Pre-Socratic Philosophy: What Are Some

Pre-Socratic Philosophy: What are some of the main themes of the Pre-Socratics?

What are we made of? Who are we?

The Pre-Socratic philosophers of ancient Greece were not a formal philosophical school, but a loose group of schools, many of whom disagreed with one another or were preoccupied with different philosophical questions. Some, like the Pythagoreans strove to understand the organization of the universe, others like the Sophists, strove to answer the question of how to live a better moral and civic life. The term "Pre-Socratic" is usually used to refer a general group of philosophers who lived before the time of Socrates. Some influenced his teachings -- or crossed rhetoric swords with the great philosopher and others viewed the world through a scientific or mathematical rather than a moral paradigm.

Some of the concerns of the Pre-Socratic seem fairly tangential to Socrates' interest in living a good or moral life. What we think of modern scientific questions, such as the composition of natural life, was the preoccupation of many Pre-Socratics, such as Thales, who theorized that all of matter was composed of water. Pythagoras and Zeno attempted to understand the world from a mathematical perspective. Pythagoras' belief in a harmonious world and essential symmetry to the cosmos sprung forth from his mathematical philosophy.

One of the most enduring legacies of the Pre-Socratic concern with the source of all sentient life is atomism, advocated by Democritus. The definition of atoms as things "that cannot be cut up or actively divided up and split," seems more like a precursor to modern physics rather than philosophy (80) Sophists such as Critas asked questions, not about the natural world, but the moral and political life of citizens and acted as "independent, often itinerants teachers of wisdom," and above all conveyers of "political skills" that were of vital importance in a free-for-all democracy like ancient Athens, where the ability to "speak well" and persuasively was a vital survival skill (6;96). The Sophists were rivals to Socrates because they claimed that morality was based in convention, and did not exist outside of social institutions like language.