THALES OF MILETUS: BIOGRAPHY, CONTRIBUTIONS, THOUGHT - PHILOSOPHY - 2024

Thales of Miletus (623-540 BC) was a great Greek philosopher and thinker who also dabbled in mathematics, geometry, astronomy and physics. He is considered the first of the philosophers in history. Among his most important contributions are the birth of philosophy as rational thought or the principle of similarity.

Little is known for sure about this ancient Greek philosopher. No writings of his authorship have been found and what has been built around him was done by other authors who lived a long time after him.

Thales was born in Miletus, on the western coast of Asia Minor, in what is now the Anatolia region of Turkey.

Miletus was a Greek colony strategically located halfway between two of the most important cultural and economic centers of antiquity (Persia and Egypt), which made it a relevant commercial point and also for the exchange of knowledge between the remote East and the thriving west.

It is possible that Thales was of Phoenician descent, bearing in mind that trade between Ionians and Phoenicians was very active in his time. It is believed that he may have traveled to Egypt to receive teachings on geometry, astronomy and mathematics from the priests who lived there.

Biography

There is great uncertainty regarding the true origin of Thales of Miletus. There are those who say that the philosopher had Phoenician origins.

However, there are also those who defend that the sage was a citizen of Miletus without hesitation. They also claim that he belonged to the group of noble blood, but this has not been confirmed either.

On a personal level, Thales is said to have married at one point in his life and begot an heir. Moreover, it is said that he never had any children of his own, but adopted a son from his brother.

Although this information has not been fully confirmed, what is known with certainty is that the philosopher traveled to the countries closest to Miletus to exchange knowledge and thus expand his views.

According to Diogenes Laertius, Thales of Miletus died in 543 BC, while attending gymnastics games at the Olympics.

Aristotelian narratives

Aristotle described Thales of Miletus as the pioneer in proposing a specific element as a creative element of matter. In other words, he raised the question of the ultimate nature of the world, conceiving things as changing forms of a first and only element: water.

Among the fundamentals that led him to draw this conclusion are the following:

- All beings appear in one of the three states of water, whether in its solid, liquid or gaseous state. Being able to turn the water into steam or ice and return to its liquid state.

- In the universe everything is movement. Water is active, it flows, rises and falls.

- All living things require water.

- The semen that engenders life is liquid, like water.

- After the rains, frogs and worms seem to emerge from the humidity.

- In the deltas, the land seems to spring from the water

- As soon as the waters of the Nile recede, everything turns green.

This approach would lead Thales to be one of the philosophers of that time who transcended with his thought, leaving aside those explanations based on mythology that were characterized at the time, turning them into theories much more related to human reason.

Thales rejected the heterogeneity between cause and effect, that is, if reality is of a physical nature, its cause would also be of a physical nature.

As a consequence of the exchanges of knowledge that he experienced, Thales made a difference and gave way to the birth of rational philosophy. This is one of the contributions that has undoubtedly made its significance evident.

Despite his great contributions, philosophy and achievements, Thales de Mileto left no written evidence of his work. All information that is known about him is based on the writings of Aristotle, especially his work entitled Metaphysics.

Disciples

Among his disciples was Anaximander, who together with Anaximenes formed the well-known Ionian School.

In this way, Thales became the representative of the group of the seven wise men of Greece, thanks to his unfolding in philosophical practice.

Contributions of Thales of Mileto in the philosophical and scientific field

Birth of philosophy as scientific and rational thought

Thanks to his astronomical observations, Thales was able to anticipate a large harvest of olives that made him very rich, since he was able to make a large number of presses to make oil.

With these predictions, Thales' goal was to demonstrate to the Greek people the beneficial practical aspects of philosophy.

By systematically measuring everything around him, he tried to disobey customs and question the hegemonic opinions of the time, based mainly on mythology.

Contributions to physics

Although there were several Greek philosophers who made important contributions to physics, some of the first were from the city of Miletus, beginning with the ideas of Thales.

Thales rejected mythological explanations for the phenomena of nature. For example, he postulated that the flat land lay in the ocean and that earthquakes were due to disturbances in the waters.

Furthermore, Thales was one of the first to define the general principles of science, by establishing hypotheses.

Emergence of theology

Thales questions the theogonic, cosmogonic and Olympic tradition of the time, causing a great leap from theogony - of a mythological nature - to theology - of a rational nature - without denying divinity, but putting it in the critical debate. It is at this moment that the birth of theology can be discussed.

Water as divinity

Along with Anaximander and Anaximenes, his disciples, Thales is considered one of the fathers of the Ionian School.

They were also known as the "physicists", since they focused their studies on determining what was the "arché" or "arjé" (a word coined a long time later by Aristotle), or the ultimate principle, the nature and origin of all things.

I was looking for something that was universal and present in everything. This "arché" or "arjé" would be neither more nor less than water, an indivisible unit.

It was considered as a constituent elementary principle for being a limit, a means of transportation and for its ability to transform its state and form; for being fluid, capable of occupying interstices, subtle and at the same time violent; to change, but also to settle, remain and generate life.

According to Thales, then, everything was water in the beginning. It is "the divine", understood not as a determined or delimited identity, but rather as a condition, a character, a "being".

Divinity as a whole

Thales is credited with the concept of "Panta plere theon", which means "everything is full of the divine", in a much broader term than the current one (of a single god).

The concept could be explained in this way: because the divine exists - understood as something intelligible, eternal and necessary - it is then possible to speak of a whole.

