Contributions of Ancient Philosophers

1. Thales- first person to investigate the basic principles, the question of the
originating substances of matter and, therefore, as the founder of the
school of natural philosophy. He proposed theories to explain many of the
events of nature, the primary substance, the support of the earth, and the
cause of change. He founded the Milesian school of natural philosophy,
developed the scientific method, and initiated the first western
enlightenment.

2. Anaximander- the author of the first surviving lines of Western philosophy.

He speculated and argued about “the Boundless” as the origin of all that is.
He also worked on the fields of what we now call geography and biology.
Moreover, Anaximander was the first speculative astronomer. He originated
the world-picture of the open universe, which replaced the closed universe
of the celestial vault.

3. Anaximenes- He is the third philosopher of the Milesian School of

philosophy, so named because like Thales and Anaximander, Anaximenes was
an inhabitant of Miletus, in Ionia (ancient Greece). Anaximenes is best known
for his doctrine that air is the source of all things.

4. Heraclitus- A Greek philosopher of the late 6th century BCE, Heraclitus

criticizes his predecessors and contemporaries for their failure to see the
unity in experience. Heraclitus is the first Western philosopher to go
beyond physical theory in search of metaphysical foundations and moral
applications.

5. Parmenides- Parmenides of Elea was a Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher. As

the first philosopher to inquire into the nature of existence itself, he is
incontrovertibly credited as the “Father of Metaphysics.” As the first to
employ deductive, a prior arguments to justify his claims, he competes with
Aristotle for the title “Father of Logic.”
6. Empedocles- Empedocles of Acagras in Sicily, was a philosopher and poet:
one of the most important of the philosophers working before Socrates (the
Pre-Socratic), and a poet of outstanding ability and of great influence upon
later poets such as Lucretius. To him is attributed the invention of the four-
element theory of matter (earth, air, fire, and water), one of the earliest
theories of particle physics, put forward seemingly to rescue the
phenomenal world from the static monism of Parmenides.