Empedocles in the context of "Adaptation"

Pre-Socratic philosophy, also known as early Greek philosophy, is ancient Greek philosophy before Socrates. Pre-Socratic philosophers were mostly interested in cosmology, the beginning and the substance of the universe, but the inquiries of these early philosophers spanned the workings of the natural world as well as human society, ethics, and religion. They sought explanations based on natural law rather than the actions of gods. Their work and writing has been almost entirely lost. Knowledge of their views comes from testimonia, i.e. later authors' discussions of the work of pre-Socratics. Philosophy found fertile ground in the ancient Greek world because of the close ties with neighboring civilizations and the rise of autonomous civil entities, poleis.

Pre-Socratic philosophy began in the 6th century BC with the three Milesians: Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes. They all attributed the arche (a word that could take the meaning of "origin", "substance" or "principle") of the world to, respectively, water, apeiron (the unlimited), and air. Another three pre-Socratic philosophers came from nearby Ionian towns: Xenophanes, Heraclitus, and Pythagoras. Xenophanes is known for his critique of the anthropomorphism of gods. Heraclitus, who was notoriously difficult to understand, is known for his maxim on impermanence, ta panta rhei, and for attributing fire to be the arche of the world. Pythagoras created a cult-like following that advocated that the universe was made up of numbers. The Eleatic school (Parmenides, Zeno of Elea, and Melissus) followed in the 5th century BC. Parmenides claimed that only one thing exists and nothing can change. Zeno and Melissus mainly defended Parmenides' opinion. Anaxagoras and Empedocles offered a pluralistic account of how the universe was created. Leucippus and Democritus are known for their atomism, and their views that only void and matter exist. The Sophists advanced philosophical relativism. The Pre-Socratics have had significant impact on several concepts of Western philosophy, such as naturalism and rationalism, and paved the way for scientific methodology.

Early Greek cosmology refers to beliefs about the origins, development, and structure of the universe in Ancient Greece that existed before the development of Ancient Greek astronomy. The basic elements of this early cosmology included a flat earth, heaven, a cosmic ocean, the afterworld (Hades), and the netherworld (Tartarus). The first three were represented by the gods Gaia, Uranus, and Oceanus (or sometimes Pontus). Ancient Greek cosmology was related to ancient Near Eastern cosmology, and was ultimately replaced by a more systematic and demythologized approach found in ancient Greek astronomy. Its main sources are the poetry of Homer (the Iliad and the Odyssey), Hesiod (the Theogony and the Works and Days), and surviving fragments from Mimnermus.

Beginning in the 5th century BC, elements of the traditional Greek cosmos began to be modified and challenged. One of the earliest of these challenges came from the emergence of the view that the cosmos as a whole was spherical (advocated by Xenophanes, Parmenides, Empedocles, and others). The rotation of the spherical cosmos was said to explain the visible rotation of the stars (an idea called "vortex"). Soon, a spherical model of the earth itself was proposed, which gradually gained acceptance, although the flat earth view never entirely disappeared during either classical antiquity or late antiquity, continuing to receive support from geographers and others like Ctesias, Ephorus, Strabo, Tacitus, and the Epicureans. The last Greek advocate of the traditional cosmology was Cosmas Indicopleustes.

Life is matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and the ability to sustain itself. It is defined descriptively by the capacity for homeostasis, organisation, metabolism, growth, adaptation, response to stimuli, and reproduction. All life over time eventually reaches a state of death, and none is immortal. Many philosophical definitions of living systems have been proposed, such as self-organizing systems. Defining life is further complicated by viruses, which replicate only in host cells, and the possibility of extraterrestrial life, which is likely to be very different from terrestrial life. Life exists all over the Earth in air, water, and soil, with many ecosystems forming the biosphere. Some of these are harsh environments occupied only by extremophiles. The life in a particular ecosystem is called its biota.

Life has been studied since ancient times, with theories such as Empedocles's materialism asserting that it was composed of four eternal elements, and Aristotle's hylomorphism asserting that living things have souls and embody both form and matter. Life originated at least 3.5 billion years ago, resulting in a universal common ancestor. This evolved into all the species that exist now, by way of many extinct species, some of which have left traces as fossils. Attempts to classify living things, too, began with Aristotle. Modern classification began with Carl Linnaeus's system of binomial nomenclature in the 1740s.

The Eleatics were a group of pre-Socratic philosophers and school of thought in the 5th century BC centered around the ancient Greek colony of Elea (Ancient Greek: Ἐλέα), located around 80 miles south-east of Naples in southern Italy, then known as Magna Graecia.

The primary philosophers who are associated with the Eleatic doctrines are Parmenides, Zeno of Elea, and Melissus of Samos, although other Italian philosophers such as Xenophanes of Colophon and Empedocles have also sometimes been classified as members of this movement. The Eleatics have traditionally been seen as advocating a strict metaphysical view of monism in response to the materialist monism advocated by their predecessors, the Ionian school.

The history of anatomy spans from the earliest examinations of sacrificial victims to the advanced studies of the human body conducted by modern scientists. Written descriptions of human organs and parts can be traced back thousands of years to ancient Egyptian papyri, where attention to the body was necessitated by their highly elaborate burial practices.

Theoretical considerations of the structure and function of the human body did not develop until far later, in ancient Greece. Ancient Greek philosophers, like Alcmaeon and Empedocles, and ancient Greek doctors, like Hippocrates and his school, paid attention to the causes of life, disease, and different functions of the body. Aristotle advocated dissection of animals as part of his program for understanding the causes of biological forms. During the Hellenistic Age, dissection and vivisection of human beings took place for the first time in the work of Herophilos and Erasistratus. Anatomical knowledge in antiquity would reach its apex in the person of Galen, who made important discoveries through his medical practice and his dissections of monkeys, oxen, and other animals.

Corax (Greek: Κόραξ, Korax; fl. 5th century BC) was one of the founders (along with Tisias) of ancient Greek rhetoric. Some scholars contend that both founders are merely legendary personages, others that Corax and Tisias were the same person, described in one fragment as "Tisias, the Crow" (corax is ancient Greek for "crow"). And according to Aristotle, Empedocles was the actual founder of rhetoric, but this is also unlikely. It is believed that William Shakespeare derived the name Sycorax from Corax of Syracuse. Corax is said to have lived in Sicily, Magna Graecia, in the 5th century BC, when Thrasybulus, tyrant of Syracuse, was overthrown and a democracy formed.