Philosophy was born in Miletus, around the 6th century BC, because the city met at the same time three rare conditions: free time generated by a rich port, the absence of a priestly caste that owned the truth about the cosmos, and the friction between incompatible myths brought by different cultures.
Where Miletus was, and why it matters
Miletus was in Ionia, on the coast of present-day Turkey, facing the sea, at the crossroads of three worlds: Egypt, with its ancient geometry, Babylon, with centuries of astronomical records, and Greece itself. Goods passed through there, and with the merchandise, information passed too. None of the following three conditions arises alone: they depend exactly on this crossroads position.
The first condition: time
The wealth of the port generated scholé (idleness, free time), and without free time, no one stops to think about the world, they just survive in it. A fisherman without a surplus doesn't have time to ask about the ultimate origin of things, he needs his next meal. The commercial prosperity of Miletus freed a group of men from the urgency of survival, and it was this free time that made it possible to ask the idle question, in a good way: "after all, what is all this made of?".
The second condition: freedom
Unlike Egypt and Babylon, the Greeks did not have a caste of priests who officially explained the cosmos. In Egypt, cosmology belonged to the clergy of the temples. In Ionian Greece, no one was the official guardian of the truth about the world, so it remained open, debatable by any citizen capable of arguing well. This absence of established authority is the second piece, and perhaps the most decisive: without the owner of the right answer, the answer became an object of debate.
The third condition: friction
And the third is friction. In that port, Egyptians, Babylonians and Greeks told different myths about the same phenomena, the origin of the world, the cause of storms, the nature of the stars. When you have before you many incompatible stories explaining the same fact, it raises a new question that no single culture needs to ask: "but after all, which of these stories is the true one?" It was from this question, born from the clash between myths, that came the demand for an explanation that did not depend on any particular tradition, only on reason that anyone could examine.
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Why was philosophy born in Miletus, and not elsewhere?
Because Miletus met three rare conditions at the same time: free time (scholé) generated by the wealth of the port, the absence of a priestly caste that officially owned explanations about the world, and the friction between incompatible myths coming from different cultures that intersected there.
What is scholé and why does it matter for philosophy?
Scholé is the Greek word for idleness, the free hours of survival. Without free time, no one stops to think about the world, they just survive in it. The wealth of the port of Miletus generated this free time.
Why was the absence of priests decisive?
Because, unlike Egypt and Babylon, the Greeks did not have an official priestly caste guarding the correct explanation of the cosmos. Without the owner of the truth, it remained open, debatable by anyone with a good argument.
Continue: Who were the pre-Socratics · Who was Thales of Miletus? · What is Arché? · Truth as coherence
Source class (NousCast Community): Quem foram os Pré-Socráticos? O momento em que o mundo deixou de ser explicado por deuses