ДОСОКРАТИКИ

Pre-Socratics

Name for the earliest Greek philosophers (7th to beginning of 4th century B.C.). The term is conventional because many of the most notable Pre-Socratics made their contribution to philosophy after Socrates. It is not conventional in the sense that the Pre-Socratics did not pose the problem of the purpose and destiny of the individual, of the relation of thought to being, of the immanent dialectics of thought, and confined themselves to the study of nature, the Universe, and objective reality as it was apparent to the senses.

These problems were all treated from the standpoint of a sensual Universe consisting of a perpetual cycle of Heraclitus, Diogenes of Apollonia (5th to 4th centuries B.C.), Xenophanes, Pythagoras, Parmenides and his Eleatic pupils, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Leucippus, and Democritus. The main object of study of pre-Socratic philosophy—the Universe—was believed to consist of the usual sensual elements—earth, water, fire, and ether, which constantly interchange by means of densification and rarefaction. The dialectics of the elements is a characteristic feature of the natural philosophy of the Pre-Socratics, particularly Democritus and Heraclitus. These elements are sensual and imbued with an organizing but purely material principle (logos in Heraclitus, love and enmity in Empedocles, the eternally moving atoms in the atomists, etc.).

The founders of Marxism-Leninism gave a high appraisal of the spontaneous materialism of the Pre-Socratics, which emerged from the attempt to refute mythology and uphold scientific philosophy.