diogeneslantern:

Interesting article, but one correction. The author states:

"Before we go any further, we must first recognize that the ancient Greeks held the belief that the world was constructed form the four primary elements: earth, water, wind, and fire."

This idea was pre-Socratic, but was first seriously presented 100 years after Anaximander by Empedocles through his introduction of the Four Roots. Empedocles was likely drawing from Greek gods and mysticism when developing the Four Roots, but they were not neatly packaged in this way and it was not established that these were what constructed the world. To say otherwise would diminish Thale's importance of submitting water as the Arche. The actual presentation of the roots as "Elements" was later introduced by Plato.


posted 3568 days ago