Abstract

The article assumes that the philosophers known as “pre-Socratics” should be understood for analyzing their fragments and for a critical analysis of the testimonies about them that have come to us. The Aristotelian reading prevailed, but today we are able to understand the Ionian philosophy in its particularity, each of its philosophers and the ideas common to them. We approach these philosophers together as members of a historical tradition, as this undoubtedly seems unavoidable for their proper understanding, and we pay attention to the fundamental notions of necessity, evolution and freedom, a kind of backbone of Anaximander's thought to that of Lucretius. Especially in contrast to the idea of final cause, we consider that the Ionians followed the opposite path to the Aristotelian and that the Epicureans are their main heirs, hence the expression “Ionian-Epicurean philosophy”, for us created to designate what we believe to have been a long and legitimate philosophical tradition.