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72-709: The Ionian school included such thinkers as Thales , Anaximander , Anaximenes , Heraclitus , Anaxagoras , and Archelaus . This classification can be traced to the doxographer Sotion . The doxographer Diogenes Laërtius divides pre-Socratic philosophy into the Ionian and Italian school . The collective affinity of the Ionians was first acknowledged by Aristotle who called them physiologoi (φυσιολόγοι), or natural philosophers . They are sometimes referred to as cosmologists , since they studied stars and maths , gave cosmogonies and were largely physicalists who tried to explain

144-551: A "fighting together", with the Lydians. This has sometimes been interpreted as an alliance. Croesus was defeated before the city of Sardis by Cyrus the Great , who subsequently spared Miletus because it had taken no action. Cyrus was so impressed by Croesus’ wisdom and his connection with the sages that he spared him and took his advice on various matters. The Ionian cities should be demoi, or "districts". He counselled them to establish

216-469: A Greek. Diogenes continues, by delivering more conflicting reports: one that Thales married and either fathered a son (Cybisthus or Cybisthon) or adopted his nephew of the same name; the second that he never married, telling his mother as a young man that it was too early to marry, and as an older man that it was too late. Plutarch had earlier told this version: Solon visited Thales and asked him why he remained single; Thales answered that he did not like

288-608: A moist nature, whereas water is the first principle of the nature of moist things." Anaximander (Greek: Ἀναξίμανδρος, Anaximandros ) (c. 610 – c. 546 BCE) wrote a cosmological work, little of which remains. From the few extant fragments, we learn that he believed the beginning or first principle ( arche , a word first found in Anaximander's writings, and which he probably invented) is an endless, unlimited mass ( apeiron ), subject to neither old age nor decay, which perpetually yields fresh materials from which everything we can perceive

360-595: A single seat of government, and pointed out Teos as the fittest place for it; "for that," he said, "was the centre of Ionia . Their other cities might still continue to enjoy their own laws, just as if they were independent states." Miletus, however, received favorable terms from Cyrus. The others remained in an Ionian League of twelve cities (excluding Miletus), and were subjugated by the Persians. Early Greeks, and other civilizations before them, often invoked idiosyncratic explanations of natural phenomena with reference to

432-448: A thing of finer texture, alike in all its manifestations and everywhere the same. This subtle agent, possessed of all knowledge and power, is especially seen ruling all life forms. Its first appearance, and the only manifestation of it which Anaxagoras describes, is Motion. It gave distinctness and reality to the aggregates of like parts. Decrease and growth represent a new aggregation ( σὐγκρισις ) and disruption ( διάκρισις ). However,

504-541: Is a mass of red-hot metal, that the Moon is earthy, and that the stars are fiery stones. He thought that the Earth was flat and floated supported by 'strong' air under it, and that disturbances in this air sometimes caused earthquakes. He introduced the notion of panspermia , that life exists throughout the universe and could be distributed everywhere. He attempted to give a scientific account of eclipses , meteors , rainbows , and

576-489: Is about an angle intercepted by two parallel lines, forming a pair of similar triangles . Modern scholars are skeptical that anyone in Thales's time was producing mathematical proofs to the standard of later Greek mathematics, though not enough direct evidence remains to draw firm conclusions. While Thales may have discovered some basic geometric relations and provided some justification for them, attribution to him of formal proofs

648-554: Is also mentioned in Seneca's Natural Questions (Book 4B, originally Book 3: On Clouds, Hail, Snow). It reads: "Why should I too allow myself the same liberty as Anaxagoras allowed himself?" The Roman author Valerius Maximus preserves a different tradition; Anaxagoras, coming home from a long voyage, found his property in ruin, and said: "If this had not perished, I would have"—a sentence described by Valerius as being "possessed of sought-after wisdom". Dante Alighieri places Anaxagoras in

