Early Greek Philosophy

"Man is the measure of all things," said the early Greek philosopher, Protagoras of Abdera. It was in this spirit of humanistic self-confidence that in the first half of the sixth-century B.C., Greek-speaking thinkers inaugurated the western philosophical tradition. In the Greek colonies of western Asia Minor, Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes postulated a physical universe based on natural laws. Then in Croton in southern Italy, Pythagoras, enraptured by geometry and music, formulated the doctrine that all things are made out of number. And so, in recounting the life and teachings of Heracleitus and Parmenides, the Sophists, and finally in the life, trial, and death of Socrates, the Hellenic scholar, Alfred Benn, provides a short, but illuminating, survey of early Greek thought. (Summary by Pamela Nagami, M.D.)