Pre-Socratic Philosophers

The Dawn of Reason: Pre-Socratic Philosophers (c. 6th-5th Century BCE) 

A. From Mythos to Logos: The Shift in Thinking 

B. The Milesian School: Seeking the Arche (First Principle) (the materialists)

1. Thales (Water) 

2. Anaximander (The Apeiron/Boundless) 

3. Anaximenes (Air) 

C. The Problem of Change and Permanence 

1. Heraclitus (Flux and Fire) 

2. Parmenides (Being and Unchanging Reality) 

3. Zeno of Elea (Paradoxes of Motion) 

4. Pythagoras (Number and Harmony)

D. Pluralists and Atomists 

1. Empedocles (Four Elements and Two Forces) 

2. Anaxagoras (Mind/Nous) 

3. Leucippus and Democritus (Atoms and the Void) 

E. The Sophists: Relativism and Rhetoric 

1. Protagoras ("Man is the measure of all things") 

2. Gorgias (Skepticism and Persuasion) 

3. The shift from cosmology to human concerns