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The Life of Thales of Miletus
16 December
Read time: 3 minutes
Introduction
Who was Thales of Miletus?
Why is Thales of Miletus famous?
Thales of Miletus was a Greek Mathematician, astronomer, and pre-socratic philosopher. He lived during the 6th and 5th century BC in Miletus, which is present in modern-day Turkey.
He is known as one of the legendry Seven Wise Men. He is known to have introduced the idea of scientific philosophy.
Little is known for sure about Thales, aside from what other philosophers said about him, but he is still an essential figure for being the first pre-socratic philosopher.
He is also known for his contribution to mathematics. He used geometry to calculate the height of pyramids and the distance between a ship and the shore.
His most famous proposition was that everything is fundamentally made up of water. He believed that the earth is a flat mass floating on a vast sea.
Thales paved the way for the Socratic era and the classical philosophers to establish Western philosophy's central themes.
Many of his theories and beliefs will sound strange to us, but they were considered groundbreaking at that time.
The Life of Thales - PDF
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The Personal Life of Thales
The dates of Thale’s life are not known but roughly estimated. Thales was probably born around BC in Miletus in Ionia, Asia minor. (Present-day Turkey)
It is believed that he was never married and that he didn’t marry because he did not like the idea of worrying about children. Though in his later years, anxious for family, he adopted his nephew.
He is said to have visited Egypt at one point in his life, where he learned about geometry. He is often ha
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Thales
| Born | Approximately BC, Miletus, Asia Minor. (Now Balat, Turkey) |
| Died | Approximately BC |
Thales, an engineer by trade, was the first of the Seven Sages, or wise men of Ancient Greece. Thales is known as the first Greek philosopher, mathematician and scientist. He founded the geometry of lines, so is given credit for introducing abstract geometry.
He was the founder of the Ionian school of philosophy in Miletus, and the teacher of Anaximander. During Thales' time, Miletus was an important Greek metropolis in Asia Minor, known for scholarship. Several schools were founded in Miletus, attracting scientists, philosophers, architects and geographers
It is possible that Thales has been given credit for discoveries that were not really his. He is known for his theoretical as well as practical understanding of geometry. Thales is acknowledged by a number of sources as the one who defined the constellation Ursa Minor and used it for navigation. Some believe he wrote a book on navigation, but it has never been found.
Two letters and some verses of Thales are quoted by Diogenes Laertius in his Lives of the Philosophers. Much of what we know of Thales as a philosopher comes from Aristotle. Herodotus, who lived approximately sixty years after Thales, also wrote about him, as did Eudemus, the first major historian of mathematics. Proclus, who wrote in about AD, cited Eudemus' History of Geometry, now lost, as his source. Thales is credited with introducing the concepts of logical proof for abstract propositions.
Thales went to Egypt and studied with the priests, where he learned of mathematical innovations and brought this knowledge back to Greece. Thales also did geometrical research and, using triangles, applied his understanding of geometry to calculate the distance from shore of ships at sea. This was particularly important to the Greeks, whether the ships were coming to trade or to do battle. Ancient Greek philosopher (c. – c. BC) "Thales" redirects here. For the company, see Thales Group. For other uses, see Thales (disambiguation). Thales of Miletus (THAY-leez; Ancient Greek: Θαλῆς; c.&#;/&#;&#;– c.&#;/&#;BC) was an Ancient Greekpre-Socraticphilosopher from Miletus in Ionia, Asia Minor. Thales was one of the Seven Sages, founding figures of Ancient Greece. Beginning in eighteenth-century historiography, many came to regard him as the first philosopher in the Greek tradition, breaking from the prior use of mythology to explain the world and instead using natural philosophy. He is thus otherwise referred to as the first to have engaged in mathematics, science, and deductive reasoning. Thales' view that all of nature is based on the existence of a single ultimate substance, which he theorized to be water, was widely influential among the philosophers of his time. Thales thought the Earth floated on water. In mathematics, Thales is the namesake of Thales's theorem, and the intercept theorem can also be known as Thales's theorem. Thales was said to have calculated the heights of the pyramids and the distance of ships from the shore. In science, Thales was an astronomer who reportedly predicted the weather and a solar eclipse. The discovery of the position of the constellation Ursa Major is also attributed to Thales, as well as the timings of the solstices and equinoxes. He was also an engineer, known for having diverted the Halys River.Plutarch wrote that "at that time, Thales alone had raised philosophy from mere practice to speculation." The main source concerning the details of Thales's life and career is the doxographerDiogenes Laërtius, in his third-century-AD work Lives and Opinions of the Eminent Philosophers. While it is all we have, Diogenes wrote some eight centuries after Thales's death and his sources often contained "unreliable or even fabricated
Thales of Miletus
Biography
Thales of Miletus was the son of Examyes and Cleobuline. His parents are said by some to be from Miletus but others report that they were Phoenicians. J Longrigg writes in [1]:- But the majority opinion considered him a true Milesian by descent, and of a distinguished family.
Thales seems to be the first known Greek philosopher, scientist and mathematician although his occupation was that of an engineer. He is believed to have been the teacher of Anaximander( BC - BC) and he was the first natural philosopher in the Milesian School. However, none of his writing survives so it is difficult to determine his views or to be certain about his mathematical discoveries. Indeed it is unclear whether he wrote any works at all and if he did they were certainly lost by the time of Aristotle who did not have access to any writings of Thales. On the other hand there are claims that he wrote a book on navigation but these are based on little evidence. In the book on navigation it is suggested that he used the constellation Ursa Minor, which he defined, as an important feature in his navigation techniques. Even if the book is fictitious, it is quite probable that Thales did indeed define the constellation Ursa Minor.
Proclus, the last major Greek philosopher, who lived around AD, wrote:- [Thales] first went to Egypt and thence introduced this study [geometry] into Greece. He discovered many propositions himself, and instructed his successors in the principles underlying many others, his method of attacking problems had greater generality in some cases and was more in the nature of simple inspection and observation in other cases.
There is a difficulty in writing about Thales and others from a similar period. Although there are numerous references to Thales which would enable us to reconstruct quite a number of details, the sources must be treated with care since it was the habit of the time to credit famous men with discoveries they did not Thales of Miletus
Life