720-412: Is also possible that he was of mixed ancestry, given his father had a Carian name and his mother had a Greek name. Diogenes Laërtius seems to also reference an alternative account: "Most writers, however, represent him as a genuine Milesian and of a distinguished family". Encyclopedia Britannica (1952) concluded that Thales was most likely a native Milesian of noble birth and that he was certainly

792-583: Is believed the Babylonians knew the theorem for special cases. The theorem is mentioned and proved as part of the 31st proposition in the third book of Euclid 's Elements . Dante's Paradiso refers to Thales's theorem in the course of a speech. The story is told in Diogenes Laërtius , Pliny the Elder , and Plutarch , sourced from Hieronymus of Rhodes , that when Thales visited Egypt , he measured

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864-454: Is both "applied to those whose boasts exceed what they are" and "a warning to pay no attention to the opinion of the multitude." Diogenes Laërtius relates several stories of an expensive, gold tripod or bowl that is to go to the most wise . In one version (that Laërtius credits to Callimachus in his Iambics ) Bathycles of Arcadia states in his will that an expensive bowl " 'should be given to him who had done most good by his wisdom.' So it

936-437: Is considered possible that Thales visited Egypt, since Miletus had a permanent colony there (namely Naucratis ). It is also said Thales had close contacts with the priests of Thebes who instructed him, or even that he instructed them in geometry. It is also possible Thales knew about Egypt from accounts of others, without actually visiting it. Aside from Egypt, the other mathematically advanced, ancient civilization before

1008-468: Is controversial." Others historians, such as D. R. Dicks, take issue with the idea of Babylonian influence on Greek mathematics. For until around the time of Hipparchus (c. 190–120 BC) their sexagesimal system was unknown. Herodotus wrote the Greeks learnt the gnomon from the Babylonians. Thales's follower Anaximander is credited with introducing the gnomon to the Greeks. Herodotus also wrote that

1080-638: Is derived from the Greek classical element fire, rather than from air, water, or earth. This led to the belief that change is real and stability illusory. For Heraclitus, "Everything flows, nothing stands still." He is famous for saying: "No man can cross the same river twice, because neither the man nor the river are the same." Anaxagoras (Greek: Ἀναξαγόρας) of Clazomenae (c. 510 – c. 428 BCE) regarded material substance as an infinite multitude of imperishable primary elements , referring all generation and disappearance to mixture and separation respectively. All substance

1152-409: Is derived. Anaximenes of Miletus (Greek: Ἀναξιμένης ὁ Μιλήσιος; c. 585 – c. 528 BCE), like others in his school of thought, practiced material monism and believed that air is the arche . Heraclitus (Greek: Ἡράκλειτος, Hērakleitos ) of Ephesus (c. 535 – c. 475 BCE) disagreed with Thales, Anaximander, and Pythagoras about the nature of the ultimate substance and claimed instead that everything

1224-400: Is his own thinking, his statement that Thales held it as water is generally accepted as genuinely originating with Thales. Writing centuries later, Diogenes Laërtius also states that Thales taught "Water constituted ( ὑπεστήσατο , 'stood under') the principle of all things." According to Aristotle: That from which is everything that exists and from which it first becomes and into which it

1296-698: Is now thought to represent speculative rationalization and reconstruction by later authors, rather than concrete accomplishments of Thales himself or his contemporaries. According to one author, while visiting Egypt, Thales observed that when the Egyptians drew two intersecting lines, they would measure the vertical angles to make sure that they were equal. Thales concluded that one could prove that all vertical angles are equal if one accepted some general notions such as: all straight angles are equal, equals added to equals are equal, and equals subtracted from equals are equal. Pamphila says that, having learnt geometry from

