Brief Biography:

 

>    Lived: 624 BC -546 BC

>    Left no writings (at least none surviving).

>    What we know of him is primarily through the writings of Aristotle and Diogenes Laërtius.

>    Lived in the province of Miletus in Ionian.  Born in well-to-do family hence received an education which may have included traveling to Egypt to study mathematics.

>    A polymath who involved himself in business, politics, military strategy, astronomy (predicted solar eclipses), mathematics, and philosophy.

>    According to Diogenes Laërtius Thales of Miletus was the first of the Seven Sages of ancient Greece. 

>    The inscription, Know Thyself, on the entrance to the Temple of the Oracle of Delphi is attributed to Thales.

 

Mathematics:

 

>    Thales most important mathematical contribution was his theorem that states that if A, B and C are points on a circle where the line AC is a diameter of the circle, then the angle ABC is a right angle.

>    It is likely that Thales theorem was already known to the Egyptians and Babylonians, but the “proof” of the theorem is attributed to Thales.

 

Thales—The First Philosopher?

 

>    Bertrand Russel wrote in his History of Western Philosophy (1945): "Western philosophy begins with Thales." 

>    Why?

According to Frederick Nietzsche, Thales was the first Greek Philosopher (Philosophy During the Tragic Age of the Greeks):

“Greek philosophy seems to begin with a preposterous fancy, with the proposition that water is the origin and mother-womb of all things.  Is it really necessary to stop there and become serious?  Yes, and for three reasons:  Firstly, because the proposition does enunciate something about the origins of things; secondly, because it does so without figure and fable; thirdly and lastly, because in it is contained, although only in the chrysalis state, the idea– Everything is one.  The first-mentioned reason leaves Thales still in the company of religious and superstitious people; the second, however, takes him out of this company and shows him to us as a natural philosopher; but by virtue of the third, Thales becomes the first Greek philosopher.”

 

The Philosophy of Thales:

 

>    Like his Ionian contempories, Thales sought the Urstoff.  He concluded it was water.

»    The earth floated on the water of the seas.

»    When water evaporated it formed the air.

»    When water condensed it formed the earth.

>    His approach to explaining the origin of nature (cosmology) employed logos (reason, word, argumentation) as opposed to appealing to mythos (fable, divine intervention).

»    Thales sought a natural explanation for phenomena.  Thus he explained earthquakes as occurring because the earth floated on a tumultuous sea and not because of divine retribution.

»    In this regard some have argued that Thales was a materialist (the view that the only substance is matter and that all phenomena, including consciousness arise from the interaction of matter), but from the writings of Aristotle it Thales naturalism has little in common with modern materialism.

>    Thales introduces the notion of the unity of all things by his insistence that everything has its origin in water.  Thus there is a unity in the plurality of existence; an identity in difference.

»    This also introduced the conundrum of change:  If an object changes, is it the same or different? In either case how can there be a change from one to the other?”

»    These questions required new ways of thinking and a new vocabulary (remember the logos) which although not developed by Thales were the result of his philosophical reflections:

¸    Arche: origin, first cause, dominion.

¸     Hyle: matter or stuff (can be the material cause in Aristotelian philosophy).

¸     Eidos: form

¸     Physis:  to grow, to be, to become.

(All of these terms had multiple meanings and interpretations so sometimes it is difficult to follow the arguments of different philosophers who used the same terms, but understood them in very different ways.)

»    Thales addressed the issue of change (physis) by studying lodestone and amber which both had powers to attract (magnetism and electrostatics, respectively).

¸     These seemingly inanimate objects had the “power” to induce change as animate objects do.

¸  Thales concluded that lodestone and amber where animate, i.e., living.  In this regard, Thales was a hylozoist (one who believes that all matter is living).  Thus, the power to change was a characteristic of life.

»    The common belief among the Greeks of this time was that the soul (mind) was the principle of life and that the soul was a part of the divine.

¸     Thales concluded that all matter (which is alive) must also have a soul and that “all things are full of gods” (attributed to Thales by Aristotle).

¸     Cicero claimed that “Thales assures that water is the principle of all things; and that God is that Mind which shaped and created all things from water."

¸     This God Mind appears not to be the personified supreme god of the Greek, Zeus, but rather a mind imbues all things, and directs all things in their being.

¸     In this regard, Thales seems to hold to a pantheistic cosmology or more specifically, animistic pantheism.

¸     Other philosophers (most after Thales) separated mind from matter to construct a non-personal Universal Mind.

 

• Thales and Epistemology

 

>    Much of Thales philosophical endeavors centered around ontological issues. Ontology is that branch of philosophy that studies the nature of being.  Nevertheless his philosophy does offer insights into not his, but early Greek epistemology.

>    Epistemology is that branch of philosophy that studies the nature and scope of knowledge.  It addresses three questions:

»    What is knowledge?

»    How is knowledge acquired?

»    How do we know what we know?

>    As stated earlier, Thales employed logos or reasoning in developing his ontological theories. 

»    In the development of his “proof” Thales was addressing the third question of epistemology, that is, “How do we know what we know?”  This question essential deals with criteria of truth.

¸     There is no evidence that the Egyptians or the Babylonian every sought to “prove” the Theorem which they employed centuries before Thales apparently quite satisfied with it utility without proof (utilitarianism).

¸     What was it in the Ionian mind, specifically that of Thales, that made him take the next step and employ deductive reasoning to prove the theorem?

»    We also see in Thales cosmological theories in his attempt to explain how water can be the principle substance of all matter.

¸     Here Thales deals with the issue of change (cause and effect), yet an explanation eludes his senses thus he must “guess” at an explanation.

¸     Thales is offering a “hypothesis” regarding how water changes to form the plurality of reality.  In doing so he abduces an explanation.  The following is a brief explanation of abductive reasoning from our friends at Wikipedia:

 

Abduction is a kind of logical inference described by Charles Sanders Peirce as "guessing". The term refers to the process of arriving at an explanatory hypothesis. Peirce said that to abduce a hypothetical explanation a from an observed surprising circumstance b is to surmise that a may be true because then b would be a matter of course. Thus, to abduce a from b involves determining that a is sufficient (or nearly sufficient), but not necessary, for b.

For example, the lawn is wet. But if it rained last night, then it would be unsurprising that the lawn is wet. Therefore, by abductive reasoning, it rained last night. (But note that Peirce did not remain convinced that a single logical form covers all abduction.)

Peirce argues that good abductive reasoning from P to Q involves not simply a determination that, e.g., Q is sufficient for P, but also that Q is among the most economical explanations for P. Simplification and economy are what call for the 'leap' of abduction.

>    The point is that we see in the philosophy of Thales the early stages of epistemological development:

»    Deductive reasoning

»    Empiricism

»    Abduction in the formation of hypotheses

For these reasons Thales is not only considered the first Western philosopher, but the first Western scientists.