Early Greek Naturalists - THE IONIANS

General Notions

As Greece is a mountainous and rather barren country, its inhabitants have been obliged from remote times to seek new lands that would offer them work and prosperity. At the beginning of the sixth century before Christ, we find one winding series of coastal colonies, extending from the coast of Asia Minor to Africa, to Spain and to southern Italy. Here the Greeks were so numerous that they outnumbered the inhabitants of Greece properly so called, and hence the name Magna Graecia was given to this far-flung territory. The colonies, favored by democratic liberties and economic well-being, and moreover having contact with a greatly advanced civilization, had an opportunity to develop their natural sense of culture.

Among the Grecian stocks which have contributed greatly to the formation of philosophy is the Ionian strain, which was spread through Asia Minor, the islands of the Aegean Sea (Ionia), and southern Italy and Sicily. It is among the Ionian colonies of Asia Minor that the story of philosophy takes its beginning, because it was in the flourishing city of Miletus that the first three Western philosophers were born and lived: Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes.

The problem which claims the attention of the thinkers of Miletus is for the most part cosmological. Nature, as presented to our senses, is a continuous "becoming" -- a passage from one state to another, from birth to death. However, this transition is not arbitrary; it happens according to a fixed law: everything repeats itself or flows in cycles -- day, night, the seasons, etc.

What is that first principle whence things draw their origin at birth, and whereto are all things resolved in death? This is the problem of the Ionians: the search for this principle which is the first reason for all succession in the world of nature. It is the principle which the Ionians believed they could discover in a natural element; by means of this element they attempted to explain nature through nature. The principle which they assign becomes conceived of as divine. Thus the Ionian thinkers are pantheists in so far as they do not distinguish God from nature.

Thales

Thales was born at Miletus about the year 624 B.C., and lived until about 546. Mathematician, astronomer, businessman -- to him are attributed many voyages and many discoveries. The more probable of these is that he was the first to foretell an eclipse.

For Thales the principle of things is water, which should not be considered exclusively in a materialistic and empirical sense. Indeed it is considered that which has neither beginning nor end -- and active, living, divine force. It seems that Thales was induced to proffer water as the first principle by the observation that all living things are sustained by moisture and perish without it.

Further, Thales affirms that the world is "full of gods." It is not easy to see how this second affirmation agrees with the first. It may be that he was induced by the popular belief in polytheism to admit the multiplicity of gods.

Anaximander

Anaximander was born at Miletus about the year 611 B.C., and died about 547. Probably a disciple of Thales, he also was a mathematician and astronomer, philosopher and poet. He was the author of a poem entitled Peri physeos, of which only a fragment is extant.

For Anaximander the first principle of all things is the "indeterminate" -- apeiron. There are no historical data to enlighten us as to what Anaximander may have meant by the "indeterminate"; perhaps it was the Chaos or Space of which physicists speak today. Whatever may be the answer to the this question, it is necessary to keep in mind that the problem consists in the search for a metaphysical principle which would give an account of the entire empirical world, and hence the apeiron is not to be confused with any empirical element.

All things originate from the Unlimited, because movement causes within that mysterious element certain quakes or shocks which in turn bring about a separation of the qualities contained in the Unlimited.

The first animals were fish, which sprang from the original humidity of the earth. Fish came to shore, lost their scales, assumed another form and thus gave origin to the various species of animals. Man thus traces his origin from the animals. Because of this, Anaximander has come to be considered the first evolutionist philosopher.

Anaximenes

Anaximenes also was born at Miletus toward the end of the sixth century B.C., and died about 524 B.C. Probably a disciple of Anaximander, he composed a treatise of unknown title.

For Anaximenes, the first principle from which everything is generated is aid. Air, through the two opposite processes of condensation and rarefaction, which are due to heat and cold, has generated fire, wind, clouds, water, heaven and earth.

Thus Anaximenes, like Thales and Anaximander, reduces the multiplicity of nature to a single principle, animated (hylozoism) and divine, which would be the reason for all empirical becoming.

With Anaximenes the School of Miletus closes, for the turn of events in this city ranked as one of the principal causes of the Graeco-Persian wars and Miletus was destroyed in 494 B.C. Its inhabitants were dispersed throughout the Greek world, and one of them was to reach Elea, a city of southern Italy, and there found the school which was to be called Eleatic, after the city of its origin.