{"id":264,"date":"2017-11-03T20:12:50","date_gmt":"2017-11-03T17:12:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/athina.byzantinewalls.org\/?p=264"},"modified":"2017-11-03T20:12:50","modified_gmt":"2017-11-03T17:12:50","slug":"adam-drozdek-the-milesians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/264\/adam-drozdek-the-milesians\/","title":{"rendered":"Adam Drozdek, The Milesians"},"content":{"rendered":"

Adam Drozdek: Greek Philosophers As Theologians<\/a> at Amazon.<\/p>\n

This is chapter 1:
\n—<\/p>\n

It is not very often that the Ionian thinkers are considered to be theologians. An exception might be made for Xenophanes and Heraclitus, but the \ufb01rst three Ionians, the Milesians, are perceived as philosophers who were primarily interested in cosmogony, cosmology, physics, and biology rather than in theology. Nevertheless, the meaning of the ideas put forth by the Milesians is drastically impoverished if the religious aspect is not taken into account or is treated as a negligible element. Their theology should, however, be set against the background of religious views of the epic poets.<\/p>\n

Epic gods<\/p>\n

Homer and Hesiod \u201cprovided the Greeks with the account of the origins of the gods and gave the gods their names and de\ufb01ned their honors and skills and indicated their shapes\u201d (Herodotus 2.53), but Homer transmitted religious tradition as much as he created it. Not always is it possible to separate the old from the new. It is assumed here that the tremendous importance of Homer for the Greeks is due in no small measure to his theology.1<\/p>\n

The most pronounced attribute of Greek gods is their immortality. The gods are immortal (\u1f00\u03b8\u03ac\u03bd\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9, Il. 19.2, Th. 21, 105), they live forever (\u03b1\u1f30\u1f72\u03bd \u1f10\u03cc\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5\u03c2, Il. 1.290, Th. 33, \u1f00\u03b5\u03b9\u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u03ad\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9, Il. 6.527). There were times when gods did not exist. There were times when inanimate matter had the potential to generate them through an inscrutable mechanism of theogony. Other attributes included in divinity of immortal gods is their intelligence and, consequently, being alive; next, their superhuman knowledge, superhuman powers, and an ability to appear in any form.<\/p>\n

There is also unrelenting fate, moira. To see the meaning of moira, it is helpful to consider the phrase \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u1f70 \u03bc\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c1\u03b1\u03bd. Someone can speak kata moiran, according to right or order, as is suitable (Il. 1.286, 8.146); an action can be undertaken kata moiran, in good order, for example, a trench is crossed by Trojans in disorderly fashion (Il. 16.367), the Greeks sit in an assembly in order (Il. 19.256), or a heifer is cut up for a feast in due order (Od. 3.457). It seems that \u201cthe underlying idea of the phrase is that of order, which may \ufb01nd expression in different rami\ufb01cations of life.\u201d2 In at least one case, there is a strong ethical coloring of the phrase as when Odysseus rebukes Polyphemus that what he did was not right, ou kata moiran (Od. 9.352).<\/p>\n

__________<\/p>\n

1 And thus \u201cwe would be quite wrong to set aside the model of divinity that we \ufb01nd in the Homeric poems and imagine it as purely literary \ufb01ction and no part of the \u2018sense\u2019 of Greek religion,\u201d John Gould, \u2018On making sense of Greek religion\u2019, in P.E. Easterling and J.V. Muir (eds), Greek Religion and Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 25.<\/p>\n

2 B.C. Dietrich, Death, Fate and the Gods (London: The Athlone Press, 1967), pp. 209, 227, 275.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The phrase refers to social order which may have moral overtones, but the important thing is that orderliness is meant by fate.3 Something is fateful not because it is unexpected, irregular, random, but, on the contrary, because it is expected, normally done, regular. Ontologically, this idea of social order as expressed in the phrase kata moiran can be extended to the cosmic dimension. There is an orderliness of nature that can be seen by everyone: change of season, regular change of the duration of night and day, regular motions of celestial bodies, expected and thus regular tendency of bodies to fall or to rise, depending on their weight.4 So it may be said that a stone released from the hand was fated to fall to the ground since this is what stones normally do. By positing fate as reality higher than the reality of the gods, the reality preceding the existence of the gods, fate, that is, orderliness of cosmos, is made in one respect more divine than the gods. The gods are created beings, fate is not. Fate always existed and always will exist. It is thus characterized by full, unlimited eternity as opposed to the semi-eternity of the gods.5 If eternity is considered a primary attribute of divinity, then fate certainly is a divine entity.<\/p>\n

Fate is an embodiment of the orderliness of the universe, an expression of natural and social order. As such, fate has an ethical component. Both immortals and mortals should act morally and justly, and rules of morality and justice are known, or felt, by all. The role of the gods is to be guardians of justice and morality (Od. 14.83\u201384).6 However, the gods very often, all too often, not only disappoint but also display \u201ca comprehensive activity for the ruin of the mankind.\u201d7 They are deceitful, touchy, unreliable, meddlesome, jealous, vengeful, and so on. Hence, there are infrequent expressions of pessimism of Homeric heroes and this pessimism deepens in later centuries in the lyric age.8 This pessimistic sentiment is strongly expressed by Mimnermus of Colophon, Semonides of Amorgos, Theognis of Megara. The traditional religion was thus profoundly unful\ufb01lling, disappointing, almost irrelevant. One way of dealing with the disenchantment caused by popular religion is to perform an intellectual work on the concept of divinity. All in traditional religion is not to be discarded. What was positive in it and what caused disappointment? What is unacceptable, what is just imperfect in the traditional image of the gods? What are the gods, what is the divine and what should it be? With such questions a way to theology and philosophy is opened, and philosophical thought in Greece makes its arrival.<\/p>\n

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3 \u201cMoira is not a force that is active but an order of events which is acknowledged,\u201d Pierre Chantraine, \u2018Le divin et les dieux chez Hom\u00e8re\u2019, in La Notion du divin depuis Hom\u00e8re jusqu\u2019\u00e0 Platon (Geneva: Vandoeuvres, 1954), p. 70; fate \u201cstands behind the gods as a shadowy reality, a \ufb01xed order rather than a power, a divine conscience, at times gathering moral grandeur, at times dreadful and oppressive to men,\u201d William C. Greene, Moira (New York: Harper Torchbook, 1963 [1948]), pp. 13\u201314.<\/p>\n