1368-493: Is ordered by an ordering force, the cosmic mind ( nous ). Archelaus (Greek: Ἀρχέλαος, Arkhelaos ) was a Greek philosopher of the 5th century BCE, born probably in Athens. He was a pupil of Anaxagoras and is said by Ion of Chios (Diogenes Laërtius, ii. 23) to have been the teacher of Socrates . Some argue that this is probably only an attempt to connect Socrates with the Ionian school; others (e.g., Gomperz, Greek Thinkers) uphold

1440-402: Is rendered at last, its substance remaining under it, but transforming in qualities, that they say is the element and principle of things that are. …For it is necessary that there be some nature ( φύσις ), either one or more than one, from which become the other things of the object being saved... [The first philosophers] do not all agree as to the number and the nature of these principles. Thales

1512-570: Is the unity of substance. Not merely the empirical claim that all is water, but the deeper philosophical claim that all is one. For example, Friedrich Nietzsche , in his Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks , wrote: Greek philosophy seems to begin with an absurd notion, with the proposition that water is the primal origin and the womb of all things. Is it really necessary for us to take serious notice of this proposition? It is, and for three reasons. First, because it tells us something about

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1584-423: Is water (which is why he also propounded that the earth floats on water). Presumably he derived this assumption from seeing the nutriment of everything is moist, and that heat itself is generated from moisture and depends upon it for its existence (and that from which a thing is generated is always its first principle). He derived his assumption, then, from this; and also from the fact that the seeds of everything have

1656-562: The Hyades , supposed by the ancients to indicate the approach of rain when they rose with the Sun. According to Seneca , Thales explained the flooding of the Nile as due to the river being beaten back by the etesian wind. Anaxagoras Anaxagoras ( / ˌ æ n æ k ˈ s æ ɡ ə r ə s / ; Ancient Greek : Ἀναξαγόρας , Anaxagóras , "lord of the assembly"; c.  500 – c.  428 BC)

1728-581: The Sun , which he described as a mass of blazing metal, larger than the Peloponnese ; he also said that the Moon had mountains, and he believed that it was inhabited. The heavenly bodies, he asserted, were masses of stone torn from the Earth and ignited by rapid rotation. His theories about eclipses, the Sun, and Moon may well have been based on observations of the eclipse of 463 BCE , which was visible in Greece. Anaxagoras

1800-541: The archonship of Damasius at Athens about 582 BC and that Thales was the first sage. The sages were associated with the Delphic maxims , a quote or maxim attributed to each one inscribed on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi . Thales has arguably the most famous of all, gnothi seauton or know thyself . According to the 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia the Suda , the proverb

1872-438: The seked from the height of the stick and its distance from the point of insertion to the line of sight. Thales was also a noted astronomer, acknowledged in antiquity for describing the position of Ursa Minor , and he thought the constellation might be useful as a guide for navigation at sea. He calculated the duration of the year and the timings of the equinoxes and solstices . He is additionally attributed with calculating

1944-527: The Egyptians, Thales was the first to inscribe in a circle a right-angled triangle, whereupon he sacrificed an ox . This is sometimes cited as history's first mathematical discovery. Due to the variations among testimonies, such as the story of the ox sacrifice being accredited to Pythagoras upon discovery of the Pythagorean theorem rather than Thales, some historians (such as D. R. Dicks) question whether such anecdotes have any historical worth whatsoever. It

2016-522: 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 information". It is known Thales was from Miletus , a mercantile city settled at the mouth of the Maeander river . The dates of Thales's life are not exactly known, but are roughly established by a few datable events mentioned in

2088-553: The First Circle of Hell (Limbo) in his Divine Comedy ( Inferno , Canto IV, line 137). Chapter 5 in Book II of De Docta Ignorantia (1440) by Nicholas of Cusa is dedicated to the truth of the sentence "Each thing is in each thing" which he attributes to Anaxagoras. Anaxagoras appears as a character in the second Act of Faust, Part II by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe . Friedrich Nietzsche also frequently mentions Anaxagoras in

