The term that concerns us now can establish that it has its etymological origin in Latin, since it derives from the union of several lexical components of that language:
-The prefix “pre-”, which means “before”.
-The name "Socrates", which refers to the well-known Greek philosopher (470 - 399 BC).
-The suffix "-ico", which is used to indicate "relative to".
The adjective presocratic It is used to qualify philosophical systems and their exponents that existed before Socrates . This thinker is taken as a breaking point because, due to its historical importance, it can be said that it exercises influence over all philosophical developments after its existence.
Born in 470 BC and died in 399 B.C. , Socrates He is considered one of the most important philosophers of the history . Plato was his apprentice and then, Aristotle He was his student: that philosophical line (Socrates-Plato-Aristotle ) is considered as the basis of the philosophical system of the Ancient Greece and even from the western world.
The pre-Socratic philosophical models, therefore, are those that developed from the 12th century B.C. (when was born Thales of Miletus ) until the last rests of the philosophy Greek who were not influenced by Socrates . It is important to keep in mind that the pre-Socratic philosophy coexisted with Socrates and even extended time after his death, since certain systems that were created without his influence still subsisted.
In addition to Thales of Miletus there are other philosophers who are also key figures in what are the pre-Socratic models. This would be the case, for example, of renowned characters such as the following:
-Anaximandro (610 - 547 BC). He is famous for his manifestations about the nature, distance and size of the stars or his claim that the Earth is cylindrical.
-Anaximens (590-524 BC). He was a disciple of Thales and Anaximander and focused his theories on the air, as well as on the fact that the principle of all things is infinite.
-Pitágoras (569 - 475 BC), which is considered the first pure mathematician and formulated a series of principles that influenced Plato and Aristotle in a special way.
-Heráclito (535-484 BC). He was a philosopher, known as "The Dark of Ephesus", which focused much of his work on what is called ceaseless change.
-Parmenides (530-515 BC). In the work that has reached our days he speaks of two aspects fundamentally: the way of the opinions of mortals and the way of truth.
For historical reasons, the pre-Socratic works were only known through the comments of later thinkers and through fragments. It is important, therefore, to take into account the reliability of the sources Before analyzing these thoughts.
German philologist Hermann Alexander Diels (1848-1922 ) is usually pointed out as the greatest expert in presocratic thinkers in history. This specialist was responsible for compiling a large number of quotes from some four hundred pre-Socratic philosophers and his work became an inescapable reference material.
