IDEA

Ancient Greek philosophy can be divided into three general time periods. The first two are in contrast to each other.
Age of Mythos (~600 BC)
Pre-Socratic (~600-500 BC)
focus on the world of men and gods
focus on "nature"
anthropomorphic explanations
"naturalistic" explanations
supernatural arché
arché is in nature
mythopoetic language
discursive prose
practical concerns
theoretical concerns
particular, specific questions
universal questions

Homer (ca 750 BC) stated, "It is by some divine power that all things are brought about." He believed that Zeus was the creator of all things.
In contrast, Thales (ca 624-546 BC) believed "Water is arché [the originating principle] of all things." Because of this change in beliefs, Thales is considered the world's first philospher.
Here's another look at how Homer's and Thales' ways of thinking differ. First, Homer's age believed that only humans and gods existed. They had no concept of nature existing as an independent entity or force with its own scientific rules. For Homer, nature was merely set dressing. Besides, people at that time believed their gods could take on any shape--man, animal or plant--so how could you tell a tree was really a "tree" instead of a manifestation of Zeus?
Second, the way people asked questions changed. In the older times, people would ask, " Who is responsible?" By Thales' time, nature was a factor so people would wonder " What is responsible?" The way of thinking had changed from anthropomorphic [giving a non-human thing human characteristics] to scientific.
"Who's responsible?" reflects the following:
the gods were fickle
the gods were too human like
people could not predict their lives
no regularity in life
time of chaos, not cosmos ["order"]
Philosophy began when people realized there could be order in life! Nature is complex but much more orderly than the unpredictability of relying on the gods.
Birth of Philosophy & the 2 Routes of Rational Inquiry
beginnings of orientation to thinking that eventually leads to science
natural philosophy
leads to humanistic orientation, "know thyself"
moral philosophy
3 Philosophic Analogies and the Origins of the Human Experience
direct manipulation of objects (Book of Genesis - dust, creation story)
sexual reproduction (Babylonian, Egyptian, Greek creation myths)
command other people/things to act, magical ("Let there be light, and there was.")
Concerns, Questions, Issues:
The type of question we ask always presupposes a certain type of answer. For example, we don't ask, "What time is it?" and expect to be answered, "Frog." It just doesn't work that way.
The classic example of this shift in knowing how to ask the right questions happened in 585 BC. There was a war in Asia Minor between the Medes and the Lydians. Thales, budding philosopher living in Miletus in Asia Minor, predicted that there was going to be a solar eclipse. Well, the Medes and Lydians both freaked out because they thought they each had offended their gods. Thales knew that the eclipse was simply the result of finding patterns in causally connected events. Thales' prediction shows how he took the first step away from relying on gods and myths and began trusting in science and cold, hard facts.
More about Thales and How he Got to Be So Smart:
Thales was a big fan of the Egyptians and the Babylonians, and he travelled to both locations. The Egyptians were the first to develop geometry, but they did so for practical reasons -- in order to measure property lines after the Nile floods each year. Similarly, the Babylonians developed a method of star navigation. They did so, though, so they could navigate, not because they were curious.
Well, one day, Thales was out near Giza looking at the pyramids. He was wondering -- just for fun -- how tall the pyramids really were. The Egyptians knew how long each side was, but no one had figured out a way to measure the height of objects from the actual top to their actual bottoms.
This "just for fun" question led Thales to develop a ratio system based on shadow lengths and their measurements. There is a connection between the thinking required by rations and rationality. There are common traits among things, even though they may not seem to be.
Thales, then, was a really smart guy. In fact, he's listed as one of the Seven Ancient Sages. He was able to see beyond what is to be to what could be.
Another story that gives insight into Thales' character is the tale that one year he was able to use his predicting abilities to corner the olive market. He looked at the scientific data and determined that the olive crop for the next year was going to be particularly good. Thales then bought out all of the olive presses in Miletus and the surrounding area that winter when prices were really cheap. Then, in the summer when the olive crop came in, he was the only one within miles who had olive presses -- so he could charge whatever he wanted and made a fortune!
For even more about Thales, go to the Encyclopedia Britannica's online article at http://www.eb.com:180/cgi-bin/g?DocF=micro/588/90.html .

