Pre-Socratic Philosophy
The convention of terming those philosophers who were active prior to Socrates the pre-Socratics gained currency with the 1903 publication of Hermann Diels' Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, although the term did not originate with him. The term is considered philosophically useful, however, as what came to be known as the Athenian school (composed of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle) signaled a profound shift in the subject matter and methods of philosophy; Friedrich Nietzsche's thesis that this profound shift began with Plato rather than with Socrates (hence his nomenclature of "pre-Platonic philosophy") was not sufficient to prevent the rise and perpetuation of the phrase "pre-Socratic philosophy."
The pre-Socratics were primarily concerned with cosmology, ontology and mathematics. They were distinguished from non-philosophers insofar as they rejected mythological explanations in favor of reasoned discourse.
Read more about this topic: Ancient Greek Philosophy
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“Methinks it would be some advantage to philosophy if men were named merely in the gross, as they are known. It would be necessary only to know the genus and perhaps the race or variety, to know the individual. We are not prepared to believe that every private soldier in a Roman army had a name of his own,because we have not supposed that he had a character of his own.”
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