Ionian School (philosophy)The Ionian school of Pre-Socratic philosophy refers to Ancient Greek philosophers, or a school of thought, in Ionia in the 6th century B.C, the first in the Western tradition. The Ionian School included such thinkers as Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, and Archelaus. This classification can be traced to the doxographer Sotion. The doxographer Diogenes Laërtius divides pre Socratic philosophy into the Ionian and Italian School.
Natural philosophyNatural philosophy or philosophy of nature (from Latin philosophia naturalis) is the philosophical study of physics, that is, nature and the physical universe. It was dominant before the development of modern science. From the ancient world (at least since Aristotle) until the 19th century, natural philosophy was the common term for the study of physics (nature), a broad term that included botany, zoology, anthropology, and chemistry as well as what we now call physics.
MonismMonism attributes oneness or singleness (Greek: μόνος) to a concept, e.g. existence. Various kinds of monism can be distinguished: Priority monism states that all existing things go back to a source that is distinct from them; e.g., in Neoplatonism everything is derived from The One. In this view only the One is ontologically basic or prior to everything else. Existence monism posits that, strictly speaking, there exists only a single thing, the universe, which can only be artificially and arbitrarily divided into many things.
PythagoreanismPythagoreanism originated in the 6th century BC, based on and around the teachings and beliefs held by Pythagoras and his followers, the Pythagoreans. Pythagoras established the first Pythagorean community in the ancient Greek colony of Kroton, in modern Calabria (Italy). Early Pythagorean communities spread throughout Magna Graecia. Pythagoras' death and disputes about his teachings led to the development of two philosophical traditions within Pythagoreanism.
XenophanesXenophanes of Colophon (zəˈnɒfəniːz ; Ξενοφάνης ὁ Κολοφώνιος ksenophánɛːs ho kolophɔ̌ːnios; c. 570 – c. 478 BC) was a Greek philosopher, theologian, poet, and critic of Homer from Ionia who travelled throughout the Greek-speaking world in early Classical Antiquity. As a poet, Xenophanes was known for his critical style, writing poems that are considered among the first satires. He also composed elegiac couplets that criticised his society's traditional values of wealth, excesses, and athletic victories.
ScienceScience is a rigorous, systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into three major branches: natural sciences (e.g., biology, chemistry, and physics), which study the physical world; the social sciences (e.g., economics, psychology, and sociology), which study individuals and societies; and the formal sciences (e.g., logic, mathematics, and theoretical computer science), which study formal systems, governed by axioms and rules.
ApeironApeiron (əˈpaɪˌrɒn; ἄπειρον) is a Greek word meaning "(that which is) unlimited," "boundless", "infinite", or "indefinite" from ἀ- a-, "without" and πεῖραρ peirar, "end, limit", "boundary", the Ionic Greek form of πέρας peras, "end, limit, boundary". The apeiron is central to the cosmological theory created by Anaximander, a 6th-century BC pre-Socratic Greek philosopher whose work is mostly lost.
CosmosThe cosmos (Kósmos, ˈkɒzmɒs, USalso-moʊs,_-məs) is another name for the universe. Using the word cosmos implies viewing the universe as a complex and orderly system or entity. The cosmos, and understandings of the reasons for its existence and significance, are studied in cosmology - a broad discipline covering scientific, religious or philosophical aspects of the cosmos and its nature. Religious and philosophical approaches may include the cosmos among spiritual entities or other matters deemed to exist outside the physical universe.
Classical elementThe classical elements typically refer to earth, water, air, fire, and (later) aether which were proposed to explain the nature and complexity of all matter in terms of simpler substances. Ancient cultures in Greece, Tibet, and India had similar lists which sometimes referred, in local languages, to "air" as "wind" and the fifth element as "void". These different cultures and even individual philosophers had widely varying explanations concerning their attributes and how they related to observable phenomena as well as cosmology.
First principleIn philosophy and science, a first principle is a basic proposition or assumption that cannot be deduced from any other proposition or assumption. First principles in philosophy are from first cause attitudes and taught by Aristotelians, and nuanced versions of first principles are referred to as postulates by Kantians. In mathematics and formal logic, first principles are referred to as axioms or postulates.
