Question

Philosophy:

Name the three early Greek Milesians mentioned by Solomon, and briefly describe each thinker’s theory about the nature of the universe.

In again referring to the three just-mentioned Milesian cosmologists, each of their respective arguments for a single factor, thing, or “stuff,” is an example of ________?

Answer 1

• The first ancient Greek philosophers, Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes, were all from Miletus, and so they are known as the Milesian School. They were primarily invested in cosmology, the order and interaction of the elements, and observation of nature.
• Thales was the first member of the Milesian School, which was not a formal school in a building but a label applied today to the three interrelated thinkers from Miletus.This 6th century BCE thinker is, in fact, considered the 'Father of Philosophy.
• He is the first known person to use natural explanations for natural phenomena rather than turning to supernatural world and his example was followed by other Greek thinkers who would give rise to philosophy both as a discipline and science. In addition to being viewed as the beginner of Western philosophy, Thales of Miletus is also the first to define general principles and develop hypotheses.
• Although Thales of Miletus is best known as the first Western philosopher, he actually became famous for predicting a solar eclipse. According to Herodotus, the philosopher correctly predicted the year of the solar eclipse which impressed his contemporaries and later ancient Greek thinkers because in his time, no one knew how to predict solar eclipses in Greece.
• He belived that natural phenomena could be explained by laws rather than resorting to supernatural explanations.Thales pictured the Earth as a flat disk that floated on an infinite ocean, perhaps motivated by observations that wood and other substances float on water. Water was important to him, as he saw it as the fundamental material from which everything else in the Universe developed.
• We can identify four basic tenets of Thales' world view: (1) The world derives from water; (2) The world rests on water; (3) The world is full of gods; (4) Soul produces motion.
• Anaximander was the student of Thales. He was born around 610 B.C., also in Miletus. Like his teacher, his main interests were in natural philosophy, geometry, and astronomy.
• In Thales' system water was supposed to be the source out of which everything arose. In Anaximander's system the Unbounded (or apeiron) is both the source out of which everything derives and also the unifier within nature. That is to say, in Anaximander's worldview, everything in the universe is in fact just a variation on the Unbounded.
• As a physis, the Unbounded has many theoretical advantages over water. As Anaximander no doubt reasoned, the water theory leads to a real problem for the existence of fire. If everything derived from water (and especially if everything still is water in some sense), fire could not possibly survive. In order to allow for the existence of all of the opposites, Anaximander decided to make his physis indefinite, having no particular qualities of its own. Because the Unbounded is entirely neutral between opposites, it does not pose a threat to any of them.
• Anaximenes was another resident of Miletus, the last of the Milesian philosophers.His one significant accomplishment was that he was the first person to propose a mechanism by which the physis (in his case, a misty air) transforms into the plurality of objects we see around us in the observable world.
  
• Anaximenes arrives at his physis by observing living creatures. What makes a creature alive, he observes, is that it breathes. A breathy thing, which he calls soul, both holds together and guides the living creature. There must be some similar element, he reasons, that performs that same function for the whole cosmos.
• An argument of this form, which reasons from the human being to the whole cosmos, is often called a microcosm/macrocosm argument. It was used frequently in ancient Greek medicine, but this is its first appearance in natural philosophy.
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