The formation of the philosophy of ancient Greece took place in the sixth-fifth centuries BC. It was during this period that “wise men” appeared who were trying to rationally explain what the ancient myths told about. It is believed that the development of this process is due to the fact that the commercial and industrial part of the population, which began to struggle for power with the landowning aristocracy and switch to a democratic form of government, developed its own worldview. The so-called Miletus school of philosophy stood at the origins of this "naive-spontaneous" thinking.
Traditionally, the founder of this trend is Thales. He lived at the end of the seventh – first half of the sixth century BC. Thales believed that all things have a single beginning. He called them water. And this is not just a liquid or a substance. On the one hand, water for the philosopher is the environment on which our world, that is, the Earth, “holds”. On the other, it is rational, "God". The whole world from the point of view of the founder of the direction, which later became known as the Miletus School of Philosophy, is filled with souls. The latter are almost equal to deities and inhabit the bodies in order to become the source of their intellectual development. Water at Thales also plays a huge role in epistemology. Since everything can be reduced to a single beginning, it is also the basis of all knowledge. A wise search and the right choice contributes to this.
What else were the representatives of the Miletus school of philosophy? We know Anaximander, who studied with Thales. The name of his work is known, which bears the name "On Nature". That is why the thinkers of ancient Greece, following in his footsteps, began to be defined as natural philosophers. Anaximander was the first to conclude that all concrete things cannot be based on any particular substance, but something all-encompassing, infinite, ever-moving. He called this category “apeiron.” The Milesian school of philosophy in the person of Anaximander even put forward the idea that man could appear on earth as a result of evolution. True, he argues about this very naively. The philosopher believed that the first man was born in the womb of a huge fish, where he grew up. And then he went outside and began to exist independently, continuing his family.
The Milesian school of philosophy was most interested in the origin and basis of being and life, that is, ontology. The disciple of the creator of the “apeiron” Anaximenes again returned to concretizing the single principle of everything. He thought it was air. After all, he is the most indefinite and faceless of all four elements known to us. To some extent, this thinker followed his teacher, because he defined air as “apeiros” - infinite. And already its properties is what Anaximander saw, that is, eternity, constant movement and all-pervasive action. Thus, apeiron is an air quality, not a separate substance. Echoing Thales, Anaximenes saw in his initial source not only matter, but also souls. The latter have even more “air” qualities - they are not as mundane as bodies, and therefore can create and create new and great.
So this is the whole Miletus school of philosophy. Its main provisions were briefly outlined. However, the history of the school does not end at all three of its representatives. Its main, fundamental provisions were developed by a philosopher from another city in Asia Minor, Ephesus. This is the famous Heraclitus. He summarized all the ideas of the Milesians about the beginning and introduced the term that we still use in scientific discourse. This is the "logo". It represents the deepest foundation of being and the goal of all knowledge. At the same time, Heraclitus believes that although all people are reasonable, not everyone is given a higher understanding of the “logos”. This principle supports everything in being, but its material embodiment is fire. It flares up, then fades away, and therefore everything in the world is transient. It never repeats itself, but is ever changing. Everything consists of contradictions that not only fight, but also support each other. The human soul also comes from a special fire, and its logo is unique - it is capable of self-development. The Logos is also the source of the laws that people create, because it seeks to maintain order everywhere.
