Pre-Socratic philosophy
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Pre-Socratic philosophy, also known as early Greek philosophy, is ancient Greek philosophy before Socrates. Pre-Socratic philosophers were mostly interested in cosmology, the beginning and the substan
Pythagoras
Parmenides
Heraclitus
St. Elmo's fire (luminous plasma created by a corona discharge from a rod-like object) in a ship. Xenophanes' contemporaries attributed this phenomenon to the deity Dioscuri. Xenophanes argued that the observed illumination is due to small clouds influenced by special circumstances relating to stars—an example of naturalism and reductionism.
Leucippus
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Leucippus was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher. He is traditionally credited as the founder of atomism, which he developed with his student Democritus. Leucippus divided the world into two entities: a
Leucippus, as imagined by the 17th-century painter Luca Giordano
A 1773 line engraving of Leucippus