For Thales, that which is a principle, by the very fact of being first, already makes it divine. He affirms then that everything is divine or that "everything is full of gods", but not in the understanding of many physical entities, but as a principle that welcomes all of nature and is part of its vital dynamics.

Astronomical discoveries

It has already been said that Thales gave great importance to the study of the stars; he investigated solstices and equinoxes and predicted and explained eclipses of the sun and moon.

Also, thanks to his calculations and observations, he considered the moon 700 times smaller than the sun and calculated the exact number of days in the year.

Contributions to navigation

At that time astronomy was of essential importance for navigators, who were guided in their journeys by the constellation of Ursa Major.

Thales of Miletus attracted the attention of seamen by suggesting to follow Ursa Minor which, being smaller, could give greater precision.

Similarity concept

Thanks to observation and calculations, Thales introduced the principle of the relationship of similarity between objects, explained in his first theorem. This allowed for much faster advances in mathematics and geometry.

Thus, he established criteria of similarities in triangles, angles and sides that gave rise to his theorems. By the relationship of similarity between the right triangles, and by observing the length of the shadows cast by the sun, Thales was able to calculate the height of the objects.

His most relevant case study was the calculation of the size of the pyramids of Egypt: measuring with a stick at the time of day when the shadow is projected perpendicular to the base of the face from which it measured, he added half the length of one of the faces, thus obtaining the total length.

Founded Greek mathematics and geometry

As the first to demonstrate his theories through logical reasoning, he is considered the first mathematician in history. Thales' Theorem is fundamental to modern geometry. The most important are:

• All triangles with equal angles are equal and their sides are proportional to each other.
• If several parallel straight lines intersect with transverse lines, the resulting segments will be proportional.

The constant study, observation and deduction, allowed Thales to conclude other reasonings, so precise that they remain solid today:

• In a triangle with two equal sides (isosceles), the angles of its base will also be equal.
• A circle is bisected by some diameter.
• The angles between two straight lines that intersect are equal.
• Every angle inscribed within a semicircle will always be a right angle.
• Triangles that have two angles and an equal side are equal.

Thought

Thales of Miletus is considered one of the Seven Sages of ancient Greece, a group from the 7th and early 6th centuries BC. Conformed by philosophers, statesmen and legislators who became famous in the following centuries for their wisdom.

In the prosperous Greek port city of Miletus, his hometown, the common belief was that the events of nature and man were planned and controlled by the gods of Olympus, a great family of gods and goddesses.

Furthermore, these all-powerful supernatural beings controlled the destiny of man, and although citizens could beg and offer sacrifices, the gods were superhuman and often vengeful.

Still, the world seemed to follow a certain order, and everything worked according to the will of these divinities. Then, Thales begins to reflect on the nature of things in the world, their functioning and their causes, and to question the true power of these gods to control the universe.

However, this questioning and reflection is not made from mysticism or eccentricity, but from the mind of a man who seeks practical answers.

Now, according to the broad concept of the term philosophy, this is: love, study or search for wisdom, or knowledge of things and their causes, whether theoretical or practical.

For this reason, many consider Thales of Miletus, historically, to be at the origin of this discipline.

Theory about the physical world

The philosophical part of Thales' work is related to his theory of the physical world; that is, his doctrine of the principle that produces things and makes them develop.

In this way, this meant the introduction to something really new with regard to Eastern science and the ancient cosmogony.

New way of investigating

In the first place, this represented a change in the spirit of the investigation. The idea of ​​a permanent foundation and a matter that is the origin of becoming was already implicitly present in cosmogony.

However, Thales offers a precise definition: there is something that is the original principle of the generation of everything else. For this thinker, this 'nature' (physis) or principle is water.

This is the imperishable element or matter of all things, which subsists without change under the diversity and change of the qualities that affect it. Then everything else returns to this by corruption.

So, instead of explaining the diversity of reality through anthropomorphic representations and connecting it with mysterious forces, Thales offers a reality in experience as a foundation and principle.

New method

On the other hand, his method is also different. The cosmogonic legend was a narrative; while Thales sought to give reasons.

For this reason, Aristotle described his method as inductive: from the facts given in the sensation, he raises it to a universal proposition. So from his observations, he saw that many things came from a transformation of the water and then returned to the water.

So, he extended the results of that observation, by a rather bold analogy, to all things.

Fundamental principle

Thales believed that the essential arche (principle, fundamental reality) of all things was water. Arche means both the starting point and the beginning and the root cause.

So water is the beginning of everything, including all non-aquatic things that exist or have existed. But Thales went beyond simply offering this kind of scientific explanation. Water appears to be the source of all life and is constantly in motion. And, what is in motion or causes movement is also commonly understood as being alive or having a soul (psyche).

Thus, it is stated that Thales thought that all things were made of water, are alive and have a soul. He considered the effects of magnetism and static electricity, which make things move, to show that they have a soul (therefore, they have life).

The divine as the cause of life

Thales thought that all things are full of gods. It was understood that the divine was the arche of everything, especially the cause of life.

If the water is the arche, then the water is divine. According to this, all things had life, and nothing could properly be called inanimate.

Furthermore, another implication of the above is that everything that is ultimately divine in the world, and even unifies it, cannot emanate from Chaos, as suggested by the notion of divinities of Homer and Hesiod.

In this way, the explanation of the universe or cosmos is simultaneously an explanation of life and divinity.

In short, the parts of the known world, the physical and the sacred - were not separated into different compartments, but could all be understood together in a kind of unity.

References

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