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The philosophers of the nature

The first western philosophers lived where today it is Greece, Italy and Turkey. In that time, was big the marine trade among the Mediterranean countries, what also took to a change of ideas among that people of Mediterranean. The first thinkers were influenced by Egyptian and Babylonian ideas.

The deep interest for the sciences gave a lot what to think to some of them. What turned them philosophers it was the fact of they try to explain the world scientifically. Before that, everything that happened in the world it was attributed to myths, legends and comfortable of the gods. The first Greek philosophers are called philosophers of the nature, because they were interested above all in the nature and for the natural processes. What instigated them it was to know as the water it could become alive fish, or as the earth without life could become leafy trees or in colored flowers. Everything this without speaking in as a baby could leave its mother's body!

The philosophers noticed that there were constant transformations in the nature. But how were these transformations possible? The first philosophers had a thing in common: they believed that should have a basic substance behind all those changes. They placed referring subjects to the transformations that could observe in the nature, in the attempt of discovering some natural laws that were eternal. They wanted to understand the natural phenomenons without having that, for this, to appeal to the myths. And this was completely different from the attempt of explaining rays and thunders, winter and spring for reference to events in the world of the gods.

We can say, then, that the philosophers of the nature gave the first steps in the direction in a scientific way of thinking.

TALES OF MILETO (624 - 546 B.C.)

Everything began with Tales, of the Greek colony of Mileto, in Ásia Menor (today Turkey). He was the first person to receive the wise person title. Tales was a man that traveled a lot. Among other things, they say that, certain time, in Egypt, he calculated the height of a pyramid measuring its shade in the exact moment in that she had the same measure that its height. They say although in 585 B.C. he foresaw a solar eclipse. For Tales, the world floated as a log in endless waters. He considered the water the origin of all the things, the basic ingredient of the universe. Perhaps he meant that every life form appears in the water and to her it comes back when it comes undone. Besides, it is very probable that Tales has asked himself as the water could become ice and in vapor, for later be water again. Tales looked at the world to its turn and it recognized that in everything there would be the same vital force. Thus, he said that " all the things are full of gods ".

ANAXIMANDRO (610 - 546 B.C.)

Anaximandro was also of Mileto, like Tales. He shared with Tales the idea that there was a basic component that blanket the united universe, but it didn't agree that went something as common as the water. He thought our world was just one of the many worlds that appear of some thing that he called infinite - something besides the physical universe, but the source of everything. He thought that the world had the form of a drum and it was surrounded of that infinite substance. Anaximandro also elaborated the theory that the man was developed starting from the fish. He said that the people were developed starting from some thing because it could not imagine as a baby he/she could survive if he/she had appeared suddenly, in its current form.

ANAXiMENES (585 - 528 B.C.)

This student of Anaximandro observed the natural world and it disagreed of its master. Anaxímenes believed that the basic component that blanket all the things committees were the air, and that all the things were dense or rarefied air. As the air was dense, it became wind, later in cloud, later in water, later in mud and stones. The fire would just be the rarefied air. Anaxímenes said that the air was the source of a lifetime, because the people have to breathe it to live. Its ideas on the universe explained the spiritual and material reality. He said that " Our soul, being air, it maintains us tied up and it controls us; wind and air involve the whole world ".

PITAGORAS (571 - 496 B.C.)

Pitagoras believed that the reality could be explained by the mathematics. He/she discovered a relationship between the mathematics and the music, and it elaborated a theory on the harmony of the universe. It is famous its theorem on the triangles rectangles, where the square of the hypotenuse is the same the sum of the squares of the cathetuses. Pitagoras was very discreet on its work and it formed a society whose members followed a rigorous code. One of the rules was not to eat beans, because they found a grain of open bean similar to the beginning of a human life. That had tragic consequences: pursued by a hostile crowd, Pitagoras came across a plantation of beans and, to the ivés of crossing it, it faced a premature death.

Consulted bibliography:

Gaarder, Jostein. O Mundo de Sofia: O romance da história da filosofia. Tradução de João Azenha Jr. - São Paulo: Cia das Letras, 1995.

Weate, Jeremy. Filosofia para jovens. Tradução de Helena Gomes Klimes - São Paulo - Callis, 1999

Aranha, Maria Lúcia de Arruda. Filosofando: introdução à filosofia / Maria Lúcia de Arruda Aranha, Maria Helena Pires Martins. São Paulo: Moderna, 1986. !!!!

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