Greek philosophy was born in Miletos. The conditions which facilitated the emergence of this possibility inscribed in human consciousness are of course those which determined the specific position of Miletos at that period of history, that is the establishment of democracy and free thinking together with the world-wide commercial relations. We have however to sress this point : living on commerce means living with abstract concepts as prices, exchange of products on the basis of market values etc. The inherent value of a product is transformed into ex¬ternal exchange value. This fact apparently promotes abstract thinking. Thales and Anaximander were eminent personalities of this community of merchants. The early Greek philosophy was searching for the «arche» (first principle, originating cause, starting-point). This direction of philosophy was strongly conditioned by the previous mythical way of thinking. Hesiod is the link between mythical tradition and the new way of thinking on philosophical terms. We can trace the philosophical «arche» back to the «origin» of cosmos in mythologies. In other terms, while the archetypical structure remained untouched the change was brought about in the method (rational instead mythical). In mythical thinking the «origin» is not simply an abstraction but a knowledge with fatal consequences for the knower; whithout this knowledge one lives in ontological darkness far from the neighborhood of Being (God). Philosophy could proceed abstractly to¬wards origin because mythos in its redemptive significance was already inaffective. Mythos forms a living model of the world. On the other hand philosophical Logos sets up a corresponding model in abstracto. In this kind of model early philosophy kept in a central position the search for the «origin» or «arche». So, model-building for cosmos and search for the «arche» are common among Mythos and the presocratic Logos. Anaximander named the first principle «apeiron», that is infinite. He had chosen this term for Being (or God) in contradistinction to the finite character of beings (όντα). And he had to ground them on something lying beyond finitude. This simply means that Being is ontologically different from beings. Anaximander kept perhaps this difference because the holiness of mythical Being survived in him. That is why for Anaximander Being is the «Wholly other».
Academy of Athens
