Читать книгу A Beginner's History of Philosophy, Vol. 1: Ancient and Mediæval Philosophy онлайн

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1. The Milesian School.

Thales (b.640 B.C.) was a member of one of the leading families of Miletus, and lived during the flourishing period of the city under the tyranny of Thrasybulus. He is counted among the seven Wise Men, and belonged to the rich commercial class. He probably engaged in commerce and traveled in Egypt. He was versed in the current learning, predicted an eclipse, and was acute in mathematics and physics. Probably he never committed anything to writing. Aristotle’s comments are the only data about him.

Anaximander (611–545 B.C.?) was an astronomer and geographer; he made an astronomical globe, a sundial, and a geographical map. He was an intimate disciple of Thales and wrote Concerning Nature, which is referred to as the first Greek philosophical treatise. Nothing is known of his life.

Anaximenes (560–500 B.C.?) was the disciple of Anaximander. One sentence is preserved of his writings.9

The Milesian Philosophy.

Both Thales and Anaximenes still held to the traditional polytheism of the Greek Epic. Anaximander rises above them in this respect. This conception of the Unlimited, to which his scientific search led him, is regarded by him as Deity. He calls it “the divine” (τὸ θεῖον); although he speaks of it in the neuter gender it is, nevertheless, the first European philosophical conception of God. It is the first attempt to conceive of God as purely physical and yet without any mythical dress. In Anaximander the Milesian monism has a religious aspect.