The Ancient Age philosophers Principals such as Plato, Aristotle, Socrates or Pythagoras centered the bases of the philosophical thought of today.
Cynicism and stoicism are the main currents and philosophical concepts that marked this era and influenced the world with knowledge that still endure.
The Old age In humanity was the beginning of life in cities and with it the political, social and religious order. The philosophers tried to analyze the Universe and discover principles that would order the main social issues like freedom, love, science, among other topics.
There was a historical moment where humanity went from living scattered or in small groups to forming the first civilizations, with the emergence of cities and an urban way of life.
That historical moment, which forever changed the social configuration of the planet, is known as the Ancient Age, which begins in 4,000 BC and culminates with the emergence of the Roman Empire in 476.
There are two central changes that characterize this historical stage: the emergence of writing and sedentarism, thanks to the technological development of agriculture.
The Old Age was the beginning of urban life and with it the emergence of political power, the conformation of states, social development and organized religions.
Considered as a desire for knowledge, ancient philosophy based its analysis on the origin of the Universe (Cosmogony), the computer principles and problems of the Cosmos (Cosmology) and the origin of nature (Physics), but also in love, freedom , Mathematics, geometry, astronomy and theology.
You may also be interested in Most important philosophers of the Renaissance .
The most important philosophers of the Ancient Age
Tales of Miletus (625 BC - 547 BC, Greece)
Thales could be considered the initiator of the School of Miletus, one of the earliest philosophical currents of the Ancient Age.
Mathematician, geometer, physicist and legislator, as well as philosopher, his main contributions were the development of scientific speculation, deductive thinking and Greek philosophy.
Two geometrical theorems of teaching in every school in the world bear its name. But fundamentally Tales is the first Western philosopher who is recorded in his attempt to rationally explain some planetary phenomena.
Anaximander of Miletus (610 BC - 547 BC, Greece)
Together with his mentor Tales, he was one of the initiators of the School of Miletus. He was also a philosopher and geographer, a discipline with which he obtained great recognition by being the first to say that the Earth was cylindrical and configured one of the first maps.
His main ideas are associated with the principle of all things and the unlimited. In addition, he was one of the first philosophers to talk about the evolution of species, considering that water was the origin of everything.
Anaximenes of Miletus (590 BC - 524 BC, Greece)
Disciple of Thales and companion of Anaximander, is the third link of the School of Mileto. His contribution focuses on the conception of air as a central element of the origin of everything, based on a quantitative method of observation on human respiration.
Parmenides of Elea (530 BC - 470 BC, Italy)
"Nothing in the world can contradict what is necessary from the point of view of thought", it could say one of the premises of his only poem in which he analyzes the being and the being. With these concepts began the school eleatica.
Zeno of Elea (495 a.C. - 430 BC, Italy)
Disciple and continuer of the thought of Parmenides, his thought changed after an encounter with Socrates. He died wanting to liberate his homeland from Nearco.
Its main contributions were the paradoxical thinking, and the concepts on mobility (with the example to Achilles and the turtle) and the plurality.
Meliso de Samos (471 BC - 431 BC, Greece)
Defender of the thesis of the unity of the existing, was the author of the precept that in order to become something must have an origin, so he considers that there was no vacuum, precisely because it does not become.
Moreover, he was one of the initiators of the theory that the senses can only give opinions, which does not allow us to understand the truth of things.
Empedocles of Agrigento (495 BC - 435 BC, Greece)
The notion of the four elements (water, air, earth and fire) is the evolution of Empedocles' ideas about the four roots, united by love and separated by hatred.
These roots constitute man and are subject to two forces: truth and corruption. For his originality and the preservation of his writings, Empedocles was one of the most discussed philosophers on the Old Age.
Aristotle (384 BC, 322 BC, Greece)
Disciple of Plato, he was one of the three great masters of Western philosophy and owes his recognition to his methodological rigor and to a vast field of analysis and influences.
It could be said that he is the configurator of European theological thought, which served as organizer of society. Empirist, metaphysician and critic, he is the initiator of logic, for his theories on syllogisms, and ethics.
Plato (427 BC, 347 BC, Greece)
Another great teacher, is the link between Socrates (his teacher) and Aristotle (his disciple), is the Founder of the Academy , The great philosophical institution of antiquity. Plato is one of the most important figures of modern philosophical thought.
Unlike his contemporaries, he did not write in the form of a poem, but he did so in the form of dialogue. His work is 22 works, which are preserved until today.
His philosophy could be divided into two analyzes: knowledge, with his studies on the nature of knowledge; And morality, to which he attributed a fundamental role in human life and happiness.
Socrates (470 BC, 399 BC, Greece)
Will he be the great master of universal philosophy? The answer is a discussion that will last forever, in fact philosophical thinking is divided into both prescritical and postsocrtical.
He is one of the great masters and is the one who initiated a whole way of thinking that continued Plato and Aristotle in the Old Age.
He was condemned to death for despising the gods and died poisoned with hemlock. He left no written work so his knowledge is clear from the story of his followers.
The inductive argument, thinking about morality and the general definition, are its great contributions. his Main method was dialogue With any human being in public places.
Pythagoras (569 BC - 475 BC, Greece)
Considered the first mathematician of history, he founded an entire school of thought (of religious orientation) that bears his name and has influenced philosophers to this day.
His concepts were central to the development of mathematics, rational philosophy and music, where his ideas about harmonization still remain in force.
But it also influenced the cosmovision and astronomy. It will always be remembered by the Pythagorean Theorem, which reads:"In every right triangle the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the legs."
