Doctrines and Testimonia
Water is the single underlying material principle from which everything else in the natural world is generated, and the causes of natural events can be sought in nature itself rather than in the will of the gods.
- water as the arche (first principle)
- naturalistic explanation over myth
- survival only through later doxography
- credited eclipse prediction
- regarded as philosophy's founder
Thales of Miletus, regarded by Aristotle as the first philosopher, wrote nothing that survives directly; his views are known only through later doxographic reports, chiefly Aristotle's Metaphysics, which credits him with proposing water as the arche, the single material principle underlying all things. Ancient tradition also credits him with predicting a solar eclipse in 585 BC and with early advances in geometry, though the reliability of these reports varies. Whatever their exact accuracy, the doxography surrounding Thales marks a decisive shift in Greek thought toward explaining the cosmos through natural principles rather than divine myth, a shift later thinkers called the birth of philosophy and science together.
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