Pre-socratics The earliest Greek philosophers, known as the pre-Socratics, called the pre-Socratics the transition from mythos to logos provided competing answers to the question found in the myths of their neighbors: "How did the ordered cosmos in which we live come to be?"F.M. Cornford, Principium Sapientiae: The Origins of Greek Philosophical Thought, (Gloucester, Massachusetts, Peter Smith, 1971), p. 159. The pre-Socratic philosopher Thales (640–546 BCE) of Miletus, identified by later authors such as Aristotle as the first of the Ionian philosophers, postulated non-supernatural explanations for natural phenomena. For example, that land floats on water and that earthquakes are caused by the agitation of the water upon which the land floats, rather than the god Poseidon.Arieti, James A. Philosophy in the ancient world: an introduction , p. 45. Rowman & Littlefield, 2005. 386 pp. . Thales' student Pythagoras of Samos founded the Pythagorean school, which investigated mathematics for its own sake, and was the first to postulate that the Earth is spherical in shape. Leucippus (5th century BCE) introduced atomism, the theory that all matter is made of indivisible, imperishable units called atoms. This was greatly expanded on by his pupil Democritus and later Epicurus.
Pre-socratics The earliest Greek philosophers, known as the pre-Socratics, called the pre-Socratics the transition from mythos to logos provided competing answers to the question found in the myths of their neighbors: "How did the ordered cosmos in which we live come to be?"F.M. Cornford, Principium Sapientiae: The Origins of Greek, Philosophical Thought, (Gloucester, Massachusetts, Peter Smith 1971), p. 159. The pre-Socratic philosopher Thales (640–546 BCE) of Miletus, identified by later authors such as Aristotle as the first of the Ionian philosophers, postulated non-supernatural explanations for natural phenomena. For example, that land floats on water and that earthquakes are caused by the agitation of the water upon which the land floats, rather than the god Poseidon.Arieti, James A. Philosophy in the ancient world: an introduction , p. 45. Rowman & Littlefield, 2005. 386 pp. . Thales' student Pythagoras of Samos founded the Pythagorean school, which investigated mathematics for its own sake, and was the first to postulate that the Earth is spherical in shape. Leucippus (5th century BCE) introduced atomism, the theory that all matter is made of indivisible, .imperishable units called atoms This was greatly expanded on by his pupil Democritus and later Epicurus.