Philosophical Fragments from Ancient Philosophy
The following philosophers were all contemporaries of one another and were friends. They all lived in Miletis in Asia Minor.

Thales 621-546 BC
The arché of all things is water.
Interesting because water has many forms: solid, liquid, or gas. People are 70% water. 2/3 of earth is water. Better choice than earth, air, or fire: the other elements known by the ancients.
The 19th century philospher Friedrich Nietzsche says that philosophy begins with Thales' absurd notion that water is the arché of all things. Tells us the primal origin of all things. Used simple language. Contains the thought that all things are one. Primal origin is too religious. Thales is a primitive natural scientist. Key: Tapped into the unity concept that jumped from ideas to metaphysics that says all things are one. First philosopher. Leads to comprehension & knowledge, not just information. Arché theory moves Thales beyond mythic and allegorical.
All things are full of gods.
Well, how does water change? It has its own life force. Principle of animation -- "gods." Tried to explain power of water in the language of his own time.
The magnetic stone has soul because it sets the iron in motion.
Has soul because it has anima -- power. It has power that comes from the "gods" that animate it. Magnets act, so they must have power, and that comes from water. Once again, he didn't have the right language. Used "gods" and "souls" for energy and our scientific language.

Anaximander 610-545 BC
The aperion is the arché of things that are.
Aperion--the quantitatively unlimited, the boundless. The raw materials of things. Thales' theory had shortcomings. What about the relationship between water and fire? Water can't be the arché of its opposite. Beginning of theory building and testing theories for exceptions.
Where the source of things is, to that place they must also pass away, according to necessity, for they must pay penance and be judged for their injustice, in accordance with the ordinance of time.
Inscription that is still existing. Earliest bit of written philosophy. Sounds theological, but is it? Things must return to aperion/origin. Change is dominant characteristic of life. Change must be accounted for not arché . Opposites eventually change into what they are not. Nothing exists forever, things just exist. But "penance" and "injustice"? Each thing that is excludes what it could be instead. That's the injustice that must be dealt with.

Anaximenes 585-528 BC
As our souls, being air, hold us togehter, so breath and air embraces the entire universe
Chose air over water because it relates closer to Anaximander's definition , and he was a student of Anaximander. Aperion is similar to air.

Eventually, 50 years later, the theory of atoms is developed from these early theories. The notion of elements is expanded to inlcude more than the basic four. Then Pythagoras creates his theory of arché being numbers and structure. Over 2000 years later, Galileo used Pythagoras' theories to establish the universe's structure. Keppler then used Pythagoras' belief that all things move and make sound to convert the mathematics of the universe into music which led to changes in late Renaissance music.

Socratic Philosophy:
Socrates, 470-399 BC
Plato, 427-347
Aristotle,384-322 BC
Related Dates:
Pelopponesian War 431-404 BC
Plato's Academy, 387BC -529 AD
Dark Ages, 600-1200 AD
Renaissance, ~1300 AD
Socrates marked a shift to marking sense of human nature instead of origins. "Know Thyself." "The unexamined life is not worth living."
Learning takes place in dialogue. By exposing ingorance, Socrates felt he was a gift to Athens.
First native Athenian philosopher. Lived to be 70 years old. Life spanned golden age. Saw construction of Parthenon. Contemporary of Sophocles, Aristophanes, Phidias, and Pericles. Saw Athens at prime and at decline -- lived through the Peloponnesian War.
Traditionally, Socrates' dad was a sculptor and stone mason. Adopted father's profession for a while. But Socrates himself said he followed his mother's profession: midwife. Called himself a midwife of ideas who induces mental labor.
Said Athens was a great and noble steed whose size and greatness led to laziness. Socrates was a gadfly to keep Athens alert.
He became a fulltime philosopher at 30. "Smelly old fat bum hanging around the Agora."
Story of Why Socrates Became a Philospher:
Friend Cheraphon went to Delphi to ask the question, "Who is wiser than Socrates?" He was answered by the pythia, "Socrates, Socrates, Socrates -- nobody's wiser." Socrates wondered what the trick was. What does Apollo mean? Socrates goes on a great quest to test this. Found that those with reputations for wisdom were really only arrogant and appeared wise. Doubly ignorant: they were ignorant that they were ignorant! Concludes that only those who are aware that they are ignorant are wise (like him).

