Introduction

Thales of Miletus (c. 624 - 546 B.C.) was an early Pre-Socratic philosopher, mathematician and
astronomer from the Greek city of Miletus in Ionia (modern-day Turkey). He was one of the so-
called Seven Sages of Greece, and many regard him as the first philosopher in the Western
tradition.

He was the founder of the Milesian School of natural philosophy, and the teacher of
Anaximander. He was perhaps the first subscriber to Materialist and Naturalism in trying to
define the substance or substances of which all material objects were composed, which he
identified as water.

His innovative search for a universality in the disciplines of mathematics, astronomy and
philosophy have earned him the label the "first scientist".

Life
Thales (pronounced THAY-lees) was born in the Greek city of Miletus (on the Ionian coast of
modern-day Turkey) in about 624 or 625 B.C. (an estimate based on his age at death). The 3rd
Century A.D. historian Diogenes Laërtius reported that his parents were Examyas and
Cleobulina of the noble Milesian family of Thelidae (and descended from Agenor and Cadmus of
ancient Thebes, Greece), although other sources suggest that his parents may have been
Phoenician (from the modern-day region of Lebanon, Israel and Syria).

Details of his life are sketchy and often contradictory. Some reports suggest that he married
and had a son, Cybisthus (or Cybisthon) or possibly adopted a nephew of the same name, while
other reports suggest that he never married. Some say that he left no writings; others that he
wrote at least two works, "On the Solstice" and "On the Equinox" (neither have survived). Some
anecdotes suggest that Thales was involved in business and politics, and at one point bought up
all the olive presses in Miletus after predicting a good harvest for a particular year (either to
make money or merely to demonstrate that he could use his intelligence to enrich himself if he
had wanted to).

His involvement in local politics is also rather anecdotal in nature, but Thales apparently
impressed both sides of the ongoing conflict between the Lydians, Medes and Persians over the
fate of the region of Ionia, when he predicted an eclipse of the sun which brought fighting to a
standstill. He was also reportedly involved in the negotiations which followed the hostilities,
and managed to obtain favorable terms for Miletus.

Thales is said to have died of dehydration while watching a gymnastics contest in 546 or 547
B.C., at the age of 78 (although other reports have him living to the age of 90).

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In retrospect it is difficult to separate history from legend, but he is usually considered one of
the Seven Sages or Seven Wise Men of ancient Greece, a group of 7th and early 6th Century
B.C. philosophers, statesmen and law-givers who became renowned in the following centuries
for their wisdom. The aphorism "Know thyself" has been attributed to Thales (as well as to at
least six other ancient Greek sages). Much of what we know of Thales' philosophy has come
down to us from Aristotle and so may be somewhat distorted by Aristotle's own views. Some
sources say that he left no writings; others that he wrote at least two works, "On the Solstice"
and "On the Equinox" (neither of which have survived).

The early Pre-Socratic philosophers (of which Thales was one of the very first) tried to define
the substance or substances of which all material objects were composed (as do modern
scientists even today, hence Thales is sometimes described as the first scientist). He searched
for the "physis" (or nature) of objects that cause them to behave in their characteristic way. He
was one of the first Western philosophers who attempted to find naturalistic explanations of
the world (Naturalism or Materialism) without reference to supernatural or mythological
explanations, such as the Greek anthropomorphic gods and heroes. He explained earthquakes,
for example, by hypothesizing that the Earth floats on water and that earthquakes occur when
the Earth is rocked by waves.

His most famous belief was his cosmological doctrine that water was the first principle (roughly
equivalent to Anaximenes' later idea that everything in the world was composed of air). He
claimed that water was the origin of all things, that from which all things emerge and to which
they return, and moreover that all things ultimately are water. He probably drew this
conclusion from seeing moist substances turn into air, slime and earth, and he clearly viewed
the Earth as solidifying from the water on which it floated and which surrounded it.

While considering the effects of magnetism and static electricity, he concluded that the power
to move other things without the mover itself changing was a characteristic of "life", so that a
magnet and amber must therefore be alive in some way (in that they have animation or the
power to act). If so, he argued, there is no difference between the living and the dead. If all
things were alive, they must also have souls or divinities (a natural belief of his time), and the
end result of this argument was an almost total removal of mind from substance, opening the
door to an innovative non-divine principle of action.

Thales recognized a single transcendental God (Monism), who has neither beginning nor end,
but who expresses himself through other gods (Polytheism). His idea of justice included both
the letter of the law and the spirit of the law (e.g. adultery and perjury about it in court are
equally bad). He had some common sense moral advice: that we should expect the same
support from our children that we give to our parents; that we should not let talk influence us
against those we have come to trust; and that we should not do ourselves that for which we
blame others. He believed that a happy man was one who was "healthy in body, resourceful in
soul and of a readily teachable nature".

His political views were generally in favor of a benign tyranny, rather than democracy (which
most thinkers of his time distrusted as an inefficient and unreliable system). He believed that
men were naturally better than women, and that Greeks were better than barbarians (non-
Greeks).

Thales was known for his theoretical and practical understanding (and innovative use) of
geometry, especially triangles. He established what has become known as Thales' Theorem,
whereby if a triangle is drawn within a circle with the long side as a diameter of the circle then
the opposite angle will always be a right angle (as well as some other related properties derived
from this).

He was also an important innovator in astronomy, and he had an effective theory of the path of
the sun from solstice to solstice and supposedly correctly predicted a solar eclipse. Some
sources have attributed him with the "discovery" of the seasons of the year and the 365-day
year (consistent with his determination of the solstices). While this may be an exaggeration, his
questioning approach to the understanding of heavenly phenomena arguably marked the real
beginning of Greek astronomy.

Introduction
Anaximander (c. 610 - 546 B.C.) was an early Pre-Socratic philosopher from the Greek city of
Miletus in Ionia (modern-day Turkey). He was a key figure in the Milesian School, as a student
of Thales and teacher of Anaximenes and Pythagoras.

He was an early proponent of science, and is sometimes considered to be the first true scientist,
and to have conducted the earliest recorded scientific experiment. He is often considered the
founder of astronomy, and he tried to observe and explain different aspects of the universe and
its origins, and to describe the mechanics of celestial bodies in relation to the Earth. He made
important contributions to cosmology, physics, geometry, meteorology and geography as well
as to Metaphysics.

Life
Anaximander was born in the Greek city of Miletus (on the Ionian coast of modern-day Turkey)
in about 610 B.C., the son of Praxiades, but little else is known of his life.

According to Diogenes Laërtius (a biographer of the Greek philosophers, who lived in the 2nd or
3rd Century A.D.), he was a pupil of Thales (founder of the Milesian School of philosophy, and
possibly also Anaximander's uncle), and succeeded him as master of the school, where his work
influenced Anaximenes and Pythagoras.

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Although he was among the earliest philosophers in the Western world to have actually written
down his studies, only one fragment of his work remains and, by the time of Plato, his
philosophy was apparently almost forgotten.
At a time when the Pre-Socratics were pursuing various forms of Monism and searching for the
one element that constitutes all things (each had a different solution to the identity of this
element: water for Thales, air for Anaximenes, fire for Heraclitus), Anaximander argued that
neither water nor any of the other candidates can embrace all of the opposites found in nature
(e.g. water can only be wet, never dry) and therefore cannot be the one primary substance or
first principle of the universe.

