Discover when the ancient PHILOSOPHY arose

Ancient philosophy arose in Greece in the 6th century BC. C. and is considered the beginning of Western philosophical thought. In a Teacher we tell you.

The ancient philosophy It is one of the oldest fields of Western philosophy, its point of origin being Classical Greece. A set of reasoning put forward by some thinkers who provide us with a critical and reflective language that goes beyond the typical mythological vision of his time.

In this lesson of unPROFESOR.com we tell you when did ancient philosophy emerge, what it is and who was one of its main figures. Everything you need to know this fundamental historical phase of Western philosophy.

The definition of ancient philosophy underlines how this is a historical phase of philosophy which chronologically goes from the 6th century BC to the 4th century AD moment in which the fall of the Roman Empire and the decline of classical culture took place. The philosophy of these centuries is critical and reflective covering a wide variety of fields and ideas. A set of reflections that focuses on the origin or foundation of things.

Ancient philosophy is naturalistic and bases his reflections and conclusions on the observation of what happens in Nature. The ancient philosophers they worked following that the real is the physis or nature. Thus, the human being is not a privileged entity, but one more part of the physis.

Something that makes the human being unable to feel superior to the rest of living beings despite his ability to reason. Man is not the owner or lord of nature.

In unProfesor we leave you the main ones characteristics of ancient philosophy.

Ancient philosophy is regarded as one of the fundamental pillars of western civilization. Although there is no precise date for its beginning, historians of classical philosophy consider that it arose in Greece. in the sixth century B.C. C. as a consequence of the reflection and questioning of reality by presocratic thinkers as Thales of Miletus, Anaximander and Anaximenes.

This group of early philosophers had a great concern to understand the nature of the world and its origin, and they looked for rational and logical explanations for all those phenomena that they observed. From there, different philosophical currents arose such as Stoicism, Epicureanism or Platonism, among others.

Ancient philosophy not only had a great impact on Greek culture, it also influenced Roman philosophy and later European philosophy. Thus, later Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle focused on broader issues, including ethics, politics, and metaphysics. In short, ancient philosophy is a fundamental part of the history of human thought and its legacy is still relevant today.

And it is that the most influential thinkers of the Presocratics established the foundations of western philosophyHe and his ideas have had a lasting impact on modern culture and thought. The ancient philosophy also spread to other parts of the world, such as China and India, where ancient philosophers such as Confucius and Buddha developed similar systems of thought. influential.

As regards the birthplace of ancient philosophy, it is commonly considered that he arose in the town of Miletus, Greek polis on the Ionian coast, in Asia Minor, being from there the first of the great philosophers of antiquity, Thales of Miletus.

According to Aristotle, Thales was not only the first of the great thinkers, his work was the seed from which the reasoning of other philosophers arose. He was thus not only the first philosopher, he also became the founder from the school of Greek philosophy: the school of miletus.

Thales of Miletus (Miletus, c. 624 B.C. C.-ibid., c. 546 B.C. c.) was a Greek philosopher, mathematician, geometer, physicist and legislator. Thus, Thales was not only recognized as a philosopher, but also became a prominent astronomer capable of predicting a solar eclipse in the year 585 BC. In addition to being considered the father of modern geometry and being its introducer in Greece.

Such sets aside mythology and gives more weight to empirical observation of nature as a way of reflecting and drawing conclusions more adjusted to reality. For him, water is the beginning of all things, being the origin of the universe. This idea was called archeby the Greeks (from the Greek ἀρχή, source, principle or origin), Thales's idea being the first Western theory about the physical world.