Ionian Philosophy and Italic Philosophy: from Diogenes Laertius to Hermann Diels

This paper traces the history of a particular cliché of scholarship on the Presocratic philosophers which has persisted from ancient commentators until the present day, and in whose development Hermann Diels work constitutes an important stage. This cliché concerns the division of early Greek philosophy into an Ionian tradition founded by Thales and an Italic one founded by Pythagoras – although a tripartite division is also often found, in texts in which the Eleatic lineage is also given a certain importance and autonomy. I examine in detail how this model, which was originally inspired simply by considerations regarding the different places in which the traditions flourished, developed in various phases of ancient and modern philosophy along with reflections on the distinct theoretical characteristics of the different traditions and on their relations to Plato, whose philosophical system has generally been seen as a synthesis of them. However, even in its simplest, geographical form the model contributed to shape and preserve the tradition of Presocratic thought.