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Thales to Protagoras: *
Thales (624-545 BC), Greek pre-Socratic philosopher, mathematician & astronomer, from Miletus in Ionia, Asia Minor; abandoned the use of mythology in explanations of the world & universe, instead explaining natural objects & phenomena by naturalistic theories & hypotheses, a precursor to modern science; Aristotle, regarded him as the first philosopher in the Greek tradition;
Protagoras (490-420 BC) pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, Plato labels him a sophist & credits him with inventing the role of the professional sophist (or tutor); controversial figure, his "Man is the measure of all things" promoted a form of relativism denying the possibility of objective truth; also as an outspoken agnostic he was expelled from Athens & his books burnt.
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Bacon to Hume: *
Bacon (1561-1626) English philosopher & statesman (Attorney General & Lord Chancellor, under Elizabeth I and James I of England); called the father of empiricism, credited with developing t scientific method and remained influential through the scientific revolution. His works argued for the possibility of scientific knowledge based only upon inductive reasoning & careful observation of nature; he argued science could be achieved by use of a sceptical and methodical approach in which scientists aim to avoid misleading themselves. One of the early British Empiricists.
Hume (1711-76) Scottish Enlightenment philosopher, historian, economist, librarian & essayist, famous for his influential system of philosophical empiricism, scepticism & naturalism. He strove to create a naturalistic science of man that examined the psychological basis of human nature; he argued against the existence of innate ideas, positing that all human knowledge derives solely from experience. He was a British Empiricist, following Francis Bacon (1561-1626), Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679 ), John Locke (1632-1704) & George Berkeley (1685-1753). He argued that inductive reasoning & belief in causality cannot be justified rationally but result from custom & mental habit. An opponent of philosophical rationalists, Hume held that passions rather than reason govern human behaviour, famously proclaiming that "Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions".
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pre-Buddha thinkers: *
The 6 pre-Buddhist śrāmana schools identified are:
The śrāmana movement of Purana Kassapa (Amoralism): believed in antinomian ethics; it asserted that there are no moral laws, nothing is moral or immoral, there is neither virtue nor sin.
The śrāmana movement of Makkhali Gosala embraced fatalism & determinism, everything is the consequence of nature and its laws; free will does not exist; Karma & consequences are not based on free will, cannot be altered, everything is pre-determined.
The śrāmana movement of Ajita Kesakambali believed in materialism, denied an after-life, re-birth, karma, or consequences of good or evil deeds; all things (including men) are composed of elemental matter, at death one returns to those elements.
The śrāmana movement of Pakudha Kaccayana: believed in atomism, denied there is a creator or knower, everything is made of 7 basic & eternal building blocks, neither created nor caused, these include earth, water, fire, air, happiness, pain and soul; all actions (including death) is a simple re-arrangement & interpenetration of one set of substances into another set.
The śrāmana movement of Mahavira (Jainism): believed in fourfold restraint, to avoid all evil; the Jain philosophy posits that reality is perceived differently from different points of view, that no single point of view that is complete truth.
The śrāmana movement of Sanjaya Belatthiputta believed in absolute agnosticism & refused holding any opinion on existence of or non-existence of after-life, karma, good, evil, free will, creator, soul, or other topics.