Difference between revisions of "Thales" - New World Encyclopedia

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'''Thales''' (in [[Greek language|Greek]]: Θαλης) '''of [[Miletus]]''' (ca. [[630s BC|635 B.C.E.]]-[[543 BC]]), also known as '''Thales the Milesian''', was a [[Pre-Socratic philosophy|pre-Socratic]] [[Hellenes|Greek]] [[philosopher]] and one of the [[Seven Sages of Greece]]. Many regard him as the first philosopher in the Greek tradition as well as the father of [[science]].
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'''Thales''' (in [[Greek language|Greek]]: Θαλης) '''of [[Miletus]]''' (ca. 624 BC-546 BC), also known as '''Thales the Milesian''', was a [[Pre-Socratic philosophy|pre-Socratic]] Greek [[philosopher]] and one of the [[Seven Sages of Greece]]. Since [[Aristotle]] credited him with being the first philosopher (Metaphysics 983b6), Thales has been known to be the first philosopher in western philosophy.  
  
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==Life==
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Contrary to [[Polytheism|polytheistic]] [[Greek mythology]], which ascribed social and natural phenomena to the arbitrary will, tricks, anger, and jealousy of the gods, Thales tried to explain these phenomena based upon unchanging [[principles]]. His dramatic quest for the principle that could uniformly explain all phenomena had the potential to free people from superstitious beliefs. By opening this new perspective, Thales prepared the way for subsequent [[pre-Socratic philosophy|pre-Socratic philosophers]] to pursue the quest for fundamental principles in their own way.  
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Thales lived in the city of [[Miletus]], in [[Ionia]], now western [[Turkey]]. According to [[Herodotus]], he was of [[Phoenicia]]n descent.  It was said that Thales had no children but adopted his nephew as his son.
 
  
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The well-traveled Ionians had many dealings with [[Ancient Egypt|Egypt]] and [[Babylon]], and Thales may have studied in Egypt as a young man. In any event, Thales almost certainly had exposure to [[Egyptian mythology]], [[Egyptian astronomy|astronomy]], and [[Egyptian mathematics|mathematics]], as well as to other traditions alien to the [[Homer|Homeric]] traditions of Greece. Perhaps because of this his inquiries into the nature of things took him beyond traditional mythology.
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By thus breaking the framework of Greek mythology and speculative beliefs of his day, Thales opened a new ground for the pursuit of truth. Aristotle’s recognition of Thales as the first philosopher rests on this perspective of inquiring for unchanging, unifying principles.  
  
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Several anecdotes suggest that Thales was not solely a thinker; he was involved in business and politics.  One story recounts that he bought all the [[olive press]]es in Miletus after predicting the weather and a good harvest for a particular year. Another version of this same story states that he bought the presses to demonstrate to his fellow Milesians that he could use his intelligence to enrich himself. However, looking at his way of thinking, getting rich was not his intent; merely to show people that by being a philosopher it was easy to enrich himself without it being the point of the exercise. Herodotus recorded that Thales advised the city-states of Ionia to form a [[federation]].
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Thales is important not because of particular views he held but because of this new mode of inquiry. The significance of Thales lies not in his particular cosmology but in his way of inquiry. Departing from the account of Greek mythology, Thales opened a new path of inquiry that subsequent thinkers could follow. [[Nietzsche, Friedrich|Friedrich Nietzsche]], 19th century philosopher, also assessed the significance of Thales by stressing this point.
  
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Thales is said to have died in his seat, while watching an [[athletic]] contest.
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==Life==
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Thales lived in the city of [[Miletus]], in [[Ionia]], now western [[Turkey]]. According to [[Herodotus]], he was of [[Phoenicia]]n descent.  It was said that Thales had no children but adopted his nephew as his son.
  
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==Theories and influence==
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The well-traveled Ionians had many dealings with [[Ancient Egypt|Egypt]] and [[Babylon]], and Thales may have had exposure to [[Egyptian mythology]], [[Egyptian astronomy|astronomy]], and [[Egyptian mathematics|mathematics]], as well as to other traditions alien to the [[Homer|Homeric]] traditions of Greece. [[Proclus]], a 5th century philosopher, noted Thales’ exposure to Egyptian geometry. The discovery of several Geometrical theorems was also credited to him.
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Before Thales, the Greeks explained the origin and nature of the world through [[mythology|myths]] of [[Anthropomorphism|anthropomorphic]] [[Deity|gods]] and [[hero]]es. Phenomena like [[lightning]] or [[earthquake]]s were attributed to actions of the gods.
 
