Origins: Western philosophy begins in the Eastern Mediterranean, specifically Greece and Asia Minor.
First Known Philosopher: Thales of Miletus, from the west coast of Asia Minor (Greek colonies around the Aegean).
Reasons for the Rise of Philosophy in Ancient Greece
Geographical Crossroads: The interaction between Eastern and Western cultures due to strategic trade routes through Asia Minor.
Pre-scientific Inquiry: Early Greek philosophers acted as pre-scientific scientists by questioning the natural world (cosmology, natural processes, basic elements).
Moral Order: Early Greek literature suggested a cosmic order that is also a moral order.
Two Lines of Philosophical Inquiry
Physical Order: Reflection about the natural world.
Moral Order: Reflection about the moral order believed to exist in the cosmos.
Focus on the Pre-Socratic Philosophers
Pre-Socratics: Philosophers before Socrates, studied in terms of monism and pluralism.
Monism: Belief in one fundamental substance or element.
Pluralism: Belief in multiple fundamental substances or elements.
Qualitative Monism/Pluralism: Focuses on the types and qualities of basic elements.
Quantitative Monism/Pluralism: Focuses on the number of fundamental entities.
Key Pre-Socratic Philosophers and Their Ideas
Milesians (c. 600 BC)
Thales: Proposed water as the basic element.
Anaximander: Proposed the 'apeiron' (the indefinite, undefined) as the basic substance.
Anaximenes: Proposed air as the basic element.
Double Aspect Theories
Pythagoras and Heraclitus (600-500 BC): Nature has features of both change and order.
Heraclitus: Everything is in flux, fire as a basic element, and 'logos' as underlying order.
Pythagoras: Emphasized mathematical order and geometry.
Eleatics
Parmenides and Zeno (500 BC): Rejected multiplicity and change, emphasizing a static, unchanging reality.
Parmenides: Change and plurality are illusory.
Zeno: Known for paradoxes that argue against the reality of change.
Pluralists
Empedocles (490-430 BC): Proposed four elements (earth, air, fire, water), and cyclical processes driven by 'love' and 'hate'.
Anaxagoras (500-428 BC): Proposed that everything is composed of 'seeds' of all qualities and introduced nous (mind) as a cosmic ordering principle.
Democritus (460-370 BC): Everything is composed of small, indivisible atoms, chance and mechanical processes explain the universe.
Key Philosophical Themes Introduced
Metaphysics: Questions about the nature of reality, basic elements, causal processes, and the underlying order of the cosmos.
Epistemology: Questions about the nature and reliability of knowledge, sense experience vs. rational thought.
Ethics and Society: What is the good life and how should one live in accordance with the order of the universe?
Significance
Pre-Socratic philosophers laid the groundwork for the philosophical agenda that has been influential in Western thought.
Legacy: Their inquiries contributed to the development of natural science, metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics in Western philosophy.