What we know about Thales
A brief look at the ‘first’ philosopher and pre-scientific scientist
Thales of Miletus is believed to have lived during the 6th century BC. He is considered to be the first Western philosopher and one of the earliest pre-scientific scientists. Achievements that have been attributed to him are measuring, for the first time, the height of pyramids based on the length of his own shadow, inventing the sundial, predicting (with accuracy unknown) the eclipse of 585 BC. The reason why Thales is known as the ‘first philosopher’ (a title given to him by Aristotle) is that he was the first person known to analyze nature scientifically, independent of dogma or religion or myths. His thoughts were grounded in arguments, which was a novelty at the time.
Unfortunately, none of his original works have survived. While reading the early Greek philosophers, it is important to remember that what we get from the sources is highly interpretive and reconstructed — since their original work is scantily available. In case of Thales, especially, nothing can be attributed as coming from him with certainty because all we have are other people’s accounts.
The early Greek philosophers, in their naturalistic quest, tried to discover the first cosmic principle or the one underlying element that everything else came from.
For Thales, the archae, or the cosmic principle, was water.
Greece was surrounded by water — so that must have influenced his thought. Water clearly supports life and changes form. In some cases, on evaporation, it leaves a residue behind. We are able to get food through it. It seems to be more mysterious than other elements because of its ability to observably change states. (It is hard to know whether he implied everything is made of water, or that everything comes out of water.)
Soul and God
He related the notion of the soul with motion, or animate objects.
“Thales, too, to judge from what is recorded about him seems to have held soul to be a motive force, since he said that the magnet has a soul in it because it moves the iron.” — Aristotle in De Anima
Thales’ fragment —All things are full of gods — can be understood in the light of the modern physics quest of finding a ‘theory of everything’. A modern interpretation is that by God, Thales meant energy. His attempt at unifying the world, and finding oneness, can be seen through his fragments.
Earth floats on water
Why does the earth not fall? — is another question some pre-Socratics tried to answer. As per Aristotle, Thales thought that the world is floating on water. Upon conjecture, he might have believed that because landmasses observably float on water, and by ascribing the principle of buoyancy to Earth and the universal presence of water, he might have believed that his reasoning is sensible. However, he seems to have not provided a reasoning for what the water rests on.
Endnote
Even though not much is known of Thales, he has remained a significant figure in the historical development of Philosophy as he was a pioneer in breaking away from the illogical towards the logical.
