Core Theses
There is an underlying principle (archē) of all things — water (Thales), the boundless (Anaximander), air (Anaximenes), number (Pythagoras), fire (Heraclitus).
Nature can be explained by reason without appeal to the whims of gods.
The great dispute — is reality ultimately changing (Heraclitus) or changeless (Parmenides)?
The atomists’ answer — unchangeable atoms moving in a void.
Thales of Miletus, who said all is water and predicted an eclipse in 585 BCE, is traditionally the first philosopher. What follows is a century and a half of daring, fragmentary speculation, surviving mostly in quotations by later writers. See Being vs. Becoming.
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Heraclitus
The obscure philosopher of Ephesus for whom everything flows, strife is the father of all things, and a hidden logos governs the endless change.
Parmenides
The stern pre-Socratic of Elea who argued that only what-is can be thought, that nothing comes from nothing, and that change and plurality are illusions.
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related by shared connectionsBeing vs. Becoming
The first great quarrel in Western philosophy — is reality one and changeless (Parmenides) or everlasting flux (Heraclitus)?
Nothing from Nothing
The ancient principle that nothing comes from nothing — the foundation of Greek physics and the target of the Christian doctrine of creation from nothing.
What Is Time?
Flux and permanence, the moving image of eternity, Augustine’s puzzle, Kant’s form of intuition, eternal recurrence, Heidegger’s temporality.
The Forms
Plato’s eternal, perfect, unchanging realities — Beauty itself, Justice itself, the Good — of which the things we see are imperfect copies.
Uddālaka Āruṇi
Upanishadic teacher who instructed his son Śvetaketu with salt in water and the seed of a banyan, ending each lesson — “tat tvam asi”, that thou art.
Laozi
The legendary “Old Master” credited with the Tao Te Ching — the short, paradoxical classic of the Way that cannot be named, of yielding water and effortless action.