He judged that, although not directly perceptible to us, the only substance which could explain
all the opposites he saw around him, is what he called "apeiron" (variously translated as "the
infinite", "the boundless", etc), an endless, unlimited primordial mass, subject to neither old
age nor decay, that perpetually yielded fresh materials from which everything we perceive is
derived. The Universe originates in the separation of opposites in this primordial matter, and
dying things are merely returning to the boundless element from which they came. He saw the
universe as a kind of organism, supported by "pneuma" (cosmic breath).

Anaximander is sometimes called the "Father of Cosmology" and the founder of astronomy for
his bold use of non-mythological explanations of physical processes. He was the first to
conceive a mechanical model of the world, in which the Earth floats very still in the center of
the infinite, not supported by anything. He envisioned the Earth as a cylinder with a height one-
third of its diameter, the flat top forming the inhabited world, surrounded by a circular oceanic
mass. This theory allowed for the concept that celestial bodies could pass under or around it,
and provided a better explanation than Thales’ claim of a world floating on water (what would
contain this ocean?).

Anaximander was the first astronomer to consider the Sun as a huge mass (and therefore to
realize how far from Earth it might be), and the first to present a system where the celestial
bodies turned at different distances. He built a celestial sphere, and his work on astronomy
shows that he must have observed the inclination of the celestial sphere in relation to the plane
of the Earth to explain the seasons. Anaximander also speculated on the plurality of worlds,
which places him close to the Atomists and the Epicureans who, more than a century later, also
claimed that an infinity of worlds appeared and disappeared.

Some consider Anaximander the earliest proponent of evolution (even though he had no theory
of natural selection). Noting the existence of fossils, he claimed that animals sprang out of the
sea long ago, and he put forward the idea that humans had to spend part of this transition
inside the mouths of big fish to protect themselves from the Earth's climate, until they had time
to adapt to the emergence of dry land.

His other interests were in mathematics (he explained some basic notions of geometry and
introduced the sundial gnomon to Greece), meteorology (he attributed some phenomena, such
as thunder and lightning, to the intervention of elements, rather than to divine causes, and he
explained rain as a product of the humidity pumped up from Earth by the sun) and geography
(he was probably the first to publish a map of the world, i.e. the entire inhabited land known to
the ancient Greeks, rather than the local maps which had been produced in ancient times).
Introduction
Anaximenes (c. 585 - 525 B.C.) was an early Pre-Socratic philosopher from the Greek city of
Miletus in Ionia (modern-day Turkey). He was a key figure in the Milesian School, a friend and
pupil of Anaximander and he continued the Milesians' philosophical inquiries into the "archê"
or first principle of the universe (which Anaximenes deemed to be air), and sought to give a
quasi-scientific explanation of the world.

In the physical sciences, Anaximenes was the first Greek to distinguish clearly between planets
and stars, and he used his principles to account for various natural phenomena, such as
thunder and lightning, rainbows, earthquakes, etc.

Life
Nothing is known of his life of Anaximenes (pronounced an-ax-IM-en-ees), other than that he
was the son of Eurystratos of Miletus, and was the pupil or companion of Anaximander. Some
say that he was also a pupil of Parmenides of Elea, although this seems unlikely. He lived for at
least part of his life under Persian rule, and so he may have witnessed the Ionian rebellion
against Greek occupation. There is some evidence from letters that he was in communication
with Pythagoras, although any influence on Pythagoras' philosophical development was
probably minor (other than the desire to explain the world in non-mythological terms).

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According to Diogenes Laërtius (a biographer of the Greek philosophers, who lived in the 2nd or
3rd Century A.D.), Anaximenes wrote his philosophical views in a book, which survived well into
the Hellenistic period, although nothing now remains of this.

Like the other Milesian philosophers before him, Anaximenes' main concern was to identify the
single source of all things in the universe (Monism). Thales, the earliest Milesian, had taken this
to be water. His pupil Anaximander refined this somewhat, arguing that no single element
could adequately explain all of the opposites found in nature, and propounded the solution of
an endless, unlimited primordial mass which he called "apeiron".

Anaximenes arguably took a step backwards by revisiting the notion that a single element was
indeed the source of all things, and that element he deemed to be air (actually the Greek word
"aer" also denotes "mist" or "vapour" as well as the normal air we breathe). He held that, at
one time, everything was air, and that, even now, everything is air at different degrees of
density. Since air is infinite and perpetually in motion, it can produce all things without being
actually produced by anything.

Under the influence of heat (which expands it) and of cold (which contracts it), and the
associated processes of rarefaction (air separating) and condensation (air coming together), air
gradually gives rise to the several phases of existence and all the materials of the organized
world. Anaximenes believed that air came in threads which came together by a process called
"felting", analogous to the process by which wool is compressed to make felt. Thus, very close
air was a solid, less close a liquid, etc.

In this way, therefore, Anaximenes used natural processes familiar from everyday experience to
account for material change and, in this respect at least, his theory was an advance over those
of Thales and Anaximander.

According to Anaximenes, the earth is a broad disk, floating on the circumambient air. The sun
and stars, he held, were formed by the same processes of condensation and rarefaction, and
the flaming nature of these bodies is merely due to the velocity of their motions. He also used
his principles to account for various natural phenomena: thunder and lightning result from wind
breaking out of clouds; rainbows are the result of the rays of the sun falling on clouds;
earthquakes are caused by the cracking of the earth when it dries out after being moistened by
rains; hail is a result of frozen rainwater; etc.

Anaximenes also equated the first material principle with the divine, so that effectively "air is
God", both being infinite and eternal. Thus, the pantheon of Greek gods were merely
derivations of the truly divine, air. Similarly, the souls of individuals were also composed of air
(or breath), and hold us together in the same way as air encompasses the entire world.

Introduction
Pythagoras of Samos (c. 570 - 490 B.C.) was an early Greek Pre-Socratic philosopher and
mathematician from the Greek island of Samos.

He was the founder of the influential philosophical and religious movement or cult called
Pythagoreanism, and he was probably the first man to actually call himself a philosopher (or
lover of wisdom). Pythagoras (or in a broader sense the Pythagoreans), allegedly exercised an
important influence on the work of Plato.

As a mathematician, he is known as the "father of numbers" or as the first pure mathematician,

and is best known for his Pythagorean Theorem on the relation between the sides of a right
triangle, the concept of square numbers and square roots, and the discovery of the golden
ratio.

Unfortunately, little is known for sure about him, (none of his original writings have survived,
and his followers usually published their own works in his name) and he remains something of a
mysterious figure. His secret society or brotherhood had a great effect on later esoteric
traditions such as Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry.

Life
Pythagoras was born on the Greek island of Samos, in the eastern Aegean Sea off the coast of
Turkey, some time between 580 and 572 B.C. His father was Mnesarchus, a Phoenician
merchant from Tyre; his mother was Pythais, a native of Samos. He spent his early years in
Samos, but also traveled widely with his father.

According to some reports, as a young man he met Thales, who was impressed with his abilities
and advised him to head to Memphis in Egypt and study mathematics and astronomy with the
priests there, which he soon had the opportunity of. He also traveled to study at the temples of
Tyre and Byblos in Phoenicia, as well as in Babylon. At some point he was also a student of
Pherecydes of Syros and of Anaximander (who himself had been a student of Thales). While still
quite a young man, he left his native city for Croton in southern Italy in order to escape the
tyrannical government of Polycrates, the Tyrant of Samos (or possibly to escape political
problems related to an Egyptian-style school called the "semicircle" which he had founded on
Samos).

In Croton, Pythagoras established a secret religious society very similar to (and possibly
influenced by) the earlier Orphic cult, in an attempt to reform the cultural life of Croton. He
formed an elite circle of followers around himself, called Pythagoreans or the Mathematikoi
("learners"), subject to very strict rules of conduct, owning no personal possessions and
assuming a largely vegetarian diet. They followed a structured life of religious teaching,
common meals, exercise, music, poetry recitations, reading and philosophical study (very
similar to later monastic life). The school (unusually for the time) was open to both male and
female students uniformly (women were held to be different from men, but not necessarily
inferior). The Mathematikoi extended and developed the more mathematical and scientific
work Pythagoras began.

Other students, who lived in neighboring areas, were also permitted to attend some of
Pythagoras' lectures, although they were not taught the inner secrets of the cult. They were
known as the Akousmatikoi ("listeners"), and they focused on the more religious and ritualistic
aspects of Pythagoras' teachings (and were permitted to eat meat and own personal
belongings).

Among his more prominent students were the philosopher Empedocles, Brontinus (who may
have been Pythagoras' successor as head of the school), Philolaus (c. 480 - 385 B.C., who has
been credited with originating the theory that the earth was not the center of the universe),
Lysis of Taras (who is sometimes credited with many of the works usually attributed to
Pythagoras himself), Cercops (an Orphic poet), Hippasus of Metapontum (who is sometimes
attributed with the discovery of irrational numbers), Zamolxis (who later amassed great wealth
and a cult following as a god among the Thracian Dacians) and Theano (born c. 546 B.C., a
mathematician, student, and possibly wife or daughter, of Pythagoras).

Towards the end of his life, Pythagoras fled to Metapontum (further north in the Gulf of
Tarentum) because of a plot against him and his followers by a noble of Croton named Cylon.
He died in Metapontum from unknown causes some time between 500 and 490 B.C., between
80 and 90 years old.
Work
Because of the secretive nature of his school and the custom of its students to attribute
everything to Pythagoras himself, it is difficult today to determine who actually did which work.
To further confuse matters, some forgeries under his name (a few of which still exist) circulated
in antiquity. Some of his biographers clearly aimed to present him as a god-like figure, and he
became the subject of elaborate legends surrounding his historical persona.

The school that Pythagoras established at Croton was in some ways more of a secret
brotherhood or monastery. It was based on his religious teachings and was highly concerned
with the morality of society. Members were required to live ethically, love one another, share
political beliefs, practice pacifism, and devote themselves to the mathematics of nature. They
also abstained from meat, abjured personal property and observed a rule of silence (called
"echemythia"), the breaking of which was punishable by death, based on the belief that if
someone was in any doubt as to what to say, they should remain silent.

Pythagoras saw his religious and scientific views as inseparably interconnected. He believed in
the theory of metempsychosis or the transmigration of the soul and its reincarnation again and
again after death into the bodies of humans, animals or vegetables until it became moral (a
belief he may have learned from his one-time teacher Pherecydes of Syros, who is usually
credited as the first Greek to teach the transmigration of souls). He was one of the first to
propose that the thought processes and the soul were located in the brain and not the heart.

Another of Pythagoras' central beliefs was that the essence of being (and the stability of all
things that create the universe) can be found in the form of numbers, and that it can be
encountered through the study of mathematics. For instance, he believed that things like
health relied on a stable proportion of elements, with too much or too little of one thing
causing an imbalance that makes a person unhealthy.

In mathematics, Pythagoras is commonly given credit for discovering what is now know as the
Pythagorean Theorem (or Pythagoras' Theorem), a theorem in geometry that states that, in a
right-angled triangle, the square of the hypotenuse (the side opposite the right angle) is equal
to the sum of the squares of the other two sides. Although this had been known and utilized
previously by the Babylonians and Indians, he (or perhaps one of his students) is thought to
have constructed the first proof.

He believed that the number system (and therefore the universe system) was based on the sum
of the numbers one to four (i.e. ten), and that odd numbers were masculine and even numbers
were feminine. He discovered the theory of mathematical proportions, constructed from three
to five geometrical solids, and also discovered square numbers and square roots. The discovery
of the golden ratio (referring to the ratio of two quantities such that the sum of those quantities
and the larger one is the same as the ratio between the larger one and the smaller,
approximately 1.618) is also usually attributed to Pythagoras, or possibly to his student,
Theano.
He was one of the first to think that the Earth was round, that all planets have an axis, and that
all the planets travel around one central point (which he originally identified as the Earth, but
later renounced it for the idea that the planets revolve around a central “fire”, although he
never identified it as the Sun). He also believed that the Moon was another planet that he
called a “counter-Earth".

Pythagoras was also very interested in music, and wanted to improve the music of his day,
which he believed was not harmonious enough and was too hectic. According to legend, he
discovered that musical notes could be translated into mathematical equations by listening to
blacksmiths at work. "Pythagorean tuning" is a system of musical tuning in which the frequency
relationships of all intervals are based on the ratio 3:2 (a stack of perfect fifths), a system which
has been documented as long ago as 3500 B.C. in Babylonian texts, but which is nevertheless
often attributed to Pythagoras. He also believed in the "musica universalis" (or the "harmony of
the spheres"), the idea that the planets and stars moved according to mathematical equations,
which corresponded to musical notes and thus produced a kind of symphony.

Introduction
Heraclitus of Ephesus (c. 535 - 475 B.C.) was a Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher from Ephesus, on
the Ionian coast of modern-day Turkey. He is sometimes mentioned in connection with the
Ephesian School of philosophy, although he was really the only prominent member of that
school (which, along with the Milesian School, is often considered part of the Ionian School).

He was perhaps the first Western philosopher to go beyond physical theory in search of
metaphysical foundations and moral applications, and some consider him, along with
Parmenides, the most significant of the Pre-Socratic philosophers. His idea of a universe in
constant change but with an underlying order or reason (which he called Logos) forms the
essential foundation of the European worldview.

Many subsequent philosophers, from Plato to Aristotle, from the Stoics to the Church Fathers,
from Georg Hegel to Alfred North Whitehead, have claimed to have been influenced by the
ideas of Heraclitus.

Life
According to the "Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers" of Diogenes Laërtius (the 3rd
Century historian of the ancient Greek philosophers), Heraclitus flourished in the 69th
Olympiad (which would be 504 - 501 B.C.), but the dates of his birth and death are just
guesswork based on that. So, all we can say it is it is likely that he was born around 535 B.C. We
do know that he was born to an aristocratic family in Ephesus, an important city on the Ionian
coast of modern-day Turkey.

His father was named either Bloson or Herakon, and was a powerful figure in the city. But,
according to Diogenes Laërtius, Heraclitus abdicated the kingship (probably just an honorific
title) in favor of his brother, and had no interest in politics or power. As a youth, he was a
prodigious intellect, and he claimed to have taught himself everything he knew by a process of
self-questioning. Some sources also say that he was a pupil of Xenophanes (570 - 480 B.C.), but
that is disputed.

He was sometimes known as "the Obscure" (or "the Dark") for the deliberate difficulty and
unclearness of his teachings. He was also known as the "Weeping Philosopher", and it is
speculated that he was prone to melancholia or depression, which prevented him from
finishing some of his works. There is no record of his having traveled, even as far as the nearby
learning center of Miletus, although he seems to have been familiar with the ideas of the
Milesian School.

He was apparently something of a misanthrope and a loner, and he cultivated an aristocratic

disdain for the masses and favored the rule of a few wise men. He was not afraid to scorn and
denigrate (in no uncertain terms, and in a characteristic shrill voice) almost everyone from the
Ephesians to the Athenians to the Persian leader, Darius. He believed that the poet Hesiod and
Pythagoras "lacked understanding", and claimed that Homer and Archilochus deserved to be
beaten. Diogenes Laërtius reported that, later in life, he wandered the mountains, eating only
grass and herbs.

His years of wandering in the wilderness, resulted in an edema (dropsy) and impairment of
vision. After 24 hours of his own idiosyncratic treatment (a liniment of cow manure and baking
in the sun), he died and was interred in the marketplace of Ephesus.

Work
Heraclitus is recorded as having written a single book, "On Nature", divided into three
discourses, one on the universe, another on politics and a third on theology. The book was
deposited or stored in the great Temple of Artemis in Ephesus (as were many other treasures
and books of the time) and made available to visitors for several centuries after Heraclitus'
death. However, his writings only survive today in fragments quoted by other later authors.

In his work, he used puns, paradoxes, antitheses, parallels and various rhetorical and literary
devices to construct expressions that have meanings beyond the obvious. The reader must
therefore solve verbal puzzles (he was also nicknamed "The Riddler"), and, by so doing, learn to
read the signs of the world. In fact, he deliberately made his philosophical work obscure, so
that none but the already competent would be able to understand it.

Unlike many of the other Pre-Socratic philosophers, Heraclitus believed that the world is not to
be identified with any particular substance, but rather consists of a law-like interchange of
elements, an ongoing process governed by a law of perpetual change, or Logos, which he
symbolized by fire. According to Heraclitus, fire provides a kind of standard of value for other
stuffs, but it is not identical to them, and is not the unique source of all things, because all stuffs
are equivalent and one thing is transformed into another in a cycle of changes.
According to Heraclitus, the world is in an eternal state of "becoming", and all changes arise
from the dynamic and cyclic interplay of opposites. Opposites are necessary for life, he
believed, but they are unified in a system of balanced exchanges, with pairs of opposites
making up a unity. Thus, one road carries some travelers out of a city, while it brings others
back in; the way up is also the way down; earth changes to fire and fire changes to earth, etc. In
this, he posits an equal and opposite reaction to every change and, in his theory of the
equivalence of matter, a primitive law of conservation.

The most famous aphorism often attributed to Heraclitus, that "everything is in a state of flux",
probably comes in reality from the much later Neo-Platonist Simplicius of Cilicia (490 - 560
A.D.), although other similar quotes are attributable to him, and it remains a pithy summary of
his views on the recurrent Pre-Socratic problem of change. Similarly, he is often quoted as
saying that one cannot step twice into the same river, although this is based on a simplistic
paraphrasing of Plato's. What he was really suggesting is that rivers can stay the same over time
even though (or indeed because) the waters in it change.

Thus, contrary to the contentions of both Plato and Aristotle, Heraclitus did not hold the
extreme (and logically incoherent) views that everything is constantly changing, that opposite
things are identical, and that everything is and is not at the same time. But he did recognize a
lawlike flux of elements, with fire changing into water and then into earth, and earth changing
into water and then into fire. While parts of the world are being consumed by fire at any given
time, the whole remains. Heraclitus does, to be sure, make paradoxical statements, but his
views are no more self-contradictory than some of the claims of Socrates.

Heraclitus saw the theory of nature and the human condition as intimately connected, and he
was one of the first philosophers to make human values a central concern. He viewed the soul
as fiery in nature, generated out of other substances, just as fire is, but limitless in dimension.
Thus, drunkenness, for example, damages the soul by causing it to be moist, while a virtuous
life keeps the soul dry and intelligent.

He further believed that the laws of a city-state are an important principle of order, and that
they derive their force from a divine law. In this way, he introduced the notion of a law of
nature that informs human society as well as nature, and this idea of an inherent moral law
greatly influenced the later Stoicism movement.

He saw Divinity as present in the world, but not as a conventional anthropomorphic being such
as the Greeks worshipped. For Heraclitus, the world itself either is God, or is a manifestation of
the activity of God, which is somehow to be identified with the underlying order of things.

Introduction
Parmenides of Elea (c. 515 - 450 B.C.) was an early Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher and founder
and chief representative of the Eleatic School of ancient Greek philosophy.
He is one of the most significant and influential (as well as the most difficult and obscure) of the
Pre-Socratic philosophers, and he is sometimes referred to as the father of Metaphysics. He
particularly influenced Plato (and, through him, the whole of Western Philosophy), who always
spoke of him with veneration. Perhaps his greatest contribution to philosophy was his method
of reasoned proof for assertions.

In denying the reality (or even the possibility) of change as part of his Monist philosophy,
Parmenides presented a turning point in the history of Western Philosophy, and sparked a
philosophical challenge that determined the course of enquiries of subsequent philosophers
such as Empedocles, Anaxagoras and Democritus, and an intellectual revolution that still echoes
today.

Life
Parmenides (pronounced par-MEN-i-dees) was born in the Greek colony of Elea (southern
Italy). His birth date is uncertain and the evidence of Diogenes Laërtius and Plato is
contradictory, but it is likely that he was born some time between 540 and 510 B.C., with 515
B.C. as a "best guess".

He is said to have been a student of Xenophanes of Colophon (570 - 480 B.C.), and what we
know of Xenophanes' philosophy seems to be an influence on Parmenides. Diogenes Laërtius
also describes Parmenides as a disciple of the Pythagorean philosopher Aminias, although there
are few Pythagorean elements in his thought.

He was the founder of the School of Elea, which also included Melissus of Samos and the young
Zeno of Elea (who was about 25 years younger than Parmenides and may also have been his
eromenos or adolescent lover, a common tradition of ancient Greece).

He was held in high esteem by his fellow-citizens for his excellent legislation, to which they
ascribed the prosperity and wealth of the town, and it is suggested that he had written the laws
of the city, which had been founded shortly before 535 B.C. He was also admired for his
exemplary life (a "Parmenidean life" was proverbial among the Greeks).

Little more is known of his biography than that he stopped at Athens on a journey in his sixty-
fifth year (around the middle of the 5th Century B.C.) and there became acquainted with the
youthful Socrates (Socrates, Plato and Aristotle were all strongly inspired by Parmenides). His
death is assumed to have taken place around 440 or 450 B.C.

Work
Parmenides' only known work, a poem written in hexameter verse around 475 B.C. and entitled
"On Nature", has only survived in fragmentary form, with approximately 150 of the original
3,000 lines of text remaining today. It is divided into two main sections, describing the two ways
or two views of reality, "The Way of Truth" (which accounts for most of the surviving lines) and
"The Way of Appearance/Opinion", along with an introduction. Parmenides argued in favor of
the Way of Truth and against The Way of Appearance.
In the poem, Parmenides argued that the every-day perception of the reality of the physical
world is mistaken, and that the reality of the world is "the One", an unchanging, ungenerated,
indestructible whole. Likewise, the phenomena of movement and change are simply
appearances of the real static, eternal reality. He further asserted that the truth cannot be
known through sensory perception, only through pure reason ("Logos").

