Thales of Miletus and the Origins of Naturalist Philosophy

The Origins of Ancient Greek Philosophy

Philosophy is credited to the Ancient Greeks. Historians, sociologists, and modern philosophers have traced the origins of philosophy to this period in history. The philosopher's position was as the community thinker — the person who would reflect deeply on the world around them. Their role was to consider the best ways to improve society and to understand, through thinking and concentrated inquiry, the principles of humanity. Philosophers attempted to use certain thoughts and concepts to arrive at larger conclusions about the human condition as a whole.

Socrates is argued to be the greatest of the philosophers, and his way of thinking is believed to have shaped the ideas of centuries of philosophers to come. Before him, there were other great thinkers who, although they might not have had the same overreaching and lasting importance as Socrates, nonetheless contributed monumentally to the development of philosophical thought and to humanity's understanding of the universe. One of these first philosophers, a man named Thales of Miletus, came up with the first "Grand Unified Theory" — a hypothesis that endeavored to explain the whole of the universe and its mysteries. He and his cohorts were responsible for some of the first philosophical arguments, theories, and potential solutions to life's great questions. Thales' era is considered the birth of philosophy, as this was the time when the first thinkers were focusing not just on singular questions but on the larger mysteries of the universe, laying the groundwork for the likes of Socrates still to come.

Thales of Miletus and His Grand Unified Theory

The most celebrated philosophers, Plato and Aristotle, gave credit for their writings and ideas to the men who came before them (Allen 25). Thales was one of these early progenitors of philosophical thought. None of his actual writings is known to exist, but Aristotle wrote on him frequently, and through this we know about his work and his influences on future thinkers. He was an intelligent man who, when he had a mind to it, could participate in the world of business, but the majority of his interest lay in the stars and the skies and what they might reveal about the earth on which humanity lived. Philosophers before Thales had attempted to explain some of the natural phenomena that occurred on earth, and before them storytellers offered the explanation that the gods caused all the mysteries which they themselves lacked the scientific knowledge to understand. Thales was, however, the first person to try to explain the heavens and the earth in relation to the visible outer space beyond, showing his fellow philosophers that they did not have to be bound by what was merely around them but could extend hypothesis to realms which could not yet be either proven or disproven by science.

In his oratories, Thales declared that the universe was geocentric rather than heliocentric, and that it was flat. He also asserted that the earth is somewhat immersed in an unseen body of water. Thales knew that water begets life — in plants, animals, and in humans. Therefore, he argued, the entire earth, which is full of life, must be born of water. He stated that the earth "stays in place through floating like a log or some other such thing (for none of these rests by nature on air, but on water)" (Allen 28). Modern science has since provided humanity with the evidence to know that the earth does not rest in water or on air, but in a space that cannot be defined in either of those terms. Nevertheless, the logic behind his assertion makes sense given the knowledge available to him. He utilized the concept of logos in his argument — a mode of reasoning in which a viewpoint is developed using logical thought, critical thinking, and physical evidence.

Thales used observational data to support his theories. For example, he argued that earthquakes were caused by waves within the water upon which the earth rests (Allen 33). Without seismographs and the theory of plate tectonics to counter this assumption, it was a perfectly logical conclusion for the man to reach, and he used it as proof of his water-on-earth hypothesis. As he employed all of these methods in his theory, Thales must be credited with perhaps the first established scientific theory about the workings of the universe.

Water as the Basis of All Matter

Beyond his cosmological claims, Thales was interested in defining what constitutes all material objects. He wanted to know what it is within an object or a living thing that gives it the properties and characteristics normal to that item. In this inquiry too he eventually determined that the basis of all matter was water. Humanity has taken this philosophy and expanded upon it. For example, scientists have agreed that in interplanetary exploration, locating sources of water will indicate the possibility of life on distant planets. A theory discovered millennia ago still carries merit within a far more technologically advanced age. This is just one example of how both pre- and post-Socratic philosophers impacted the rest of humanity.

Works Cited

Allen, Reginald E. Greek Philosophy: Thales to Aristotle. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1991. Print.