Pre-Socratic philosophy
Encyclopedia : P : PR : PRE : Pre-Socratic philosophy
philosophers were active before Socrates or contemporaneously, but expounding knowledge developed earlier.
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. Many of them asked:
- Where does everything come from?
- What is it really made out of?
- How do we explain the plurality of things found in nature?
- How might we describe nature mathematically?
List of philosophers and schools
The traditional cursus of pre-socratic philosophers and movements (there are minor variations) is shown below:
- Thales (624-546 BC)
- Anaximander (610-547 BC)
- Anaximenes of Miletus (585-525 BC)
Other groupings
This list includes several men, particularly the Seven Sages, who appear to have been practical politicians and sources of epigrammatic wisdom, rather than speculative thinkers or philosophers in the modern sense.
- Solon (c. 594 BC)
- Chilon of Sparta (c. 560 BC)
- Thales (c. 585 BC)
- Bias of Priene (c. 570 BC)
- Cleobulus of Rhodes (c. 600 BC)
- Pittacus of Mitylene (c. 600 BC)
- Periander (625-585 BC)
See also
References
- Burnet, John, Early Greek Philosophy, Meridian Books, New York, 1957
- Kirk, G.S., Raven, J.E. & Schofield, M., The Presocratic Philosophers (Second Edition), Cambridge University Press, 1983
- Nahm, Milton C., Selections from Early Greek Philosophy, Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., 1962
- De Vogel, C.J., Greek Philosophy, Volume I, Thales to Plato, E.J. Brill, Leiden, 1963
External links
- D. H. Th. Vollenhoven's History of the Presocratic Philosophers translated by H. Evan Runner []
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.