ABSTRACT
The example of Heraclitus which I mentioned in the Introduction is not a peculiar or isolated one. Nor are the questions which I raised about it in any way artificial. It would be good to know about the exact context in which philosophy was born in ancient Greece, but the circumstances are in any event puzzling. Philosophy, we are usually told, began towards the end of the seventh century BC with Thales of Miletus, was carried on by his disciples Anaximander and Anaximenes, and then moved to Ephesus with Heraclitus. Pythagoras also originated in Ionia, in Samos; but he then moved to southern Italy at Croton, where, as Aristotle would have it, a number of branches of philosophy grew up under the ‘Italians’. Only later, in the fifth century BC, did philosophy come to mainland Greece, and then initially in the person of Anaxagoras, who came again from Asia Minor.
