Pre-Socratic Philosophers: Monists and Pluralists
Pre-Socratic Philosophers
Monists
Thales of Miletus
Thales, the founder of this philosophy, proposed water as the fundamental principle (arche). He believed the Earth rested on water and that inanimate objects possessed souls, based on observations of magnets and amber. He also posited that water was the principle of all elements and that the cosmos was animated and full of divine power.
Anaximander of Miletus
Anaximander, a companion of Thales, argued for a single, moving, and infinite principle called apeiron (the indefinite or infinite). He believed this was the source of all creation and destruction, not water or any other known element. He described a cyclical process of generation and destruction, where things “mutually pay compensation for their injustice, according to the disposition of time.”
Anaximenes of Miletus
A student of Anaximander, Anaximenes also believed in a single, infinite principle, but identified it as air. He suggested that air, through processes of rarefaction and condensation, transformed into different substances: fire through rarefaction, and wind, cloud, water, earth, and stone through condensation.
Pluralists
Empedocles
Empedocles asserted four root elements: water, air, fire, and earth. He explained the diversity of the world through the interplay of two opposing forces, Love and Hate, acting upon these elements. Love unites the elements, while Hate separates them, in an eternal cosmic cycle.
Anaxagoras
Anaxagoras, like Parmenides, believed in the absence of true generation and corruption. However, like Empedocles, he acknowledged change and motion. To reconcile these views, he proposed an infinite number of primitive elements, called homeomerias, which possessed the same characteristics as the elements of Empedocles and Parmenides. These elements were eternal and unchanging. Initially mixed in a chaotic state, they were separated and ordered by an external force called Nous (mind), which initiated the process of cosmos formation.
Democritus
Democritus distinguished two principles: the Full and the Empty. The Full consisted of tiny, invisible particles called atoms (a-tomos), which possessed the properties of Parmenides’ Being. They were qualitatively identical but differed in weight and shape. The Empty, equivalent to Parmenides’ Non-Being, explained motion. Atoms moved randomly through the void, colliding and combining to form the world. Democritus introduced the concept of chance, suggesting that there was no inherent purpose or external force guiding the process, unlike the Love and Hate of Empedocles or the Nous of Anaxagoras. His view was a mechanistic one, where everything happened by chance but still followed causal laws.