  
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By contrast, Thales attempted to find [[naturalistic]] explanations of the world, without reference to the [[supernatural]]. He explained earthquakes by imagining that the [[Earth]] floats on water, and that earthquakes occur when the Earth is rocked by waves. [[Herodotus]] cites him as having predicted the [[solar eclipse]] of [[585 B.C.E.]] that put an end to fighting between the [[Lydia]]ns and the [[Medes]].
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[[Herodotus]], a 5th century B.C.E.. historian, recorded Thales’ prediction of a solar eclipse that put an end of the battle between King [[Alyattes]] of [[Lydia]] and King [[Cyaxares]] of [[Media]]. Both [[Xenophanes]] and [[Diogenes Laertius]] also noted this event.
  
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Thales' most famous belief was his [[cosmology|cosmological]] doctrine, which held that the world originated from [[water]]. [[Aristotle]] considered this belief roughly equivalent to the later ideas of [[Anaximenes of Miletus|Anaximenes]], who held that everything in the world was composed of [[air]].  Thus it is sometimes assumed that Thales considered everything to be made from water. According to [[G.E.R. Lloyd|Lloyd]], however, it is likely that while Thales saw water as an origin, he never pondered whether water continued to be the substance of the world.
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One story recounts that he bought all the [[olive press]]es in Miletus after predicting the weather and a good harvest for a particular year. Another version of this same story states that he bought the presses to demonstrate to his fellow Milesians that he could use his intelligence to enrich himself. [[Herodotus]] recorded that Thales advised the city-states of Ionia to form a [[federation]].
  
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Thales had a profound influence on other Greek thinkers and therefore on [[Western world|Western]] history. Some believe [[Anaximander]] was a pupil of Thales. Early sources report that one of Anaximander's more famous pupils, [[Pythagoras]], visited Thales as a young man, and that Thales advised him to travel to Egypt to further his philosophical and mathematical studies.
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Thales is said to have died in his seat, while watching an [[athletic]] contest.
  
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Many philosophers followed Thales' lead in searching for explanations in [[nature]] rather than in the supernatural; others returned to supernatural explanations, but couched them in the language of philosophy rather than myth or [[religion]].
 
  
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When you specifically look at the influence Thales had in the pre-Socrates era, he was one of the first thinkers who thought more in the way of ''logos'' than ''mythos''. The difference between these two more profound ways of seeing the world is that ''mythos'' is concentrated around the stories of holy origin, while ''logos'' is concentrated around the argumentation. When the mythical man wants to explain the world the way he sees it, he explains it based on gods and powers. The mythical thought does not differ between things and persons and furthermore it does not differ between nature and culture. The way a ''logos'' thinker would present the view on the world is radically different than the mythical thinker. In its concrete form, ''logos'' is a way of thinking not only about individualism, but also the abstract. Furthermore, it focuses on sensible and continuous argumentation. This lays the foundation of [[philosophy]] and it's way of explaining the world in terms of abstract argumentation, and not in the way of gods and mythical stories.  
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==Philosophy==
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Thales ascribed ultimate being to water. Within the framework of the [[ontology]] of [[form]] and [[matter]], Aristotle interpreted him as a predecessor who had discovered a [[Aristotle|material cause of being]]. Based upon Aristotle’s interpretation, Thales is often characterized as a natural philosopher.
  
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Thales is credited with first popularizing [[geometry]] in [[Ancient Greece|ancient Greek]] culture, mainly that of [[spatial relationships]].  He is the first one who separated trigonometry as an independant group from Mathematics, to be one of the four basic "elements" of geometry.  The other three elements of geometry are about long, square and cube of an object.
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Like other pre-Socratic philosophers, however, his concept of material has mythical connotations. Aristotle noted Thales’ word “All things are filled with gods” (One the Soul 411a7). The phrase indicates that Thales’ [[cosmology]] has mystical elements and “water” should not be interpreted as a pure material in a modern sense.
  
