Pre-Socratic philosophy, also known as early Greek philosophy, is ancient Greek philosophy before Socrates. Pre-Socratic philosophers were mostly interested in cosmology, the beginning and the substance of the universe, but the inquiries of these early philosophers spanned the workings of the natural world as well as human society, ethics, and religion. They sought explanations based on natural law rather than the actions of gods. Their work and writing has been almost entirely lost. Knowledge of their views comes from testimonia, i.e. later authors' discussions of the work of pre-Socratics. Philosophy found fertile ground in the ancient Greek world because of the close ties with neighboring civilizations and the rise of autonomous civil entities, poleis.
Pre-Socratic philosophy began in the 6th century BC with the three Milesians: Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes. They all attributed the arche (a word that could take the meaning of "origin", "substance" or "principle") of the world to, respectively, water, apeiron (the unlimited), and air. Another three pre-Socratic philosophers came from nearby Ionian towns: Xenophanes, Heraclitus, and Pythagoras. Xenophanes is known for his critique of the anthropomorphism of gods. Heraclitus, who was notoriously difficult to understand, is known for his maxim on impermanence, ta panta rhei, and for attributing fire to be the arche of the world. Pythagoras created a cult-like following that advocated that the universe was made up of numbers. The Eleatic school (Parmenides, Zeno of Elea, and Melissus) followed in the 5th century BC. Parmenides claimed that only one thing exists and nothing can change. Zeno and Melissus mainly defended Parmenides' opinion. Anaxagoras and Empedocles offered a pluralistic account of how the universe was created. Leucippus and Democritus are known for their atomism, and their views that only void and matter exist. The Sophists advanced philosophical relativism. The Pre-Socratics have had significant impact on several concepts of Western philosophy, such as naturalism and rationalism, and paved the way for scientific methodology.
Terminology Pre-Socratic is a term adopted in the 19th century to refer to this group of philosophers. It was first used by the German philosopher J.A. Eberhard as vorsokratische Philosophie in the late 18th century. In earlier literature they were referred to as physikoi ("physicists", after physis, "nature"), and their activity, as physiologoi (physical or natural philosophers), with this usage arising with Aristotle to differentiate them from theologoi (theologians) and mythologoi (storytellers and bards who conveyed Greek mythology), who attributed a lot of natural phenomena to the gods.
The term was coined to highlight a fundamental change in philosophical inquiries between the philosophers who lived before Socrates — who were interested in the structure of nature and cosmos (the universe), with the implication that the universe had order to it) — and Socrates and his successors, who were mostly interested in ethics and politics. The term comes with drawbacks, as several of the pre-Socratics were highly interested in ethics and how to live the best life. Further, the term implies that the pre-Socratics are less significant than Socrates, or even that they were merely a stage (implying teleology) to classical era philosophy. The term is also chronologically inaccurate, as the last of the pre-Socratics were contemporaries of Socrates.
According to James Warren, the distinction between the pre-Socratic philosophers and the philosophers of the classical era is demarcated not so much by Socrates, but by geography and what texts survived. The shift from the pre-Socratic to the classical periods involves a shift from philosophers being dispersed throughout the Greek-speaking world to their being concentrated in Athens. Further, starting in the classical period we have complete surviving texts, whereas in the pre-Socratic era we have only fragments. Scholar distinguishes two traditions of separating pre-Socratics from Socratics, dating back to the classical era and running through current times. The first tradition is the Socratic-Ciceronian, which uses the content of their philosophical inquires to divide the two groups: the pre-Socratics were interested in nature whereas Socrates focused on human affairs. The other tradition, the Platonic-Aristotelian, emphasizes method as the distinction between the two groups, as Socrates moved to a better, epistemological approach of studying various concepts. Because of the drawbacks of the term pre-Socratic, early Greek philosophy is also used, most commonly in English language philosophical literature.
and Glenn W. Most have especially popularized this shift in describing the era as "early Greek philosophy" over "pre-Socratic philosophy" through their comprehensive, nine volume Loeb editions of Early Greek Philosophy. In their first volume, they distinguish their systematic approach from that of Hermann Diels, beginning with the choice of "early Greek philosophy" over "pre-Socratic philosophy" most notably because Socrates is contemporary and sometimes even prior to philosophers traditionally considered "pre-Socratic" (such as the Atomists).Early Greek Philosophy, Volume 1: Introductory and Reference Material, Edited and Translated by André Laks and Glenn W. Most, Loeb Classical Library 524 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2016) 6–8.
