Paper Summary:

This paper catalogues and summarizes Greek philosophy prior to the advent of Socrates. It makes the point the pre-Socratic philosophy was generally characterized by the avoidance of morality, and that the particular revolution effected by Socrates was to introduce the question of morality. Therefore, the pre-Socratics were largely concerned with metaphysics and epistemology, and they were generally materialists in their outlook. The discussion includes the Milesian and Pythagorean schools, as well as the Atomists and Skeptics. The evolution of Skepticism is traced from Parmenides and Heraclitus on the one hand to the Sophists of the Hellenic age on the other. The parallels to modern Utilitarianism are also drawn, and it is shown that Sophism was highly sophisticated and not entirely cynical in its outlook.

From the Paper:

"An important early strand of thinking is contained in the Milesian school, which flourished in the sixth century BC. The proponents of this school endeavored to establish universal truth on specific material principles. Thales contends that water contains the essence of all things, whereas Anaximenes says that it is air. The Pythagorean School, which flourished in Southern Italy, sought to find all truths as contained in numbers. They came to identify arcane truths as associated with certain numbers, and came to develop a spiritual relationship towards them. A little later, in the fifth century BC, Empedocles suggested a multidimensional composition to reality. The four elements - earth, water, air, and fire - are said to constitute all. The idea in turn led to the theories of the Atomists - Leucippus and Democritus - who contend that indivisible material units, the atoms, are the building blocks to matter. It is strictly a materialist description that ignores the reality of mind. Anaxagoras tries to fill this omission by positing the existence of the Nous - the divine mind. This can be described as a limited God, who lends form to matter, but who is nevertheless distinct from it."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Guthrie, William Keith Chambers. A History of Greek Philosophy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1962.
• Guthrie, William Keith Chambers. The Sophists: The Fifth Century Enlightenment. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1971
• Russell, Bertrand. History of Western Philosophy. New York: Routledge, 2004.

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