The Presocratic tradition in the history of western philosophy was called so not
only because each member lived and wrote sometime prior to Socrates, but also because their topics
of choice differed fundamentally from what we would come to know as the Socratic Ideal.
There were many memorable names among them; Democritus, Heraclitus, Pythagoras,
Parmenides, Empedocles; to name a few, but first among them, we are told, is Thales.
Most of his accreditation as the “first European philosopher” comes
from Aristotle who believed this to be the case due to him being the
first to conceive and suggest “a single material substratus for the universe.”
Like most of the Presocratic philosophers very little is known of the man,
and since he left no writings behind, what we
do know hails from various philosophers and historians, none being contemporary.
Now let us begin by painting, if only abstractly, a brief picture of
his biography then we may move on to his beliefs regarding Astronomy, Mathematics, and philosophy.
He was born a descendant of noble blood in the Ionian city of Miletus located in Asia Minor.
We are told by Herodotus that he was a Practical Statesman who advocated
for the federalization of the Ionian cities located in the Aegean region.
He never married, owing to his desire to avoid the worry of children, or so he once told Solon,
but later in life he had a change of heart and adopted his nephew Cybisthus. We also
have information that he belonged to the highly respected “seven wise men” or “seven sages”.
These seven were said to be the wisest in the ancient world and enough acclaim
came from this association that his name echoed throughout the Aegean as worthy of remembrance.
In our last bit of Biographical knowledge, we are told by Apollodorus of Athens that his life
ended during the 58th Olympiad, details are not present but consensus leads us
to believe that it was heat stroke which caused his death, he was some 78 years old at the time.
What sets Thales apart from those European minds before him was that rather than falling into the
prevailing dogmas of his day, he instead considered deeply what he observed and
gave the best of his abilities to ferreting out what lay beneath and behind their being.
The early presocratic tradition of taking a single element as inborn and essential to the rest begins
here with Thales. “Water is best”, he tells us, thinking that all things were of its creation.
Let Aristotle explain,
“Thales, the founder of this school of philosophy, says the permanent entity is water,
presumably he derived this assumption from seeing that the nutriment of everything is
moist, and that heat itself is generated from moisture and depends upon it for its existence.
He derived his assumption from this; and also, from the fact that seeds of everything have a
moist nature, whereas water is the first principle of the nature of moist things.”
In terms of our planet’s structure, he believed it to be a flat disk,
floating on a colossal body of water, attributing the earthquakes he experienced as but the passing
of waves beneath the planet, no mention was given as to what lay beyond this body of water.
It was also reported by Aristotle that Thales was a hylozoist, meaning that he
held the belief that “all things are full of gods”, or that they have souls, and thought
the magnet an obvious example of this due to its capacity to move iron and other materials.
Mathematics too was in his domain, and from what we know of him, the most significant
of his scientific contributions. From the information reported to us we may say that
there were 5 geometric theorems which Thales was given credit, for example, he found that
opposite angles formed by intersecting straight lines are equal, this seems self-evident,
but we must view the world in terms of his lens where western mathematics was in its infancy.
There are some relayed stories which demonstrate the practical uses by which he
used his novel conclusions. The first was to aid navigation by sea, Callimachus, the greek poet,
scholar, and Librarian, reports that he warned sailors against using the constellation Ursa
Major for navigational purposes and instead recommended the utilization of Ursa Minor.
He was also able to calculate the distance of the shore from any
ship at sea and determine accurately the height of the Egyptian pyramids.
His use of Astronomical knowledge also extended to predicting future
events which had some significant ramifications.
During a decisive battle between the Medes and Lydians, 585 B.C.E,
he was said to have, like the later Columbus,
predicted the occurrence of the total solar eclipse and in so doing putting a stop to it.
There is also an incident where Thales, preferring to live simply,
was questioned “why if you are so clever, do you have little money?”
His response would be to predict accurately the specifics of the upcoming olive harvest.
This he did in order to demonstrate that if he wished it, he could earn an ample sum of coinage.
We find here a window in to what Thales thought to be the best life for him.
These stories, while interesting, are likely only half truths,
Herodotus and modern scholars agree that his exact prediction of this eclipse was impossible,
though Herodotus does credit him with its approximate prediction,
meaning he predicted the year and not the exact date of its occurrence. While not as legendary,
this feat certainly deserves our respect and admiration; how many of us could predict an
eclipse, even if only which year it will occur, without the aid of the internet?
The significance of the man we call Thales was not only in his crown as
the first western “philosopher”, but more importantly for the spirit he embodied,
different from that of not only his peers, but the entire known western tradition until that time.
Whereas others accepted the world around them as the work of gods
omnipresent hand or hands and events as their incomprehensible actions,
Thales bravely passed on to seeing it as something human beings could understand.
We might say that he served as the Jacob’s ladder between the
realms of the divine and our own here on earth.
It was common practice in the tradition of early European thought to accredit some
well-known individual with achievements of lesser-known individuals and many
of Thales’ discoveries may well fall under this umbrella, we shall probably never know.
Also, it is clear that many of these stories are undoubtedly inaccurate or simply fabrications,
but what is certain is the legacy he left behind.
So let us add our name to the chorus of voices ready and willing to give our admiration and
gratitude to the man who is credited with starting the western philosophic tradition.
As always, thank you for talking philosophy with me, until next time.