4 Cf. P. Engelbert Eberhard, Das Schicksal als poetische Idee bei Homer (Paderborn: Sch\u00f6ningh, 1923), pp. 73\u201375.<\/p>\n

5 Cf. the statement made by H.D.F. Kitto in a discussion, La notion, 40: \u201cif the gods are not eternal, what is? The idea of Order\u2026: kosmos, ananke, moira.\u201d<\/p>\n

6 Although this is much more pronounced in the Odyssey than in the Iliad, Erland Ehnmark, TheIidea of God in Homer (Uppsala: Almquist & Wiksell, 1935), p. 99; Carl F. von N\u00e4gelsbach, Homerische Theologie (N\u00fcrnberg, 1861), p. 227; Dietrich, Death, Fate and the Gods, p. 324.<\/p>\n

7 Svend Ranulf, The Jealousy of the Gods and Criminal Law at Athens London: William & Norgate, 1933\u201334; reprint, New York: Arno Press, 1974), p. 87.<\/p>\n

8 Cf. E.R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971 [1951]), p. 29; Hugh Lloyd-Jones, The Justice of Zeus (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), p. 36.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Thales<\/p>\n

Very little is known about Thales. He was considered to be one of the Seven Sages, which by itself is a testimony of his acumen. On the one hand, although many scienti\ufb01c achievements are attributed to him, such as discovering the cause of a solar eclipse, or proving some geometrical theorems, these achievements were reported 700 to 1000 years after his death. Early sources, on the other hand, supposedly indicate that he was primarily a practical man \u201cwith a bent towards natural science.\u201d9<\/p>\n

Although the doubts about Thales\u2019 contribution to geometry and astronomy are justi\ufb01ed, his theoretical bent is nevertheless very strong, which is manifested in his philosophy. Aristotle says that Thales is among \u201cthe wise (\u03c3o\u03c6o\u1f77) but not practically wise (\u03c6\u03c1\u03cc\u03bd\u1fbe\u03bc\u03bf\u1fbe)\u201d (EN 1141b4\u20135 = 59A30), but, when pressed, Thales can show practical applications of his theoretical pursuits as exempli\ufb01ed in the story of the olive-press scheme (Pol. 1259a6\u201323 = 11A10). Aristotle is the authority on Thales\u2019 most famous statement that water is the arche of the universe where arche is \u201cthat of which all existing things are and from which they \ufb01rst come to be and into which they are \ufb01nally destroyed, its substance remaining, but changing in its properties\u201d (Met. 983b6\u201311,17\u201327 = A12).10 Whether Thales himself would agree with such an absolutist understanding of the arche remains uncertain, but because Anaximander is credited with the \ufb01rst use of arche and because such an absolutist understanding of the arche \ufb01ts in with what we know about Anaximander and Anaximenes, it seems reasonable that Thales understood it similarly. That is, everything that exists, according to this understanding of the arche, is but a manifestation of the eternal watery substrate and if everything perishes, one thing remains, namely water.11<\/p>\n

Why did Thales choose water as the arche? Many answers have been conjectured. The reasons were already obscure for Aristotle, who says that Thales got the notion \u201cperhaps from seeing that the nourishment of everything is moist\u201d (A12). That is, one ingredient is present in all foods, namely water, and thus water must be a factor that makes nourishment nourishing.<\/p>\n

__________<\/p>\n

9 D.R. Dicks, \u2018Thales\u2019, Classical Quarterly 53 (1959), p. 297.<\/p>\n

10 It is clear that Aristotle did not have access to original writings of Thales (if there were such writings), but quotes from Hippias, as argued by Bruno Snell, \u2018Die Nachrichten \u00fcber die Lehren des Thales und die Anf\u00e4nge der griechischen Philosophie- und Literaturgeschichte\u2019, Philologus 96 (1944), pp. 170\u2013182, and so Hippias is \u201cat the beginning of writing on history of philosophy,\u201d p. 181. Cf. Jaap Mansfeld, \u2018Aristotle and others on Thales, or the beginning of natural philosophy\u2019, Mnemosyne 38 (1985), p. 115.<\/p>\n

11 It is \u201cmore than improbable\u201d that Thales used the concept of arche, as stated by Wolfgang H. Pleger, Die Vorsokratiker (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1991), p. 58. But Thales could express the arche idea without mentioning the concept.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The argument is rather weak. Even if we agree that water is always present in nourishment and there are no completely dry foods (a cracker may have some particles of water from the air or from the mouth), this may only mean that water is needed as a lubricant to the intake of food. In the context of discussing \u201ccruder thinkers,\u201d like Hippon, who thought that the soul is water, Aristotle modi\ufb01es the argument by saying that the choice of water \u201cseems\u201d to have been determined by the idea that \u201cthe seed of everything is moist\u201d (De anima 405b2\u20133 = 31A4), which does not considerably strengthen the argument. A stronger argument is given by Theophrastus who says that the choice of water was caused by the observation that corpses dry up (ap. Simplicius, In Phys. 23.21\u201329 = A13). In these arguments, water is considered a source of life: indispensable to maintain life through nourishment, to begin life through the seed, so that life ends when water vanishes. In this way, water is not made a principle or a substrate of everything, but only a seat of life. If there were no water, a lifeless universe could still exist. One possible reason for the choice of water is Thales\u2019 strong interest in nautical matters (building canals, explaining the periodical \ufb02oods of the Nile, diverting the river Halys),12 but this would explain at best his interest in mathematics, astronomy, and the like, but not in cosmology and philosophy.13 Another reason is simply the fact that Thales lived close to the sea.14 But so did Anaxagoras and Anaximenes.<\/p>\n

A more comprehensive reason is given by Heraclitus Homericus when he says that water is \u201ceasily formed into each different thing\u201d: into slime and earth when compacted, into air when exhaled, and \u201cthe \ufb01nest part is kindled from air into aether\u201d (Quest. Hom. 22).15 However, the same case can be made about any other substance using the same reasoning; for example, aether is a substrate because when compacted, it becomes air, and the crudest part is compacted from air into water, and so on.<\/p>\n