2160-416: The Greeks was Babylonia, another commonplace attribution of travel for a mathematically-minded philosopher. At least one ancient historian, Josephus , claims Thales visited Babylonia. Historians Roger L. Cooke and B.L. Van der Waerden come down on the side of Babylonian mathematics influencing the Greeks, citing the use of e. g. the sexagesimal system (or base 60). Cooke notes "This relation, however,

2232-735: The Persian war (in which he may have fought on the Persian side), or at some point when he was a bit older, around 456 BCE. While at Athens, he became close with the Athenian statesman Pericles . According to Diogenes Laërtius and Plutarch , in later life he was charged with impiety and went into exile in Lampsacus ; the charges may have been political, owing to his association with Pericles , if they were not fabricated by later ancient biographers. According to Laërtius, Pericles spoke in defense of Anaxagoras at his trial , c.  450 . Even so, Anaxagoras

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2304-517: The annual celebration known as the Anaxagoreia was established. Responding to the claims of Parmenides on the impossibility of change, Anaxagoras described the world as a mixture of primary imperishable ingredients, where material variation was never caused by an absolute presence of a particular ingredient, but rather by its relative preponderance over the other ingredients; in his words, "each one is... most manifestly those things of which there are

2376-400: The celestial bodies and the fall of meteorites led him to form new theories of the universal order, and to the prediction of the impact of meteorites. According to Pliny , he was credited with predicting the fall of the meteorite in 467 . He was the first to give a correct explanation of eclipses, and was both famous and notorious for his scientific theories, including the claims that the Sun

2448-405: The discovery that a circle is bisected by its diameter, that the base angles of an isosceles triangle are equal and that vertical angles are equal. Two fundamental theorems of elementary geometry are customarily called Thales's theorem : one of them has to do with a triangle inscribed in a circle and having the circle's diameter as one side; the other, also called the intercept theorem ,

2520-406: The existence of a single ultimate substance . Thales theorized that this single substance was water . 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

2592-447: The first among them. Also, while the other Seven Sages were strictly law-givers and statesmen and not speculative philosophers, Plutarch noted "it would seem that Thales was the only wise man of the time who carried his speculations beyond the realm of the practical." Thales's most famous idea was his philosophical and cosmological thesis that all is water, which comes down to us through a passage from Aristotle 's Metaphysics . In

2664-528: The first part of this have survived, through preservation in the work of Simplicius of Cilicia in the 6th century AD. Anaxagoras's book was reportedly available for a drachma in the Athenian marketplace . It was certainly known to Sophocles , Euripides , and Aristophanes , based on the contents of their surviving plays, and possibly to Aeschylus as well, based on the testimony of Seneca . However, although Anaxagoras almost certainly lived in Athens during

2736-593: The first person in the western world to apply deductive reasoning to geometry, making him the West's "first mathematician." He is also credited with the West's oldest definition of number : a "collection of units", "following the Egyptian view". The evidence for the primacy of Thales comes to us from a book by Proclus , who lived a thousand years afterward but is believed to have had a copy of Eudemus 's lost book History of Geometry (4th century BC). Proclus wrote that Thales

2808-415: The first philosophers. Thales (Greek: Θαλῆς, Thalēs ) of Miletus (c. 624 – c. 546 BCE) is regarded as the earliest Western philosopher. Before him, the Greeks explained the origin and nature of the world through myths of anthropomorphic gods and heroes. Phenomena like lightning and earthquakes were attributed to the actions of the gods. By contrast, Thales attempted to find naturalistic explanations of

2880-406: The founder of this type of philosophy says that it is water. Aristotle further adds: Presumably he derived this assumption from seeing that the nutriment of everything is moist, and that heat itself is generated from moisture and depends upon it for its existence (and that from which a thing is generated is always its first principle). He derived his assumption from this; and also from the fact that