Parmenides set out the heart of his case in a worldview that (even by the standards of
philosophy) is, according to Aristotle, "near to madness". He argued as follows: "What-is-not"
does not exist. Since anything that comes into being must arise out of "what-is-not", objects
cannot come into being. Likewise, they cannot pass away, because in order to do so they would
have to enter the realm of "what-is-not". Since it does not exist, "what-is-not" cannot be the
womb of generation, or the tomb of that which perishes. The "no-longer" and the "not-yet" are
therefore variants of "what-is-not", and so the past and future do not exist either. Change,
then, is impossible.

Equally, his argument continued, multiplicity is unreal, because the empty space necessary to
separate one object from another would be another example of "what-is-not". And since things
cannot be anything to a greater or lesser degree (which would require "what-is" to be mixed
with the diluting effect of "what-is-not"), the universe must be homogeneous, a single,
undifferentiated, unchanging unity. Also, it must be finite and spherical, for it cannot be in one
direction any more than in another (and the sphere is the only figure of which this can be said).

Thus, by a strictly deductive argument, Parmenides asserted that change is impossible, and that
coming-into-existence or ceasing-to-exist are likewise impossible, so that everything that exists
is permanent, ungenerated, indestructible and unchanging. His argument refutes all accounts of
the origin of the world, and represents an early type of Monism.

Parmenides therefore made the ontological argument against nothingness, essentially denying
the possible existence of a void, which led Leucippus and Democritus to propose their theory of
Atomism (that everything in the universe is either atoms or voids) specifically to contradict his
argument.

Introduction
Anaxagoras (c. 500 - 428 B.C.) was an early Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher from Ionia, although
he was one of the first philosophers to move to Athens as a base.

He is sometimes considered to be part of the poorly-defined school of Pluralism, and some of

his ideas also influenced the later development of Atomism. Many of his ideas in the physical
sciences were quite revolutionary in their day, and quite insightful in retrospect.

Life
Anaxagoras (pronounced an-ax-AG-or-as) was born around 500 B.C. to an aristocratic and
landed family in the city of Clazomenae (or Klazomenai) in the Greek colony of Ionia (on the
west coast of present-day Turkey). As a young man, he became the first of the major Pre-
Socratic philosophers to move to Athens (which was then rapidly becoming the center of Greek
culture), where he remained for about thirty years.

During this time he became a favorite (and possibly a teacher) of the prominent and influential
statesman, orator and general Pericles (c. 495 – 429 B.C.), one of the architects of Athens'
primacy during the Golden Age. Although it seems that Anaxagoras and the young Socrates
never actually met, one of Socrates' teachers, Archelaus, studied under Anaxagoras for some
time. His work was also known to the major writers of the day, including Sophocles, Euripides,
Aeschylus and Aristophanes.

In about 450 B.C., however, Anaxagoras was arrested by Pericles' political opponents on a
charge of contravening the established religion by his teachings on origins of the universe, the
first philosopher before Socrates to be brought to trial for impiety. With Pericles' influence he
was released, but he was forced to retire from Athens to exile in Lampsacus in Ionia, where he
died around the year 428 B.C.

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Anaxagoras wrote at least one book of philosophy, but only fragments of the first part of this
have survived in work of Simplicius of Cilicia in the 6th Century A.D.

He is best known for his cosmological theory of the origins and structure of the universe. He
maintained that the original state of the cosmos was a thorough mixture of all its ingredients,
although this mixture was not entirely uniform, and some ingredients are present in higher
concentrations than others and varied from place to place. At some point in time, this
primordial mixture was set in motion by the action of nous ("mind"), and the whirling motion
shifted and separated out the ingredients, ultimately producing the cosmos of separate
material objects (with differential properties) that we perceive today.

For Anaxagoras, this was a purely mechanistic and naturalistic process, with no need for gods or
any theological repercussions. However, he did not elucidate on the precise nature of Mind,
which he appears to consider material, but distinguished from the rest of matter in that it is
finer, purer and able to act freely. It is also present in some way in everything, a kind of
Dualism.

Anaxagoras developed his metaphysical theories from his cosmological theory. He accepted the
ideas of Parmenides and the Eleatics that the senses cannot be trusted and that any apparent
change is merely a rearrangement of the unchanging, timeless and indestructible ingredients of
the universe. Not only then is it impossible for things to come into being (or to cease to be), he
also held that there is a share of everything in everything, and that the original ingredients of
the cosmos are effectively omnipresent (e.g. he argued that the food an animal eats turns into
bone, hair, flesh, etc, so it must already contain all of those constituents within it). He denied
that there is any limit to the smallness or largeness of the particles of the original cosmic
ingredients, so that infinitesimally small fragments of all other ingredients can still be present
within an object which appears to consist entirely of just one material (presaging to some
extent the ideas of Atomism).

In the physical sciences, Anaxagoras was the first to give the correct explanation of eclipses,
and was both famous and notorious for his scientific theories, including his claims that the sun
is a mass of red-hot metal, that the moon is earthy, and that the stars are fiery stones.

Introduction

Empedocles (c. 490 - 430 B.C.) was a Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, usually considered a
member of the poorly-defined Pluralist school in that he was eclectic in his thinking and
combined much that had been suggested by others.

He is perhaps best known as the originator of the cosmogenic theory of the four classical
elements of the ancient world: earth, air, fire and water, which became the standard dogma for
much of the next two thousand years. He is also credited with several prescient ideas in physics
which have since proved quite prophetic.

The details of his life have mainly passed into myth, and he has been regarded variously as a
materialist physicist, a shamanic magician, a mystical theologian, a gifted healer, a democratic
politician, a living god and a fraud and charlatan.

Life
Empedocles (pronounced em-PED-o-clees) was born around 490 B.C. or 492 B.C. at Acragas
(Agrigentum in Latin), a Greek colony in Sicily, to a distinguished and aristocratic family. His
father, Meto or Meton, seems to have been instrumental in overthrowing Thrasydaeus, the
tyrant of Agrigentum in 470 B.C.

Very little is known of Empedocles' life. He is said to have been very wealthy and was
magnanimous in his support of the poor, but severe in persecuting the overbearing conduct of
the aristocrats. Some sources mention his travels to southern Italy, the Peloponnese and
Athens, and some even further afield, far to the east. He cultivated a regal public persona, with
a grave manner and flamboyant clothes.

Despite his airs, he was obviously a popular politician and champion of democracy and equality.
He began his political career with the prosecution of two state officials for their arrogant
behavior towards foreign guests (which was seen as a sign of incipient tyrannical tendencies),
and is credited with activities against other anti-democratic citizens. He continued his father's
democratic tradition by helping to overthrow the succeeding oligarchic government and
instituting a democracy at Acragas. At one point, he was offered effective rule of the city, but he
declined.

He was a brilliant orator (Aristotle credited him with the invention of rhetoric itself), and his
knowledge of natural phenomena and medical conditions earned him the reputation of
marvelous, even magical, powers. Empedocles himself apparently did little to dispel such ideas,
and he is reported as claiming seemingly god-like powers (including the ability to revive the
dead and to control the winds and rains), and as claiming to be a daimon (a divine, or
potentially divine, being).

He was acquainted with the eminent Acragas physicians Acron and Pausanias (the latter was his
eromenos or youth lover), with various Pythagoreans (some of the whom had come to Acragas
after being attacked in their center at Croton) and possibly Parmenides and Anaxagoras. The
Sophist and rhetorician Gorgias is mentioned as a pupil of Empedocles, although he would only
have been a few years younger.

