Researched
Philosophy
In Greece, India and China people begin asking for reasons: nature and society are to be explained by thought instead of myth.
Open in the interactive tree →Thales of Miletus (around 585 BC) counts as the first Greek philosopher; Socrates, Plato (Academy ~387 BC) and Aristotle developed logic, ethics and systematic observation of nature. Independently, Confucius and the Buddha taught around 500 BC. Aristotle's logic remained a foundation of reasoning for two millennia.
Prerequisites
- Burial & Religion~100,000 years agoEarly philosophy grew out of religious questions about the world, death and the gods
- Trade & Division of Labor~7000 BC
- Writing~3200 BC
Unlocks
- Deductive Proof (Greece)~600 BC
- Democracy in Athens508 BC
- Atomism (Democritus)~430 BC
- History Writing (Herodotus)~430 BC
- Plato's Academy387 BC
- Aristotle's natural history~340 BC
- Roman Law (Corpus Juris)534
- Universities1088
- Scientific Method~1600-1620
- Boolean Algebra1854
- Falsifiability (Popper)1934
More in Foundations of Civilization · Antiquity
- Writing~3200 BC
- Weights & Standard Measures~2500 BC
- Alphabet~1800 BC
- Sundial & Water Clock~1500 BC
- Libraries~650 BC
- Plato's Academy387 BC
- Calendar3rd millennium BC
- Paper~105 AD