Jan. 10, 2002
What is Philosophy?
Philosophy comes from the Greek word Philosophia which means "love of wisdom", or "love of knowledge". Philosophy is the most general field of knowledge, and all sciences came from it. Philosophy began in the sixth century b.c. with the "natural philosophizers" known as the Presocratics. These people were the first to move from Mythos (myth) to Logos (rational or logic) to explain natural phenomenon. One of these Presocratics Thales, was first to give a scientific theory for why the Nile floods, which proved to be wrong, and believed that everything was composed of water. Another Presocrate Anaxagorus , gave a theory for the four seasons claiming that the forces of hot and cold, wet and dry were constantly at war with each other . Nature's attempt at balancing these forces resulted in the seasons. Anaxagorus was also the first to claim that the sun and earth were not supernatural beings, with his theory that "the sun is a rock, and the earth a moon". Another type of early philosophers were called Sophists. These cynical, greedy teachers of argument, rhetoric, law, success, and politics charged a fee, and weren't too unlike today's lawyers. Both the "natural philosophers", and the Sophists influenced Socrates, who is known as "the father of philosophy". Socrates was a poor absolutist, who attacked the "big" questions such as the origin of the earth, virtue, and justice. He practiced philosophy in public places, and thought that writing killed the spirit of philosophy. The three major Greek philosophizers were Socrates his pupil Plato, and Plato's pupil Aristotle. Socrates was arrested and charged with 1. Being a Natural Philosopher, 2.being a Sophist, 3.Corrupting the youth, and 4. religious heresy. In the end he was found guilty and was put to death. Some other early philosophizers were Democritus, who came up with the concept of atoms, and Anaximander who came up with a theory that man evolved from fish. After Christianity became prevalent (500-1500a.d.), medieval philosophy came about. This type of philosophy which was little more than interpretation of text, pulled mostly from the bible, and the writings of Aristotle.