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Volume I · Ancient Greece · 624–262 BCE

Thinkers

Thales

c. 624 BCE – c. 546 BCE

The first philosopher. He looked at the world and asked what it was made of.

Anaximander

c. 610 BCE – c. 546 BCE

Thales asked what the world is made of. Anaximander answered: nothing you can name. The origin is the boundless.

Anaximenes

c. 586 BCE – c. 526 BCE

Everything is air, thickening and thinning. The first attempt to explain change by a single measurable process.

Pythagoras

c. 570 BCE – c. 495 BCE

Number is the language of the cosmos. He built a life around that belief.

Heraclitus

c. 535 BCE – c. 475 BCE

Everything flows. The world is fire, and stillness is a lie we tell ourselves.

Parmenides

c. 515 BCE – c. 450 BCE

What is, is. What is not, cannot be thought. Change is an illusion.

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“Water is the first principle of all things.”

— Thales

Eras

Pre-Socratics

624–450 BCE

Thales Pythagoras Heraclitus Parmenides Democritus Empedocles Anaxagoras Zeno of Elea Anaximander Anaximenes

Classical

470–322 BCE

Protagoras Socrates Plato Aristotle Diogenes Gorgias Theophrastus

Hellenistic

341–262 BCE

Epicurus Zeno of Citium Pyrrho

The Philosophical World

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