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==Sources==
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And as for other pre-Socratics, his writings only survive in fragmentary quotes and passages in the works of other authors. No text contains Thales’ own views: what he meant by “water” and why he thought that it is the ultimate remains unclear. We can only speculate about the likely reasoning of Thales: Thales viewed that the earth exists on water (Aristotle, Metaphysics 983b21. On the Heaven 294a28); water is vital to life and nourishes living organisms; water can change from and to vapor, liquid, and ice; water circulates in the entire natural world; water is used for religious rituals for purification and other uses.
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Most of our sources for information on the Miletian philosophers (Thales, [[Anaximander]], and [[Anaximenes of Miletus|Anaximenes]]) are the works of much later writers. The primary source for Thales' philosophy is Aristotle, who credited him with the first inquiry into the causes of things.  
 
  
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Thales may or may not have written books. It is certain, however, that Aristotle did not have access to any work of Thales, and was writing from secondary sources of his own. While Thales' historical importance is unquestioned, this introduces a good deal of uncertainty into our understanding of him.
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Various sayings, discoveries, and acts have been ascribed to him, but their authenticity is uncertain. As with other wise men, Thales probably had a broad knowledge in diverse areas such as mathematics, astronomy, politics, and others.
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==References==
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==See also==
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*Diels, H. and Kranz, W. (eds), Die Fragmente der Vorsocratiker (Berlin: Weidmannsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1960) (This is the standard text for pre-Socratics; abbr. DK)
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*[[Thales' theorem]]
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*Kirk, G. S., Raven, J. E. and Schofield, M. The Presocratic Philosophers, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1983).
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== Interpretations ==
 
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[[Nietzsche]], in his <u>Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks</u>, § 3, wrote: "Greek philosophy seems to begin with an absurd notion, with the proposition that ''water'' is the primal origin and the womb of all things. Is it really necessary for us to take serious notice of this proposition? It is, and for three reasons. First, because it tells us something about the primal origin of all things; second, because it does so in language devoid of image or fable, and finally, because contained in it, if only embryonically, is the thought, 'all things are one.'"
 
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==Trivia==
 
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*In the [[A&E Network|A&E]] television rendition of [[Nero Wolfe]], one of the antagonists, a [[mathematician]], uses the name "Milton Thales" as a pseudonym, a reference to Thales of Miletus.
 
  
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==References==
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*Barnes, Jonathan. The Presocratic Philosophers, vol. 1 (London: Routledge, 1979)
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G.E.R. Lloyd, ''Early Greek Science: Thales to Aristotle''
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*Furley, David. and Allen, R. E. (ed), Studies in Presocratic Philosophy, vol. I (New York: Humanities Press, 1970)
  
 
==External links==
 
==External links==
 
*[http://www.iep.utm.edu/t/thales.htm Thales of Miletus from The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]
 
*[http://www.iep.utm.edu/t/thales.htm Thales of Miletus from The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]
 
*[http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Thales.html Thales of Miletus] from the MacTutor History of Mathematics archive
 
*[http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Thales.html Thales of Miletus] from the MacTutor History of Mathematics archive
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*[http://www.livius.org Livius], [http://www.livius.org/th/thales/thales.html Thales of Miletus] by Jona Lendering
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===General Philosophy Sources===
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*[http://www.epistemelinks.com/  Philosophy Sources on Internet EpistemeLinks]
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*[http://plato.stanford.edu/ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]
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*[http://www.bu.edu/wcp/PaidArch.html Paideia Project Online]
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*[http://www.iep.utm.edu/ The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]
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*[http://www.gutenberg.org/ Project Gutenberg]
  
 
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{{Presocratics}}
 
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[[Category:635 B.C.E. births]]
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[[Category:Greek philosophy]]
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[[Category:543 B.C.E. deaths]]
 
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[[Category:Ancient Greek mathematicians]]
 
 
[[Category:Ancient philosophers]]
 
[[Category:Ancient philosophers]]
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[[Category:Presocratic philosophers]]
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[[Category:Pre-Socratic philosophy]]
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[[Category:Philosophy and religion]]
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[[Category:Philosophy and religion]]
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Revision as of 05:55, 14 December 2005

File:Thales2.jpg
Thales

Thales (in Greek: Θαλης) of Miletus (ca. 624 B.C.E.-546 B.C.E.), also known as Thales the Milesian, was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher and one of the Seven Sages of Greece. Since Aristotle credited him with being the first philosopher (Metaphysics 983b6), Thales has been known to be the first philosopher in western philosophy.