2952-402: The height of the pyramids by their shadows at the moment when his own shadow was equal to his height. According to Plutarch, it pleased the pharoah Amasis . More practically, Thales was said to have the ability to measure the distances of ships at sea. These stories indicate familiarity with the intercept theorem, and for this reason the 26th proposition in the first book of Euclid's Elements

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3024-512: The idea of having to worry about children. Nevertheless, several years later, anxious for family, he adopted his nephew Cybisthus. The culture of Archaic Greece was heavily influenced by those of the Levant and Mesopotamia . It is said Thales was engaged in trade and visited either Egypt or Babylonia . However, there is no strong evidence that Thales ever visited countries in the Near East , and

3096-402: The issue is disputed among scholars. Visits to such places were a commonplace attribution to various philosophers by later writers, especially when these writers tried to explain the origin of their mathematical knowledge, such as with Thales or Pythagoras or Eudoxus . Several ancient authors assume that Thales, at one point in his life, visited Egypt , where he learned about geometry. It

3168-412: The later chapters of his book entitled Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks . He speaks fondly of Anaxagoras's nous , and defends the idea by claiming philosophers had "failed to recognize the meaning of Anaxagoras's [nous] ..." and believed that it was "perfectly sufficient for his insight to have found a motion which is capable of creating visible order in a thoroughly mixed chaos, by means of

3240-500: The lifetime of Socrates (born 470 BCE), there is no evidence that they ever met. In the Phaedo , Plato portrays Socrates saying of Anaxagoras as a young man: 'I eagerly acquired his books and read them as quickly as I could'. However, Socrates goes on to describe his later disillusionment with his philosophy. Anaxagoras is also mentioned by Socrates during his trial in Plato 's Apology . He

3312-486: The most in it". He introduced the concept of nous ( cosmic mind) as an ordering force, which moved and separated the original mixture, which was homogeneous or nearly so. Anaxagoras brought philosophy and the spirit of scientific inquiry from Ionia to Athens. According to Anaxagoras, all things have existed in some way from the beginning, but originally they existed in infinitesimally small fragments of themselves, endless in number and inextricably combined throughout

3384-878: The nature of matter. The first three philosophers (Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes) were all centred in the mercantile city of Miletus on the Maeander River and are collectively referred to as the Milesian school . They sought to explain nature by finding its fundamental element called the arche . They seemed to think although matter could change from one form to another, all matter had something in common that did not change. Aristotle thus characterized them as material monists . They also believed all were alive or were hylozoists . The Milesians disagreed on what all things had in common, and did not seem to experiment to find out, but used abstract reasoning rather than religion or mythology to explain themselves, and are thus credited as

3456-523: The notion of panspermia , that life exists throughout the universe and could be distributed everywhere. He deduced a correct explanation for eclipses and described the Sun as a fiery mass larger than the Peloponnese , and also attempted to explain rainbows and meteors . He also speculated that the sun might be just another star. Anaxagoras was born in the town of Clazomenae in the early 5th century BCE, where he may have been born into an aristocratic family. He arrived at Athens, either shortly after

3528-525: The original intermixture of things is never wholly overcome. Each thing contains parts of other things or heterogeneous elements, and is what it is only on account of the preponderance of certain homogeneous parts which constitute its character. Out of this process arise the things we see in this world. Plutarch says "Anaxagoras is said to have predicted that if the heavenly bodies should be loosened by some slip or shake, one of them might be torn away, and might plunge and fall to earth." His observations of

3600-652: The position of the Pleiades . Plutarch indicates that in his day (c. AD 100) there was an extant work, the Astronomy , composed in verse and attributed to Thales. While some say he left no writings, others say that he wrote On the Solstice and On the Equinox . The Nautical Star-guide has also been attributed to him, but this was disputed even in ancient times. No writing attributed to him has survived. Lobon of Argus asserted that

3672-398: The practice of dividing the day into 12 parts, and the polos , came to the Greeks from the Babylonians. Yet this too is disputed, for example by historian L. Zhmud, who points out the gnomon was known to both Egyptians and Babylonians, the division of the day into twelve parts (and by analogy the year) was known to the Egyptians already in the 2nd millennium BC , and the idea of the polos

