Thales of Miletus (ca. 624-546 BC)

Thales is usually thought of as the "Father" of Western philosophy. For reasons not known to us (until the time of Plato in the late 5th century BC we have no actual writings of the earliest Greek philosophers; only bits and pieces about them told by others--others not necessarily sympathetic observers!) Thales was not content with the idea that things are the way they are because of the doings of the gods. Thales was well versed in the scientific learning of the East--and probably travelled to Egypt to study the mathematics, geometry and astronomy of the Egyptians. He put his learning to work as a military engineer--and was fabled for his scientific genius. He predicted a solar eclipse, measured the shadows of objects (from pyramids to ships) to estimate their distances or locations. He even diverted a river in order to better position the Milesian army against an enemy city. But it is in the area of philosphical thought that Thales is best remembered. Thales was interested in discovering, through the process of rational enquiry, the essence or substance of all matter. He looked out on the world as a by-product of some material substance--a single substance which by its own makeup or inner mechanics could bring into being all other things. For him that single substance was water. Perhaps such a conclusion was inevitable for one who grew up near the sea and who undoubtedly often watched the power of the clouds above and the waves below during a tempest. But remember also that the ancient world widely shared the view that creation emerged from a watery void. In any case, it is important to understand how significant his probing into the essence of things was. He may not have got the right answers (though he was not really so far off in his view of water as the original substance)--but he was asking what modern science even today considers the right questions. Thus in ascribing the dynamics of the universe to water as the formative substance, rather than to the gods as the formative powers, he became our first known "materialist" or "secularist."