The word philosophy comes from the Greek philosophia, "love of wisdom". Philosophy was born in the Greek cities of Ionia, on the coast of modern Turkey, in the 6th century BC, when some thinkers began asking what the world is made of and how it works, seeking rational answers rather than myths.
Schools and masters
- Presocratics (6th-5th century BC)
- Milesian school: Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes
- Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans
- Heraclitus of Ephesus
- Eleatic school: Parmenides, Zeno
- Pluralists: Empedocles, Anaxagoras
- Atomists: Leucippus, Democritus
- Classical age (5th-4th century BC)
- Sophists: Protagoras, Gorgias
- Socrates and Plato
- Aristotle
- Hellenistic and Roman ages
- Stoicism: Zeno of Citium, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius
- Epicureanism: Epicurus
- Scepticism: Pyrrho
- Cynicism: Diogenes of Sinope
- Neoplatonism: Plotinus
The Presocratics
The first philosophers sought the arche, the principle of all things. For Thales it was water, for Anaximenes air, for Anaximander the apeiron, a boundless indefinite. Heraclitus taught that everything flows (panta rhei) and that reality is a struggle of opposites; Parmenides, on the contrary, held that being is unchanging and eternal and that change is an illusion of the senses. His pupil Zeno devised famous paradoxes, such as Achilles who never catches the tortoise. Democritus imagined everything made of indivisible particles, atoms.
Athens: Sophists, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle
In the 5th century philosophy's centre moved to Athens. The Sophists, paid teachers of rhetoric, taught the art of persuasion: for Protagoras "man is the measure of all things". Socrates turned philosophy from nature to humanity: what are goodness, justice, virtue? His pupil Plato founded the Academy and developed the theory of Forms; Plato's pupil Aristotle founded the Lyceum and wrote on logic, physics, biology, ethics, politics and poetics, creating the basic vocabulary of Western science.
Hellenistic philosophies
After Alexander, in a larger and less certain world, philosophers sought above all the individual's peace of mind:
| School | Founder | Central idea | Named after |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stoicism | Zeno of Citium | Live by nature and reason, accept what is not in our power | The Stoa Poikile, a portico in Athens |
| Epicureanism | Epicurus | Happiness is freedom from pain and fear, including fear of death | The founder; the school was called the Garden |
| Scepticism | Pyrrho | Suspend judgement, since nothing can be known for certain | skepsis, inquiry |
| Cynicism | Antisthenes, Diogenes | Live with the bare minimum, against convention | kyon, dog |
Diogenes lived in a large jar and, legend says, when Alexander the Great asked what he wanted, replied: "Stand out of my sun".
End and legacy
In the 3rd century AD Plotinus reworked Plato into Neoplatonism, which deeply influenced Christian theology. In 529 Emperor Justinian banned pagan philosophers from teaching in Athens. But Greek texts survived in Byzantium and the Arab world and returned to the West in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Words such as logic, ethics, politics, theory, metaphysics and idea all come from Greek philosophy.
See also Greek science and ancient Greek literature.