Question

Why were the Greek philosophers important to the study of history?

Answer 1

It is not surprising that many early philosophers were also mathematicians. Etymologically, Philosophy is defined as the love of wisdom, which has to do with the quest to acquire knowledge that is based on logical thinking. Relatedly, Mathematics is the “science that deals with the logic of shape, quantity and arrangement” (Hom, 2013, para. 1).
From this point on, we can see that philosophy and mathematics share one common identity, which is to find the true nature of the elements that surround us. It is worth mentioning that in the ancient times Philosophy was not separate from other field of study such as astronomy, mathematics, navigation, and so forth… Philosophy was considered as a big tree and its branches were all the other studied disciplines back then. It is only later that many fields such as psychology, math, among others, would acquire their independence from Philosophy. In any case, Pythagoras is one of the earliest mathematicians and philosophers worth talking about. Early philosophers such as Thales, Anaximander, Anaximines (all from Miletus, Greece) have grappled with the “problem of the nature of the universe” (Frost, 1989, p. 6).
Pythagoras, to whom we owe the Pythagorean Theorem in Geometry, believed that many elements in the universe were related and that relation can be translated in numbers and numbers are the “stuff”