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

Nihil Obstat, October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor

Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

The Catholic Encyclopedia: NewAdvent.org