Miletus Tales is considered the firstphilosopher from the Western tradition. Like other thinkers of the pre-Socratic period, Thales sought to understand the true origin of the Universe, refuting the Greek mythology, which presented original narratives that explained in a fanciful way how the Universe had been formed.
Read too: Meet the group of philosophers that Thales of Miletus was part of, the pre-Socratics
Biography
Thales was the first philosopher of the West. He was born in the city of Miletus, approximately in the year 625 The. Ç. This city was in the region of Jônia, located in the AsiaSmaller. THE Ionic School, to which Thales belonged, was composed of Thales and other Ionian philosophers, such as Anaximander and Anaximenes. As Greece was not yet unified, the Greek region was made up of several independent cities. The region of Ionia, where Miletus was, today comprises the territory of Turkey.
Thales was a merchant of success, which allowed him to make several trips and learn about different cultures. It is estimated that he passed through Egyptian lands and several towns and cities in the Middle East, the which provided him with contact with Egyptian mathematics and engineering, as well as with astronomy Babylonian.
You Egyptians had a deep knowledge of Math, which allowed them to build the colossal pyramids. However, the Math it was just a technique used for everyday construction and actions, not being systematically elaborated and studied.
Thales, by bringing Mathematics to Greece, initiated a systematic way of cultivating knowledge mathematical, which provided him with greater precision for astronomical studies and allowed him to formulate the Thales' Theorem, calculation that at the time allowed to discover the height of a pyramid from the length of the parallel lines and the transverse lines of the construction.
It is probable that Thales predicted, in the year of 585 a. Ç. (at approximately forty years of age), the day and time when a eclipsesolar only with naked-eye observations of the position of the Earth and Moon in relation to the Sun, with knowledge of astronomy and with mathematical calculations. This achievement, think the historians, represents the milestone of Thales' intellectual maturity, indicating, therefore, that the beginning of Philosophy also took place in this period.
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After so much observing nature, the compositions of the Universe and the world around it, the restless and astute philosopher sought to formulate a possible answer to the question about origin of everything, claiming to be the Water the generating principle. It is said that Thales, after his period of intellectual maturity, was absorbed in constant observation in an attempt to discover what the beginning of everything was.
On one of his contemplative walks, says the ancient historian Herodotus, Thales would have fallen into a hole. A girl from Thrace, a region that was part of the Macedonian Empire, passed by and laughed at the philosopher's misfortune. In a philosophical interpretation of this anecdote, we can conclude that the foreign girl had the condition of a slave (one who worked, for the Greeks formerly, she had an inferior social position as she could not contemplate life) and, absorbed in her business, she could never contemplate nature and try to understand things. So she was amused by Thales's distraction, always looking up at the sky.
Thales was the observerrestless, owner of an intellectual curiosity that gave rise to philosophy and the systematic study of mathematics. He also managed to explain the Nile River floods, which happened periodically, without resorting to any kind of supernatural element.
Also access: Cosmology: an area of Philosophy heavily influenced by Thales
Miletus Tales and Philosophy
Thales started the first philosophical movement (not knowing for sure that it would be so important), which would last for over a hundred years. He was the first Westerner recorded to to question the affirmations mythological about the origin of nature.
It is estimated that it gave rise to a search for the original element (which the Greeks called archeor arkhe) of nature (which, in the Greek vocabulary, was represented by the word physis). After tireless observations, the philosopher speculated that the origin of everything would be in the water. This first impulse of Philosophy, for studying and observing the Universe (cosmos), became known as cosmology.
This statement by Thales gave rise to all subsequent knowledge, as it gave rise to a process of trying to understandingrationalgivesnature, what gave rise to philosophy. Philosophy, at the time, consisted of a set of systematically cultivated knowledge, which included Natural Sciences and Mathematics. Later, ethics, politics, metaphysics, the theory of knowledge, logic, aesthetics, etc. were incorporated into philosophy.
Philosophy, in turn, gave rise to the sciences that were essential subsidies for the development of techniques, from the most rudimentary to the most advanced that allow us, today, to develop our high technology. This means that all the advanced knowledge we have today originated primarily in the philosophy initiated by Thales. Despite being the first philosopher, Thales did not create the word “philosophy”. Aristotle attributes this creation to the pre-Socratic philosopher Pythagoras of Samos.
Read too: What is Philosophy?
Miletus Tales and the Water
What led Thales to realize that water would be the origin of everything was the observation that this compound (at the time understood as an element) was present in all forms of life and in the air. Thales claimed that even minerals would have some amount of water, which was so small it was imperceptible.
Works by Thales of Miletus
If we talk about books or documents written by the philosopher himself, there is no none. Modern historians have found no records made by Thales. If there ever was any record or file, it was consumed by time, floods, fires or thieves. What is known of Thales resulted from the work of the ancient historian Herodotus and of the ancient philosopher Aristotle.
If we talk about the set of thoughts and formulations attributed to Thales, we can gather elements of his work, such as the Thales' Theorem, the explanation about the Nile River floods, a discovery of the isosceles triangle, a solar eclipse prediction and the philosophy.
by Francisco Porfirio
Philosophy teacher