7 characteristics of the PRESOCRATIC philosophy

In this lesson from a TEACHER we explain what the main characteristics of pre-Socratic philosophy, which brings together a set of doctrines and ideas of intellectuals prior to Socrates. These thinkers, they tried to find an explanation about the origin of things, they looked for the beginning of everything that exists in nature. Therefore, the term presocratic is used in a chronological sense (among the 6th and 5th centuries a. C). Later, Socrates would restructure all the thought of later philosophy. Among the most prominent pre-Socratic philosophers are: Thales of Miletus, Pythagoras, Anaximander, Anaxymedes, Heraclitus, Protagoras, or Democritus.

If you want to know more about the pre-Socratic philosophy, as well as its main characteristics, keep reading this article by a PROFESSOR. Start the class!

Index

1. What is pre-Socratic philosophy: short summary
2. 7 characteristics of pre-Socratic philosophy
3. Pre-Socratic Philosophers: From Thales of Miletus to Democritus of Abdera
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4. Pre-Socratic Philosophy and the Search for the Arche

Before entering fully with the characteristics of pre-Socratic philosophy, we want you to know the definition of this current, so that you can understand what it consists of. Know that pre-Socratic philosophy is one of the stages of ancient philosophy and is characterized by bringing together a group of thinkers interested in the search for the arche or principle of all things, but starting from reason, from logos, regardless of mythological explanations.

This philosophy is born from the amazement and critical sense of some intellectuals interested in find a rational explanation about nature and phenomena. Pre-Socratic philosophy is not based on myth, but on the free thought and corresponds to the cosmological stage of thought.

The pre-Socratic philosophers were fundamentally philosophers, cosmologists, mathematicians, physicists, doctors... Unfortunately, to this day only a compilation of a series of fragments that have done the later philosophers, there being no complete work of the philosophers pre-Socratic.

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We are going to discover in detail the most outstanding characteristics of pre-Socratic philosophy, so that you can better understand the basis of this philosophical current. Here you have them:

1. Pre-Socratic philosophers give, what is known as step from myth to logos, that is, they seek a rational explanation of the world.
2. His main interest is to find the explanation, from the logos, about source of nature and its phenomena.
3. The pre-Socratics break up with him mythological thinking dominant at the time.
4. The sourcesprimaries of his thought, as well as the totality of his works. Only a few fragments collected by the philosophers who succeeded them are preserved.
5. The pre-Socratic philosophy pick up the thought of Egypt and Persia.
6. The pre-Socratic philosophers developed a cosmology that I was trying explained from the physis and the cosmos, trying to formulate a theory that could really explain the origin of everything there is.
7. Pre-Socratic philosophers lived in the regions of the Asia Minor.

Thales of Miletus he was the first pre-Socratic philosopheror, and also the most important. He was a Greek mathematician, physicist, and legislator, and he was concerned about finding a rational explanation for nature. Thus, starting from logos, or reason, he comes to the conclusion that everything originates from water.

Other philosophers did the same as him, although they found a source of everything that there is, first principle or arche, very different, such as air, number, fire, atoms, etc. But they all agreed on one thing. There should be a unifying principle for everything in nature.

Democritus, is considered the last of the pre-Socratic philosophers, although it is an anachronism, since this thinker was a contemporary of Socrates. For the disciple of Leucippus, as for his teacher, the principle of all that there is, are the atoms.

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Below we offer you a brief summary with the most important pre-Socratic philosophers and his own explanation of the Arche.

• Thales of Miletus. Arjé: Water. Water is the origin of all things.
• Anaximander of Miletus. Arjé: Apeiron. All things participate in everything, while intelligence is infinite and governs itself and is not mixed with anything.
• Anaximenes of Miletus. Arjé: Air. Just as the soul, which is air, preserves our life, breath and air surround and maintain the world.
• Pythagoras of Samos. Arjé: Number. Nothing perishes in the universe; everything when it happens in him does not go beyond mere transformations.
• Heraclitus of Ephesus. Arjé: Fire. War is the origin of all things.
• Empedocles of Acagras. Arjé: 4 items (water, earth, fire and air). These elements never stop changing places continuously, now they are all united by love in one, now each apart by hatred engendered in struggles, until they come together in the unity of the whole and conform he.
• Leucippus of Miletus. Arjé: Atoms. Nothing happens randomly, but everything is about reason and need is connected.
• Democritus of Abdera. Arjé: Atoms. Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinions.

Besides these pre-Socratic philosophers, there are, Parmenides of Elea, Meliso of Samos, Xenophanes of Colophon... of these and others more, we will speak in another lesson of a PROFESSOR.

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Presocratic Fragments: From Tales to Democritus. Ed. Alliance. 2008