This page is dedicated to my favourite philosophers, providing a breif introduction into their world of being! I am an undergraduate B.A. Honours student at the University of Warwick, reading Politics and Philosophy. I'm using this place to link to my favourite sites, and my notes are an excuse to call messing about on the internet, revision!

I do hope that you can take the time to have a look, and perhaps sign my guestbook! If you would like to take part in my Philosophy Forum scrole down a little further and click on the pen!!

Pre-Socratics Intro

My Interpretation of 'The Way of Truth'.

Mike Cleary's Interpretation of 'The Way of Truth'.

My Introduction to Plato's The Pheadrus.

Aristotle's Ethics outside link to text; Ed. By W.D. Ross

The works of PlatoWorldwide Virtual Study

Hegel outside link to online course.

Visit this site for a huge sellection of philosophy books, their really CHEAP!

The Pre-Socratics!

The Pre-Socratics represent some of the first recorded philosophers in Ancient Greece, part of a tradition dating back to around 529 AD. As the title suggests these are the philosphers who came before Socrates who was born in 470 BC and died in 399 BC. Allthough Anthens was to become the center of Greek philosophy the Pre-Socratics were not part of this state, they came from tiny independent city states around the Aegean, part of the then territory of Ancient Greece.

The Pre-Socratics very much remind me of children, bemused by a vast and mysterious world they have an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, they want to know who they are and how they fit into the bigger picture which is the cosmos. Like children both the questions they ask and the answers they produce are products of their existing structure of knowledge, their history and cultural orientations. This is a time of mythe legend and absolute belief in the Gods as masters of all!

Anaximander of Miletus lived between 547/546 BC, son of Praxiades and was a pupil of Thales. He was the first to give a natural explanation for the cosmos, stating as the first principle of existence, was the infinite. Infinite, in that nature organises its self within an eternal and circular notion of time. He asserted that generation and destruction were produced from the seperating off of opposites. These opposites being elements within the four basic elements of life, earth, water, air and fire. (Thales had said that water alone was the basic element of life) The opposites contained within the elements:-

Earth = cold/dry, Water = cold/wet, Air = hot/wet, Fire = hot/dry.

To be continued...

This page hosted by Get your own Free Home Page