It seems that the primary reason for the choice of water as a substrate should not be sought in physiology or geography, but in religion. In that direction points an explanation that Thales was inspired by the cult of Poseidon who keeps earth in its place in the sea.16 But it seems that a less parochial view of religion is required to lead to the view of water being a cosmic principle.<\/p>\n

Already some ancient authors stated that Thales took his ideas on water from Egypt.17 There are claims that Thales \u201cpracticed philosophy in Egypt\u201d (Aetius 1.3.1; Proclus, In Eucl. 65 = A11), where he traveled and even was taught by priests (DL (Diogenes Laertius, Vitae philosophorum) 1.27 = A1). The claim of his<\/p>\n

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12 Benjamin Farrington, The Faith of Epicurus (New York: Basic Books, 1967), p. 39.<\/p>\n

13 Josef D\u00f6r\ufb02er, \u2018Die kosmogonischen Elemente in der Naturphilosophie des Thales\u2019, Archiv f\u00fcr Geschichte der Philosophie 25 (1912), p. 313.<\/p>\n

14 Michel Costantini, La G\u00e9n\u00e9ration Thal\u00e8s (Paris: Criterion, 1992), p. 92. Therefore, \u201crise and ebb, water that spreads softly on the beach, distant scintillations of the many sails, this is what nourished his meditation,\u201d p. 85.<\/p>\n

15 The same argument is used by J.C. Davies, \u2018Mythological in\ufb02uences on the \ufb01rst emergence of Greek scienti\ufb01c and philosophical thought\u2019, Folklore 81 (1970), p. 28.<\/p>\n

16 August B. Krische, Die theologischen Lehren der griechischen Denker (G\u00f6ttingen: Dieterichsche Buchhandlung, 1840), pp. 35\u201336.<\/p>\n

17 Plutarch, De Is. et Os. 34 = A11; Simplicius, In De caelo 522.14\u201318 = A14.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

visit to Egypt may be a late invention,18 but this does not mean that he may not have been in\ufb02uenced by Egyptian cosmogonic views. Miletus was the largest city of Ionian Greece, and, being a port city near the mouth of Meander, it conducted an extensive trade with Egypt where the Greeks founded Naukratis. Surely, not only goods were transported but information about Egyptian religion as well.<\/p>\n

For the Egyptians, the earth is a \ufb02at platter with a corrugated rim, and so Thales considers the earth to be \ufb02at and \ufb02oating upon water, which is, according to Aristotle, the oldest theory (De caelo 294a28\u201330 = A14). This is not a Greek view. The Greeks thought that the earth was surrounded by water, not \ufb02oating on it. This fact was strongly stressed later by Xenophanes who considered the earth to extend downward in\ufb01nitely (21B28). Waters on which the earth \ufb02oated the Egyptians called Nun. Most importantly, Nun was the primordial waters from which life \ufb01rst came and from which everything else was generated, beginning with the sun-god Ra.<\/p>\n

Also Mesopotamian mythology gives waters a pre-eminent role in cosmogony. Sumerian Enki (lord of the soul) or Akkadian Ea (god of the deep) are gods of the waters that nourish the earth. Moreover, Enuma elish in its description of the beginnings of the world, presents three primordial deities: Tiamat, a watery chaos and the sea; Apsu, the sweet waters underground; and Mummu, probably representing clouds and mist. The three deities mingled their waters together, from which everything else gradually originated, beginning with gods Lahmu and Lahamu.<\/p>\n

The Greeks also acknowledged the importance of water in their mythology in the view that Okeanos \u201c\ufb02ows round the whole earth\u201d (Herodotus 4.8) and \u201call rivers and all seas and all springs and deep wells\u201d \ufb02ow from it (Il. 21.196\u2013197). However, Homer also states that Okeanos is the \u201corigin of gods\u201d (14.201, 302) and even \u201cthe origin of all\u201d (246). This is an isolated ascription of such a prominent role to Okeanos. Nevertheless, it is there, and both Plato (Theaet. 152e, Crat. 402b) and Aristotle (Met. 983b30\u201331) quote Homer on this. Finally, we should also mention the Orphics. One of the Orphic theogonies preserved by Hellanicus and Hieronymus posits water and matter, from which the earth solidi\ufb01es, at the beginning of the world from which emerges a dragon (\u03b4\u03c1\u1f71\u0138\u03c9\u03bd) called unaging Chronos and Heracles.19 \u201cWhat else does this dragon mean as a comparison of the world with a living being, with an animal, whose body has life, soul, and motion?\u201d asks D\u00f6r\ufb02er rhetorically.20<\/p>\n

The mythologies just brie\ufb02y presented have at least one factor in common, namely the importance ascribed to water as the starting point of the universe in general and life in particular. A mind was needed that treated such religious explanations seriously to abstract in the ecumenical spirit what is common in these mythological cosmogonies. And this is a step made by Thales. As phrased by Kirk, in stimulating the Milesian philosophy, \u201cthe crucial factor was the comparison of Mesopotamian, Egyptian and Greek versions [of myths], which \ufb01rst became possible \u2026 in the late seventh and early sixth centuries in Ionia, especially Miletus.<\/p>\n

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18 Dicks, \u2018Thales\u2019, p. 306, but cf. Theodor Hopfner, Orient und griechische Philosophie (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1925), p. 17.<\/p>\n

19 Damascius, De principiis 123 bis; Athenagoras, Pro Christianis 18.20 = 1B13.<\/p>\n

20 D\u00f6r\ufb02er, \u2018Die kosmogonischen Elemente in der Naturphilosophie des Thales\u2019, p. 310.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Mesopotamian Enki or Ea, Egyptian Nun and Greek Okeanos are all primordial gods, and each of them, even in mythical guise, plainly represents water.\u201d What Thales did was to concentrate on \u201cthe rational common essence of Enki, Nun and Okeanos as an actual world constituent.\u201d21 Or, more guardedly: \u201cIt is possible\u201d that Thales \u201cendorsed the oriental conception of a primeval ocean from which all life came from.\u201d22<\/p>\n

