Ionian school (philosophy)

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The Ionian school of pre-Socratic philosophy refers to Ancient Greek philosophers, or a school of thought, in Ionia in the 6th century BC, the first in the Western tradition. The Ionian school included such thinkers as Thales of Miletus, Anaximander, Anaximenes of Miletus, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, and Archelaus. This classification can be traced to the doxographer Sotion. The doxographer Diogenes Laërtius divides pre-Socratic philosophy into the Ionian and Italian school. The collective affinity of the Ionians was first acknowledged by Aristotle who called them physiologoi (φυσιολόγοι), or natural philosophers. They are sometimes referred to as cosmologists, since they studied stars and maths, gave cosmogonies and were largely physicalists who tried to explain the nature of matter. The first three philosophers (Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes) were all centred in the mercantile city of Miletus on the Maeander River and are collectively referred to as the Milesian school. They sought...

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