Henri Bergson once remarked that philosophy is born from a concentration of thought upon the foundation of a pure emotion.
These two elements are not merely juxtaposed; they constitute, in their deepest root, a single unity from which the act of philosophizing emerges.
What is that foundational emotion?
What kind of thinking does it bring forth?
Since Parmenides, the Greek concept of truth (alétheia) bears a double meaning: the act of remembering what has been forgotten (lḗthē, “oblivion”) and the unveiling of what lies concealed (lanthánō, “to remain hidden”)—both negated by the privative prefix α-
This unveiling attitude infuses the lifeblood of science with the sweetness of discovery, safeguarding us from the rigidity of Truth—declared by prophets with an ever-disputed capital T.
The heroes we recall today—the ones who once propelled us toward understanding—didn’t want to impose. They wanted to be right and fought for it, but they all came to philosophize through wonder. And wonder alone is their truly shared trait.
It is through wonder that men now begin and originally began to philosophize; wondering in the first place at obvious perplexities, and then by gradual progression raising questions about the greater matters too, e.g. about the changes of the moon and of the sun, about the stars and about the origin of the universe.
Aristotle, Metaphysics, 982b16 ff
That kind of wonder (θαῦμα, thaûma) is what transcended geographical boundaries and philosophical disagreements, linking the Presocratics across two centuries.
Unbeknownst to them, their inclination to ponder wove an impersonal thread of pioneering thought—a path from metaphoric drama to rational concept. A continuum that can be regarded as philosophy’s umbilical cord.
We can still feel the awakening of a novel spirit extending through Miletus, Ephesus, Croton, Elea, Agrigentum, and Abdera, rippling into Athens. We find ourselves there, recognizing how that spirit inhabits our own, down to its Ionian roots.
As Xavier Zubiri says: «Studying the present is studying the past—but not because the latter prolongs its existence in the former».
«We are the past» because we are the ensemble of possibilities that were left to us by a once-real present that underwent its derealization into the past. By ceasing to be, that past forces us to become ourselves again with the possibilities it granted us.
Greece constitutes our most remote and formal possibility of philosophizing; its element is at the base of whichever possibilities define whatever we are today.
Xavier Zubiri
To gain an overview of how they felt and what they thought, let’s consider the following: when approaching the problem of things and their reality, the Greeks first focused on semblance—what would later come to be known as εἶδος (eidos).
Semblance is what presents itself outwardly—the most external and visible aspect of a thing. But at the same time, it manifests what is most ultimate and concealed within it; in this sense, εἶδος is not what is most visible, but rather what becomes visible only to those who have the capacity to perceive its intimacy. Hence the dual meaning of eidos as “form” and “essence”.
This paradox already appears in Homer’s use of εἶδος. In the Iliad (III, 124), the term refers to the exceptional physical beauty of Laodice, “the comeliest (εἶδος ἀρίστην) of the daughters of Priam”. But Homer also uses its plural form, εἴδωλα, to describe the spectral figures of the dead in Hades (XXIII, 72). These eidola retain the external form of the deceased but lack all substance or agency; they are empty reflections of what once was. Furthermore, Apollo creates an εἴδωλον (eidolon, “wraith”) of Aeneas to protect him during battle:
Apollo of the silver bow fashioned a wraith (εἴδωλον)
in the likeness of Aeneas' self and in armour like to his;
and over the wraith the Trojans and goodly Achaeans
smote the bull's-hide bucklers about one another's breasts,
the round shields and fluttering targets.
Homer, Iliad, V, 447-452
We see here the first traces of a reflection on the relationship between appearance and reality. The soul is not its body, yet its εἶδος lingers as a trace—a presence without substance. This ambiguity does not sever form from essence but rather forces thought to distinguish between them, laying the groundwork for a deeper articulation of their unity.
As Greek thought matured, some Presocratics expanded eidos to signify the underlying structure of things, not just their outward aspect. In Anaxagoras, for instance, reality is composed of infinite “seeds” (spermata), each carrying an εἶδος that determines its nature. Eidos was no longer just about what is seen, but what makes something what it is.
In the Phaedo (79a), Plato describes how particular objects participate in the εἶδος of concepts like Equality or Beauty, deriving their nature from them. In The Allegory of the Cave (Republic, Book VII), prisoners mistake shadows (εἴδωλα) for reality until they ascend to perceive true Forms (ἰδέαι) beyond matter and change. Plato used εἶδος and ἰδέα (idéa) interchangeably to describe the Forms, employing eidos to explain the universal essence underlying particulars—both terms derive from the root id- ("to see").
