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The reason Socrates is considered a point-in-time reference, is because he was (supposedly) the first philosopher that was thinking about how one should live (e

The reason Socrates is considered a point-in-time reference, is because he was (supposedly) the first philosopher that was thinking about how one should live (e.g. ethics) whereas before him philosophers were concerned about what the world was made of.

kar5pt 4y ago
Also Plato is the earliest (Western) philosopher for whom we have full dialogues. For most of the presocratics we only have fragments of their works.
- bombcar 4y ago
  I feel this is the real division - Aristotle has many works on the natural world. But Plato (Socrates) is the first we have almost a complete “works” of.
- abudabi123 4y ago
  Plato and Zhuangzi overlap on the time line and are civilizations apart. The earlier entries on the Stanford Plato site read less PC to me. https://web.archive.org/web/20060830025131/http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato/ https://web.archive.org/web/20060830025131/http://plato.stan... https://web.archive.org/web/20060830033815/http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/zhuangzi/ https://web.archive.org/web/20060830033815/http://plato.stan...
  - pyuser583 4y ago
    I’m pretty sure Socrates, Confucius, Buddha, and Ezekial were all alive at the same time. Civilizations apart, or course.
mdp2021 4y ago
> ethics Well, the common stance before him would remain "Investigate". Already Thales is attributed the "Know thyself" (so we start from the beginning); then one may think of Heraclitus (e.g. "Evil witnesses are eyes and ears for men, if they have souls that do not understand their language"). And of course, Pythagoras - the studies "on good and evil" are reported by Aristotle.
endorphine 4y ago
To clarify, Wikipedia[1] describes it better: The term ["Presocratics"] was coined to highlight a fundamental change in philosophical inquiries between the philosophers who lived before Socrates, who were interested in the structure of nature and cosmos (i.e., the universe, with the implication that the universe had order to it), and Socrates and his successors, who were mostly interested in ethics and politics. The term comes with drawbacks, as several of the pre-Socratics were highly interested in ethics and how to live the best life. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Socratic_philosophy#Terminology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Socratic_philosophy#Termin...
pyuser583 4y ago
Kind of. Socrates life and death perfectly coincide with the Fall of Athens, which (paradoxically) led to the massive growth of Greek culture.

kar5pt 4y ago

Also Plato is the earliest (Western) philosopher for whom we have full dialogues. For most of the presocratics we only have fragments of their works.

bombcar 4y ago
I feel this is the real division - Aristotle has many works on the natural world. But Plato (Socrates) is the first we have almost a complete “works” of.
abudabi123 4y ago
Plato and Zhuangzi overlap on the time line and are civilizations apart. The earlier entries on the Stanford Plato site read less PC to me. https://web.archive.org/web/20060830025131/http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato/ https://web.archive.org/web/20060830025131/http://plato.stan... https://web.archive.org/web/20060830033815/http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/zhuangzi/ https://web.archive.org/web/20060830033815/http://plato.stan...
- pyuser583 4y ago
  I’m pretty sure Socrates, Confucius, Buddha, and Ezekial were all alive at the same time. Civilizations apart, or course.

mdp2021 4y ago

> ethics Well, the common stance before him would remain "Investigate". Already Thales is attributed the "Know thyself" (so we start from the beginning); then one may think of Heraclitus (e.g. "Evil witnesses are eyes and ears for men, if they have souls that do not understand their language"). And of course, Pythagoras - the studies "on good and evil" are reported by Aristotle.

endorphine 4y ago

To clarify, Wikipedia[1] describes it better: The term ["Presocratics"] was coined to highlight a fundamental change in philosophical inquiries between the philosophers who lived before Socrates, who were interested in the structure of nature and cosmos (i.e., the universe, with the implication that the universe had order to it), and Socrates and his successors, who were mostly interested in ethics and politics. The term comes with drawbacks, as several of the pre-Socratics were highly interested in ethics and how to live the best life. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Socratic_philosophy#Terminology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Socratic_philosophy#Termin...

pyuser583 4y ago

Kind of. Socrates life and death perfectly coincide with the Fall of Athens, which (paradoxically) led to the massive growth of Greek culture.