Greek Philosophical Schools

Carlo Rovelli, Reality Is Not What It Seems (Allen Lane, 2016), 1 "Grains," pp. 3-26.

Thales and his pupil, Anaximander, were natural philosophers.
Hecataeus differentiated history from myth.

Thales: "All is water," i.e., there is a single material substance.

Anaximander: the sky continues beneath the Earth;
rain comes from evaporation;
plants and animals evolve and adapt;
men must have evolved from other animals.

Parmenides and his pupil, Zeno, rejected empiricism in favor of rationalism.

According to tradition, Zeno taught Leucippus.

Leucippus and his pupil, Democritus, continued natural philosophy and founded atomism.

Lucretius poetically expressed the atomism of Epicurus, a pupil of a pupil of Democritus.

Plato and Aristotle rejected causal explanations in favor of teleology.