According to Aristotle, Empedocles died at the age of sixty, in 430 B.C. or 432 B.C., although
other writers have him living up to the age of 109. The manner of his death is likewise uncertain
(reflecting his myth-like status), including his having been "removed" from the earth, or
perishing in the volcanic flames of the Mount Etna. Other more prosaic reports include
drowning, a fall from a carriage and suicide by hanging.

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Empedocles' work survives only in fragments, but fragments in a far greater number than any of
the other Pre-Socratics. His major work, "On Nature" (and possibly parts of a second work,
"Purifications"), written in hexameter verse, exists in more than 150 fragments. He was a poet
of outstanding ability, and of great influence on later poets such as Lucretius (99 - 55 B.C.)

Empedocles was very familiar with the work of the Eleatic School and the Pythagoreans, and
particularly of Parmenides. Like Pythagoras, Empedocles believed in the transmigration of the
soul (reincarnation between humans, animals and even plants), and that all living things were
on the same spiritual plane, like links in a chain. He therefore urged a vegetarian lifestyle,
believing that the bodies of animals are the dwelling places of punished souls. He believed that
wise people, who have learned the secret of life, are next to the divine and that their souls, free
from the cycle of reincarnations, are able to rest in happiness for eternity.

Like many of the other Pre-Socratics, he found Parmenides' claim that change is impossible
unacceptable, and tried to find the basis of all change. Starting from the assumption (passed
down from the Eleatics) that existence cannot pass into non-existence (or vice versa),
Empedocles held that change, including what we call coming into existence and death, is only
the mixture and separation of the four indestructible and unchangeable elements (or "roots" as
he called them): earth, air, fire and water.

He posited two divine powers, Love and Strife, which pervade the universe and act as the
moving powers which bring about these mixtures and separations (Love explains the attraction
of different forms of matter, and Strife accounts for their separation). He further taught that
there was a time when the pure elements and the two powers co-existed in a condition of rest
and inertness, without mixture and separation, in the form of a sphere (representative of God).
The uniting power of Love then predominated in the sphere, and the separating power of Strife
guarded the extreme edges of the sphere. Since that time, however, Strife has gained more
sway, and the actual world is full of contrasts and oppositions, due to the combined action of
both principles.

Empedocles believed that the organic universe sprang from spontaneous aggregations of parts,
and only in those rare cases where the parts were found to be adapted to each other, did the
complex structures last (arguably a crude anticipation of Charles Darwin's theory of natural
selection). He assumed a cyclical universe, whereby the elements would return to the harmony
of the sphere in preparation for the next period of the universe.

Empedocles is also credited with other prescient ideas, such as that light travels with a finite
velocity, a form of the law of conservation of energy and a theory of constant proportions in
chemical reactions. These theories (arrived at simply through reasoning, rather than through
any experimental evidence, of course) had little influence on the development of science,
stated as they were within an insufficient theoretical framework, but in retrospect were
remarkably prophetic.

Introduction
Zeno of Elea (c. 490 - 430 B.C.) was an important Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher from the
Greek colony of Elea in southern Italy. He was a prominent member of the Eleatic School of
ancient Greek philosophy, which had been founded by Parmenides, and he subscribed to and
defended the Monist beliefs of Parmenides.

Arguably he did not really attempt to add anything positive to the teachings of his master,
Parmenides, and he is best known today for his paradoxes of motion. But Aristotle has called
him the inventor of the dialectic, and no less a logician and historian than Bertrand Russell has
credited him with having laid the foundations of modern Logic.

Life
Zeno was born around 490 B.C. in the Greek colony of Elea in southern Italy. The date is an
estimate based on Plato's report of a visit to Athens by Zeno and his teacher Parmenides when
Socrates was "a very young man", and Zeno being about 25 years younger than Parmenides.

Little is known for certain about Zeno's life. The 3rd Century A.D. biographer of the ancient
Greek philosophers, Diogenes Laërtius, reported that Zeno was the son of Teleutagoras, but
was adopted by Parmenides. Plato tells us that Zeno was "tall and fair to look upon" and was
reported to have been "beloved" by Parmenides in his youth, so he may have been Parmenides'
eromenos (or adolescent lover, a common tradition of ancient Greece).

He was around forty years old when he accompanied Parmenides to Athens and met the young
Socrates. He appears to have lived for at least some time at Athens, and to have explained his
doctrines to prominent Athenian statesmen like Pericles (c. 495 - 429 B.C.) and Callias. He was
praised as a "universal critic", skilled in arguing both sides of any question. He devoted all his
energies to explaining and developing Parmenides' philosophical system.
According to some reports, Zeno was arrested and perhaps killed at the hands of a tyrant of
Elea. According to the historian Plutarch (c. A.D. 46 - 120), Zeno attempted to kill the tyrant
Demylus, and having failed to do so, he bit off his tongue and spit it in the tyrant's face.
However, these details may well be pure inventions, and we can only assume that he died
around 430 B.C., although with little or no evidence.

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Although several ancient writers refer to the "writings" of Zeno, none of them have survived
intact, and the few fragments of his philosophy we do have mainly come down to us through
Aristotle (who was a major detractor of Zeno's ideas). He did not really add anything positive to
the teachings of Parmenides, but devoted himself to refuting the views of his opponents.

Like Parmenides, he taught that the world of sense, with its apparent motion (or change) and
plurality (or multiplicity), is merely an illusion. The "true being" behind the illusion is absolutely
one and has no plurality (Monism), and furthermore it is static and unchangeable. However,
because common sense tells us that there is both motion and plurality (as in the Pythagorean
notion of reality), Zeno developed arguments to show that the common sense notion of reality
leads to consequences at least as paradoxical as those of Parmenides.underlying intention was
to affirm that everything was One (as Monism asserted), that all belief in plurality and change is
mistaken, and in particular that motion is nothing but an illusion. To do this he considered what
would happen if something was divided into infinitely small amounts, showing that this
inevitably resulted in a situation which made no sense, and so must be wrong.

Zeno's paradoxes were one of the first examples of a method of proof called reductio ad
absurdum (or epicheirema in Greek), a kind of dialectical syllogism or proof by contradiction.
Although Parmenides himself may actually have been the first to use this style of argument,
Zeno became the most famous. He devised arguments against both multiplicity and against
motion, although both are really variations of one argument that applies equally to space or
time. Essentially, he argued that any quantity of space (or time) must either be composed of
ultimate indivisible units or it must be divisible ad infinitum. If it is composed of indivisible units,
then these must have magnitude and we are faced with the contradiction of a magnitude which
cannot be divided. If, however, it is divisible ad infinitum, then we are faced with the different
contradiction of supposing that an infinite number of parts can be added up to make a merely
finite sum.

