Ionian School (philosophy)

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This article is about the ancient Greek school of thought. For other uses, see Ionian School (disambiguation).

The Ionian school, a type of Greek philosophy centred in Miletus, Ionia in the 6th and 5th centuries BCE, is something of a misnomer. Although Ionia was a centre of Western philosophy, the scholars it produced, including Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, Archelaus, and Diogenes of Apollonia,[1] had such diverse viewpoints that it cannot be said to be a specific school of philosophy. Aristotle called them physiologoi, meaning 'those who discoursed on nature', but he did not group them together as an "Ionian school". The classification can be traced to the second-century historian of philosophy Sotion. They are sometimes referred to as cosmologists, since they were largely physicalists who tried to explain the nature of matter.


Most cosmologists thought that, although matter could change from one form to another, all matter had something in common which did not change. They did not agree what it was that all things had in common, and did not experiment to find out, but used abstract reasoning rather than religion or mythology to explain themselves, thus becoming the first philosophers in the Western tradition.



Main article: Thales

Thales (Greek: Θαλῆς, Thalēs) of Miletus (ca. 624 BCE - 546 BCE) is regarded as the earliest western philosopher. Before Thales, the Greeks explained the origin and nature of the world through myths of anthropomorphic gods and heroes. Phenomena like lightning or earthquakes were attributed to actions of the gods. By contrast, Thales attempted to find naturalistic explanations of the world, without reference to the supernatural. He explained earthquakes by imagining that the Earth floats on water, and that earthquakes occur when the Earth is rocked by waves. Thales' most famous belief was his cosmological doctrine, which held that the world originated from water.


Main article: Anaximander



Main article: Heraclitus



Main article: Empedocles

Empedocles (Greek: Ἐμπεδοκλῆς, Empedoklēs) (ca. 490 BCE – ca. 430 BCE) was a citizen of Agrigentum, a Greek colony in Sicily. Empedocles' philosophy is best known for being the origin of the cosmogenic theory of the four classical elements. He maintained that all matter is made up of four elements: water, earth, air and fire. Empedocles postulated forces called Love (philia) and Strife (neikos) to explain the attraction and separation of different forms of matter. He was also one of the first people to state the theory that light travels at a finite (although very large) speed.


Main article: Anaxagoras

Anaxagoras (Greek: Ἀναξαγόρας) of Clazomenae (ca. 500-428 BCE) regarded material substance as an infinite multitude of imperishable primary elements, referring all generation and disappearance to mixture and separation respectively. All substance is ordered by an ordering force, the cosmic mind (nous).




Main article: Hippo (philosopher)

Hippo (Greek: Ἵππων, Hippōn) (ca. 425 BCE) was native of Magna Graecia (Italy). Very little is known about him. He held that water was the principle of all things, with fire springing from water, and then developing itself by generating the universe. Primarily interested in biological matters, he was said to have been an atheist.

Diogenes of Apollonia[edit]

Main article: Diogenes of Apollonia




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