given a head start in a race. For before he caught up to the tortoise, Achilles would have to reach a point half-way from his starting point and the tortoise, then he must go half-way again, and so to infinity. No matter where Achilles is in relation to the tortoise, he still has an infinity of half-way points to cross, so he can never catch up to the tortoise. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-socratic_philosophy#List_of_philosophers_ and_ schools)
Melissus of Samos - A Samian statesman and naval commander who also contributed to philosophy, and bore influence upon the atomism of Leucippus and Democritus. He was a pupil of Parmenides, whose philosophical ideas he extended. His works are devoted to the defense of Parmenides' doctrine. Being, he says, is infinite, having no beginning or end. It cannot have had a beginning because it cannot have begun from not-being. It cannot suffer destruction because it is impossible for being to become not-being, and if it became another being, there would be no destruction. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-socratic_philosophy# List_of_ philosophers_ and_schools)
PLURALIST SCHOOL: Empedocles of Acragas - (in Sicily) He tried to reconcile the views of Heraclitus and Parmenides by identifying four basic elements (which become the standard elements up until modernity): earth, water, air, and fire. These elements remain unchanging but combine to form the changing and moving world of our senses. (http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/GREECE/ PRESOC.HTM)
Anaxagoras – He taught that all things come to be from the mixing of innumerable tiny particles of all kinds of substance, shaped by a separate, immaterial, creating principle, Nous ("Mind"). Nous is not explicitly called divine, but has the qualities of a creating god. Nous does not create matter, but rather creates the forms that matter assumes. (http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/ GREECE/PRESOC.HTM)
ATOMIST SCHOOL OF PLURALISTS: Leucippus (about whom almost nothing is known) and Democritus held that void (space with no matter) exists (against the Eleatics, who held that what is not there cannot exist) and that this void contains an infinite number of indivisible units, which are undifferentiated in material but different in size and shape. By random movements they form vortexes, in which similar atoms come together and form the sensible world. This theory was taken over later by the Hellenistic philosopher, Epicurus. (http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/GREECE /PRESOC.HTM)
SCHOOL OF SOPHIMISM: The Sophists were professional teachers who, for a fee, would undertake to teach their students how to get ahead in the world. Socrates was often allied with them by his contemporaries, but his purposes were, in some respects, different. Protagoras is generally regarded as the first of these sophists. Others included Gorgias, Prodicus, Hippias, Thrasymachus, Lycophron, Callicles, Antiphon, and Cratylus. Socrates strongly disapproved of the sophists for ethical reasons, and consciously adopted a radically different approach to the teaching of wisdom. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-socratic_philosophy# List_of_philosophers _ and_schools)
Protagoras - He invented the role of the professional sophist or teacher of virtue. His most famous saying is: "Man is the measure of all things: of things which are, that they are, and of things which are not, that they are not." This phrase has been passed down to us without any context, and its meaning is open to interpretation. Plato ascribes relativism to Protagoras and uses his predecessor's teachings as a foil for his own commitment to objective and transcendent realities and values. Plato also ascribes to Protagoras an early form of phenomenology in which what is or appears for a single individual is true or real for that individual. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-socratic_ philosophy# List_of_philosophers _ and_schools)
Gorgias - Along with Protagoras, he forms the first generation of Sophists. Due to his ushering in of rhetorical innovations involving structure and ornamentation and his introduction of paradoxologia – the idea of paradoxical thought and paradoxical expression – Gorgias of Leontini has been labeled the “father of sophistry.” Gorgias’ writings are both rhetorical and performative. He goes to great lengths to exhibit his ability of making an absurd, argumentative position appear stronger. Consequently, each of his works defend positions that are unpopular, paradoxical and even absurd. Gorgias argues that persuasive words have power that is equivalent to that of the gods and as strong as physical force. Gorgias likens the effect of speech on the soul to the effect of drugs on the body: “Just as different drugs draw forth different humors from the body – some putting a stop to disease, others to life – so too with words: some cause pain, others joy, some strike fear, some stir the audience to boldness, some benumb and bewitch the soul with evil persuasion.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-socratic_ philosophy# List_of_philosophers _ and_schools)
Prodicus of Ceos - Came to Athens as ambassador from Ceos, and became known as a speaker and a teacher. Like Protagoras, he professed to train his pupils for domestic and civic service; but it would appear that, while Protagoras's chief instruments of education were rhetoric and style, Prodicus made linguistics prominent in his curriculum. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-socratic_ philosophy# List_of_ philosophers _ and_schools)
Thrasymachus - A sophist of Ancient Greece best known as a character in Plato's Republic. He is credited with an increase in the rhythmic character of Greek oratory, especially the use of the paeonic rhythm in prose; also a greater appeal to the emotions through gesture. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-socratic_philosophy# List_of_philosophers _ and_schools)
Critias - The uncle of Plato, and a leading member of the Thirty Tyrants, and one of the most violent. He was an associate of Socrates, a fact that did not endear Socrates to the Athenian public. He was noted in his day for his tragedies, elegies and prose works. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-socratic_philosophy# List_of_ philosophers _ and_schools)
Hippias of Elis - He was a man of great versatility and won the respect of his fellow-citizens to such an extent that he was sent to various towns on important embassies. With an assurance characteristic of the later sophists, he claimed to be regarded as an authority on all subjects, and lectured, at all events with financial success, on poetry, grammar, history, politics, archaeology, mathematics and astronomy. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-socratic_philosophy# List_of_ philosophers _ and_schools)
Antiphon the Sophist - A treatise known as On Truth, of which only fragments survive, is attributed to Antiphon the Sophist. It is of great value to political theory, as it appears to be a precursor to natural rights theory. On Truth juxtaposes the repressive nature of convention and law with "nature", especially human nature. Nature is envisaged as requiring spontaneity and freedom, in contrast to the often gratuitous restrictions imposed by institutions. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-socratic_ philosophy# List_of_ philosophers _ and_schools)
It is sometimes difficult to determine the actual line of argument some pre-Socratics used in supporting their particular views. While most of them produced significant texts, none of the texts have survived in complete form. All we have are quotations by later philosophers, historians, and the occasional textual fragment. The pre-Socratic philosophers rejected traditional mythological explanations for the phenomena they saw around them in favor of more rational explanations. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-socratic_ philosophy# List_of_ philosophers _ and_schools)
Though I am certainly not a student of philosophy nor well-versed in philosophy, this assignment has offered an opportunity for me to learn and grow in my knowledge of philosophy. I must confess that I certainly must spend more time studying in order to truly grasp the thoughts of some of these Presocratics. Being a life-time Christian, I also struggle with many philosophies, in general. But, again, this has certainly been a learning and growing experience. It has certainly opened my eyes to thinking that was unfamiliar to me and peaked my interest enough to research the study more after completing my degree. Though my knee-jerk reaction to a great deal of the thinking is to disgree, perhaps upon further research, I might find a comfortable meeting place between some philosophical thoughts and my Christian beliefs.
WEBLIOGRAPHY
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-socratic_philosophy#List_of_philosophers_ and_schools
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/callicles-thrasymachus
http://montejohnson.googlepages.com/Spontaneity-Democriteancausality andfreedom.pdf
http://www.termpapergenie.com/character.html
http://www2.forthnet.gr/presocratics/indeng.htm
http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/GREECE/PRESOC.HTM
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