THE FIRST PHILOSOPHER

Having talked so much about the philosophical predispositions of Homer, Hesiod, Theognis, plus a couple of dozen pre-Thalean members of the hepta sophoi club (we could add quite a few more to their number!), the fact still remains that it is Thales, and not Homer, nor anybody else, who has been given the title of the first philosopher. There must be a pretty good reason for this, and here it is, according to the most common explanation.

Unlike the mythological theory of the origin of the world in Hesiod, for instance, Thales offers a genuinely scientific, naturalistic theory, showing a radically different set of mind from that of his predecessors. Water being the first substance out of which came the world, is not such an outlandish theory, once we consider its ability to change form from liquid to gas or to solid, right in front of our eyes. But whether one agrees with this explanation or not, it opens itself to investigation, unlike Hesiod’s, which does not.

In other words, we treat Thalean philosophy as a real science, opening it to counterarguments and a genuine scientific debate. As for the others, the authors of mythology and clever fiction, we know that to doubt their fictional accounts, as if they were accompanied by some in-your-face claims to be true, should be a folly on our part.

Furthermore, Thales is a proponent of several important general principles such as monism, meaning that, in the most abstract terms, all diversity can be reduced to unity, or that a single thing is the cause of everything. Another general principle expounded by Thales is that all things contain within themselves the principles of motion and of change. His expression, recorded by Aristotle, that all things are full of gods is most likely of non-theological substance, but it means that things in order to move or to change, do not necessarily require an external agent, but contain such agents inherently, which is the first step in the development of the idea of process.

Yet another essential contribution to philosophy and science, on Thales’s part, is that, by “de-theologizing” the theory of the origins of the world and such, he allowed them to be criticized without any consideration of a breach of their religious infallibility. Even millennia later, one knows that it is impossible to criticize or even to question religious authority within a religious setting. But here, it was Thales’s own authority, and he was a mortal, who was liable to make mistakes. Thus, thanks to Thales, the scientific method in its original, non-specific sense was born. In other words, he gave a giant impetus to his successors and stimulated both their thought and their interest in the empirical method of observation and experiment.

All this boils down to the compelling main reason why we are calling Thales “the first philosopher.”