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