Summary:
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The '''Ionian school''', a type of [[Greek philosophy]] centred in [[Miletus]], [[Ionia]] in the 6th and 5th centuries BCE, is something of a misnomer. Although Ionia was a centre of Western philosophy, the scholars it produced, including [[Thales]], [[Anaximander]], [[Anaximenes]], [[Heraclitus]], [[Anaxagoras]], [[Archelaus (philosopher)|Archelaus]], and [[Diogenes of Apollonia]], had such diverse viewpoints that it cannot be said to be a specific school of philosophy. [[Aristotle]] called them ''physiologoi'' meaning 'those who discoursed on nature', but he did not group them together as an "Ionian school". The classification can be traced to the 2nd century historian of philosophy [[Sotion]]. They are sometimes referred to as [[cosmology (metaphysics)|cosmologists]], since they were largely [[physicalism|physicalists]] who tried to explain the nature of matter.
While some of these scholars are included in the [[Milesian school]] of philosophy, others are more difficult to categorize.
Most cosmologists thought that although matter can change from one form to another, all matter has something in common which does not change. They did not agree what it was that all things had in common, and did not experiment to find out, but used abstract reasoning rather than [[religion]] or [[mythology]] to explain themselves, thus becoming the first philosophers in the Western tradition.
Later philosophers widened their studies to include other areas of thought. The [[Eleatics|Eleatic school]], for example, also studied [[epistemology]], or how people come to know what exists. But the Ionians were the first group of philosophers that we know of, and so remain historically important.
==See also==
* [[Cosmogony]]
* [[Hylomorphism]]
* [[Mechanism (philosophy)]]
* [[Monism]]
* [[Milesian School]]
* [[Pre-Socratic philosophy]]
* [[Ionian Enlightenment]]
{{GFDL}}
The '''Ionian school''', a type of [[Greek philosophy]] centred in [[Miletus]], [[Ionia]] in the 6th and 5th centuries BCE, is something of a misnomer. Although Ionia was a centre of Western philosophy, the scholars it produced, including [[Thales]], [[Anaximander]], [[Anaximenes]], [[Heraclitus]], [[Anaxagoras]], [[Archelaus (philosopher)|Archelaus]], and [[Diogenes of Apollonia]], had such diverse viewpoints that it cannot be said to be a specific school of philosophy. [[Aristotle]] called them ''physiologoi'' meaning 'those who discoursed on nature', but he did not group them together as an "Ionian school". The classification can be traced to the 2nd century historian of philosophy [[Sotion]]. They are sometimes referred to as [[cosmology (metaphysics)|cosmologists]], since they were largely [[physicalism|physicalists]] who tried to explain the nature of matter.
While some of these scholars are included in the [[Milesian school]] of philosophy, others are more difficult to categorize.
Most cosmologists thought that although matter can change from one form to another, all matter has something in common which does not change. They did not agree what it was that all things had in common, and did not experiment to find out, but used abstract reasoning rather than [[religion]] or [[mythology]] to explain themselves, thus becoming the first philosophers in the Western tradition.
Later philosophers widened their studies to include other areas of thought. The [[Eleatics|Eleatic school]], for example, also studied [[epistemology]], or how people come to know what exists. But the Ionians were the first group of philosophers that we know of, and so remain historically important.
==See also==
* [[Cosmogony]]
* [[Hylomorphism]]
* [[Mechanism (philosophy)]]
* [[Monism]]
* [[Milesian School]]
* [[Pre-Socratic philosophy]]
* [[Ionian Enlightenment]]
{{GFDL}}