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3744-480: The primal origin of all things; second, because it does so in language devoid of image or fable, and finally, because contained in it, if only embryonically, is the thought, "all things are one." Megiston topos: apanta gar chorei ( Μέγιστον τόπος· ἄπαντα γὰρ χωρεῖ. ) The greatest is space, for it holds all things. —attributed to Thales Thales was known for introducing the theoretical and practical use of geometry to Greece, and has been described as

3816-439: The seeds of everything have a moist nature, whereas water is the first principle of the nature of moist things." The 1870 book Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology noted: In his dogma that water is the origin of things, that is, that it is that out of which every thing arises, and into which every thing resolves itself, Thales may have followed Orphic cosmogonies, while, unlike them, he sought to establish

3888-564: The sources. According to the historian Herodotus , writing in the 5th century BC, Thales predicted a solar eclipse in 585 BC. Assuming one's acme (or floruit ) occurred at the age of 40, the chronicle of Apollodorus of Athens , written during the 2nd century BC, therefore placed Thales's birth about the year 625 BC. While the probability is that Thales was as Greek as most Milesians, Herodotus described Thales as "a Phoenician by remote descent". Diogenes Laërtius references Herodotus, Duris , and Democritus , who all agree "that Thales

3960-414: The stars were balls of dirt on fire. He seemed to correctly gather that the moon reflects the Sun's light. A crater on the Moon is named in his honor. Rather than assuming that earthquakes were the result of supernatural whims, Thales explained them by theorizing that the Earth floats on water and that earthquakes occur when the Earth is rocked by waves. He is attributed with the first observation of

4032-535: The story. There is a similar opinion regarding the statement that Archelaus formulated certain ethical doctrines. In general, he followed Anaxagoras, but in his cosmology, he returned to the earlier Ionians. Thales Thales of Miletus ( / ˈ θ eɪ l iː z / THAY -leez ; Ancient Greek : Θαλῆς ; c.  626/623   – c.  548/545 BC ) was an Ancient Greek pre-Socratic philosopher from Miletus in Ionia , Asia Minor . Thales

4104-514: The truth of the assertion. Hence, Aristotle, immediately after he has called him the originator of philosophy brings forward the reasons which Thales was believed to have adduced in confirmation of that assertion; for that no written development of it, or indeed any book by Thales, was extant, is proved by the expressions which Aristotle uses when he brings forward the doctrines and proofs of the Milesian. (p. 1016) Most agree that Thales's stamp on thought

4176-443: The universe. All things existed in this mass but in a confused and indistinguishable form. There was an infinite number of homogeneous parts ( ὁμοιομερῆ ) as well as heterogeneous ones. The work of arrangement, the segregation of like from unlike, and the summation of the whole into totals of the same name, was the work of Mind or Reason ( νοῦς ). Mind is no less unlimited than the chaotic mass, but it stood pure and independent,

4248-492: The will of anthropomorphic gods and heroes . Instead, Thales aimed to explain natural phenomena via rational hypotheses that referenced natural processes themselves— Logos rather than mythos . Many, most notably Aristotle, regard him as the first philosopher in the Greek tradition . Rather than theologoi or mythologoi , Aristotle referred to the first philosophers as physiologoi , or natural philosophers, and Thales as

4320-433: The work, Aristotle reported Thales's theory that the arche or originating principle of nature was a single material substance : water. Aristotle then proceeded to proffer a number of conjectures based on his own observations to lend some credence to why Thales may have advanced this idea (though Aristotle did not hold it himself). While Aristotle's conjecture on why Thales held water as the originating principle of matter