Athens at the time was politically unstable and Socrates became an easy scapegoat. Main accuser, Anutis. Got lowly Meletis to actually file the charges: corrupting the youth and impiety (disregarding Athens' gods and creating his own.)
Socrates was tried by a jury of 501 and found guilty. The accusers asked for death, but Socrates didn't think he deserved that. His counter-offer was free meals for life on the steps of the city hall. He then changed that to 1 menai ($20) which was later upped to 30 menai. Jury voted for death. Socrates was okay with the decision. He said he was actually looking forward to death because it was the last great unknown in life.
Socrates is the great martyr to philosophy and world history. Plato, one of his students, was profoundly affected by Socrates and the way Athens put him to death. He was only 18 when he started following Socrates and stayed with him for the last 10 years of Socrates' life. Plato was present at the trial, and he and some other followers all left Athens after Socrates' death.
Plato travelled extensively around Greece, Egypt, Asia Minor, etc. He began writing dialogues in Socrates' style and featured Socrates as the main character. There are 28 of his dialogues still in existence today.
Plato returned to Athens in 388 BC and established his Academy in 387 BC. This was the first institution of higher education in world history. He brought in teachers from all the places where he'd travelled. His academy lasted for 1000 years until the Byzantine Emperor Justinian disbanded it in 529 AD. Plato's works were stashed away at Alexandria and lost for 600 years. When they were rediscovered, the New Academy was created in Venice in Plato's memory and helped lead to the Renaissance. The old academy's most famous pupil, by the way, was Aristotle whose followers later called him "the master of those who know."

“principio, inizio, origine”
Termine sfaccettato e complesso che implica connotazioni di carattere ontologico e logico, col significato di “punto di partenza”
o “principio”, come fondamento e causa prima.
Introdotto da Anassimandro, Aristotele ( Metafisica , V, 1, 1012b-1013a) ne diede la prima definizione completa, rimasta sostanzialmente invariata fino alla modernità, distinguendo almeno sei significati della parola, raggruppabili secondo due criteri di riferimento, riconducibili ai due significati dell’etimologia greca:
1) il valore, per cui l’ archè è ciò che viene prima per importanza;
2) il tempo, per cui l’ archè è ciò che viene prima nell’ordine di un processo, la causa prima.
Nell’uso onto-teologico i due criteri si incontrano, cosicché Dio come archè ha il massimo valore e, come causa prima, segna l’inizio dei tempi.
Ma la parola è usata anche solo in senso ontologico per designare la causa prima di un fenomeno ( ratio essendi ), o ancora in senso logico come “principio del conoscere” (ratio cognoscendi ): in questo senso, le archè (_rxaÛ ,archái )sono le premesse delle dimostrazioni logico-matematiche e geometriche (cfr. Aristotele, Analitici posteriori ,I, 10; ma oggi il termine è abbandonato in favore di “assioma” o “postulato”).
Nel XVIII secolo Christian Wolff definì principio “ciò che contiene in sé la ragione di qualche altra cosa”, mentre Kant si rifece al significato logico di principio del conoscere, intendendo con ciò “ogni proposizione generale, anche desunta per induzione dall’esperienza, che possa servire da premessa maggiore in un sillogismo”, ma nel contempo introdusse il concetto di “principio in sé” o “assoluto”, come conoscenza sintetica originaria e puramente razionale a cui, seppure insussistente, la ragione fa appello nel suo uso dialettico.

En el uso onto-teologico los dos criterios se encuentran, asi que Dios como archè tiene el máximo valor y, como causa prima, determina el inicio de los tiempos.
“lo que contiene en si la razon de alguna otra cosa” -- Christian Wolff