Of Zeno's original 40 versions of the paradox (of which 8 have come down to us through
Aristotle), three in particular have become quite well known:

The Paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise: If Achilles allows the tortoise a head start in a race,
then by the time Achilles has arrived at the tortoise's starting point, the tortoise has already run
on a shorter distance. By the time Achilles reaches that second point, the tortoise has moved
on again, etc, etc. So Achilles can never catch the tortoise.
The Arrow Paradox: If an arrow is fired from a bow, then at any moment in time, the arrow
either is where it is, or it is where it is not. If it moves where it is, then it must be standing still,
and if it moves where it is not, then it cannot be there. Thus, it cannot move at all.
The Dichotomy Paradox: Before a moving object can travel a certain distance (e.g. a person
crossing a room), it must get halfway there. Before it can get halfway there, it must get a
quarter of the way there. Before traveling a quarter, it must travel one-eighth; before an
eighth, one-sixteenth; and so on. As this sequence goes on forever, an infinite number of points
must be crossed, which is logically impossible in a finite period of time, so the distance will
never be covered (the room crossed, etc).
Aristotle vehemently disagreed with Zeno's ideas, calling them fallacies, and claiming to have
disproved them by pointing out that, as the distance decreases, the time needed to cover those
distances also decreases, becoming increasingly small. Various other possible solutions have
been offered to the paradoxes over the centuries, ranging from Kant, Hume and Hegel, to
Newton and Leibniz (who invented mathematical calculus as a method of handling infinite
sequences). It is generally held nowadays that the paradox stems from the false assumption
that it is impossible to complete an infinite number of discrete tasks in a finite time, but Zeno's
paradoxes have continued to tease and stimulate thinkers, and there is still some debate over
whether they have been fully disproved even today.

Introduction
Protagoras (c. 490 - 420 B.C.) was a Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher from Thrace in northern
Greece, although he made his name as a teacher and advisor in Athens.

Along with his rough contemporary Gorgias, he is considered one of the major figures in the
philosophical school of Sophism, and Plato credits him with having invented the role of the
professional Sophist or teacher of virtue. He is also sometimes known as the father of
Relativism and of Agnosticism.

Life
Protagoras (pronounced pro-TAG-er-as) was born in Abdera, Thrace, in northern Greece. Hints
in Plato's dialogue "Protagoras" suggests a date of birth not later than 490 B.C., although exact
information is unavailable.

He traveled around Greece for some years earning his living primarily as a teacher and advisor,
before settling in Athens. He was well-known there, and became a friend of the prominent
Athenian statesman Pericles (c. 495 - 429 B.C.) and other rich and influential Athenians. Pericles
apparently invited him to write the constitution for the newly-founded Athenian colony of
Thurii in 444 B.C.

Protagoras was probably the first Greek to earn money in higher education and he was
notorious for the extremely high fees he charged. His teaching included such general areas as
public speaking, criticism of poetry, citizenship and grammar. His teaching methods consisted
primarily of lectures, including model orations, analyses of poems, discussions of orthoepeia
(the meanings and correct uses of words), and general rules of rhetoric and oratory. His
audience consisted mainly of wealthy men from Athens' social and commercial elites.

Many later legends developed around the life of Protagoras (which are probably false),
including stories concerning his having studied with Democritus, his trial for impiety and
Atheism, the burning of his books, his flight from Athens to Sicily and his death by drowning.

In Plato's dialogue "Menos", Protagoras is said to have died at about the age of 70, after 40
years as a practicing Sophist, which would put his death circa 420 B.C.

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Protagoras apparently wrote many works, the two of which we have definite knowledge being
"Alethia" ("Truth") and "Peritheon" ("On the Gods"). Unfortunately, none of his works have
survived the destruction of the ages. What we know of his works are just a few fragments
quoted in the writings of other philosophers, particularly Plato, Aristotle, Diogenes Laërtus and
Sextus Empiricus.

Although almost a contemporary of Socrates, Protagoras is considered a Pre-Socratic thinker, as

he followed more the Ionian tradition of criticism, rather than the more demonstrative method
of Socrates and his followers, Plato and Aristotle. However, he did contribute to philosophy a
method of finding a better argument by discarding the less viable one (known as "antilogy"). His
claim to be able to "make the worse case the better" was a useful oratorical skill in the
extremely litigious quasi-democracy of Athens, but it also had the potential for promoting what
most Athenians considered injustice or immorality, and led to an increasing distrust of Sophism.

Although quoted out of context in a later work, his most famous saying is originally from his
"Truth": "Man is the measure of all things: of things which are, that they are, and of things
which are not, that they are not". Another line of Protagoras quoted in Diogenes Laërtus' "Lives
of Eminent Philosophers" is: "There are two sides to every question". These are both succinct
statements of the doctrine of Relativism (that nothing is exclusively good or bad, true or false,
and that there is no general or objective truth), and more specifically Moral Relativism. His
notion that judgments and knowledge are in some way relative to the person judging or
knowing (and indeed that there are as many distinct scales of good and evil as there are
individuals in the world), which has come to be known as Ethical Subjectivism, has been very
influential and is still widely discussed in contemporary philosophy.

In his lost work "On the Gods", Protagoras wrote: "Concerning the gods, I have no means of
knowing whether they exist or not or of what sort they may be, because of the obscurity of the
subject, and the brevity of human life". This rather bold admission of Agnosticism, was no
doubt quite shocking in his day.

Introduction
Gorgias (c. 487 - 376 B.C.) was a Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, orator and rhetorician from
Sicily. Along with Protagoras, he was one of the major figures in the first generation of Sophists.

Both Plato and Aristotle criticized Gorgias severely, labeling him as a mere sophist (in the
derogatory sense of "sophistry") whose primary goal was to make money by appearing wise
and clever, and not a true philosopher. However, he was undeniably highly influential and, in
bringing his rhetorical innovations from his native Sicily to Athens and Attica, he also
contributed to the diffusion of the Attic dialect as the language of literary prose.

Life
Gorgias (pronounced GOR-jas) was born around 487 B.C. (or possibly 483 B.C.) in Leontini, a
Greek colony in Sicily. His father was named Charmantides, and he had at least two siblings, a
brother named Herodicus and a (unnamed) sister. In his youth, he may have been a pupil of
Empedocles, although he would only have been a few years younger. He was familiar with the
works of Zeno of Elea and used his paradoxes (especially the so-called "arguments against
motion") in his own work.

He was already about sixty when he was sent in 427 B.C. to Athens by his fellow-citizens at the
head of an embassy to ask for Athenian protection against the aggression of the neighboring
Syracusans. On completing his mission, he subsequently settled in Athens, probably due to the
enormous popularity of his style of oratory and the profits he could make from his
performances and rhetoric classes.

Like other Sophists, he was an itinerant, practicing in various cities and giving public exhibitions
of his rhetorical skill at the great pan-Hellenic centers of Olympia and Delphi (including inviting
questions from the audience and giving impromptu replies), and charged substantial fees for his
instruction and performances. His florid, rhyming style seemed to almost hypnotize his
audiences, and his powers of persuasion were legendary.

Among his distinguished students in Athens were Isocrates (436 - 338 B.C., one of the greatest
and most influential orators of his time), Critias (460 - 403 B.C., a leading member of the so-
called Thirty Tyrants of Athens), Alcibiades (c. 450 - 404 B.C., a prominent Athenian statesman,
orator and general), Thucydides (c. 460 - 395 B.C., an important historian), Agathon (c. 448 -
400 B.C., a popular tragic poet) and Pericles (c. 495 - 429 B.C., a prominent and influential
statesman, orator and general of Athens).

Gorgias is reputed to have lived to be over one hundred years old, before dying at Larissa in
Thessaly in about 375 B.C. or 376 B.C. He had accumulated considerable wealth by the time of
his death, enough to commission a gold statue of himself for a public temple.

