A Simplified History of Ancient Western Philosophy

Explanations of realities before the early philosophers and in their time were basically mythical, religious and superstitious. Most of these mythical and religious explanations of reality by the Greeks are captured by the great poets – Homer and Hesiod. The early philosophers employed rationality. Instead of trying to tell fortunes by the position of the planets like was hitherto the case among their contemporaries, they employed their knowledge of astronomy in attempt to explain rationally the nature of the heavenly bodies and their movements. This rational explanation of reality is what merit them the title 'philosophers'.Thales and the early philosophers using reasoning as their guide were able to find explanation for natural phenomenon, which did not bring in magic, myth or religion, not because they were necessarily atheists, but because they recognized that magical, religious, allegorical or mythical explanations was quite different from a rational, scientific explanation.This book explores this rational ideas of the ancient philosophers and presents them to the reader in a simplified and less ambiguous form.