The pre-Socratics were the first philosophers in the Western tradition: a group of Greek thinkers who, from the 6th century BC, in the port city of Miletus, exchanged the explanation of the world through myths for a natural explanation, sought by reason.
Who were they, exactly?
The name is modern, a historian's tag for "philosophers before Socrates." The first three, and those who give the face to this article, were Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes, linked together by a rare relationship: master and disciple, disciple and disciple of the disciple, all from the same city, in three generations. Before them, every culture explained the origin of the world through a myth, an inherited narrative about the will of a god. Thunder was the wrath of one god, the sea was the work of another. It wasn't a naive explanation, it was a legitimate and profound way of making sense of things.
What changes with these three men is not the subject, it is the type of response required. They stopped asking "what story explains this?" and began to ask "what natural cause produces this, a cause that I can defend with an argument, without needing the authority of a god?". This change has a name, in Greek: the passage from mŷthos (μῦθος) to lógos (λόγος), the reason that gives an account of itself.
What were they looking for
The Milesian pre-Socratics hunted for something specific, which the Greeks called Arché (ἀρχή): the principle of everything, understood at the same time as the beginning from which things start, the law that sustains them while they exist, and the origin to which they return. Thales bet on water, Anaximander on a formless principle that he called ápeiron, Anaximenes on air. All three answers, we now know, are wrong.
Why they matter, even when they make mistakes
And this is exactly where their value lies: not in the response, but in the gesture. Anaximander disagreed with Thales with one argument. Anaximenes disagreed with Anaximander with another. In a single city, in three generations, a tradition was born in which the student has the right, and the duty, to refute the master, as long as he offers a better reason. Not obedience to an authority, but the submission of everyone, teacher and student, to something higher than both: reason that anyone can examine. It is this habit, not water or air, that founds philosophy and, by extension, science.
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Who were the pre-Socratics?
The first philosophers in Western history, active before Socrates, from the 6th century BC, in the Greek city of Miletus. The first three were Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes, linked by a relationship of master and disciple.
What were the pre-Socratics looking for?
Arché: the principle, the beginning and the origin of all things. They sought a natural and rational explanation for the world, instead of the traditional explanation through myths and the will of the gods.
Why are the pre-Socratics important if they got the answers wrong?
Because what they founded was not a right answer, but a new kind of question: demanding a natural cause, defensible by argument, and open to correction by others. This habit is the root of philosophy and science.
Continue: Why philosophy was born in Miletus · What is Arché? · Why the disciple must refute the master · What is Baroque?
Source class (NousCast Community): Quem foram os Pré-Socráticos? O momento em que o mundo deixou de ser explicado por deuses