Talk:Thales

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Many philosophers followed his lead in searching for explanations in nature rather than in the supernatural, others returned to supernatural explanations, but couched in the language of philosophy, rather than myth or religion.

I think this sentence presupposes an enlightenment distinction between naturalistic explanations and supernaturalism, which was alien to the Greek thought of the time, and so I think it should be re-written, moved, or at least qualified. --Mark Christensen

There is a distinction to be made here between what is significant as we see it and what is significant as the ancient Greeks might have seen it. Thales is significant to us because he launched a tradition of thought that ultimately led to a scientific revolution, and the essential element of this tradition is the search for causes in nature rather than outside of nature (an extremely radical idea that apparently has never originated independently anywhere else). This is a point that should definitely be included in the article. It basically answers the question, Why should we care about Thales? The question, Why did ancient Greeks care about Thales? might be answered differently, but not by me, because I don't know. - TS

How would you feel about the following:

Thales attempt to explain natural phenomenon without reference to mythology was tremendously influential. All of the other pre-Socratic philosophers follow him in attempting to provide an explanation of ultimate substance, change, and the existence of the world -- without reference to mythology. Those philosophers were also influential, and eventually Thales rejection of mythological explanations became an essential idea for the scientific revolution.

It does not create a naturalism/supernaturalism distinction where it did not exist. But it provides a link to our time...

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I don't think this is wrong or misleading but I don't know if it is better. You can change it if you have a strong opinion. I would accuse some of the pre-Socratics, notably Pythagoras, of introducing their own mythology to replace the old mythological explanations that the Ionians had rejected. - TS

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Agreed, the Pythagorean cult could be considered to have created their own mythology. And that's exactly my point -- these philosophers did not make a clear distinction between naturalism and mythology, so their philosophy can, and is sometimes deprecated for not removing all supernaturalist explanations, and at the same time called by others "naturalistic."

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I think the real distinction is not between naturalism/supernaturalism, or the rejection of mythology, but between cosmologies based on reason and those based on tradition. This is think highlights another flaw in this and some of the other articles on the pre-Socratics -- history of philosophy ought focus on the arguments advanced by these various people, and to a lesser or greater extent all of these articles seem to simply recount a succession of opinions. I'll try to fix that, add clear references to source material, and create an article on pre-Socratic thought which ties these people's ideas together a bit.

This may take some time, as I'll have to dig up my notes on these works, and the copies of the source materials which are buried in a box somewhere.

Also, I agree with your assessment that the prose of the previous example exhibits a vigor and clarity which my revision lacks -- even though I think the original version is incorrect and misleading. I'll fix this before I make any change. --Mark Christensen

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Can we plz plz plz move this to Thales of Miletus Lir 12:06 Nov 21, 2002 (UTC)

Why? Adam Bishop 17:58, 29 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I could see it if there was some kind of terrible ambiguity problem, but in practice I see/hear "Thales" by itself more often than with "of Miletus". Stan 18:39, 29 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I'm used to hearing him called "Thales of Miletus" and found it vaguely jarring to see the article titled otherwise. (On a side note, you know you're in a backwater article when it takes two years to have one short conversation...) Isomorphic 11:21, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

lol! - Ta bu shi da yu 11:58, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)