Thales of Miletus

aliases

Thalēs; Θαλῆς

A pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer from Miletus in Asia Minor (present-day Milet in Turkey). He was one of the Seven Sages of Greece. Many, most notably Aristotle, regarded him as the first philosopher in the Greek tradition, and he is otherwise historically recognized as the first individual in Western civilization known to have entertained and engaged in scientific philosophy.

Thales is recognized for breaking from the use of mythology to explain the world and the universe, and instead explaining natural objects and phenomena by theories and hypotheses, i.e. science. Almost all the other Pre-Socratic philosophers followed him in explaining nature as deriving from a unity of everything based on the existence of a single ultimate substance, instead of using mythological explanations. Aristotle reported Thales' hypothesis that the originating principle of nature and the nature of matter was a single material substance: water.

In mathematics, Thales used geomet…more

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	Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Goodreads Author) 4.10 avg rating — 57,625 ratings — published 2012 add/edit characters	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Histories by Herodotus 4.01 avg rating — 55,622 ratings — published -430 add/edit characters	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks by Friedrich Nietzsche 4.06 avg rating — 1,323 ratings — published 1873 add/edit characters	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Story of Mathematics by Anne Rooney (Goodreads Author) 3.76 avg rating — 162 ratings — published 2008 add/edit characters	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Pelican History of Greece by Andrew Robert Burn 3.48 avg rating — 139 ratings — published 1965 add/edit characters	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Great Mathematicians: Unravelling the Mysteries of the Universe by Raymond Flood 3.61 avg rating — 109 ratings — published 2011 add/edit characters	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Philosophy of Cosmic Spirituality by Anton Sammut (Goodreads Author) 4.83 avg rating — 41 ratings — published 2014 add/edit characters	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Pré-Socráticos by José Cavalcante de Souza (Editor) 3.80 avg rating — 30 ratings — published 1972 add/edit characters	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars