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Philosopher

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Thales of Miletus

c. 624–c. 546 BCE · Milesian · Ancient

Thales of Miletus, on the coast of Asia Minor, is the man later Greeks treated as the first philosopher. He lived in the sixth century BCE, roughly 624 to 546, and the stories say he travelled, predicted a solar eclipse, and made a killing on olive presses after studying the weather. None of that is secure, and none of it comes from a book of his.

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He left no writing that survives. What the tradition remembers is a question: what is the world made of, underneath the variety of things? Aristotle, writing two centuries later, reports the answer as water, and files Thales as the founder of the kind of inquiry that looks for a material principle rather than a myth.

That report is famous and second-hand. Other anecdotes, that he fell in a well while watching the stars, or that he said everything is full of gods, are later still. A critical reader can take him as the start of a habit, explaining nature in natural terms, without pretending to possess his sentences. The Milesian line continues with Anaximander and Anaximenes, whose words we also mostly lack.

Nothing Thales wrote survives. The cards are reports: Aristotle in the Metaphysics and in On the Soul, with Diels-Kranz numbers, and sayings in Diogenes Laertius 1.35. They are not sentences from a book of his.

Start here

Aristotle, Metaphysics I.3, on Thales and the Milesians.

It is the earliest serious account of what he was supposed to have thought, and it shows you the reporter as well as the report.

Quotations

“Thales, too, to judge from what is recorded, seems to have held soul to be a motive force, since he said that the magnet has a soul in it because it moves the iron.”

Thales of Miletus · Milesian

mindchange
Questionable
Meaning & application
“He held there was no difference between life and death. 'Why then,' someone asked, 'do you not die?' 'Because,' he answered, 'there is no difference.'”

Thales of Miletus · Milesian

deathmind
Questionable
Meaning & application

Key ideas

  • A material principle

    The report that matters is that water is the single stuff from which other things come and on which they depend.

  • Nature, not only myth

    He stands, in Aristotle's story, for explaining the world by a natural principle rather than by a tale of gods arranging it.

  • A lost voice

    Nothing he wrote survives, so every quotation is someone else's sentence about him.

Major works

  • No extant book (6th century BCE)

    Ancient lists credited him with works on astronomy and first principles, but nothing survives to quote.

Influences

  • Near Eastern practical astronomy and geometry

Influenced

Common misreadings

  • The sentence 'the principle is water' is Aristotle's, not a line from a book by Thales.
  • Predicting an eclipse, even if the story is true, does not make him a modern scientist with a method we can reconstruct.

Famous lines Thales of Miletus never said

Misattributed means the library does not treat the sentence as theirs. Questionable means there is a real doubt, which is not the same as a proof they never wrote it. Both are listed here.

  • Questionable

    “Thales, the founder of this kind of philosophy, says the principle is water.”

    Thales left no writing. This is Aristotle's report of his view, not a sentence from Thales. The doctrine is famous; the wording is Aristotle's.

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  • Questionable

    “Thales, too, to judge from what is recorded, seems to have held soul to be a motive force, since he said that the magnet has a soul in it because it moves the iron.”

    Thales left no book. This is Aristotle's report in On the Soul, collected as Diels-Kranz 11 A22. The magnet story is the testimony. The sentence is Aristotle's Greek, in a standard English of that report, not a line from Thales.

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  • Questionable

    “He says that the earth rests upon water.”

    Aristotle's report, a few lines after he says Thales made water the principle. Diels-Kranz 11 A12. It is not the same sentence as the principle claim, and it is not Thales's own wording.

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  • Questionable

    “He held there was no difference between life and death. 'Why then,' someone asked, 'do you not die?' 'Because,' he answered, 'there is no difference.'”

    One of the sayings Diogenes Laertius lists in the life of Thales, Lives 1.35, inside the dossier later numbered Diels-Kranz 11 A1. It is a late anecdote, not a fragment of a book.

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  • Questionable

    “The most ancient of things is God, for he is uncreated.”

    Diogenes Laertius 1.35 lists this among sayings of Thales, in the testimony collected as Diels-Kranz 11 A1. It is not a sentence from a Milesian book, and it should not be merged with the water report.

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FAQ

What is the best book to start with?

Aristotle, Metaphysics I.3, on Thales and the Milesians. It is the earliest serious account of what he was supposed to have thought, and it shows you the reporter as well as the report.

What is the most famous quote?

This library does not measure fame. It also does not file a line for Thales of Miletus that it is willing to treat as a settled quotation.

What is the most misquoted line?

No line filed for Thales of Miletus is marked Misattributed. The nearest doubt is Questionable, which is not the same thing: “Thales, the founder of this kind of philosophy, says the principle is water.” Thales left no writing. This is Aristotle's report of his view, not a sentence from Thales. The doctrine is famous; the wording is Aristotle's.

What is one key idea, in a sentence?

A material principle: The report that matters is that water is the single stuff from which other things come and on which they depend.