[omnivore]

Didn't mean to dis you back there. Pythagorus and Euclid did make real progress. (My favorite ancient Greek was Archimedes, but maybe he doesn't rate as a philosopher.)

Painstaking thought can go into writing. I find most writings are not, however, evidence of painstaking thought. Mostly they look like rationalizations wrapped around beliefs people have come to without the benefit of either physical evidence or serious thought or both.

[betty boop]

My favorite ancient Greek was Archimedes, but maybe he doesn't rate as a philosopher.

Then I'm sorry I left him off my list!!! But in his own time, Archimedes would have been classified as a philosopher. Actually the words "science" and "scientist" did not enter into common usage until rather late in the nineteenth century. Prior to that, what we now call scientists were called "natural philosophers."