Through his work, εἶδος often retains a sense of “structure” or “form” as the intelligible essence of things, while ἰδέα increasingly emphasizes the abstract and conceptual nature of these realities. In the Republic (508c), Plato elevates the ἰδέα of the Good as the ultimate principle, illuminating all other Forms and grounding reality itself. Here, ἰδέα takes on a distinctly transcendental and foundational role.
Here is where Aristotle breaks with his master’s dual framework. While Plato placed εἶδος in a separate, intelligible realm, Aristotle reanchors it in the material world. In his Metaphysics, εἶδος is the formal cause—not separate from matter, but the very principle that gives matter its shape and function.
So, the paradox never disappears—it only deepens. If εἶδος is at once the most external and the most internal, how can it truly be grasped? The answer lies in a kind of access that is neither purely intellectual nor merely sensory.
Through this mysterious articulation between the intimate and the inaccessible on one hand, and the external and visible on the other, εἶδος can only be fully embraced by one who is bound to its interiority—this is what the Greeks called φιλία (philia, “affection” or “friendship”).
And for this reason, philia—which, when applied to intelligence, probably first implied a vague love, a tendency, or a taste for thought—came, in the mature philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, to mean an intimate engagement with things. An approach that reveals their ultimate root, their inner meaning and constitution.
«In this singular emotion, which is φιλία, rests, for a Greek, the very essence of philosophy.»
In Hesiod’s Theogony (211-225), Philótēs (Φιλότης) is introduced as a personification of friendship, love, and affinity, born from Nyx (Night). She symbolizes a cosmic positive force that fosters cohesion and harmonious relationships—contrasting with her counterpart, Neîkos (“strife” or “discord”).
Neîkos (Νεῖκος) and Philia are the fundamental natural forces in the philosophy of Empedocles. They govern the universal movement of creation and destruction through perpetual cycles of attraction and repulsion.
Philia brings unity and harmony, binding the four elements (earth, water, air, and fire) into a cohesive whole. It is the force that creates order and sustains life, ultimately bringing the cosmos into a perfect Sphairos (Σφαῖρος, “Sphere”)—a state of absolute unity.
Empedocles suggests that Philia’s unifying power can be observed in relationships and moral actions. This aligns with his belief in the universal interconnectedness of all beings, a vision that each philosopher perceives as fundamental. As an ethical principle, philia is later developed in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (Books VIII-IX), where it is described as a bond of mutual goodwill and affection—the Stoics would later expand the concept into the idea of a universal brotherhood of humanity (cosmopolis).
For Aristotle, philia is essential for human flourishing (eudaimonia), as it reflects our social nature and enables cooperation and moral development. Closely linked to justice and civic harmony, he emphasizes its role in maintaining social order.
Like other virtues, philia occupies a middle ground between extremes: A lack of philia leads to selfishness or egoism, while excessive friendliness can result in superficiality or insincerity. Thus, mastering philia requires balance, making it a virtuous disposition.
That’s why Ortega called philosophy «the general science of love»—with love, connection, and reason as the three converging elements in its constitution.
José Ortega y Gasset
«Love binds us to things, even if only temporarily». Whenever we love our partner, our homeland, or science, the object imbued with the quality of being loved acquires a special character: «That which we call beloved presents itself to us as something indispensable. The loved one is, above all, what appears to us as essential. Indispensable!».
We consider it a part of ourselves, something we cannot conceive life without—where we exist, and the loved one does not.
Thus, in love, there is an expansion of individuality that absorbs all other things into it, merging them with us. This bond and interpenetration lead us to delve deeply into the properties of the beloved. We see it in its entirety; it reveals all its value to us. Then we realize that the beloved is, in turn, part of something else, that it needs it, that it is linked to it. Indispensable to the beloved, it also becomes indispensable to us. In this way, love links one thing to another and everything to us, forming a firm essential structure.
Ortega y Gasset, Meditations on Quixote, 1914
As Plato puts it, love is a divine architect who descended into the world ὥστε τὸ πᾶν αὐτὸ αὑτῷ ξυνδεδέσθαι—"so that everything in the universe may live in connection." Seeking that connection, the first philosophers put their common affective disposition into motion.
Toward what?
According to Bergson, this philia is of such a nature that it must lead to a concentration of thought. Not just any thought, but one that, in its full reality, reaches the ultimate nature of things.
The Greeks called this σοφία (sophía, “wisdom”).