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Gorgias transplanted rhetoric from his native Sicily to Athens and Attica, and in the process
contributed to the diffusion of the Attic dialect as the language of literary prose. He ushered in
rhetorical innovations involving structure and ornamentation and the introduction of paradoxes
and paradoxical expression, for which he has been labeled the "father of sophistry". His
rhetorical works (including the "Encomium of Helen", "Defence of Palamedes" and
"Epitaphios") come down to us via a work entitled "Technai", a manual of rhetorical instruction.

Unlike other Sophists like Protagoras, Gorgias did not profess to teach arete (or virtue),
believing that there was no absolute form of virtue but that it was relative to each situation. He
believed that rhetoric was the king of all other sciences, since it was capable of persuading any
course of action. Thus, much of the debate over the nature and value of rhetoric, began with
Gorgias. Plato (one of Gorgias’ greatest critics) was speaking in direct opposition to Gorgias,
when he argued that rhetoric gives the ignorant the power to seem more knowledgeable than
an expert to a group, and that Gorgias was merely an orator who entertains his audience with
his eloquent words while believing that it is unnecessary to learn the truth about actual
matters.

A lost work, "On Nature" or "On Non-Existence", was one of Gorgias few essays into
Metaphysics. It is available to us only in paraphrases from Sextus Empiricus (2nd or 3rd Century
A.D.) and others, and it is generally skeptical in outlook, intended both as a refutation and as a
parody of the Eleatic School, and particularly of Parmenides. It is usually presented as a three-
point argument: 1) nothing exists; 2) even if something exists, nothing can be known about it;
and 3) even if something can be known about it, knowledge about it can't be communicated to
others. His point was to prove that it is just as easy to demonstrate that being is one,
unchanging and timeless as it is to prove that being has no existence at all.

Introduction
Democritus (c. 460 - 370 B.C.), sometimes known as the "Laughing Philosopher", was a Pre-
Socratic Greek philosopher from Thrace in northern Greece. Along with his teacher, Leucippus,
he was the founder of the Greek philosophical school of Atomism and developed a Materialist
account of the natural world.

Although he was a contemporary of Socrates, he usually considered Pre-Socratic in that his

philosophy and his approach were more similar to other Pre-Socratic thinkers than to Socrates
and Plato.

Life
Democritus was born in Abdera, a town in Thrace in northern Greece, which had originally been
settled by Greek colonists from the Ionian city of Teos in present-day Turkey). His date of birth
is usually given as 460 B.C., although some authorities argue for up to ten years earlier, and
some for a few years later.

His father was very wealthy, and had even received the Persian king Xerxes on his march
through Abdera. According to some accounts, Democritus studied astronomy and theology
from some of the magi (wise men) Xerxes left in Abdera in gratitude.
On his father's death, Democritus spent his inheritance on extensive travels to distant
countries, to satisfy his thirst for knowledge. He is reputed to have traveled to Persia, Babylon
(modern-day Iraq), Asia (as far as India), Ethiopia and Egypt (where he lived for five years, being
particularly impressed by the Egyptian mathematicians). He also traveled throughout Greece to
acquire a knowledge of its culture and meet Greek philosophers (he may have met the
physician Hippocrates (c. 460 B.C.) and Socrates, and possibly also Anaxagoras, whom he
praises in his own work), and his wealth enabled him to purchase their writings. He was known
as one of the most traveled scholars of his time.

On returning to his native land, (now with no means of subsistence), he settled with his brother
Damosis, and occupied himself with natural philosophy and gave public lectures in order to pay
his way. His greatest influence was certainly Leucippus, with whom he is credited as co-
founding Atomism. In around 440 B.C. or 430 B.C., Leucippus had founded a school at Abdera,
and Democritus became his star pupil. There are no existing writings which can be positively
attributed to Leucippus, and so it is virtually impossible to identify which ideas were unique to
Democritus and which are Leucippus', or any views about which they disagreed.

From anecdotal evidence, Democritus was known for his disinterestedness, modesty and
simplicity, and appeared to live solely for his studies, declining the public honors he was
offered. One story has him deliberately blinding himself in order to be less disturbed in his
pursuits, although it is more likely that he lost his sight in old age. He was always cheerful and
ready to see the comical side of life, and he was affectionately known as the "Laughing
Philosopher" (although some writers maintain that he laughed at the foolishness of other
people and was also known as "The Mocker"). His knowledge of natural phenomena (such as
diagnosing illnesses and predicting the weather) gave him the reputation of being something of
a prophet or soothsayer.

It is believed that he died at the age of 90, in about 370 B.C., although some writers have him
living to over a hundred years of age.

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Diogenes Laertius, the 3rd Century historian of the early Greek philosophers, lists a large
number of works by Democritus, covering Ethics, physics, mathematics, music and cosmology,
including two works called the "Great World System" and the "Little World System". However,
his works have survived only in secondhand reports, sometimes unreliable or conflicting. Much
of the best evidence comes from Aristotle, who was perhaps the chief critic of Atomism,
although he nevertheless praised Democritus for arguing from sound considerations, and
considered Democrtius an important rival in natural philosophy.

Like many other Pre-Socratic philosophies, the Atomism of Leucippus and Democritus was
largely a response to the unacceptable claim of Parmenides that change was impossible
without something coming from nothing (which is itself impossible), and thus any perceived
change or movement was merely illusory.
In the Atomist version, there are multiple unchanging material principles which constantly
rearrange themselves in order to affect what we see as changes. These principles are very
small, indivisible and indestructible building blocks known as atoms (from the Greek "atomos",
meaning "uncuttable"). All of reality and all the objects in the universe are composed of
different arrangements of these eternal atoms and an infinite void, in which they form different
combinations and shapes.

There is no room in this theory for the concept of a God, and essentially Atomism is a type of
Materialism or Physicalism, as well as being atheistic and deterministic in its outlook. However,
Democritus did allow for the existence of the human soul, which he saw as composed of a
special kind of spherical atom, in constant motion, and he explained the senses in a similar
manner.

In Epistemology, Democritus distinguished two types of knowledge: "bastard" (subjective and

insufficient knowledge, obtained by perception through the senses), and "legitimate (genuine
knowledge obtained by the processing of this unreliable “bastard” knowledge using inductive
reasoning).

In the field of Ethics, Democritus pursued a type of early Hedonism or Epicureanism. He was
one of the earliest thinkers to explicit posit a supreme good or goal, which he called
cheerfulness or well-being (see the section on Eudaimonism) and identified with the untroubled
enjoyment of life. He saw this as achievable through moderation in the pursuit of pleasure,
through distinguishing useful pleasures from harmful ones, and through conforming to
conventional morality. He is quoted as saying, "The brave man is he who overcomes not only
his enemies but his pleasures".

Democritus was also a pioneer of mathematics and geometry, and produced works entitled "On
Numbers", "On Geometrics", "On Tangencies", "On Mapping" and "On Irrationals", although
these works have not survived. We do know that he was among the first to observe that a cone
or pyramid has one-third the volume of a cylinder or prism respectively with the same base and
height.

He was also the first philosopher we know who realized that the celestial body we call the Milky
Way is actually formed from the light of distant stars, even though many later philosophers
(including Aristotle) argued against this. He was also among the first to propose that the
universe contains many worlds, some of which may be inhabited. He devoted many of the later
years of his life to researches into the properties of minerals and plants, although we have no
record of any conclusions he may have drawn.