While starting the class Thursday on Homer and Hesiod and how they formed what is known as the Mytho-Poetic tradition and its influence on the creation of philosophy. Made me think of how philosophy and literature, if approached in the same way can be mistaken as the same subject. But where philosophy differs from literature is in the message that the author is trying to say. In literature, the story really does not make one ponder a question but simply states a question or problem and gives a solution, with the occasional lesson involved. But philosophy is different it asks the question then pulls the reader into an argument making them pick a side or ponder an unanswered question.
This leads me into my thoughts on Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes. These early philosophers started looking past their everyday world and questioned their environment around them. They looked past the idea that gods caused everything and tried to rationalize their surroundings. Thales thought that things were made up of water in one form or the other. While Anaximander believed things were made up of boundless things and not water. Since water has its own form it cannot become something else. So he claims the cosmos is made up of something that is boundless. While Anaximenes agrees in material monoism, he differs from both Thales and Anaximander of what the material is. He thinks the material is Aer which is a thick mist. Aer is indefinite to the point it can create other things but not as vague as Anaximander's definition.
I think some literature aims at drawing us in in a philosophical way, but I like your point about they can look the same depending on how we approach them.
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