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Thales of miletus (624-545 B.C)
He was a philosopher, mathematician, astronomer.
The first philosopher in the history of western philosophy, He predicted the first solar eclipse which happened on 28th of may 585B.C, and this is one of the things which gave him his fame. Thales and his two successors are called the Milesian philosophers. He had a very practical mind, he solved a lot of engineering problems for the military during his days. He was the one who set in motion the search for the ultimate constituent of the universe, because after his prediction people started to think they could make some new things done, They started thinking rationally.
Thales asked a question on what unifies the things in the world, we encounter many things in the world such as trees, animals, human being like us, then he asked what is the unifying element for these all and why is the world called a universe?.
He gave his own answer by saying that which is the ultimate constituent of the universe is "water". He didn't give a substantial back up to this but Aristotle did. Aristotle thought that he could have arrived at that by thinking that 1. Water is essential to life and the seed of all things are moist. 2.Water is the only thing that can transform into three different things e.g gas, liquid and solid. 3. Water comes from the air as rain and returns back as mist. 4. While digging down the earth it will lead us to water 5. Finally because of his environment, miletus is surrounded by water.
He admitted that the only thing that everything came from is water and he couldn't give explanation of how water transforms to gas and solid, He simply said everything is full of gods.
His position was that of metaphysical monism which means there is one thing that everything came and through that we can explain things in the world and then of material monism too which is that that thing which everything came from is material thing(water).
Thales really contributed to the development of human by making instigations on what could make us grow scientifically, rationally in particular. And his practical contributions on engineering, astronomy, and philosophy itself is enormous.
Picture source en.wikipedia.org
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