Ionian Philosophers

• Cradle of Western thought.  Greek religion was relatively weak and without a priestly class hence it was able to pursue lines of thought without interference from those that might want to protect tradition or dogma.

•  Two sides of Greek culture:
       Apollonian:  moderation, art, poetry, etc.
       Dionysian: unbridled self-assertion, frenzy

• Introduce the idea of the "coincidence of opposites."

•  Impressed with world of change: seasons, movement of sun, moon, planets, stars, birth, growth and death, etc.

•  In spite of change and transition the philosophers supposed that there must be something permanent.  Why?  Because change is from something to something else.  Hence, there must be something that is primary, which persists and takes on various forms.

•  Ionian philosophy was mainly an attempt to decide what this primitive something of all things was.  [Urstoff:  primitive element or principle (German)]

•  Ionians differed as to the nature of the Urstoff, but it was always material:  Thales thought it was water,  Anaximenes claimed it was air, whereas Heraclitus believed it to be fire.

•  The fact that Ionians were de facto materialists did not make them scientists in the modern sense.  They relied more on “thought” then “sense” and did no experimentation.

•  Ionians were developing the notion of unity in difference and of difference as entering into unity.

•  Ionian philosophers were convinced that the universe was governed by laws.