The term was coined by Herman Diels in the nineteenth
century .
Presocratic philosophers: questions concerning nature.
Socrates: Questions regarding moral issues.
Who? What? Why?
Who: Empedocles, Zeno, Parmenides, Thales, Anaximander,
Pythagoras, etc…
What: A shift in understanding the world.
Why: The questions raised by the Presocratics and the kind
of answers they gave became the foundation of western
philosophy and influenced its development.
 Human habitation of Greece dates back 40,000 years.
 2800 BCE Bronze age in Greece.
 The Minoans and the Mycenaeans displayed evidence of
a politically strong government, large urban populations,
sophisticated art and culture, written language.
 1200 BCE the Dorians invade the mainland.
 1200 – 800 BCE The Dark Ages .
 800 BCE the Greeks Reacquired a written language.
 800 – 500 BCE is referred to Archaic Greece (Sharp
increase in population, literacy, colonisation, Polis and
Philosophy)
 By 750 BCE the Iliad and the Odyssey were written
down by Homer. (no longer an oral tradition)
 Cosmology = order and structure of the universe as a
whole.
 Cosmogony = the study of how the world came to be
the way it is.
 Cosmology + History = Cosmogony
 Kosmos means order
Myths tend to describe the creation
of the world and provide a culture or
society with an understanding of the
events of nature and the world
around them by appealing to
supernatural personified entities.
HESIOD c. 750 – 700 BCE
 2nd only to Homer
 Farmer and Poet
 Cheated out of inheritance
 Works and days AND Theogony
 An attempt to bring order and coherence
into greek myths.
Theogony
 Verily, very first of all Chaos came into
being, but then Gaia wide-bosomed,
secure foundation of all forever, and dark
Tartarus in the depth of the broad land
and Eros, the most beautiful of all the
immortal gods, who loosens the limbs and
overcomes judgment and sagacious
counsel in the breast of gods and all
humans. From Chaos, Erebus [the gloom
of Tartarus] and black Night came into
being; but from Night were born Aether
[the upper atmosphere] and Day, whom
Night bore when she became pregnant
after mingling in love with Erebus.
 Gaia first brought forth starry Uranus,
equal to herself, so that he might
surround and cover her completely and
be a secure home for the blessed gods
forever. And she brought forth the lofty
mountain ranges, charming haunts of
the divine nymphs who inhabit the hills
and dales…….. But then Gaia lay with
Uranus and bore the deep-eddying
Oceanus, and [the Titans, namely]

http://www.oup.com/us/companion.websites/9780195397703/student/archives/hesi
od/?view=usa

Oral poetry was the major tool for its diffusion

Origin of universe is seen as divine. Gods are the
substance and cause of the universe.

Causal changes were due to personified
supernatural entities; arbitrary and malicious will
(love, hatred, jealousy)

Dogma and unquestioned authority was a source
for knowledge, not hypothesis and argument.
 Miletus was an Ionian port city.
 Commerce flourished in the city.
 Upper classes acquired leisure time.
 Its geographical location made it an
intersection for many cultures.
 1st Philosopher according to aristotle.
 Achievements in politics, engineering,
astronomy, mathematics.
 Credited with introducing Geometry to
Greece.
 Predicted en eclipse in 585 BCE
 Made money from philosophy
Thales` philosophical views

The earth rests or floats on water (hypothesis)

Water is the archê of all things, or the
overarching principle of all things.

All things are full of water. (matter)

Explained natural phenomena without reference
to mythology and was tremendously influential in
this respect.
 Insight: One can understand nature without
looking beyond the natural realm and using
individual reason.
 Wrote the first treatise (prose not poetry)
 Introduced the Gnomon to Greece (Sundial)
 Drew the first map of the world.
 Arche of the world could not be water (faulty
implications of Thales`views)
 The arche is an indeterminate, undefined,
unlimited substance called Apeiron.
The Fragment…..
 Apeiron is the principle and element of
the things that exist.... out of which
come to be all the heavens and the
worlds in them… The things that are
perish into the things out of which they
come to be, according to necessity, for
they pay penalty and retribution to
each other for their injustice in
accordance with the ordering of time.
Pairs of Opposites
Dry
earth
Hot
fire
Apeiron
Wet
water
Cold
air
Anaximander
 Natural changes do not take place as a result of a devine
being. It is also not random but rather takes place in a
lawful way.
 Apeiron was not based on perception, but argument.
 Completely natural substances that are not personified
divine beings.
 Introduced the idea of a law of nature. Nature is
governed by laws just as human societies are.
Summing up….
 The presocratics understood the world
along natural instead of mythical terms.
 Brought about a written scientific
tradition. (physics)
 Personally developed views based on
assumptions or hypotheses.
 Rid themselves of dogmatic beliefs and
unquestioned authority.