The Other Greek Philosophers: Philosophy's Roots And Branches Analysis

Will Bouwman’s main message in the the article The Other Greek Philosophers: Philosophy’s Roots and Branches is that a lot of Greek philosophers have influenced Western thinking based on empiricism, math & logic. “What isn't in doubt is his influence on Western thinking: within a few generations, the philosophers, he inspired, in particular Anaximander, Pythagoras and Parmenides, had established empiricism, mathematics and logic, the three disciplines that dominate thinking today”.
“Thales was free to account for movement and change in some other way, without the gods pulling the strings”. Thales believed that the world itself was alive and and produced things by using itself without the help of god's. “So for Thales the world grew and developed

This otherwise-undefined stuff was a smooth mixture of opposites, hot and cold, wet and dry. This is clearly a volatile mixture, and at some point it started to curdle, separating into the familiar Greek elements, earth, water, air, and fire. Anaximander was a student of Thales and he believed that we cannot see the things that make up the elements/properties we have such as water, air, gas, etc. He believes that these elements progress into the next like heat turns into vapor. “To Anaximander and Aristotle, what we can perceive, and what defines elements, at least as they relate to us, is their measurable

These ways of defining the world are, in the words of Philolaus, ‘things that limit’: quantities and sizes, ratios and proportions, shapes and patterns. Pythagoreans believed that world was basically defined by numbers and mathematical rules/objects. “The main purpose of the pythagoreans’ intellectual endeavour was to discover and contemplate these mathematical rules that they believed governed the world, so that they could lead well-ordered, harmonious lives”. Pythagoreans basically believed that things happened for a reason and it could be broken down into an equation or rule dealing with