Brief History of Philosophical Thought Archives

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What is Philosophy?

Philosophy comes from the Greek word phílosophía, meaning ‘the love of wisdom’, and is the knowledge of ‘thinking about thinking’.

Philosophy began by questioning the mythological world view of how humanity was created.

The earliest Greek philosophers are called the Natural Philosophers because they were concerned with the natural world and its processes.

Miletus, a Greek colony in Asia Minor on the coast of modern-day Turkey, was the birthplace of three Natural Philosophers.

Parmenides (c. 540 – 480 BC), from a Greek colony in southern Italy, believed that everything had always existed.

Heraclitus (c. 540 – 480 BC), was from Ephesus in Asia Minor and believed nature was in constant change.

Instead of there being one single substance for creation, what if there were four substances, earth water, air and fire.