Italian School (philosophy)

The Italian School of Pre-Socratic philosophy refers to Ancient Greek philosophers in Italy or Magna Graecia in the 6th and 5th century BC. The doxographer Diogenes Laërtius divides pre Socratic philosophy into the Ionian and Italian School. According to classicist Jonathan Barnes, "Although the Italian 'school' was founded by émigrés from Ionia, it quickly took on a character of its own." According to classicist W. K. C. Guthrie, it contrasted with the "materialistic and purely rational Milesians."

The Italian School included the Pythagorean school, Parmenides and the Eleatic school, Xenophanes, and Empedocles. Parmenides, Xenophanes, and Empedocles all wrote in verse.

There were various attempts to interweave these schools as directly influenced by one another in antiquity, most of which is disputed by contemporary scholarship. According to Diogenes Laërtius, the succession goes Pythagoras (“pupil of Pherecydes”), Telauges (his son), Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno of Elea, Leucippus, Democritus (“who had many pupils”), Nausiphanes [and Naucydes] (“in particular”), and Epicurus (Succession ends).

Aristotle seems to refer to the Italian school of philosophers when, as he criticizes the Pythagorean view of a Counter-Earth, he says "Most people...say it lies at the center. But the Italian philosophers known as Pythagoreans take the contrary view."