4392-455: The world without referencing the supernatural. He explained earthquakes by imagining that the Earth floats on water and earthquakes occur when waves rock the Earth. Thales' most famous belief was his cosmological doctrine, which held that the world originated from water. Aristotle wrote in Metaphysics , "Thales, the founder of this school of philosophy [Ionian school], says the permanent entity

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4464-524: The writings of Thales amounted to two hundred lines. Thales thought the Earth must be a flat disk or mound of land and dirt which is floating in an expanse of water. Heraclitus Homericus states that Thales drew his conclusion from seeing moist substance turn into air, slime and earth. It seems likely that Thales viewed the land as coming from the water on which it floated and the oceans that surround it, perhaps inspired by observing silt deposits. He thought

4536-592: Was a Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher . Born in Clazomenae at a time when Asia Minor was under the control of the Persian Empire , Anaxagoras came to Athens . In later life he was charged with impiety and went into exile in Lampsacus . Responding to the claims of Parmenides on the impossibility of change, Anaxagoras introduced the concept of Nous ( Cosmic Mind) as an ordering force. He also gave several novel scientific accounts of natural phenomena, including

4608-522: 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 . The main source concerning the details of Thales's life and career is the doxographer Diogenes Laërtius , in his third-century-AD work Lives and Opinions of

4680-419: Was attributed to Thales. They also indicate that he was familiar with the Egyptian seked , or seqed , the ratio of the run to the rise of a slope ( cotangent ). According to Kirk & Raven, all you need for this feat is three straight sticks pinned at one end and knowledge of your altitude. One stick goes vertically into the ground. A second is made level. With the third you sight the ship and calculate

4752-483: Was forced to retire from Athens to Lampsacus in Troad ( c.  434  – 433). He died there around the year 428. Citizens of Lampsacus erected an altar to Mind and Truth in his memory and observed the anniversary of his death for many years. They placed over his grave the following inscription: Here Anaxagoras, who in his quest of truth scaled heaven itself, is laid to rest. Additionally, in his honor,

4824-456: Was given to Thales, went the round of all the sages, and came back to Thales again. And he sent it to Apollo at Didyma , with this dedication...'Thales the Milesian, son of Examyas [dedicates this] to Delphinian Apollo after twice winning the prize from all the Greeks. ' " According to Diogenes Laërtius, Thales gained fame as a counselor when he advised the Milesians not to engage in a symmachia,

4896-454: Was not used outside of Greece at this time. Thales is recognized as one of the Seven Sages of Greece, semi-legendary wise statesmen and founding figures of Ancient Greece. While which seven one chooses may change, the seven has a canonical four which includes Thales, Solon of Athens, Pittacus of Mytilene , and Bias of Priene . Diogenes Laërtius tells us that the Seven Sages were created in

4968-492: Was one of the Seven Sages , founding figures of Ancient Greece . Many 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 . The first philosophers followed him in explaining all of nature as based on

5040-432: Was one of the first to assert that the Moon reflected sunlight and did not produce light by itself; a statement translated as “the sun induces the moon with brightness” was found in his writings. According to Plutarch in his work On exile , Anaxagoras is the first Greek to attempt the problem of squaring the circle , a problem he worked on while in prison. Anaxagoras wrote a book of philosophy, but only fragments of

5112-430: Was the first to visit Egypt and bring the Egyptian study of mathematics to Greece, and that Thales "himself discovered many propositions and disclosed the underlying principles of many others to his successors, in some case his method being more general, in others more empirical." In addition to Proclus, Hieronymus of Rhodes (3rd century BC) also cites Thales as the first Greek mathematician. Proclus attributes to Thales

5184-513: Was the son of Examyas and Cleobulina, and belonged to the Thelidae who are Phoenicians and amongst the noblest descendants of Cadmus and Agenor " who had been banished from Phoenicia and that Thales was enrolled as a citizen in Miletus along with Neleus . However, Friedrich Nietzsche and others interpret this quote as meaning only that his ancestors were seafaring Cadmeians from Boeotia . It

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