The primary reason why water was chosen is theological. Physiological and astronomic reasons could have been contributing factors. The reason for a choice of any arche is a dissatisfaction with traditional Greek religion with its plethora of quarreling gods capable of most unseemly deeds, gods that frequently elicited anything but an attitude of awe and worship. It was common to assume that what made the gods gods was primarily their deathlessness. They were generated but eternal. By extending this eternity to the past, a concept of true divinity is created. Only as truly eternal can such divinity be the source of everything else. These two attributes \u2013 eternity and being an ultimate source \u2013 become, for Thales, the characteristics of the ultimate principle of the universe. By choosing eternity, Thales uses the traditional attribute of the divine. Being the ultimate source, on the other hand, is an attribute signi\ufb01cantly extending the traditional view of the divine. In traditional mythology, gods were created. For Thales, the divine is what creates. And by looking at different religions, he chose water for this divine principle. Notwithstanding his interest in practical matters, Thales was primarily of a theoretical mind, a philosopher who extracts from religion a unifying factor. The primacy of theological interests can also be seen in other views attributed to him.<\/p>\n

Thales supposed, says Aristotle, \u201cthat the soul was something kinetic since he said that the [lode]stone has soul because it moves iron\u201d (De anima 405a19\u201321 = A22). This statement is an expression of an animistic view of the universe. There is hardly anything more inanimate than a stone, be it a lodestone, and yet, for Thales, even a stone is an animate object.23 Motion observed in everyday life is not a manifestation of mechanistic laws of nature, but an expression of life hidden even in the most lifeless guise. This belief is carried to the extreme in Thales\u2019 statement that \u201call things are full<\/p>\n

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21 G.S. Kirk, The Nature of Greek Myths (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1974), p. 295; similarly, Charles H. Kahn, Anaximander and the Origin of Greek Cosmology (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960), p. 200. Cf. a more general statement that \u201cthe Greek thinkers \u2026 created a method to which they were led by comparison of conclusions reached by ancient civilizations,\u201d Jacques Pirenne, \u2018L\u2019In\ufb02uence \u00e9gyptienne sur la philosophie ionienne\u2019, Annuaire de l\u2019Institut de Philologie et d\u2019Histoire Orientales et Slaves 15 (1958\u201360), p. 81, see also p. 76.<\/p>\n

22 H. and H.A. Frankfort, \u2018The emancipation of thought from myth\u2019, in H. Frankfort et al., Before Philosophy (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1972 [1946]), p. 253.<\/p>\n

23 Slightly more cautiously: the soul is \u201can analogon of the supposed principle of motion in living [beings],\u201d W.M. Frankl, \u2018Thales und der Magnetstein\u2019, Archiv f\u00fcr Geschichte der Philosophie 35 (1923), p. 155; which may suggest that for Thales, the principle of life and the principle of motion are not necessarily the same.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

of gods\u201d.24 In this way, the whole of nature and everything in it is not only alive, but also divinized. And all this began with water. What was the nature of this primordial water such that creating a living and divinized universe was possible? If everything is full of gods, then apparently water, including primordial water, is full of them as well. It is extremely likely that Thales\u2019 primeval water was teeming with gods. However, it may well be that at the beginning was pure water in which the gods were created, very much in the spirit of the Theogony. Whether this water itself was considered to be a god by Thales, we do not know, but if the apophthegm, \u201cWhat is the divine? That which has no beginning nor end\u201d (DL 1.36), is anything close to what Thales might have said, then, yes, water is a divine entity. Such an ascription is not impossible in a thinker who makes mythological reports the point of departure and whose two younger fellow townsmen, Anaximander and Anaximenes, considered their own archai to be divine. Because water is an ontological principle, the gods that are in it are its manifestations and should not be considered as entities independent of the water-arche. From considering the gods independent, there is but one step to considering the divine independent and stating that God used water to mold the cosmos (Cicero, ND 1.25 = A23). Just as in Greek and Middle East mythologies, Thales\u2019 gods are created and as such are also material entities. Water is divine because it is the source of all things and is uncreated and eternal. It is possible, considering the theological roots of his philosophy, that Thales\u2019 water was not only endowed with some divine attributes, but it was God. It is only a likely guess that this God-hydor was for him an intelligible being: even the least signi\ufb01cant of the gods of mythology was a rational being. Furthermore, that much was apparently obvious for Aetius when he explicitly stated that for Thales \u201cGod was the mind of the cosmos\u201d (1.7.11 = A23). This must be understood in the materialistic and also pantheistic framework: God is water and water, because of its supreme divinity, is the arche. But this water should not be spiritualized. It is empirical water, not something being water only by name. It is, thus, anachronistic to state that \u201cthe water of Thales is not a material principle but rather a symbol for the primeval matter from which emanates all becoming.\u201d25 Thales was hardly a peripatetic. What would the primeval matter be if it were not water? Only a material cause? What would be formal, ef\ufb01cient, and \ufb01nal causes? If Aristotle\u2019s terminology is used, then we can at best state that Thales\u2019 water is all the four causes combined in one substrate.26<\/p>\n

Also, it is far too spiritualized a statement that Thales\u2019 \u201cwater is, not matter in the ordinary physical sense, but the content of intelligible form, the principle of the differentiability of intelligibility,\u201d27 or that Thales\u2019 \u201cWater\u201d can be the \u201cessence\u201d of earth and \ufb01re because it is something completely different from water that one drinks or in which one takes a bath.<\/p>\n

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24 Aristotle, De anima 411a8 = A22; Aetius 1.7.11 = A2. But cf. Patricia F. O\u2019Grady, Thales of Miletus: the beginnings of Western science and philosophy (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), pp. 122, 244.<\/p>\n

25 John Miller, \u2018Thales on water: the Egyptian connection\u2019, Southwest Philosophical Studies 1989, 46.<\/p>\n

26 Or, as cautiously stated, \u201cThales seems to have made no distinction between primary all-pervasive matter and the all-pervading spirit, or gods,\u201d Susan W. Kline, \u2018The \ufb01rst philosopher of the Western world\u2019, Classical Journal 35 (1939), p. 85.<\/p>\n

27 Stanley H. Rosen, \u2018Thales: the beginning of philosophy\u2019, in Essays in Philosophy (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1962), p. 36.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The essence of water is embodied only in water. But the Principle called \u201cWater\u201d is something different from that essence and it is because of that it can be taken and comprehended not only as the essence of water embodied in water, but also as the [essence] of earth embodied in earth, etc.28<\/p>\n

