between such elements as mind and matter, substance and attribute, including both ontology and cosmology. The subject matters of myth and metaphysics overlap, but for the Greeks the shift from myth to logical analysis in the context of reason is a shift to Logos. One of the early concerns was to discover arche, or the first principle, addressed by early philosophers such as Hesiod, Thales, and Anaximander. Aristotle explained that to know a particular thing is to know its primary causes. The earliest philosophers, he says, concerned themselves with material principles underlying all things, and this is the first cause, that of which all things consist and from which they first came. Different theorists came up with different first principles.
Jonathan Barnes notes that some see Greek mythologists as predecessors of Greek philosophers:
There are similarities between certain aspects of these early tales and certain parts of the early philosophers' writings (Barnes 15).
Aristotle made a distinction between mythologists and philosophers. Barnes, however, feels that there are few antecedents to be found in the beliefs of the mythologists that would lead to beliefs offered by the metaphysicians:
It would be silly to claim that the Presocratics began something entirely novel and totally unprecedented in the history of human intellectual endeavor. But it remains true that the best researches of scholarship have produced remarkably little by way of true antecedents (Barnes 16).
The one fact that is clear is that both the mythologist and the metaphysician were offering explanations for the same essential questions, such as why are things as they are. This is the realm of metaphysics, the branch of philosophy that examines the nature of reality and the relationships between such elements as mind and matter, substance and attribute. It includes both ontology and cosmology. Metaphysics is the most abstract division o...