Please enjoy this article written by a student in DMHS's "Introduction to Journalism" class!
Philosophy was one of if not the most important things to come out of Ancient Greece. Almost all of society today was built of the first philosophers and philosophical concepts. If we listen to some of even the oldest philosophical concepts we could improve how our society functions as a whole. Even though most people credit Socrates as one of the first philosophers, there were actually philosophers for multiple centuries before him. This is “Pre-Socratic” philosophy. It mainly started by people theorizing about religion and concepts that would become the base of philosophy for the next multiple centuries.
In the about 200 years of Pre-Socratic philosophy there were three main issues the early philosophers faced. One: the problem of the one and the many, which is basically the theory that one thing created everything and if one thing did create everything what was it. Two: the problem of change and consistency. The problem of change and consistency is as things change over time no matter how much it changes there is still something that stays the same. Three: the problem of relativism, which is whether these principles that we have to follow are absolute truths or created by people with a subjective standpoint. If you find some things that are truths for just you, or did you find a universal truth? And if you did find a universal truth, how could you identify that it was a universal truth and not just a truth for you?
Often, very early philosophers' theories were very odd and kind of random. Mainly because both science and philosophy were very new things that had yet to be really explored. Because of how long ago this was, not very much of their work has survived. A lot of what we know of them comes from philosophers after them quoting or referencing their work so a lot of time we have to guess or assume some of their thoughts or reasoning.
The first known philosophers were from a Greek city-state named Miletus. Miletus is actually in modern day Turkey. It was a thriving port city and a central hub for trading. The people from Miletus met many people from countless different places, with many different beliefs that influenced the people and culture there. One of the most major things they were told about was astronomy which inspired the three first known philosophers from Miletus to try to answer the question: where, or what, does everything come from? These three philosophers were Thales, Anaximander, and Aniximines.
The first ever philosopher, Thales, believed that water was the base of all things. Even though we don't know if he ever wrote anything, there are stories about how he was an amazing astronomer and also an expert in geometry. Apparently in 585BCE he correctly Predicted a solar eclipse. Thales was unwealthy for most of his life and people detested how instead of getting an actual job he was a philosopher and barely made any money. They claimed philosophy was useless. So apparently in the winter one year he invested all of his little money into olive oil companies and since there was no one else to buy them he got them for very cheap. He Predicted a large harvest and made tons of money on olive oil just because people said philosophy was useless. Of course these are all stories and we have no way to prove if these actually happened. One thing we know for certain is that he believed that water was the base of all things. He believed this because moisture seems like it vital for almost everything. It also is the most middle ground of the elements. Water also has the ability to change its own form the easiest. Thales, unlike many philosophers to come, based his theories in actual nature and less in mythology.
The second philosopher is Anaximander, Anaximander was Thales’ student who focused more on astronomy and was one of the first people to make a clock, he also was said to be the first person to draw a map of the earth. He was also the first philosopher to have texts written by them covering what he believed. He believed that all things came from a thing he called the boundless. He believed the boundless was what all things were made of and that all the boundless that had been destroyed wasn't actually destroyed just reconstituted, which in my opinion is a surprisingly modern concept because that is almost what matter and atoms are as we know them. He argued that it couldn't be any of the four elements because if it were the base of everything the properties of said elements would overwhelm the other ones if there was one base. But since the boundless has no major properties other than its infinity it wouldn't have changed all of the other elements. He believed that because of the four elements’ properties they could not create each other because something that was wet can't create something that is dry or hot and cool, which is why he believed in the boundless.
The third and final ¨founding¨ philosopher was Anaximenes. Anaximenes was a student of Anaximander. Anaximenes believed that everything came from air, he believed that air was the founding element because it holds us together and it is what our soul is made of and we have to breathe in air to live. He did not agree with Anaximander's theory of it being an unseen infinite thing because he believed that it was indeterminate because there was no way to prove or disprove it. He believed that everything was just condensed air or air in different forms. In his mind, because air was the thinnest element it had the ability to be condensed to create anything. Anaximenes theorized that air condensed into wind, then clouds, after that water, earth, and then those things would create everything else. But the most notable thing he did was that he was the first to theorize that reality could be measured and was finite. The second most major thing he did is he popularised the compressed air theory.
Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes started the trend of philosophy and inspired later Greek philosophers. After a while, they started the philosophical trend in Ionia.
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