Example Of Pre-Socratic Thinkers Essay

Thales was one of the Greek philosophers predeceasing Socrates. He also served as one of the Seven Sages in Greece at the time. He was the first philosopher of Greek tradition. Thales is also the father of science.
The most renowned place in philosophy held by Thales was his thesis on cosmology. This cosmology descends via a path from Metaphysics by Aristotle. In his work, Aristotle clearly conveys Thales’ nature of matter hypothesis. The hypothesis states that a substance of a single material (water) is nature’s inaugurating principle. Aristotle went on to give further speculations whose basis was his own annotations. His aimed at proffering some credibility to the reason as to why Thales made some advancement to the idea despite his (Aristotle’s) lack of faith in them. The latter considered the former’s place to be approximately equal to Anaximenes’ later theories. The theories maintained that everything contained air.
Pythagoras was another pre-Socratic Greek philosopher of Ionian origins. He was also founded Pythagoreanism; a religious movement. Pythagoras contributed immensely to philosophy as much as he did to religious education late in the sixth century. He is commonly celebrated as a great mystic, mathematician and not forgetting scientist. His most famous innovation, however, was the Pythagorean Theorem.
Pythagoreans are famous for their theory of transmigration of souls. They also developed the hypothesis that numbers make up the real nature of things. They performed rites of purification and followed a variety of rules of living. They believed that the rules would enable their souls gain a higher status among the gods. A lot of their mystic beliefs about the soul are not any different from the Orphic tradition. Orphics had certain rites of purification as well as practices whose descent was the underworld. Pythagoreans also have close links to Pherecydes of Syros; the first Greek to teach about soul transmigration. Pherecydes gave explanations about the soul in terms of a pentemychos. These are five-nooks or five hidden cavities. It was probably the origin of the use of the pentagram by the Pythagoreans as a precognition symbol among them and as a symbol of inner health (Eugenia Eudemonia).
Thales’ hypothesis of water as a first principle is an impractical speculation. His views are also not original. Most of them are probably borrowed from his encounters with the various communities with whom he traded. He gathered the abundant knowledge he acquired and brought it back with him to Greece. Thales’ theory does not also hold because water is destructive to fire.
As for Pythagoras’ theory of the transmigration of souls, it lacks explicit proof. The only existent evidence is the Xenophanes’ jest. The theory also borrows its ideas from Milesian science whose facts do not hold.
Pythagoras cosmology of transmigration of souls otherwise referred to as Metempsychosis is a crucial doctrine of numeral religions in India today. In Hinduism, an individual soul gains new existence after one dies. The sum of moral conduct in the past (karma) is the determinant of the soul’s condition as well as the state in which one will be reborn. Therefore, Pythagoras’ cosmological intuition still holds today in a few religions. Christians believe that there is life after death.
Thales’ perspective of the origin of the earth also holds today. In fact, Thales’ intuition is a significant contribution to vital astronomical and mathematical theorems. It is, therefore, no crime to think with the philosopher.