Milesian School

Added to the intro of the Article:

The main intro about the Milesian school was good and not much needed to be added. I corrected some of the info but not enough to add on here.

To the end of the intro I added this part about the Ionian school to make sure people know the difference between the two:

The Ionian School contains these three philosophers that form the Milesian School as well as a few more who were added on during the 5th Century, but the the Ionian School looked more into the thought behind everything while the Milesian School was more focused on nature.[1]


Philosophy of Nature

Formatted the section into parts:

Intro:

Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes are the three greek philosophers from Miletus that form the Milesian School.[2] (Intro didn't need much)

Thales:

Thales, known as the Father of all Science, was the first of the philosophers to look at the nature of the earth.[3] Thales formed the Thaletian hypothesis of water in which he saw water as the primordial substance that was responsible for the formation of everything on Earth.[4] Thales taught that water was indeed the arche but he struggled to explain some parts of the world and how water made them up, such as fire. (Corrected some of the info already in this section but added all of this info)

Anaximander:

Anaximander

Anaximander was the first to break nature down and find the balance of forces between the elements that make up nature.[8] Anaximander was one of the first scientists/philosophers to present a differing viewpoint on how human life was brought about. He was one of the first to present the idea of evolution and stray away from the common thought that humans were formed by the God, but his form differed from the evolution that is known in modern time. Anaximander created the idea that man evolved from fish and that all life was from the water originally.[5] (Added all this to the Anaximander section I created in the philosophy of nature section)

Picture: Added a photo of Anaximander. Was going to do the same for Thales and Anaximenes but couldn't find any good photos of them. Also uploading photos on here is tough.

Anaximenes:

He defined it as being aer or that world is formed from air, mist and vapor. His work and writings have been lost overtime, but Anaximenes presented that nature was formed from air that condensates from a mist to water and then to a physical matter.[6] Anaximenes ideas about aer started to have the a divine appearance due to air having the ability to bring about all matter and change physical state.[6] (Couldn't find a ton of sources on Anaximenes but could find one that gave a lot of good info on him. )

Added this last paragraph on because I wanted to show why they had so differing viewpoints and ideas. Not sure if this paragraph works for wikipedia but it needed to be added so that people understand why the three philosophers of the Milesian School had such differing teachings on nature and cosmology:

The three philosophers that formed the Milesian School in Miletus taught differing ideas and concepts about the philosophy of nature and cosmology. Thales was the first of these philosophers and he taught more concrete ideas. Anaximander created more abstract ideas that weren't liked by the people as much as Thales teachings due to them being less believable because they discussed the idea of an undefined substance that created everything and that brought balance in natural forces.[5] Anaximenes strayed away from Anaximander's thoughts and teachings due to how abstract his thoughts really were and formed his own on the basis that air was the element that formed all matter through the idea of aer. Anaximenes teachings were looked on as making air a divine elements through its ability.[6] These philosophers had differing teachings, but their teachings on the philosophy of nature and cosmology formed the Milesian School.

Cosmology

Formatted this into three parts:

Intro:

Didn't add anything to intro.

Thales:

Thales was the first philosopher to look at the arche of the world as well as he was the first philosopher to look at the shape of the earth and everything surrounding it. Due to his belief that water was the primordial substance, Thales taught that the earth was a floating disk that was floating on water.[7] Along with looking at how the shape and makeup of the Earth, Thales studied what was surrounding the Earth was the first to predict an eclipse.[3] He predicted that there would be a total lunar eclipse in the 6th Century on May 28, 585 B.C.[7]

Anaximander:

Anaximander's Cosmology- shows the rings surrounding the earth with the holes of fir in the rings.

Anaximander thought that the earth was a suspended cylinder where the height of the cylinder was one third the diameter of the flat end. The earth was suspended in his teachings due to his belief that it was the same distance from the planets, stars and everything that was surrounding it. He taught that the top flat side of the cylinder was the inhabited part of the earth. Along with forming a concept of the universe and the earth, Anaximander was the first scientist/philosopher to form a map of the inhabited part of the earth.[8]

Anaximenes:

Couldn't find many articles on Anaximenes' thoughts about cosmology. I knew some of his ideas from class but didn't want to add information without an article.

  1. ^ "Milesian School - By Movement / School - The Basics of Philosophy". www.philosophybasics.com. Retrieved 2018-12-05.
  2. ^ "OU Libraries Authentication Service". login.libraries.ou.edu. Retrieved 2018-12-05.
  3. ^ a b "OU Libraries Authentication Service". login.libraries.ou.edu. doi:10.1111/j.1444-0938.1942.tb02445.x. Retrieved 2018-12-05.
  4. ^ "OU Libraries Authentication Service". login.libraries.ou.edu. Retrieved 2018-12-05.
  5. ^ a b "OU Libraries Authentication Service". login.libraries.ou.edu. doi:10.1007/bf02834372.pdf. Retrieved 2018-12-05.
  6. ^ a b c "OU Libraries Authentication Service". login.libraries.ou.edu. Retrieved 2018-12-05.
  7. ^ a b "OU Libraries Authentication Service". login.libraries.ou.edu. Retrieved 2018-12-05.
  8. ^ "OU Libraries Authentication Service". login.libraries.ou.edu. Retrieved 2018-12-05.