Sources
Very few fragments of the works of the pre-Socratic philosophers have survived. The knowledge we have of the pre-Socratics derives from the accounts of later writers such as Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, Diogenes Laërtius, Stobaeus, and Simplicius, and some early Christian theologians, especially Clement of Alexandria and Hippolytus of Rome. Many of the works are titled Peri Physeos, or On Nature, a title probably attributed later by other authors. These accounts, known as testimonia (testimonies), often come from biased writers. Consequently, it is sometimes difficult to determine the actual line of argument some pre-Socratics used in supporting their views. Adding more difficulty to their interpretation is the obscure language they used. Plato paraphrased the pre-Socratics and showed no interest in accurately representing their views. Aristotle was more accurate, but saw them under the scope of his philosophy. Theophrastus, Aristotle's successor, wrote an encyclopedic book Opinion of the Physicists that was the standard work about the pre-Socratics in ancient times. It is now lost, but Simplicius relied on it heavily in his accounts.
In 1903, the German professors H. Diels and W. Kranz published Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (The Fragments of the pre-Socratics), which collected all of the known fragments. Scholars now use this book to reference the fragments using a coding scheme called Diels–Kranz numbering. The first two characters of the scheme are "DK" for Diels and Kranz. Next is a number representing a specific philosopher. After that is a code regarding whether the fragment is a testimonia, coded as "A", or "B" if is a direct quote from the philosopher. Last is a number assigned to the fragment, which may include a decimal to reflect specific lines of a fragment. For example, "DK59B12.3" identifies line 3 of Anaxagoras fragment 12. A similar way of referring to quotes is the system prefixed with "LM" by André Laks and Glenn W. Most who edited Early Greek Philosophy in 2016.
Collectively, these fragments are called doxography (derived from the latin doxographus; derived from the Greek word for "opinion" doxa).
Historical background
Philosophy emerged in ancient Greece in the 6th century BC. The pre-Socratic era lasted about two centuries, during which the expanding Persian Achaemenid Empire was stretching to the west, while the Greeks were advancing in trade and sea routes, reaching Cyprus and Syria. The first pre-Socratics lived in Ionia, on the western coast of Anatolia. Persians conquered the towns of Ionia 540 BC and Persian tyrants then ruled them. The Greeks revolted in 499 BC, but ultimately were defeated in 494 BC. Slowly but steadily Athens became the philosophical center of Greece by the middle of the fifth century. Athens was entering its Classical Era, with philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, but the impact of the pre-Socratics continued.
Several factors contributed to the birth of pre-Socratic philosophy in Ancient Greece. Ionian towns, especially Miletus, had close trade relations with Egypt and Mesopotamia, cultures with observations about the natural world that differed from those of the Greeks. Apart from technical skills and cultural influences, of paramount significance was that the Greeks acquired the alphabet 800 BC.
Another factor was the ease and frequency of intra-Greek travel, which led to the blending and comparison of ideas. During the sixth century BC, various philosophers and other thinkers moved easily around Greece, especially visiting pan-Hellenic festivals. While long-distance communication was difficult during ancient times, persons, philosophers, and books moved through other parts of the Greek peninsula, the Aegean islands, and Magna Graecia, a coastal area in Southern Italy.
The democratic political system of independent poleis also contributed to the rise of philosophy. Most Greek towns were not ruled by autocrats or priests, allowing citizens to question freely a wide range of issues. Various poleis flourished and became wealthy, especially Miletus. which was a centre of trade and production during the early phases of pre-Socratic philosophy. Trade of grain, oil, wine, and other commodities among each polis and colonies meant these towns were not isolated but embedded – and economically dependent – on a complex and changeable web of trade routes.
Greek mythology also influenced the birth of philosophy. The philosophers' ideas, were, to a certain extent, answers to questions that were subtly present in the work of Homer and Hesiod. The pre-Socratics arose from a world dominated by myths, sacred places, and local deities. The work of epic poets such as Homer, Hesiod and others reflected this environment. They are considered predecessors of the pre-Socratics since they seek to address the origin of the world and to organize traditional folklore and legends systematically. Greek popular religion contained many features of the religions of neighboring civilizations, such as the Egyptians, Mesopotamians, and Hittites. The first pre-Socratic philosophers also traveled extensively to other lands, meaning that pre-Socratic thought had roots abroad as well as domestically.
Homer, in his two epic poems, not only personifies gods and other natural phenomena, such as the Night, but he hints at some views on the origin and the nature of the world that came under scrutiny by the pre-Socratics. In his epic poem Theogony (literally meaning the birth of gods) Hesiod (c. 700 BC) describes the origin of gods, and apart from the solid mythical structure, one can notice an attempt towards organizing beliefs using some form of rationalization; an example would be that Night gives birth to Death, Sleep and Dreams. Transmigration of life, a belief of the Orphics, a religious cult originating from Thrace, had affected the thought of the 5th century BC but the overall influence of their cosmology on philosophy is disputed. Pherecydes, a poet, magician, and contemporary of Thales, in his book describes a particular cosmogony, asserting that three gods pre-existed – a step towards rationality.
General features