pre-Socratic philosophers

Pre-Socratic philosophy, in the history of Western philosophy, the cosmological and naturalistic speculations of ancient Greek philosophers who were predecessors or contemporaries of Socrates (c. 470–399 BCE).

Because the earliest Greek philosophers focused their attention upon the origin and nature of the physical world, they are often called cosmologists or naturalists. Although monistic views (which trace the origin of the world to a single substance) prevailed at first, they were soon followed by several pluralistic theories (which trace it to several ultimate substances).

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