Hípaso of Metaponto (500 a.C - without data, Greece)
One of the Pythagorean philosophers, the story of Hípaso is a tragedy. He was thrown off the ship in which he crossed the Mediterranean with his companions to contradict the theory of natural numbers.
His demonstration that the diagonal of a side square was an irrational number, was also his death sentence.
Euclid of Megara (435 BC, 365 BC, Greece)
He was also a disciple of Socrates and the Eleastic, he was the founder of the School megárica, centered in the idea of God like supreme being.
His main contributions were on the dialectic, the way of reigning and the deceitful arguments.
Protagoras of Abdera (485 BC - 411 BC, Greece)
A traveler and expert in rhetoric, Protagoras is one of the sophists, a doctrine based on the teaching of wisdom.
This philosopher is considered the first to receive gifts for imparting knowledge. Its central premise was:"Man is the measure of all things."
Leucipo (no data, Greece)
His figure is the center of innumerable discussions, mainly because of the lack of reliable data about his life which puts his existence in doubt and is named as an invention of Democritus.
But he is still considered the founder of atomism, a theory that holds that reality is made up of infinite, indefinable and varied particles.
Democritus (460 BC - 370 BC, Greece)
Known as"the laughing philosopher,"Democritus was defined with an extravagant character, which is attributed to his study with magicians. He denied the existence of God and believed in the self-creation of matter.
He stood out for his contributions to geometry and astronomy, as well as his collaboration with the birth of atomism.
Aristógenes of Taranto (354 a.C - 300 a.C, Greece)
In addition to being a philosopher and one of the founders of the Peripatetic School, he excelled as a musician, a function in which healing properties were granted.
Faced with Theophrastus, he was a faithful follower of Aristotle's ideas and based his thought on an empirical method. His main contributions were in music theory.
Theophrastus (371 BC - 287 BC, Greek)
His name was Tirtamo but he is known by its nickname, was designated like director of the Lyceum after the death of Aristotle, which was worth the anger of Aristógenes to him.
He was noted for his scientific outreach, his passion for botany and his explanation of character and moral types. It was also part of the Peripatetic School.
Lámpsaco stratum (340 BC - 268 BC, Greece)
A member of the peripatetic school, he succeeded Theophrastus in the Lyceum and was noted for his particular ingenuity, which led him to show that the air was composed of material particles, one of the most important advances of his time.
Eudemus of Rhodes (370 BC - 300 BC, Greece)
He was one of the great pupils of Aristotle and the first scientific historian of history. He was a member of the peripatetic school and his most outstanding contribution to philosophy was the systematization of his teacher's ideas.
Epicurus of Samos (341 BC - 270 BC, Greece)
Great scholar of rational hedonism and atomism, this philosopher was the creator of his own school that influenced a whole generation of later thinkers.
His ideas about the pursuit of pleasure, motivated by prudence, and chance, highlighted him. It left behind an enormous legacy of works, which could be divided into three stages: Gnoseology (distinction of true and false), study of nature through physics, and Ethics.
Polemón (without data - 315 BC, Greece)
Owner of a severe and aggressive character, his great contribution was the influence on a group of disciples who took another philosophical approach and gave life to the school of stoicism.
"The object of philosophy must be to exercise man in things and acts, not in dialectical speculations,"was one of his celebrated phrases.
Zeno of Citius (333 BC - 264 BC, Cyprus)
He was the initiator of Stoicism, philosophical current that burst with his theory that man can achieve freedom and tranquility by rejecting material comforts.
Antisthenes (444 BC, 365 BC, Greece)
This philosopher was pupil of Socrates and gained its place among the geniuses of Old Age for being the founder of the cynical school, that based his experience in the observation of the behavior of the dogs. He rejected science, norms, and conventions.
Diogenes of Sinope (412 BC - 323 BC, Grieco)
The other genius of the cynical school, emphasized the virtues of the dogs so that from there the rhetorical figure of Diogenes and the dogs appears. He despised social uses, worldly pleasures, and defined love as the business of the idle.
Aristide (435 BC - 350 BC, Greece)
Another disciple of Socrates, he was the founder of the Cyrenaic School, known as Hedonism, which was distinguished by associating pleasure with happiness, and this as the purpose of life, combined with spiritual freedom.
Theodore, the Atheist (340 BC - 250 BC, Greece)
Philosopher of the Cyrenaic School, claimed that the whole world was his homeland as a way to oppose nationalism, highlighted by his atheism and the denial of the existence of the Greek gods.
Buddha (563 BC - 483 BC, Sakia, now India)
Siddharta Gautama, better known as the Buddha, whose meaning is"the enlightened one", was an oriental scholar who gave rise to Buddhist thought, philosophy and religion, the fourth most important in the world.
Unlike Western thought, Buddhism is not organized vertically and is based on three precepts: insubstantiality, impermanence and suffering.
The interest of this philosophy is based on the renunciation of material luxuries and the search for the spiritual meaning of existence, based mainly on meditation. The summit was Nirvana.
Plotinus (204-270, Egypt)
A follower and continuer of Plato's ideas, Plotinus was the creator of the school called Platonism. His concept of the One as the source of the indivisible creation of the whole was what later led him to formulate the theory of the immortality of the soul.
Porfirio (232 - 304, Greece)
A disciple of Plotinus and a great promoter of his works, he enjoyed the recognition and affection of his contemporaries for his metaphysical speculation.
It is considered a nexus between two evolutionary stages of Platonic thinking and its originality, intellectual courage and its importance in Christian philosophy stands out.