1. What is philosophy?
philos = loving
sophia = wisdom
Pythagoras of Samos (d. c. 500 BC)

2. Philosophy…
…seeks to organise reality into one
unified worldview
…seeks to step away from religion,
basing worldview on reason rather
than divine influence
…seeks to have application to daily life

3. Why study philosophy?
Enjoyment and edification
Distinguishing self from animals,
maturing as human being
Because we do it anyway!
“The unexamined life is not worth
living.” (Socrates)

4. Milesian school (Cosmogonists, from Miletus in Asia Minor)
Thales (d. c. 547 BC)
(all is water)
Anaximander (d. 546 BC)
(the Boundless)
Anaximenes (d. 528 BC)
(all is air)

5. Pythagoras of Samos (d. c. 500 BC)
Founded scholarly community in
S. Italy
Philosophy as guide to life

6. Pythagorean discoveries and philosophy
Work with number sequences
Irrational numbers e.g. √2
Pythagoras’ theorem
Reality is numbers

7. Pythagorean discoveries and philosophy
Transmigration of the soul
Need for self-discipline and
purification
Use of music and medicine
Pythagoreans mostly wiped out by
rebellion

8. Heraclitus of Ephesus (d. 475 BC)
“Most men are bad.”
Everything changes
Everything made from fire
Role of changing elements

9. Parmenides of Elea
Visible changes are illusions
Everything that exists is a being. Otherwise it is
a non-being
Impossibility of change
Each being is what everything else is
Reality is one single, solitary, unchanging being
Differences are only appearances

10. Zeno of Elea (d. c. 425 BC)
Zeno’s Paradoxes:
Achilles and the Tortoise
The Flying Arrow

11. Sophists
“Man is the measure of all things.”
(Protagoras of Abdera, d. c. 410 BC)
No objective truth or other values. Roles
of convention and personal
preference

12. Atomism
Developed by Leucippus of Miletus
(5th c. BC)
Existence of non-being
Reducing matter to atoms
Democritus of Abdera (d. c. 370 BC)
Protagoras Archelaus (5th c. BC)