Name: Karell Shieka T.

Ang Strand and Section: STEM 2B-11 Wisdom

The Presocratics are ancient Greek philosophers preceding Socrates. They were known
as “natural philosophers” because they practice natural philosophy, which is having a self-
conscious inquiry about nature. It means that they introduced a new way of inquiring into the
world, human society, ethics, religion, and seeking explanations based on natural principles
rather than the actions of supernatural gods. These philosophers often sought naturalistic
explanations and causes for physical phenomena, hence why they came up with a lot of
theories. And because of those theories that they made up, they developed the “school of
thought” in which they, the students, and the teachers, will gather around to talk about the
same problems that they find interest. One of the reasons we know about these schools is
because they operated as individuals. Between every one of those schools, people, and abstract
theories, there were a lot of different opinions. So, to prove that they’re right; a philosopher
had to do the rational debate, which uses logic, reason, and observation to criticize the
incorrect theories of the other philosopher and to prove that he’s right. Some historians argue
there’s a link between the rational debate about political constitutionality, or how humans
should govern themselves, and rational debate that talks about the constitution of nature, or
how the world governs itself.

Humans have a wide variety of knowledge that can come up with different sorts of
ideas, as well as in the technique and how we present our thoughts. Despite that, we can still
see that there’s a correlation that runs throughout the philosophers’ thoughts. But sometimes,
because the cosmos has its terms, what we thought may be incorrect. And the way how they
think usually takes its course away from the conventional and theocentric thoughts. The
Presocratics, in most cases, did not entirely abandon religious notions, but they
characteristically challenged the traditional ways of thinking.

Also, many of these philosophers developed and gave new meaning to divinity and their
gods. There’s also a push towards ethics and human affairs and better ways on how human
beings should live. They also contributed a lot of theories and ideas to our modern sciences and
engineering. Some are still even used in our everyday lives. Like the Pythagorean theorem, it’s a
useful technique for construction and navigation or other physical construction projects. This
shows how the Presocratics elevated being curious about the world into natural philosophy. We
need to remember that they lived in a very different world, both physically and socially. But the
way they think about problems about stuff, changed nothingness, mathematical ideas, truth,
and the cosmos has been known until this day.