Diogenes of apollonia6/19/2023 ![]() The first of this group of thinkers was Thales (b.c. Each of them attempted to discover a single basic material from which everything sprang. Their thought was, however, more physical and cosmological than metaphysical. It goes to the credit of the philosophers of Miletus, the metropolis of Ionia, a Greek colony in Asia Minor ruled by Persia, to have divested Greek thought of theogony and cosmogony and made the phenomena of nature and their origin their chief concern. Greek Philosophy in the Mainland and the Islands of Asia Minor Ionic Philosophy Therefore it can be described to be cosmological, theological, and cosmogonical. ![]() down to the seventh century B.C., clearly indicates that it concerned itself with (i) the nature of things in the universe, (ii) the nature of gods, and (iii) the origin of the world and the gods. This rough account of the earliest Greek speculation from the dawn of Greek civilization, about 1200 B.C. Apollo's sister Artemis, the hunting goddess, was the mistress of all wild things. Apollo the sun‑god, who with his horses and chariot sailed in the golden bowl round the streams of Okeanos, was the son of Zeus from Leto. Zeus (Jupiter), the god of thunder and lightning, was one of his sons from his sister and consort Rhea. This element like many other contents of Greek cosmogony is of pre‑Greek origin for its variants are found in the cultures of the Hittites and the Hindus as well. The drops of blood that fell fertilized Gaia and generated the Furies, Giants, and the Mehan Nymphs, and the blood that fell into the sea produced Aphrodite (Venus). Similarly, in the Orphic account Kronos, the son of Sky (Ouronos), by a deceit as directed by his mother Earth (Gaia) hid himself in a place of ambush and when his father came along with Night and in desiring love spread himself over her, he sheared off his genitals. For example, in Hesiodic cosmogony Caos produced Night and Erebos, and these two produced Ether and Day, and Gaia gave birth to Portos, either without mating or without sleeping with their mates. ![]() Though Eros was produced at a very early stage, reproduction was not always the result of mating. For the Orphics, Night was the first and from her came Heaven and Mother Earth. Mother Earth then gave birth to Heaven (Ouranos) and then by mating with this son, she produced water (Okeanos). Next came into being Mother Earth (Gaia) and love (Eros) the latter of which rules the hearts of gods and men. From him sprang Night, the mother of sleep and subduer of all gods, and the darkness under Mother Earth (Erebos) and the couple produced Day and the upper reaches of space (Aether). ![]() For Hesiod, in the beginning there was shapeless indeterminate space (Caos) containing the seeds of all things. Similarly, the lowest region below the earth was named Tartaros, the god of punishment, and the region above that, Hades, the god of the dead.įor Homer, all gods originated from Okeanos (water) and his sister and wife, Tethys. The sky, the earth, and the indeterminate space between them, the darkness under the earth, the ocean, river, or water supposed to encircle the earth, thunder and lightning, day and night, air and ether, love and soul, were all divinities respectively named as Ouranos, Gaia, Caos, Erebos, Okeanos, Zeus, Day, Night, Air, Aether, Eros, and Psyche. They personified all elements of nature into powerful and immortal divinities, having the same desires, passions, and relationships as themselves, and endowed them with powers more or less proportionate to their magnitude. It is true that the basic effort of the Greeks, as of those other peoples, was to understand the origin and nature of things, but, like children, what they understood was a world of their own make‑believe rather than the real world around them. It exhibited more the play of imagination than the working of reason. The thinking of the early Greeks, like that of all ancient peoples, Egyptians, Babylonians, Hittites, Phoenicians, and Indians, was more mythological and speculative, more poetical and theogonical than physical or, metaphysical. Greek Thought by M.M Sharif The Early Beginnings
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