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Thales of Miletus

c. 624–546 BCE

A first way ina deliberate simplification – the portrait says more

Nature can be explained from nature itself rather than by myths – and water is the basic stuff everything comes from.

Placement

Ancient Greek · West Asia & North Africa · Metaphysics, Science

Counted since Aristotle as the first Greek philosopher: he sought a natural rather than a mythical explanation of the world.

Key ideas

  • Water as the primordial substance (Arché)
  • Natural explanation instead of myth

Students: Anaximander

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Influence

Influenced 2

  • Anaximander taught

    taught disputed later tradition ✓

    Known only from later tradition – Theophrastus’ ‘successor and pupil of Thales’, preserved by Simplicius (In Physica 24.13), and the Ionian succession in Diogenes Laertius 1.13; the succession may be a later construction. Simplicius, In Physica 24.13 Diels (DK 12 A9, after Theophrastus); Diogenes Laertius 1.13

    Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata

    Anaximander › c. 610–546 BCE

  • Pythagoras

    influenced disputed ✓

    Iamblichus’ Life of Pythagoras says the aged Thales received the young Pythagoras and urged him to study in Egypt; the report is legendary and traces no doctrine. Iamblichus, On the Pythagorean Life; SEP “Pythagoras”

    Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata · InPhO

    Pythagoras › traditionally c. 570–495 BCE

Position

Thales is remembered as the first to ask what the world is ultimately made of and to answer without appealing to the gods of myth. According to Aristotle, he held that water is the origin (archē) of all things – perhaps because moisture is present in all life, in nourishment and in seeds. He is also said to have claimed that “all things are full of gods” and that the magnet has a soul, suggesting a living, self-moving nature. What mattered was less the answer than the method: a single natural principle, open to argument and correction. With him begins the Milesian tradition of natural philosophy.

Life & context

Thales lived in Miletus, a wealthy Greek trading city on the coast of Asia Minor, in the early sixth century BCE. Later tradition credits him with predicting a solar eclipse (usually dated to 585 BCE), with theorems of geometry and with practical work in astronomy and engineering. He left no writings; we know of him through Aristotle and later reports.

Appears in

Sources: Wikipedia · Wikidata

As of November 2026 · Sources · Improve this page · How Agora is made

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