These statements appear to be indebted more to Hegel than to Thales. Water is matter in ordinary physical sense. It is not known how Thales envisioned the process of generating the cosmos. However, by the fact that water is the arche, earth and \ufb01re stem from it: physical earth from physical water. And physicality of water does not contradict its divinity. Spiritual gods and spiritual God come later in Greek philosophy: probably with Anaxagoras if the Nous that is separate from matter is considered to be God, but certainly with Plato and Aristotle. In traditional mythology, the gods were as material as everything else, and not infrequently just as carnal, so the physical nature of Thales\u2019 water is in agreement with traditional treatment of the gods.<\/p>\n

Anaximander<\/p>\n

A philosophical interest in the concept of the divine is continued by Thales\u2019 pupil, Anaximander. On philosophical level, a question is asked not only about the nature of the gods, but also about the nature of the attributes that make them divine in order to make these attributes the philosophical principles of the universe. In other words, whereas the theological step consisted of extracting the essence of divinity, which was immortality, the philosophical step consisted of extracting the essence of immortality, which is in\ufb01nity \u2013 unlimitedness as such, not in\ufb01nity of time or of existence, but in\ufb01nity per se. In this way, the process of abstraction leads to the concept of in\ufb01nity.29 This is a philosophical step made by Anaximander in which lies his greatest achievement and originality.<\/p>\n

According to Anaximander, the world arose from the Apeiron, the limitless, the in\ufb01nity. The Apeiron is the beginning and origin (\u1f00\u03c1\u03c7\u03ae) of what exists, of heavens, and of the worlds. In the \ufb01rst stage, a generating power (\u03c4\u00f2 \u03b3\u00f3\u03bd\u0269\u03bco\u03bd) is separated from the Apeiron, which produces two opposites: the hot and the cold. The cold is water enveloped in the air or mist (\u1f00\u03ae\u03c1), and the hot becomes a \ufb01ery sphere that surrounds the atmosphere (the cold) that envelops the earth like the bark around a tree (A10). The \ufb01ery sphere separates from the cold and turns into rotating wheels \ufb01lled with \ufb01re enveloped in mist. The openings in the wheels are seen as heavenly bodies. The cylindrical earth is suspended in the center of the universe (Hippolytus, Ref. 1.6.3\u20135 = A11, Aetius 2.20.1 = A21, Aristotle, De caelo 295b10\u201316 = A26).<\/p>\n

__________<\/p>\n

28 Alexandre Koj\u00e8ve, Essai d\u2019une histoire raisonn\u00e9e de la philosophie pa\u00efenne (Paris: Gallimard, 1968), vol. 1, p. 203.<\/p>\n

29 Cornford states that \u201csimply an effort of abstraction\u201d led to the Apeiron; but according to him, it was abstracting the Apeiron from Thales\u2019 water rather than from the essence of divinity, F.M. Cornford, From Religion to Philosophy (New York: Harper & Row, 1957 [1912]), p. 145; Uvo H\u00f6lscher dismisses a possibility that \u201cthe concept [of in\ufb01nity] could develop from [the concept] of divinity\u201d because seemingly \u201c\u2018unlimitedness\u2019 appeared to be incompatible with the Greek concept of divinity,\u201d \u2018Anaximander und die Anf\u00e4nge der Philosophie\u2019, Hermes 81 (1953), p. 277; but how can unlimitedness be incompatible with the unlimited existence of the gods?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Apeiron is the arche, the origin of the universe, its ground and a substratum from which everything originates and into which everything returns. Everything in the universe is generated and everything reaches its end, but the Apeiron always was and always will be. It is the ultimate origin of everything because it is unoriginated because it cannot be reduced to anything more basic, more fundamental, and more lasting than itself. There are causal chains in the universe, but the links in these chains have only intermediate importance; although one element of the chain has \u2013 causally \u2013 another element of the chain as its origin, the latter element is not an ultimate origin of the former because it has a temporary existence and its origin can eventually by traced to the Apeiron. In this, the term arche, which meant der zeitliche Ursprung in traditional mythology, enriches its meaning by becoming der zeitlose Grund.30<\/p>\n

The Apeiron is everlasting (\u1f00\u03af\u03b4\u0269\u03bf\u03bd) and ageless (\u1f00\u03b3\u03ae\u03c1\u03c9\u03bd), and it encompasses all the worlds (Hippolytus, Ref. 1.6.1 = A11). It governs (\u03ba\u03c5\u03b2\u03b5\u03c1\u1fb6\u03bd) all things, and, in Aristotle\u2019s words, \u201cit is divine (\u03c4\u00f2 \u03b8\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bf\u03bd) because it is immortal (\u1f00\u03b8\u03ac\u03bd\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd) and indestructible (\u1f00\u03bd\u1f7d\u03bb\u03b5\u03b8\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd)\u201d (Physics 203b11\u201314 = A15). The Apeiron is divine because it has attributes of divinity. Someone, or something, which is immortal and has a control over all things, must be the supreme divinity, not just a mythical god that is constantly in danger of clashing with other gods, must be the god on whom everything depends, even the very existence of the universe and the existence of other gods if they are allowed to exist. Divinity of the Apeiron is not an additional attribute, but the Apeiron\u2019s essence, its nature. The Apeiron is the god; the Apeiron is another denomination of the divinity of this god used to convey its essence, which is its in\ufb01nity \u2013 in\ufb01nity of its existence and its power.31<\/p>\n

That the Apeiron encompasses everything means that it is outside the \ufb01ery wheels of the heavens and extends in\ufb01nitely in space. The universe created from the stuffs separated from the Apeiron are limited in time and space, but the matrix of the universe, the Apeiron itself, is unlimited both spatially and temporally. The Apeiron always existed and always will exist; it is everywhere outside the heavens. The Apeiron is thus very \ufb01rmly seated in the spatio-temporal framework.32<\/p>\n

Deriving the universe from the divine Apeiron would be far from satisfactory if the Apeiron were de\ufb01ned only statically as the unlimitedness from which the universe emerges and no attempt were made to explain the mechanisms of the universe.<\/p>\n

__________<\/p>\n

30 Alexander von Varga, Geschichtliche Einf\u00fchrung in die Grundbegriffe der Philosophie (Munich: UNI-Druck, 1977), p. 2; see also Heinz Ambronn, Apeiron-eon-kenon: Zum Arch\u00e9-Begriff bei den Vorsokratikern (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1996), p. 49.<\/p>\n

