Thales

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses Thales, the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher of Miletus and reputed founder of the Milesian school of philosophy, claiming him to be the first recorded Western philosopher. The paper explains how Thales taught that everything in nature is composed of one basic matter; his philosophy being that water was the fundamental building block of all things and that the Earth floats on water. The paper states that he explained the occurrence of earthquakes by reference to this idea of a floating Earth. The paper explores Thales' explanation of events, in terms of natural phenomena and objects, not in the usual terms of activity by the god Poseidon. The paper contends that prior to Thales, mythology had been used to explain the nature of the physical world; the significance of Thales thus lies not in his answer but in his approach.

From the Paper:

"The second is the principle of all things being water, that all comes from water, and will eventually return to water. This means that water is the prime element of existence and that everything else in the universe is merely a modification of water. In Aristotle's terminology, Thales maintained that water is the material cause of all things. It may well have seemed to Thales that water was the original thing from which all of life arose. Henceforth the question whether everything can be regarded as a single reality appearing in different forms is the central one of Greek science. Why did Thales choose water as the first principle? We simply do not know what led Thales to this conclusion. Aristotle says that Thales "probably derived his opinion from observing that the nutriment of all things is moist, and that even actual heat is generated there from, and that animal life is sustained by water." This is likely the true explanation, but note that even Aristotle uses the word "probably," thus giving his statement merely as a conjecture. It is even more uncertain by what process water changes into other things."

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