pre-Socratics

pre-Socratics

Earliest Greek philosophers (those who preceded Socrates) whose attention to questions about the origin and nature of the physical world has led to their being called cosmologists or naturalists. Among the most significant were the Milesians Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes, Xenophanes of Colophon, Parmenides, Heracleitus of Ephesus, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Democritus, Zeno of Elea, and Pythagoras.