31 When Anaximander says \u201cthat the Boundless \u2018encompasses all things and governs all things\u2019, he is satisfying the loftiest demands which religious thought has required of divinity from time immemorial;\u201d the Apeiron \u201cis the sole complete realization of the Divine as such, without beginning and without end,\u201d Werner Jaeger, The theology of the early Greek philosophers (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1947), pp. 31, 33. The use of the term \u03c4\u00f2 \u03b8\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bf\u03bd is considered to indicate that Anaximander was the \ufb01rst to abstract the general concept of divinity from \u1f41 \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u03c2, pp. 31, 203\u2013206; cf. Gerald F. Else, \u2018God and gods in early Greek thought\u2019, Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 90 (1949), p. 35.<\/p>\n

32 This framework was not abandoned to move \u201cinto a new dimension,\u201d as conjectured by Paul Seligman, The Apeiron of Anaximander (London: The Athlone Press, 1962), p. 145.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The many different natural processes can be explained separately; for example, the earth is suspended in midair because it is equidistant from each point of the heavens (A11); the sea is a remnant of the \ufb01rst moisture (A27); winds are the result of setting the \ufb01nest vapors of the air by the sun (Aetius 3.7.1 = A24). Such explanations, however, although they may be satisfactory from scienti\ufb01c and practical points of view, are not satisfactory for a philosopher or a theologian. Does the Apeiron have anything to do with these particular natural processes, and if it does, as it should, what is the connection? The answer hinges not that much on the nature of natural processes but on the nature of activity of the divine Apeiron. What is a suitable activity for the cosmic divinity? This activity is not a collection of mechanical processes of the type found in nature. If this were the case, then it would not be, in fact, possible to distinguish the Apeiron from nature. Nature would be the Apeiron, the Apeiron would simply be a fanciful synonym of nature pointing to the fact that it is in\ufb01nite (and such a route was later chosen by the atomists). The answer lies in the only extant fragment from Anaximander\u2019s book. In the process of creating the universe, the hot and the cold are separated from the Apeiron, that is, the Apeiron is not in the world. Existing things come into existence from the Apeiron and pass away into it. The processes in the world take place because things come into being and are destroyed, which happens because they \u201cpay penalty and retribution to each other for their injustice according to the order of time\u201d (Simplicius, In Phys. 24.18\u201320 = B1). Although Theophrastus who in Simplicius\u2019 excerpt quotes these words, quali\ufb01es them as \u201crather poetic\u201d (24.20\u201321 = A9), they very likely were not treated merely as a metaphor by Anaximander himself. These words are rather an expression of a conviction that \u201cthe power which presides over physical order is moral.\u201d33 This power is an attribute of the Apeiron. The Apeiron which governs all things uses this power to exact its moral pronouncements. The physical processes in the world are secondary to the moral nature of the Apeiron. Whatever happens in the world is not merely a result of mechanical changes, but a re\ufb02ection of the moral order inhabiting the Apeiron.34<\/p>\n

Whence this moral order? For Homer, order, including moral order, belongs to the highest level of reality, the level exceeding the world of mortals and immortals \u2013 destiny, fate, moira.35 In order for the cosmos to function properly, even the gods have to submit to its ordinances. The moral order is united by Anaximander along with the concept of in\ufb01nity in the concept of the Apeiron, a moral in\ufb01nity. The divine moral law that rules in human societies becomes the divine principle ordering the course of the entire universe. Anaximander does not tell us more about the nature of the Apeiron.<\/p>\n

__________<\/p>\n

33 Cornford, From Religion to Philosophy, p. 11.<\/p>\n

34 Santillana says that the concept of governing is an expression of \u201cwhat he meant and could not express \u2013 automatic control,\u201d Giorgio di Santillana, The Origins of Scienti\ufb01c Thought (New York: Mentor Books, 1961), p. 39. Automatic control is rather what he did not mean and could express.<\/p>\n

35 The importance of the moira in understanding the origin of philosophy is strongly emphasized by Cornford, From Religion to Philosophy, chs. 1\u20132. See also Ehnmark, The Idea of God in Homer, ch. 6.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

We learn from Aristotle that it is of a different nature than water and similar elements (Phys. 204b24\u201329). As a source of all material bodies, it is some kind of a body as well, but it seems best not to attempt to give a more precise description of the Apeiron. Anaximander was interested in the nature of divinity and found it the fusion of in\ufb01nity and moral order. He was not interested in a more de\ufb01nite description of the Apeiron, and we may venture to say that he would refuse to give such a description. The best description of the Apeiron is in its privative name: something with no limit, and any attempt to be more speci\ufb01c could be considered by him presumptuous. Human means are \ufb01nite and thus inadequate to describe the in\ufb01nite. Hence, paradoxically, this privative term \u201chad an advantage of predicating something positive of the arche without committing Anaximander to any view of its nature.\u201d36<\/p>\n

It is clear that Anaximander goes further than his teacher by abstracting in\ufb01nity from eternity and making the in\ufb01nity itself the arche, not a particular, empirically known element. This does not mean the Apeiron is a nonmaterial substance. It is as material as everything else \u2013 although subtler and so \ufb01ne that it is imperceptible. But the universe and everything in it is derived from the Apeiron through the mechanism of separation. The opposites are separated off from the Apeiron to become the material for the world, and the worlds are destroyed into the Apeiron (12A9, A10).<\/p>\n

The Apeiron is not just a physical principle; it governs the universe and uses the principle of justice to oversee the process of generating and perishing. Being eternal, spatially in\ufb01nite, and rational because of the ability to govern and being a seat of the moral law the Apeiron is explicitly called divine; the Apeiron is God.<\/p>\n

