Ionian School of Philosophy |
The Ionian School includes the earliest Greek philosophers, who lived at Miletus, |
an Ionian colony in Asia Minor, during the sixth century B.C., and a group of |
philosophers who lived about one hundred years later and modified the doctrines |
of their predecessors in several respects. It is usual to distinguish, therefore, the |
Earlier Ionians and the Later Ionians. |
Earlier Ionians |
This group includes Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes, with whom the |
history of philosophy in Greece begins. They are called by Aristotle the first |
"physiologists", that is "students of nature". So far as we know they confined |
their philosophical enquiry to the problem of the origin and laws of the physical |
universe. They taught that the world originated from a primitive substance, which |
was at once the matter out of which the world was made and the force by which |
the world was formed. Thales said that this primitive substance was water; |
Anaximander said that it was "the boundless" (to apeiron); Anaximenes said that |
it was air, or atmospheric vapour (aer). They agreed in teaching that in this |
primitive substance there is an inherent force, or vital power. Hence they are said |
to be Hylozoists and Dynamists. Hylozoism (q.v.) is the doctrine of animated |
matter, and Dynamism (q.v.) the doctrine that the original cosmothetic force was |
not distinct from, but identical with, the matter out of which the universe was |
made. From the scanty materials that have come down to us -- a few fragments |
of the writings of the early Ionians, and allusions in Aristotle's writings -- it is |
impossible to determine whether these first philosophers were Theists or |
Pantheists, although one may perhaps infer from their hylozoistic cosmology that |
they believed God to be at once the substance and the formative force in the |
universe. |
Later Ionians |
This group includes Heraclitus Empedocles, and Anaxagoras, who lived in the |
fifth century B.C. These philosophers, like the early Ionians, were deeply |
interested in the problem of the origin and nature of the universe. But, unlike their |
predecessors, they distinguished the primitive world forming force from the |
primitive matter of which the world was made. In Heraclitus, however, and, to a |
certain degree, in Empedocles, this mechanism -- the doctrine that force is |
distinct from matter -- is expressed hesitatingly and in figurative language. |
Anaxagoras is the first Greek philosopher to assert definitely and unhesitatingly |
that the world was formed from a primitive substance by the operation of a force |
called Intellect. For this reason he is said by Aristotle to be "distinguished from |
the crowd of random talkers who preceded him" as the "first sober man" among |
the Greeks. Heraclitus was so impressed with the prevalence of change among |
physical things that he laid down the principle of panmetabolism: panta rei, "all |
things are in a constant flux". Empedocles has the distinction of having |
introduced into philosophy the doctrine of four elements, or four "roots", as he |
calls them, namely, fire, air, earth, and water, out of which the centripetal force of |
love and the centrifugal force of hatred made all things, and are even now making |
and unmaking all things. Anaxagoras, as has been said, introduced the doctrine |
of nous, or Intellect. He is blamed however, by Socrates and Plato for having |
neglected to make the most obvious application of that doctrine to the |
interpretation of nature as it now is. Having postulated a world-forming Mind, he |
should they pointed out, have proceeded to the principle of teleology, that the |
Mind presiding over natural processes does all things for the best. None of these |
early philosophers devoted attention to the problems of epistemology and ethics. |
Socrates was the first to conduct a systematic inquiry into the conditions of |
human knowledge and the principles of human conduct. |
William Turner |
Transcribed by Tomas Hancil |
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VIII |
Copyright © 1910 by Robert Appleton Company |
Online Edition Copyright © 1999 by Kevin Knight |
Nihil Obstat, October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor |
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York |
The Catholic Encyclopedia: NewAdvent.org |