Milesian school
First Greek naturalists
The Milesian school was a group of pre-Socratic philosophers from the Greek city of Miletus in the 6th century BCE—Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes.
They sought natural rather than mythological explanations for the world, asking what fundamental substance underlies all things.
This marks them as among the earliest Western philosophers and proto-scientists.
- ThalesFirst Western philosopher
- IoniaAncient Aegean coastal region
- monismSingle-substance metaphysics
- cosmosOrderly totality of existence
- naturalismWorldview excluding the supernatural
Aristotelian physics · rationalism · air · scientific method · materialism · boundless · water · principle · inquiry · first · ancient · origin · elements · substance · Aristotle · logos · philosophy · seafaring
- PresocraticsThales, Heraclitus, nous, logos, monism
- MiletusThales, Isidore, Temple of Apollo, Ionian Revolt, agora
- ancient wisdomVedas, proverb, Upanishads, maxim, Epicureanism
- Pythagorastheorem, geometry, triangles, math, numbers