Although Anaximander brings theological thinking to another level, he is not disinterested in physics. It can be claimed that, precisely because his theology was apparently so abstract, Anaximander makes an effort to show that it can be seamlessly connected with physics, that theology can form a basis for physical explanations. In that, physics for Anaximander is secondary to theology \u2013 it is used to substantiate theology; physics becomes an afterthought of sorts that is used to make his theology less otherworldly. No such effort is made by Thales because there was not much of a need for it. Thales\u2019 theology is strongly rooted in traditional religious thinking and although slightly more abstract than this thinking, it is close to it. Anaximander could not rely on connections with traditional religion; he needed to show that his theology was relevant, and his biological, astronomical, and physical explanations are such attempts. Anaximander proposes the mechanism of separation and destruction in physics to explain the emergence and destruction of physical entities. The separation-destruction mechanism is a physical counterpart of the theological mechanism of what<\/p>\n

__________<\/p>\n

36 H.B. Gottschalk, \u2018Anaximander\u2019s apeiron\u2019, Phronesis 10 (1965), p. 53. \u201cThe Boundless represents the unknown entity which encompasses the known world in time as well as in space,\u201d Kahn, Anaximander and the Origin of Greek Cosmology, p. 237. See also Allan S. Gnagy, \u2018The apeiron: Anaximander\u2019s concept of the endless ground of nature\u2019, The Northwest Missouri State University Studies 35 (1975), no. 2, pp. 16\u201318. His concept of the Apeiron as \u201cthe ground of becoming and perishing\u201d is very similar to Walther Kraus\u2019s image of the apeiron as \u201cder ewige Urquell des Seins,\u201d \u2018Das Wesen des Unendlichen bei Anaximander\u2019, Rheinisches Museum 93 (1950), p. 378.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

can be termed dis-divinization and divinization.37 The mechanism is also a re\ufb02ection of the fact that God is transcendent and yet connected to the world. Physical things are parts of the Apeiron that acquire their physical individuality by becoming separated from the Apeiron. But at the end of their existence, they resolve into the Apeiron. Destruction thus amounts to divinization of sorts. Individuality of physical beings is destroyed when the matter from which they are built is reclaimed by the Apeiron.<\/p>\n

Anaximenes<\/p>\n

Anaximenes, a pupil of Anaximander, in the spirit of his Milesian predecessors, also establishes a foundation of the universe with his choice of the arche. Unlike Thales, he makes \u201c\u1f00\u03ae\u03c1 rather than water, the material principle above the other simple bodies\u201d (Aristotle, Met. 984a5 = 13A4). Unlike Anaximander, he \u201cposits a single in\ufb01nite underlying substance of things,\u201d which is not indeterminate in character like Anaximander\u2019s, but \u201cdeterminate calling it aer\u201d (Theophrastus ap. Simplicius, In Phys. 24.26\u201328 = A5).38<\/p>\n

What is the nature of aer? When evenly distributed, most uniform (\u1f41\u03bc\u03b1\u03bb\u1f7d\u03c4\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2) aer is invisible. But \u201cit is revealed by the cold and the hot and the damp and by movement\u201d (Hippolytus, Ref. 1.7.2 = A7), that is, motion is a necessary condition of aer\u2019s visibility. Aer can become a source of all bodies \ufb01lling the world through the means of the condensation-rarefaction mechanism that makes visible properties that are in potentia in aer.39 Its motion triggers the mechanism which, in turn, leads to the emergence of such properties as coldness, hardness, liquidity, and so on. And so, for Anaximenes, \u201cthe origin of existing things was aer, for from it all things come to be and into it they are resolved again; \u2018just as our soul (\u03c8\u03c5\u03c7\u03ae)\u2019 he says \u2018which is aer, holds us together (\u03c3\u03c5\u03b3\u03ba\u03c1\u03b1\u03c4\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bd), so pneuma and aer surround (\u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u0269\u03ad\u03c7\u03b5\u0269) the whole cosmos\u2019 (aer and pneuma are thus used as synonyms).\u201d40<\/p>\n

Cosmic aer surrounds the cosmos, but it is also inside it since everything emerged from aer. Aer inside the cosmos \u2013 atmospheric air \u2013 is, as it were, lesser aer, lesser than aer outside the cosmos. Outer aer, aer proper, directly corresponds to Anaximander\u2019s divine Apeiron that oversees and steers the events in the world. Outer aer is alive, and this life is transferred to the world that becomes a living entity whose soul, the world soul, is cosmic aer that encompasses it.<\/p>\n

__________<\/p>\n

37 In a different context, the neologism de-dei\ufb01cation has also been proposed, Charles Pichon, The Vatican and Its Role in World Affairs (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1969 [1946]), p. 64.<\/p>\n

38 Adam Drozdek, \u2018Anaximenes: theology and physics\u2019, Eranos 102 (2004), pp. 40\u201345.<\/p>\n

39 See also Marcel de Corte, \u2018Anaxim\u00e8ne\u2019, Laval th\u00e9ologique et philosophique 18 (1962), p. 50.<\/p>\n

40 Aetius 1.3.4 = B2. The authenticity of the quotation is questioned because of anachronistic terminology it uses: for example, Aram M. Frenkian, \u2018Les doxographies et les fragments des Mil\u00e9siens\u2019, Studii Clasice 6 (1964), pp. 14\u201315. However, the late compound word \u03c3\u03c5\u03b3\u03ba\u03c1\u03b1\u03c4\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bd can be considered a rendering of the original \u201cgood Presocratic\u201d word \u03ba\u03c1\u03b1\u03c4\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bd, Karin Alt, \u2018Zum Satz des Anaximenes \u00fcber die Seele\u2019, Hermes 101 (1973), p. 160. It seems that, notwithstanding later terminology used in the quotation, it correctly re\ufb02ects Anaximenes\u2019 views. Cf. Walther Kranz, \u2018Gleichnis und Vergleich in der fr\u00fchgriechischen Philosophie\u2019, Hermes 73 (1938), p. 111; Jaeger, The Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers, pp. 207\u2013208 note 62; Walter Br\u00f6cker, Die Geschichte der Philosophie vor Sokrates (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1965), p. 20.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Thus, unlike the human soul, the world soul, that is, cosmic aer, is outside cosmic body, but it plays the same role as the human soul. As humans live due to their inner souls, so does the cosmos due to the world soul which is also the principle of being, the matrix of the universe, the life giver and maintainer.41 In his view of the world soul outside the cosmic body, Anaximenes is a forerunner of Plato for whom world soul covers the body of the world on the outside and all that is corporeal is inside it (Timaeus 34b, 36de).<\/p>\n

