Milesian School

Miletus on the west coast of Anatolia.

The Milesian School was a pre-Socratic school of philosophy of the 6th century BC based in the Ionian city of Miletus. It is generally considered to be the first school of thought in ancient Greek, and thus Western, philosophy and consisted of three philosophers: Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes, all of whom were primarily interested in cosmology, the origin and substance of the world. They all believed that the world consisted of a fundamental element, an arché. Their philosophies, while differing in many ways, were similar in that they were all characterised by material monism and hylozoism.

„First of all, Thales of Miletus (624-546 BC), Anaximander (611-550 BC), Anaximenes (who had his heyday between 585 and 52 BC) and Heraclitus (about 540-480 BC at Ephesus) are usually mentioned. Whoever acknowledges the preceding remarks will be able to approve a portrayal of these personalities which must deviate from that customary in historical accounts of philosophy. These accounts are always based on the unspoken assumption that these personalities arrived at the assertions they handed down through an imperfect observation of nature: Thales that the basic and original essence of all things is to be sought in "water", Anaximander in the "unlimited", Anaximenes in "air", Heraclitus in "fire".

It is not taken into account that these personalities are still living in the process of the formation of the ideal worldview; that although they feel the independence of the human soul to a greater degree than Pherekydes, they have not yet completed the completely strict separation of the soul's life from the workings of nature. For example, one will certainly wrongly conceive of Thales if one thinks that he, as a merchant, mathematician and astronomer, thought about natural processes and then, in an imperfect way, but like a modern researcher, summarised his findings in the sentence: "Everything comes from water". To be a mathematician, astronomer, etc., in those ancient times meant to deal practically with the corresponding things, quite in the manner of the craftsman, who relied on artifice, not on intellectual-scientific cognition.

On the other hand, it must be assumed for a man like Thales that he experienced the outer processes of nature in a similar way to the inner processes of the soul. What presented itself to him as natural processes in the processes with and at the water - the liquid, mud-like, earthy-image-like - was the same to him as what he experienced inwardly in his soul and body. To a lesser degree than the people of prehistoric times, he experienced - but nevertheless he experienced in this way - the effect of water in himself and in nature, and both were an expression of power to him. It may be pointed out that even in later times the external effects of nature were thought to be related to the internal processes, so that there was no question of a "soul" in the present sense, which exists separately from the body. In the view of the temperaments this point of view is still held in a reverberation into the times of the intellectual world view. The melancholic temperament was called earthy, the phlegmatic watery, the sanguine airy, the choleric fiery. These are not mere allegories. One did not feel a completely separate soul; one experienced in oneself the soul and body as a unity, and in this unity the stream of forces which, for example, pass through a phlegmatic soul, just as the same forces pass through the water effects outside in nature. And one saw these external water effects as the same as what one experienced in the soul when one was in a phlegmatic mood. The present habits of thought must adapt themselves to the old ways of imagining if they wish to penetrate into the soul-life of earlier times.“ (Lit.:GA 18, p. 51ff)

They introduced new views that contradicted the prevailing conception of the organisation of the world, in which natural phenomena were explained solely by the will of anthropomorphised gods. The Milesians viewed nature as methodically observable entities and were thus one of the first truly scientifically oriented philosophers.

The Milesian school is not synonymous with the Ionian school, which includes the philosophies of the Milesians as well as quite different Ionian thinkers such as Heraclitus. The Ionian School includes the three philosophers of the Milesian School as well as a few others who came along during the 5th century, but the Ionian School was more concerned with the thought behind everything, whereas the Milesian School focused more on nature.

Literature

• J. Burnet:, J. (1920). The Milesian School. Early Greek Philosophy, 3rd edition, Black, London 1920 web.archive.org
• W. K. C. Guthrie: The Milesians. A History of Greek Philosophy. Vol. 1, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1962, pp. 115–139. ISBN 0-521-29420-7.
• E. L. Hussey: Pre-Socratic Philosophy. In: T. Honderich (editor): The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, 2nd edition, Oxford University Press 2005, p. 753-755. ISBN 0-19-926479-1.
• Robert Lahaye: La philosophie ionienne. L'École de Milet, Cèdre, Paris, 1966.
• Rudolf Steiner: Die Rätsel der Philosophie in ihrer Geschichte als Umriß dargestellt, GA 18 (1985), ISBN 3-7274-0180-X; Tb 610/11, ISBN 978-3-7274-6105-7 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org

References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated. Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com. Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English. Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA) Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF.