For the 5th century BCE pre-Socratic philosopher and leading figure of the Eleatic school Parmenides, truth is universal. It contains everything, unifies all. It is All and, therefore, One. Because of this, truth has the unshakable attribute of certainty. Accordingly, if something cannot pass the test of universality, it cannot generate certainty, so it cannot be the …
Tag: pre-socratics
Not-Infinite Being of Parmenides
Parmenides, in his prime in the early 5th century BCE, was a very influential pre-Socratic Greek philosopher. He was one of the leading figures of the school of thought named after his home city - Elea. According to 19th-century Scottish philosopher's Thomas Davidson's translation of the fragments available to us from the work of Parmenides, …
Xenophanes from Colophon – a Pre-Socratic Greek Philosopher (ca. 540 BCE)
In my last article on the exploration of the historical context of the time around 130 years before Socrates, we discovered the events of roughly 50 years of the 6th century BCE. It was the time when most known philosophical activity of the Greeks was still taking place in their Ionian city-states, on the coast …
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130 Years Before Socrates: Historical Exploration (Part 1 – Persians Conquer Ionia)
Last week I wrote an introduction article giving an overview of the historical ground we will cover in the roughly 130 years leading up to the famous Greek philosopher Socrates. This post is the first part of our journey. We will visit the Asian side of Greek city-states (Asia Minor): the Ionian region where, so …
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130 Years Before Socrates: Historical Exploration (Introduction)
Pre-Socratics in the history of philosophy are a group of Greek thinkers who lived and contemplated the nature of reality before the great Master of Western philosophy (a bit like Yoda from Star Wars), Socrates, was born. By the way, he was born in Athens in 469 BCE. Despite his monumental role, Socrates was not …
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Thales of Miletus or the First Greek Philosopher
The first ancient Greek philosopher on record, by the name of Thales, lived and pondered about the nature of things in the city of Miletus some 2,600 years ago. He is among those thinkers who will be called the Pre-Socratics (all who were before Socrates. i.e. a period of ~150 years). Also, he belongs to …
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Before Socrates – Origins of Western Philosophy (Part 2 of 2)
Last week I wrote the first part of this article. In it, I started drawing the historical background leading up to the first recorded ancient Greek philosopher - Thales. In this second part, I finish the article and bring our time journey from its last stop (~10th/9th century BC) some 300-400 years ahead to the …
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Before Socrates – Origins of Western Philosophy (Part 1 of 2)
It is ironic, really - a man who made it his point to never write down any of his thoughts and claimed that he knew nothing is also the man who is among the most famous western philosophers. One of the "founding fathers", so to speak. I am referring to Socrates, of course. Luckily, his …
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