Can any mental attributes be ascribed to aer? Because the soul is aer, it is hardly conceivable that if the soul could have mental life, such life could be absent from cosmic aer. Intelligibility can be seen in aer also from the existence of the cosmos. The cosmos is a result of transformations of parts of aer through condensation and rarefaction, but it is hardly credible that Anaximenes would have seen the chain of such transformations to be the result of accidental condensations and rarefactions. The reliance on accidental changes comes with the atomists who claim not to rely on any overseeing principle.42 However, Anaximander already said that the Apeiron governs all things and Anaximenes could very easily have stated that the particular sequence of condensations and rarefactions is due to aer. Aer is the in\ufb01nite arche, the source of everything, including life; it surrounds and holds everything together, eternal and eternally in motion. With such attributes, aer has a divine character and Anaximenes himself considered aer to be God (Aetius 1.7.13 = A10; Minucius Felix, Octavius 19.5) and God to be aer (Cicero, ND 1.26 = A10).43<\/p>\n

For Anaximenes, the soul and thus life is Aer. As such, Aer is not only the seat of life, but also \u2013 and primarily \u2013 the seat of intelligibility. The soul is the seat of life, but not just of any life, but human life, that is, the center of a being that is able to reason. This attribute, which is implicit in the Apeiron but does not seem to constitute Apeiron\u2019s divinity, becomes a de\ufb01ning attribute of Aer. What is divine in humans is life, and to a larger extent, their mind, their mental faculties. This will become more explicit in Anaxagoras with his divine Nous, Diogenes of Apollonia with his divine<\/p>\n

__________<\/p>\n

41 The problem can also be solved by stating that the alleged quotation in B2 is a major reinterpretation of the original view that \u201cin its original state his arche was coextensive with the developed universe\u201d and that \u201cthe \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u0269\u03ad\u03c7\u03bf\u03bd is internal and acts from inside the universe,\u201d Peter J. Bicknell, \u2018T\u00f2\u1f04\u03c0\u03b5\u0269\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd, \u1f04\u03c0\u03b5\u0269\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f00\u03ae\u03c1, and \u03c4\u00f2\u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u0269\u03ad\u03c7\u03bf\u03bd\u2019, Acta Classica 9 (1966), pp. 33, 37.<\/p>\n

42 The law of necessity is, in fact, such a principle in Democritus and the isonomia principle, in Epicurus.<\/p>\n

43 In Cicero\u2019s statement, \u201cAnaximenes proposed that God is aer, that he is created (gigni) and immeasurable and in\ufb01nite and always in motion\u201d (Cicero, De natura deorum (ND) 1.26 = A10), gigni is an obvious mistake. It can be attributed to malicious insertion by Velleius the Epicurean who gives this statement in a very strongly polemical context (Wyttenbach) or as the result of confusing the created gods with God-Aer (Krische). To consider God as created \u201cand namely from that what he himself already was in his uncreated essence is the most absurd thing that could be imposed on Greek philosophy,\u201d Krische, Die theologischen Lehren der griechischen Denker, p. 55. The claim that gigni refers only to \u201cthe air substance that \ufb01lls the cosmos,\u201d as asserted by Otto Gilbert, Griechische Religionsphilosophie (Leipzig: Engelmann, 1911; reprint, Hildesheim: Olms, 1973), p. 27 note 1, is indefensible.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

and explicitly rational Aer,44 and Heraclitus and the Stoics with their divine Logos. Life is the \ufb01rst stage, and that is where Thales ended. The mind is the second stage. Anaximander\u2019s divinity is intelligible but too abstract; therefore, Anaximenes chooses Aer to bring Thales closer to Anaximander. Aer is as Apeiron-like as possible but, as it were, more tangible than Apeiron, though less tangible than water. Still, Anaximenes himself recognizes that there is a \ufb01ner element than Aer, namely \ufb01re, and the latter element will be later chosen as the material embodiment of God by Heraclitus and the Stoics. In this, like in Anaximander, rationality is abstracted from its this-worldly setting, which is aer, and transferred to another substrate. Anaximenes was, in that respect, more consistent by couching rationality on the cosmic scale in the same setting as in humans, in aer. This may be considered as sowing seeds of philosophy of man, which would make the Milesian philosophy not as entirely immersed in grand issues of ontology and cosmogony as commonly understood.<\/p>\n

For Anaximenes, the condensation-rarefaction mechanism becomes the underlying physical process. In that, everything in the world becomes a manifestation of divine Aer, everything is to some extent divine. Theology becomes semi-pantheistic (or semi-transcendent). God is Aer, aer in purest form, and is clearly separate from the world by being present at its peripheries. But the world never loses its divine origin. The world is, as it were, a less divine side of God. If theology is stressed, Anaximenes\u2019 God is transcendent; if physics is accentuated, his God is immanent. However, because physics is the other side of theology, the condensation-rarefaction mechanism has its theological counterpart in the mechanism of increase or decrease of divine purity, of God\u2019s unmediated presence. Since theology and physics are intertwined, God\u2019s transcendence is not absolute because God in a large measure is also immanent. 44 The ascription of rationality to Aer by Diogenes is sometimes considered to be a direct proof that Anaximenes did the same, Leo Sweeney, In\ufb01nity in the Presocratics (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1972), p. 68.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Adam Drozdek: Greek Philosophers As Theologians at Amazon. This is chapter 1: — It is not very often that the Ionian thinkers are considered to be theologians. An exception might be made for Xenophanes and Heraclitus, but the \ufb01rst three Ionians, the Milesians, are perceived as philosophers who were primarily interested in cosmogony, cosmology, physics, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_disable_autopaging":false},"categories":[5880,5766,46],"tags":[6574,6575,6005,6576,1406,71,83,59,6578,6579,6580,6581,6582,6583,6584,6585,6586,1990,70],"class_list":["post-264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-greek-poetry","category-greek-religion","category-philosophy","tag-adam-drozdek","tag-epic-poets","tag-greek-gods","tag-greek-philosophers","tag-greeks","tag-heraclitus","tag-herodotus","tag-hesiod","tag-immortal-gods","tag-inanimate-matter","tag-live-forever","tag-milesians","tag-moira","tag-religious-tradition","tag-religious-views","tag-superhuman-knowledge","tag-superhuman-powers","tag-theologians","tag-xenophanes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}