The Philosophy Book

22

EVERYTHING

IS MADE

OF WATER

THALES OF MILETUS (C.624–546 BCE)

IN CONTEXT

BRANCH

Metaphysics

APPROACH

Monism

BEFORE

2500–900 BCE The Minoan

civilization in Crete and the

later Mycenaean civilization

in Greece rely on religion to

explain physical phenomena.

c.1100 BCE The Babylonian

creation myth, Enûma Eliš,

describes the primal state of

the world as a watery mass.

c.700 BCE Theogony by the

Greek poet Hesiod relates how

the gods created the universe.

AFTER

Early 5th century BCE

Empedocles proposes the four

basic elements of the cosmos:

earth, water, air, and fire.

c.400 BCE Leucippus and

Democritus conclude that the

cosmos is made up solely of

atoms and empty space.

From observation, Thales deduced that specific

weather conditions, not appeals to the gods, led to a good

harvest. Predicting a high yield of olives one year, he is

said to have bought up all the local olive presses, then

profited by renting them out to meet increased demand.

have predicted the total eclipse of

the sun in 585 BCE. This practical

turn of mind led him to believe that

events in the world were not due to

supernatural intervention, but had

natural causes that reason and

observation would reveal.

Fundamental substance

Thales needed to establish a first

principle from which to work, so

he posed the question, “What is

the basic material of the cosmos?”

The idea that everything in the

universe can be ultimately reduced

to a single substance is the theory

of monism, and Thales and his

followers were the first to propose

it within Western philosophy.

Thales reasons that the fundamental

D

uring the Archaic period

(mid-8th–6th century BCE),

the peoples of the Greek

peninsula gradually settled into a

group of city-states. They developed

an alphabetical system of writing,

as well as the beginnings of what

is now recognized as Western

philosophy. Previous civilizations

had relied on religion to explain

phenomena in the world around

them; now a new breed of thinkers

emerged, who attempted to find

natural, rational explanations.

The first of these new scientific

thinkers that we are aware of was

Thales of Miletus. Nothing survives

of his writings, but we know that

he had a good grasp of geometry

and astronomy, and is reputed to