ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews of axial Greece aims to highlight a few salient features of particular thinkers or schools, focus on aspects that are relevant to a new axial vision and make some comparisons with the development of thought in modernity. The emphasis is on elements within axial Greek thought that contrasted with the initial expressions of the four biases that were later fully developed in modernity, thus offering a more general vision of axial Greek thought and pointing to its relatively more balanced nature. It is common to divide the pre-Socratics into two distinct groups: the Eastern Ionian materialists and Western Eleatic rationalists. The former includes the 'Milesian' materialists and Heraclitus, while the latter was led by Parmenides, with two key pupils: Zeno of Elea and Melisus. Pythagoras possessed the most overtly religious orientation among axial Greek philosophers, and after him the divine was generally conceived in the form of a rational intelligence that governed the world, with 'Heraclitus' logos.
