1. Pre-Socratics Many scholars would say that Philosophy as we know it, started in the 5 th century BCE and in…… GREECE

2. Thales He is the first man claimed to be wise. He predicted the solar eclipse in 585 BCE Was not interested in myth but KNOWLEDGE Thought that, maybe in the beginning everything was made of water WOW!

3. Anaximander Believed the world was freely suspended in space All creatures arose from water Men evolved from fish There is a single primal substance There is a natural law which exerts itself in the world, maintaining a balance between different elements

4. Pythagoras (Genius, but with a few “screws loose”) A very famous Mathematician…..numbers to him, were the answer to everything He discovered if you half the length of a string on a lyre you produce a note one octave higher. All harmonies represent ratios of whole numbers First to be systematic about deductive reasoning. The soul is an immortal thing that is transformed into other living things. Whatever comes into existence is born again. Must abstain from beans Don’t eat from a whole loaf

5. Pythagoras most famous for….

6. Heraclitus Argued everything was in a state of flux There is a cosmic justice that maintains equilibrium in the world The one primary element is FIRE “You cannot step in the same river twice”

7. Parmenides He thought Heraclitus not only had a very unfortunate name, he thought he was totally mistaken. Change is an illusion; the universe is a frozen, unchanging object. Nothingness cannot be real….because we cannot even conceive it. Therefore change can’t exist Get it?

8. Zeno A student of Parmenides. He agreed with his professor stating, “a runner cannot move from one point to another. For to do so, he must first get to a point half-way across, and to do this, he must get half-way to the half-way point….and so on for an infinite number of spaces.” Motion is therefore an illusion. It is eye, Zeno, not Zero….not Zorro, but Zeno. You can’t run from me….you will never get to that “point”!!!

9. Empedocles (nutbar) Next the strange empedocles of agracas Experimenting with a water-clock of brass He wrote in verse, discovered air He thought he was god- so there He argued that there were four elements in all That plants had sex, the earth was like a ball That change took place by love and strife And historic cycles ran through life When called upon to prove his deity He sneered at all the waiting laity Great empedocles, that ardent soul Leapt into etna and was roasted whole Oops, I guess I wasn’t a god…….

10. Leucippus and Democritus They proposed innumerable tiny solid particles… Atoms The ever changing world was explained as a ceaseless rearrangement of the unchanging atoms into different shapes This theory stood the test of time until 1800CE when the chemist Dalton came up with a better theory.

11. Sophists They were more interested in the mechanics of how a man could do things for himself This led them to teaching people how to write, make speeches and be good debaters (they knew how to twist an argument)

12. In the East….. In the Vedas it states….. Brahman is Neti, neti!!!!

13. Therefore in the Upanishads it states…. The only true self is…. I’m……ATMAN!

14. Therefore…. Brahman=Atman And Atman=Brahman