Physis u filozofiji Milećana
Physis in the Philosophy of Milesians

Summary/Abstract: The perception of physis in the philosophy of Milesians by necessity begins by the insight of the prephilosophical understanding of the life force in Homer's epics as the organic unity of the divine and the φύσις. The task of this insight is to emphasize the inseparability of the divine from the beginning (αρχή) of what is in a permanent being. In this paper, the expression of the divine in the philosophy of Milesians is seen in a significantly different way than the understanding of the Hellenic custom. Understanding the divine in the philosophy of Milesians is essentially a "geometric method" that was used to reveal φύσις, which lies in the laws of proportions, harmony, symmetry. As what precedes the change, αρχή is the bearer of the order that is shown in geometric laws. In that sense, what gathered Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes is not only a kind of vitalism, which the αρχή of Milesians observes as a life-bearing (ζωή), but a divine order of φύσις in substancial beginning, which precedes every change. By this, the Milesians opened the methods of thinking in terms such as geometrization, quantification, the laws of analogy and the principles of sufficient reason. Therefore, attention is paid to Anaximander’s determination of beginning as ἄπειρον, and the reasons for this Anaximander's choice are especially described.

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