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

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Anaxagoras (500–425 B.C.), a man of wealthy antecedents, was much esteemed, was born in Clazomenæ in a circle rich in Ionian culture, but was isolated from practical life. He declared the heaven to be his fatherland and the study of the heavenly bodies to be his life’s task. He went to Athens about 450 B.C., where he formed one of a circle of notable men of culture. He lived in Athens under the patronage of Pericles, but in 434 B.C. he was expelled. In Athens he was intimate with such men as Euripides, Thucydides, and Protagoras. He represents the first appearance of philosophy in Athens.

The life of Leucippus is almost unknown. He was probably born in Miletus, visited Elea, and settled in Abdera.

The Later Pythagoreans. After the Pythagoreans as a religious and political body had been defeated at Crotona, they lost their prestige and were scattered to the four winds. They were beaten in the battle of Crotona (510 B.C.) and dispersed about 450 B.C. Pythagoras died 504 B.C. His scattered followers, these later Pythagoreans, formed a school of philosophy which had its centre at Thebes. Destroyed as a religious body the members lost their superstitions and turned their attention to philosophy, astronomy, mathematics, medicine, and physics. As mathematicians and as astronomers they are the most notable among the ancients. Philolaus is the probable originator of their philosophy of numbers. This school disappeared about 350 B.C. Pythagoreanism reappeared later under the name of neo-Pythagoreanism.