Western philosophy has a long history and tradition. Its beginnings are often attributed to Greek thinkers, who have had a major influence on our interpretation of the world. In fact, in large part this is why Hellenic culture is known as “the cradle of Western civilization”.

In this article we will make a general tour of the origins of philosophy, starting with the Presocratics , and passing through Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.

The Origins of Western Philosophy

Western philosophy was born in Miletus, Ionia, which was a Greek colony located in Asia. Among other things, Miletus was a cosmopolitan city where people with different religious beliefs lived together and there was a great cultural diversity. That is, there were people with many different perspectives and beliefs.

Likewise, it was in Miletus where religious myths were first questioned in a significant way and the first legislations were devised, which finally made people move away from magical or supernatural thoughts.

At this time, leisure (free time) was dedicated precisely to developing this thought based on the natural, the existing and the concrete. In fact, from this (from the word “leisure”, in Greek), the word “school” arose, although its current meaning is quite far from “free time”.

Thales of Miletus is considered the first philosopher of the West, since he was the first to explain the phenomena of the world based on explanations of nature, and no longer through pure mythology . However, philosophy continued to be a task with an important component of speculation, given that science as we know it did not yet exist, and on the other hand the transmission of culture was fundamentally oral.

The philosophers who were formed in the same period as Thales of Miletus are known as the Presocratics . After them, with the arrival of Socrates, there was a very important change in the Western worldview, so it is considered a new stage in the history of philosophy (the Socratics). Finally, it is the disciples of Socrates who close the first stage of ancient philosophy.

1. The Presocratics

The Presocratics understood and analyzed the origins of the universe through magical-religious stories and myths. At this time, nature was not the terrain of the material available to human activity, as if they were two separate elements.

On the contrary, nature is closer to the idea of force-power or energy, intrinsic to the human being himself . There was not this radical dissociation between nature and culture, as there was not between body and mind. For the same reason, the knowledge of the natural was not given by quantitative and rational explanations, but by a closer understanding of aesthetics, ethics or ontology.

The Presocratics are mostly from Asia Minor, so a large part of their thought converges with Eastern philosophies . In fact, because of the history of mobilization from one territory to another, largely mediated by disputes and wars, the Ionian cities had a great relationship with the East. Part of this relationship resulted, for example, in the development of writing, calculus and astronomy.

Socrates

The history of the origins of philosophy is mainly divided before and after Socrates. This is because with Socrates, magical-religious explanations were finally abandoned and rational answers were sought to the phenomena of the world . From the myth we passed to the logos (the reason or the word), which positions itself as the basis for creating knowledge, until our days.

This knowledge is acquired through questions, because they are what allow rational discussion, and to ask those questions it is necessary to have doubts about everything that happens around us. That is, to remain alert, curious and a little skeptical about the phenomena of the world.

What changes from his philosophy is the way of understanding justice, love, virtue (similar to the “soul”), ethics and morals, and the knowledge of being . For Socrates, virtue and knowledge are strongly connected, as are ignorance and vice.

The written records we have about Socrates were not written directly by him, but by his most famous disciples: Plato and later Aristotle.

3. Plato

Plato was actually called Aristocles, he was a descendant of an aristocratic family and was related to the last king of Athens. But when the oligarchy condemned Socrates, he soon developed an affinity with the idea of democracy. However, it was the Athenian democrats themselves who ended up condemning Socrates, and he was once again disappointed.

Among these and other experiences, Plato develops a theory of the state based on life and the political affairs of the polis (the city). After a long time away from Athens, he returns to found the first university in the world, the Academos Gardens, which was called the Academy.

For Plato, knowledge is not only achieved through reason, but through affection, or rather love (to wisdom). He established a series of myths that illustrate how abstract ideas are mixed with the dimension of the concrete.

His texts are written in the form of dialogues , and some of the most famous are Phaedrus (about love and beauty), Phaedon (about the immortality of the soul), the Banquet, the Gorgias and perhaps the most representative: the Republic, where he embodies a series of social utopias that continue to be discussed to this day.

4. Aristotle

Aristotle is Plato’s most popular disciple in the history of philosophy. He founded his own school, which was dedicated to Apollo Licio, so it was called the Lyceum. Aristotle thought that the elements of reality were singular and were the things themselves. He developed the idea of “substance” and divided it into three types: the sensible and perishable substance, the sensible and external substance and the immobile substance.

Aristotle’s philosophy is considered a realist philosophy, while, unlike Plato who developed “the ideas”, Aristotle wanted to see things in themselves, as dynamic, individual and concrete entities . For him, the essence of an object is the object itself.

According to this philosopher, all living beings have a soul, which is the power of life, of body. But souls are not the same for everyone, so there are different types of powers. For example, there is a nourishing soul, a driving soul, or a sensitive soul.

Likewise, according to Aristotle, the difference between human beings and other living beings is the active intellect , which reflects on the activity of knowledge before the data it produces, is immortal and is what defines us as rational beings.

The works we have inherited from Aristotle speak about Logic, Physics, Ethics and Politics, Rhetoric, Poetics and Metaphysics. The first of them is Categories, and among the last ones are Rhetorical Art and Poetics.

Bibliographic references:

  • Brun, J. (2002). The Presocratics. Cruz Publications: Mexico.
  • Unboxing Philosophy. (2015). Origins of Philosophy [Video] Retrieved May 23. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flOJubw6SG0.
  • Xirau, R. (2000). Introduction to philosophy. UNAM: Mexico.