Natural philosophy

Since most philosophers have lived in very different epochs and cultures compared to ours, it's worthwhile asking themselves what the project of each of them was. I mean, we have to try to know exactly what he was most interested in. A philosopher can ask how plants and animals have arisen, another may seek to know whether there is a god or immortality is the human soul. Once we find out what has attracted the attention of a philosopher, we can more easily follow his thoughts. Because it has been rare for a thinker to think about all philosophical questions. We often call the first Greek thinkers "natural philosopher" because they have been concerned primarily with nature and its processes. We have already asked ourselves where all things come from. Many people today believe more or less that everything has ever had to come to nothing. This thought was not very "honorable" among the Greeks. For one reason or another, they preferred to think that "something" always existed.

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Therefore, the big question for them was not how everything could come from nothing. Instead, the Greeks wondered how the water could turn into living fish, and the dead soil - in tall trees and colorful flowers. Not to mention how it is possible to conceive a child in the mother's womb! The philosophers observed and studied the constant changes in nature. But how are such changes possible? How can an object of a substance go into something else - in a living life, for example? The common among the first philosophers is the assertion that behind all the changes lies some kind of primary matter. It is hard to tell how they came to this thought. All we know is that its roots hide in the notion that there must be some kind of primary substance, which - in a figurative way - is behind all the changes in nature. The most interesting thing about us is not what the first philosophers discovered. It is interesting what questions they asked and what kind of answers they were looking for. It is not important to us what they were thinking, but how. Certainly we think they were interested in the visible changes in nature - trying to establish some eternal natural laws. They tried to understand the natural processes without listening to the traditions and myths. But most of all, they tried to make sense of the natural processes by observing the very nature. And this is a radically different approach than the explanation of lightning and thunder, winter and spring with events from the gods' lives. In this way philosophy was free of the influence of religion. We can say that naturally philosophers have made the first steps towards scientific thinking and thus the impetus of all later emerging natural sciences. Most of what naturally philosophers have spoken and written is lost for generations. The little we know, we find mainly in the writings of Aristotle, who lived two hundred years after the first philosophers. However, he only summarizes the lessons learned by the thinkers before him, and this means that it remains unclear to us how they have come to their conclusions. Yet we know enough to claim that the primary subject in the search for the first Greek philosophers is the issues of primary matter and the changes in nature.

The three philosophers of Miletus

The first philosopher for whom we have data is Thales of the Greek colony of Miletus in Asia Minor. He was a traveler. They tell how to determine the height of an Egyptian pyramid - measured its shadow just when its own shadow was equal to its height. Moreover, in 585 BC. with calculations predicted solar eclipse. Thales thought water was the source of everything. Unfortunately, we do not know exactly what meaning he has put into this judgment. Perhaps he believed that all life was created in the water, and that all living becomes water once it collapses. Probably, during his trip to Egypt, he watched the fields yield fruit when, after a spill, the Nile retreated to its delta. He may have been impressed by the appearance of frogs and worms after rain, or he wondered how the water could turn into ice and steam and then water again. They attribute to Thales the words that everything is "full of deities." And here we just guess what he meant. He may have thought that black earth could be the source of everything - from flowers and grains to bees and cockroaches. And he imagined the dust that swarmed with small invisible "sprouts of life." One thing is certain - he did not have Homer's gods. Anaxemander, the next philosopher we learn about, also lived in Miletus. He believed that our world was just one of many that emerged and then passed into a state he called indefinite. It is difficult to say what exactly he has put into that word, but it is certain that Thales, unlike anything, has not imagined a particular matter. Perhaps he believed that everything from which everything was created must be quite different from the creation itself. In this situation, it is clear that the primary substance can not be just plain water, which is by no means "indefinite". The third millet philosopher was Anaksimen (about 570-526 BC). He believed that the primacy of everything was air or fog.

Of course, Anaksimen knew the teaching of Thales for the water. But where does the water come from? According to Anaksimen, the water is compressed air. When it rains, water flows from the air. And if it thickens even more, the water turns into land, he thought. Perhaps Anaximen watched the sand melt from the melting ice. At the same time, he thought that the fire was diluted with air. Therefore, according to Anaximean's views, the earth and the water come from the air. The road from the ground and the water to the field plants is short. Maybe Anaximen believed that in order for life to come, there must be land, air, fire and water. However, for him the source is the air, or the fog. He therefore shared Thales' argument that one primary substance should be at the root of all natural changes.