Thales of Miletus (modern day Turkey) was said to be the very first Greek philosopher, scientist and mathematician. Although little is known about Thales, it is recorded that he lived between 624 BC – 546 BC. Thales was the founder of the Milesian school and also known as one of the Seven Wise Men (Stokes). Most of his accomplishments are speculated upon since none of his writings survived, and all sources seem to be non-existent. All that is known about his thoughts came from Aristotle, the four statements are as follows: (1) The world originated from water; (2) The world floats on water; (3) The world has many gods; (4) Soul produces motion (Burnet). Aristotle was very hesitant in writing these claims, stating that even by his time Thales was known only by word of mouth and not through hard evidence. Thales was said to be a devoted traveler and it is mainly through the writings of Aristotle why Thales is considered the “father of science” and the first pre-Socratic Greek philosopher.
Aside from the writings of Thales, he was also an astronomer and mathematician. According to the Greek writer Xenophanes, it is believed that Thales was the first to predict a solar eclipse in 585 BC. This prediction startled Ionia and ended up stopping the battle between Lydian Alyattes and the Median Cyaxares. It is said that Thales used Babylonian astronomy in his prediction of the solar eclipse. Thales also wrote a manual for sailors and achieved a fortune by using his theories in astronomy to predict when olive crops would grow and then buying the land. This was mainly accomplished so that Thales could prove it was possible to make money as a philosopher (Burnet).
As a mathematician, Thales is famous for his knowledge in geometry a...
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One of the most well known contributors to math from Greece would be Archimedes. He
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For the Greeks philosophy wasn’t restricted to the abstract it was also their natural science. In this way their philosophers were also their scientist. Questions such as what is the nature of reality and how do we know what is real are two of the fundamental questions they sought to answer. Pythagoras and Plato were two of the natural philosophers who sought to explain these universal principles. Pythagoras felt that all things could be explained and represented by mathematical formulae. Plato, Socrate’s most important disciple, believed that the world was divided into two realms, the visible and the intelligible. Part of the world, the visible, we could grasp with the five senses, but the intelligible we could only grasp with our minds. In their own way they both sought to explain the nature of reality and how we could know what is real.
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The creation of rational thought began in the Greek city of Ionia. The citizens there were open to new ideas and influenced by traders from around the world. Laws were invented by these Ionians and written down to express the will of their society. The greatest and most recognized Ionian thinker was a man named Thales of Miletues. Considered one of the seven ""wises men" of the day, Thales contemplated water and its connection with the universe. Blackburn remarks that Thales ideas: "mark[ed] an important change in western scientific thought" (68). Thales also used I statements when he philosophized marking for the first time in history a human used reason and the rational mind. Other philosophers surfaced in Ionia during this period creating the study of the "cosmos," or universe. They also founded the study of past human affairs or history.
Aristarchus lived from about the year 310 B.C. to about 230 B.C. Aristarchus was the first Greek philosopher and mathematician to make sense of the solar system. Others before him thought that the Earth is a sphere and that it moves, but he was the first to understand the heliocentric theory, which states that the sun is in the middle. In 288 or 287 B.C. he followed Theophrastus as the head of the Peripatetic School established by Aristotle.