Ancient Greek Philosophy
Much of Western philosophy is traced back and attributed to ancient Greek philosophy. This is not to say that other philosophical developments were not made or were less important. In fact, many other philosophical developments happened in parallel with ancient Greek philosophy, such as those in Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, and China. Ancient Greek philosophy happens to be a source most easily traceable because there are more written records and many specifically Western philosophies have deep roots in ancient Greek philosophy.
Pre-Socratic Period (~600–450 BCE)
First began with Thales, who introduced the idea of understanding the natural world through rationale rather than mythology and lay the path for Natural Philosophy.
Notable pre-socratic philosophers were:
- Thales and the Milesian School
- Pythagoras
- Democritus
Classical Period (~450–323 BCE)
The start of the Classical Period was marked by Socrates, who fundamentally reshaped philosophy to reason about human life and ethics.
Notable classical philosophers were:
Hellenistic Period (~323 BCE–200 CE)
The Hellenistic Period is defined by it’s focus on human ethics and figuring out the principles of proper living, with four main schools of thought emerging:
The start of the Hellenistic Period was marked by the death of Aristotle and was at it’s peak after the fall of Alexander the Great’s empire when his land was divvied up into smaller kingdoms. Because philosophers were discouraged from studying politics, they turned to human ethics instead, pulling great inspiration from the classic Greek philosophers.
The word hellenistic comes from Hellas, the Greek word for Greece. Essentially, the Hellenistic Period was the “Greek-like” period where ancient Greek philosophy was spread to the smaller kingdoms.