Contrary to polytheistic Greek mythology, which ascribed social and natural phenomena to the arbitrary will, tricks, anger, and jealousy of the gods, Thales tried to explain these phenomena based upon unchanging principles. His dramatic quest for the principle that could uniformly explain all phenomena had the potential to free people from superstitious beliefs. By opening this new perspective, Thales prepared the way for subsequent pre-Socratic philosophers to pursue the quest for fundamental principles in their own way.

By thus breaking the framework of Greek mythology and speculative beliefs of his day, Thales opened a new ground for the pursuit of truth. Aristotle’s recognition of Thales as the first philosopher rests on this perspective of inquiring for unchanging, unifying principles.

Thales is important not because of particular views he held but because of this new mode of inquiry. The significance of Thales lies not in his particular cosmology but in his way of inquiry. Departing from the account of Greek mythology, Thales opened a new path of inquiry that subsequent thinkers could follow. Friedrich Nietzsche, 19th century philosopher, also assessed the significance of Thales by stressing this point.

Life

Thales lived in the city of Miletus, in Ionia, now western Turkey. According to Herodotus, he was of Phoenician descent. It was said that Thales had no children but adopted his nephew as his son.

The well-traveled Ionians had many dealings with Egypt and Babylon, and Thales may have had exposure to Egyptian mythology, astronomy, and mathematics, as well as to other traditions alien to the Homeric traditions of Greece. Proclus, a 5th century philosopher, noted Thales’ exposure to Egyptian geometry. The discovery of several Geometrical theorems was also credited to him.

Herodotus, a 5th century B.C.E. historian, recorded Thales’ prediction of a solar eclipse that put an end of the battle between King Alyattes of Lydia and King Cyaxares of Media. Both Xenophanes and Diogenes Laertius also noted this event.

One story recounts that he bought all the olive presses in Miletus after predicting the weather and a good harvest for a particular year. Another version of this same story states that he bought the presses to demonstrate to his fellow Milesians that he could use his intelligence to enrich himself. Herodotus recorded that Thales advised the city-states of Ionia to form a federation.

Thales is said to have died in his seat, while watching an athletic contest.


Philosophy

Thales ascribed ultimate being to water. Within the framework of the ontology of form and matter, Aristotle interpreted him as a predecessor who had discovered a material cause of being. Based upon Aristotle’s interpretation, Thales is often characterized as a natural philosopher.

Like other pre-Socratic philosophers, however, his concept of material has mythical connotations. Aristotle noted Thales’ word “All things are filled with gods” (One the Soul 411a7). The phrase indicates that Thales’ cosmology has mystical elements and “water” should not be interpreted as a pure material in a modern sense.

And as for other pre-Socratics, his writings only survive in fragmentary quotes and passages in the works of other authors. No text contains Thales’ own views: what he meant by “water” and why he thought that it is the ultimate remains unclear. We can only speculate about the likely reasoning of Thales: Thales viewed that the earth exists on water (Aristotle, Metaphysics 983b21. On the Heaven 294a28); water is vital to life and nourishes living organisms; water can change from and to vapor, liquid, and ice; water circulates in the entire natural world; water is used for religious rituals for purification and other uses.

Various sayings, discoveries, and acts have been ascribed to him, but their authenticity is uncertain. As with other wise men, Thales probably had a broad knowledge in diverse areas such as mathematics, astronomy, politics, and others.

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  • Diels, H. and Kranz, W. (eds), Die Fragmente der Vorsocratiker (Berlin: Weidmannsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1960) (This is the standard text for pre-Socratics; abbr. DK)
  • Kirk, G. S., Raven, J. E. and Schofield, M. The Presocratic Philosophers, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1983).
  • Barnes, Jonathan. The Presocratic Philosophers, vol. 1 (London: Routledge, 1979)
  • Furley, David. and Allen, R. E. (ed), Studies in Presocratic Philosophy, vol. I (New York: Humanities Press, 1970)

External links

General Philosophy Sources

Template:Presocratics

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