The

Miletian
Philosophers

Prepared by: John Rolin Aurelio

Ancient Greece 400 BC
 Ancient Greece
 As Greece is a mountainous and
rather barren country, its
inhabitants have been forced to
seek new lands that would offer
them work and prosperity.
 Across the Agean Sea
 BC (Before Christ), it is a winding
series of Minor to Africa, to Spain
and to southern Italy. In the 6 th

century coastal colonies, extending

from the coast of Asia
 City of Miletus
 Among the Greeks which have
contributed greatly to the formation of
philosophy are the Ionians, which was
spread through Asia Minor, the
islands of the Aegean Sea (Ionia), and
southern Italy and Sicily.
 The First 3 Western Philosophers
are from Miletus
 It is among the colonies of Asia Minor that the
story of philosophy begins, in the city of
Miletus where the first three Western
philosophers were born and lived:
Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes
They sought the PRIMARY SUBSTANCE.
Thales (624 B.C.E.—546 B.C.E.)
Thales was interested in almost
everything, investigating
almost all areas of knowledge,
philosophy, history, science,
mathematics, engineering,
geography, and politics.
 He measured the Height of the pyramids
of Egypt by using the pyramid's shadow.
 He also predicted the eclipse of the sun
on May 28, 585 BCE
 He urged sailors to use the constellation
Little Bear as the surest guide for
determining the direction of the north.
 He's famous not because of his
great wisdom, but rather it was him
who opened up a new era of thought
that's why he earned the title “ The
First Philosopher” of western
civilization.
Thales’ novel inquiry concerns
the nature of things.
What is everything made of, or
what kind of “stuff” goes into
the composition of things?
 For Thales there are many different things
such as earth, clouds, and oceans. These
things change from time to time and yet they
still resemble each other in certain ways.
 For him, the many are related to
each other by the One.
 He assumed that some single element,
some “stuff”, a stuff that contained its
own principle of action or change, lay at
the foundation of all physical reality.
 For Thales this "One", or this stuff, is
"water".
 Although there is no exact record
why Thales came to this
conclusion, perhaps as Aristotle
writes that he might have derived it
from observation of simple event.
 “From seeing that nutriment of
all things is moist, and that
heat is generated from the
moist and kept alive by it.”
 “Thales got his notion for this fact and
the fact that the seeds of all things have
a moist nature, and water is the origin of
the nature of moist things.”
 Water takes on different form:
evaporation and freezing for example.
 His introspection about the
composition of things is far less
important than his question
concerning the nature of the world.
His question set the stage for a new
kind of inquiry.
Anaximander (610—546 B.C.E.)
 Anaximander was the author of
the first surviving lines of western
philosophy also worked on the
fields of what we now call
geography and biology.
Moreover, Anaximander was the
first speculative astronomer.
 Thales’ pupil
 According to Strabo, a historian
and geographer of Greek descent,
Anaximander drew the first map
of the world.
 Anaximander did not identify the original
component of the universe with any of the
four elements of nature. Instead, he
proposed an explanation of the universe
based on some infinite and indeterminate
reality which he called the “Apeiron”.
 Apeiron- the unlimited, the ageless or
the deathless.
 The “Apeiron” is that from which
everything came to be and into which
things will eventually return or dissolve.
 Whereas, actual things are
specific, their source is
indeterminate, and whereas
things are finite, the original
stuff infinite or boundless.
 The indeterminate boundless
is the unoriginated and
indestructible primary
substance of things, yet it also
has eternal motion.
 As a consequence of this motion, the
various specific came into being as they
“separated off” from the original
substance. Thus, “there was an eternal
motion in which the heavens came to be.
“First warm and cold were separated off,
and from these two came earth and air.
 Through the “separation off” there
comes a main forces involved.
 Rhythm of the seasons
The dominant amount of one force
from the other
 All the conflicting but
congenial rhythms of change
eventuate against the backdrop
of the vastly indeterminate
reality of the Apeiron.
 Origin of Human Beings
 Anaximander, said that all life
comes from the sea and that in
the course of time, living things
comes out of the sea to dry land.
 He held that the biological evolution
and growth of the human species
could not have possibly been a linear
and uniform operation of nature.
 Humans evolved in order to survive
 Need a long tedious term of care and
nurturing like the amphibians living in
the sea.
 Anaximander also believe that we are
species that was once lived in the sea.
Anaximenes
  (546-525 BCE)
 Like Thales,
Anaximenes
conceived the earth to
have come from some
primordial matter.
 He did not however,
single out water as
the primary stuff.
 He picked
unlimited “air”
 Air is the basic sustainer of life. In
its natural state, it is imperceptible
and incorporeal, but it assumes
some tangible forms as it undergoes
change and transformation.
 Air turns into fire when it
is rarefied and becomes
wind when it is thickens.
 It changes into moist when it is
agitated; moist, in turn, condenses
into cluster of clouds which, as it
becomes saturated and heavy,
develop into droplets of rain.
 And when air, now in the form of
water, is further condensed, it
crystallizes into earth and stone.
 Since Air is immeasurable, it pervades
everything and is present everywhere.
 It is infinite an "Apeiron"
 Also considered air as the
breath (Pneuma) of the world,
a god or something divine.
 According to Plutarch
observation he proved
Anaximenes point that, if one
blows on one’s palm with
pursed lips, cool air comes out.
 In contrast, if one puffs
with open mouth, hot air
goes out.
 The thickness of cool air
and the thinness of hot air.
 Anaximenes held the earth to be
flat, broad dish floating on air
 Although air is incorporeal, he
assumed that it is capable of
supporting something material.
 The science of aerodynamics
shows that aircraft are kept aloft
by the wind which is essentially
intangible.
 
Ex. The order of celestial bodies
is maintained by the presence of
unbounded air. Like floating
leaves and feathers in space, the
planets, moons and stars revolve
in rhythmic motion with the earth
Thank
you!!