: Constantine J. Vamvacas
: The Founders of Western Thought - The Presocratics A diachronic parallelism between Presocratic Thought and Philosophy and the Natural Sciences
: Springer-Verlag
: 9781402097911
: 1
: CHF 74.30
:
: Antike
: English
: 293
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There can be little doubt that the Greek tradition of philosophical criticism had its main source in Ionia. . . It thus leads the tradition which created the rational or scienti?c attitude, and with it our Western civilization, the only civilization, which is based upon science (though, of course, not upon science alone). Karl Popper, Back to the Presocratics Harvard University physicist and historian of Science, Gerald Holton, coined the term 'Ionian Enchantment', an expression that links the idea back in the 6th c- tury B. C. to the ancient Ionians along the eastern Aegean coast, while capturing its fascination. Approximately within a seventy- ve year period (600-525 B. C. ) -a split second in the history of humanity- the three Milesian thinkers, Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes, without plain evidence, but with an unequalled power of critical abstraction and intuition, had achieved a true intellectual re- lution; they founded and bequeathed to future generations a new, unprecedented way of theorizing the world; it could be summarized in four statements: beneath the apparent disorder and multiplicity of the cosmos, there exists order, unity and stability; unity derives from the fundamental primary substratum from which the cosmos originated; this, and, consequently, the cosmic reality, is one, and is based not on supernatural, but on physical causes; they are such that man can - vestigate them rationally. These four statements are neither self-evident nor se- explanatory.
Preface8
Contents11
Introduction17
The Juncture19
Nature20
Society22
Religion24
Myth and Epic Poetry25
Hesiod The First Cosmogonies26
Personality Lyric Poetry Art28
Foreign Influence31
Introduction to the Presocratics35
Thales of Miletus (ca. 625 546 b.c.)44
Personality Life44
Cosmology Mathematics45
First arche : Water45
Soul47
The Divine47
Overview47
Anaximander of Miletus (ca. 610 546 b.c.)49
The Extant Fragment49
Personality Life49
First arche : The Boundless50
The Divine51
The Opposites51
Justice Necessity52
Cosmogony53
Cosmology54
Meteorology55
Overview55
Anaximenes of Miletus (ca. 585 525 b.c.)58
Introduction58
First arche : Air58
Soul60
The Divine60
Cosmogony Cosmology Meteorology61
Overview61
Epilogue: The Milesian62
Pythagoras of Samos (ca. 570 496 b.c.)65
Personality65
Life67
TheWay of Life67
Immortality of the Soul70
Homogeneity71
Purification71
Harmony of Soul71
Ethics72
Society72
Education73
Theology73
Philosophy74
Mathematics75
Arithmetic76
Geometry77
Incommensurability78
Geometrical Algebra79