[[Image:Pythagoras von Samos.png|thumb|[[Pythagoras|Pythagoras of Samos]]]]
'''Presocratic philosophers''' (also written as '''pre-Socratic philosophers''' and , collectively refered to as '''Presocratics''' or ,<ref>According to a French historian of philosophy André Laks, the term "Presocratic" was probably coined by a German theologian Johann Augustus Eberhard who first used it in a section entitled "Presocratic Philosophy" (German: ''Vorsokratische Philosophie'pre-Socratics') in his 1788 manual of the universal history of philosophy. See: Laks, André. ''[https://books.google.sk/books?id=uGArDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA1 The concept of Presocratic philosophy : its origin, development, and significance]''. Transl. by Glenn W. Most. Princeton, NJ; Oxford : Princeton University Press, 2018. ISBN 9780691175454, p. [1]. (online version retrieved 2019-08-24) </ref> were the first [[Greek philosophers]] as well as the first philosophers of the Western tradition, also considered to be the first empirical [[Scientist|scientists]]<ref>Barnes, Jonathan. ''The Presocratic philosophers''. 2nd rev. ed. London; New York, NY : Routledge, 1982. ISBN 0-203-00737-9, p. 3.</ref><ref>Curd, Patricia. [https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2019/entries/presocratics/ Presocratic Philosophy] [online]. In Zalta, Edward N. (Ed.). ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy''. Summer 2019 ed., 2016-04-04 (retrieved 2019-08-23)</ref>.The term "Presocratics" might be a bit misleading – some of the thinkers were Socrates' contemporaries rather than his seniors.<ref>Barnes, Jonathan. ''The Presocratic philosophers''. 2nd rev. ed. London; New York, NY : Routledge, 1982. ISBN 0-203-00737-9, p. [2].</ref>
Some of this philosophers were the Milesian [[Thales]] of Miletus, [[Anaximander]] of Miletus and [[Anaximenes of Miletus]], Xenophanes of Colophon and [[Heraclitus]] of Ephesus, [[Parmenides]] of Elea, his pupil [[Zeno]] of Elea, [[Pythagoras]] of Samos, the Eliastics Melissus, the Pluralists [[Anaxagoras]] of Clazomenae and [[Empedocles]] of Acragas, the Atomists Leucippus and Democritus of Abdera and the Sophists Diogenes of Apollonia. [[Aristotle]] refers to them as ''Investigators of Nature'' because of their interest on questions of physics (as the material principle).