Pre-Socratic philosophy
<p><b>Pre-Socratic philosophy</b> is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greek_philosophy" title="Ancient Greek philosophy">ancient Greek philosophy</a> before <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socrates" title="Socrates">Socrates</a> (and includes schools contemporary to Socrates that were not influenced by him<sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Socratic_philosophy#cite_note-1">[1]</a></sup>). In <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_antiquity" title="Classical antiquity">Classical antiquity</a>, the Presocratic philosophers were called <b>physiologoi</b> (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_language" title="Greek language">Greek</a>: φυσιόλογοι; in English, physical or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_philosopher" class="mw-redirect" title="Natural philosopher">natural philosophers</a>).<sup id="cite_ref-2" class="reference"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Socratic_philosophy#cite_note-2">[2]</a></sup></p>
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle" title="Aristotle">Aristotle</a> called them <i>physikoi</i> ("physicists", after <i>physis</i>, "nature") because they sought natural explanations for phenomena, as opposed to the earlier <i>theologoi</i> (theologians), whose philosophical basis was supernatural.<sup id="cite_ref-3" class="reference"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Socratic_philosophy#cite_note-3">[3]</a></sup></p>
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Diogenes Laërtius divides the <i>physiologoi</i> into two groups, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ionians" title="Ionians">Ionian</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italiotes" title="Italiotes">Italiote</a>, led by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaximander" title="Anaximander">Anaximander</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagoras" title="Pythagoras">Pythagoras</a>, respectively.<sup id="cite_ref-4" class="reference"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Socratic_philosophy#cite_note-4">[4]</a></sup></p>
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Diels" class="mw-redirect" title="Hermann Diels">Hermann Diels</a> popularized the term <i>pre-socratic</i> in <i>Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker</i> (<i>The Fragments of the Pre-Socratics</i>) in 1903. However, the term <i>pre-Sokratic</i> was in use as early as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Grote" title="George Grote">George Grote</a>'s <i>Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates</i> in 1865. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edouard_Zeller" class="mw-redirect" title="Edouard Zeller">Edouard Zeller</a> was also important in dividing thought before and after Socrates.<sup id="cite_ref-5" class="reference"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Socratic_philosophy#cite_note-5">[5]</a></sup> Major analyses of pre-Socratic thought have been made by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Vlastos" title="Gregory Vlastos">Gregory Vlastos</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Barnes" title="Jonathan Barnes">Jonathan Barnes</a>, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche" title="Friedrich Nietzsche">Friedrich Nietzsche</a> in his <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_in_the_Tragic_Age_of_the_Greeks" title="Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks">Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks</a></i>.</p>
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It may sometimes be difficult to determine the actual line of argument some Presocratics used in supporting their particular views. While most of them produced significant texts, none of the texts has survived in complete form. All that is available are quotations by later philosophers (often biased) and historians, and the occasional textual fragment.</p>
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The Presocratic philosophers rejected traditional mythological explanations of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenomenon" title="Phenomenon">phenomena</a> they saw around them in favor of more rational explanations. These philosophers asked questions about "the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essence" title="Essence">essence</a> of things":<sup id="cite_ref-6" class="reference"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Socratic_philosophy#cite_note-6">[6]</a></sup></p>
<ul>
<li>From where does everything come?</li>
<li>From what is everything created?</li>
<li>How do we explain the plurality of things found in nature?</li>
<li>How might we describe nature mathematically?</li>
</ul>
<p>Others concentrated on defining problems and paradoxes that became the basis for later mathematical, scientific and philosophic study.
Later philosophers rejected many of the answers the early Greek philosophers provided, but continued to place importance on their questions. Furthermore, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmology" title="Cosmology">cosmologies</a> proposed by them have been updated by later developments in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science" title="Science">science</a>.</p>