ABSTRACT
Ancient Greek philosophy began with natural philosophy. From Thales to Parmenides and Zeno, early Greek philosophers debated the ultimate nature of the world, striving for general principles by which to account for nature similar to those developed by mathematicians to explain geometrical relationships. The first philosopher, Thales, claimed that transformations from solid to liquid states held the key to natural change, and speculated that liquids were the ultimate substance of all things. Self-conscious use of rational reasoning to raise and solve challenging problems is, perhaps, the source of the great achievement of the classical period of Greek philosophy, in which Aristotle’s logic codified reasoning from general principles. Equally memorable, and still intellectually disturbing, is the use of the method by the early Greek philosopher, Zeno of Elea, to demonstrate that contradictions flow from accepting the reality of visible things that are indefinitely divisible into many parts.
