THE MILETIAN PHILOSOPHERS

Thales (585 B.C.)
Anaximander (549 B.C.)
Anaximenes (546 B.C.)

Thales was considered as the founder of the Western philosophy. Those three philosophers not only came from the same city which is located in Asia Minor, but also they shared a common characteristic of searching the principle of the universe in Nature (in a material substance, i.e., one be an important exception (although it is possible that the direction in which Anaximander started philosophizing anticipated the later Greek philosophy). Particularly the relationship of Anaximander with his teacher, Thales, had a deciding influence in molding the Western philosophy in distinction from myth and mythology. This problem will be discussed the relationship between the attitude of Logos and that of Mythos.

Thales (585 B.C.)

Thales was known in his days and thereafter as one of the seven wisest men ('oi sophistai = men of wisdom) of his days together with Solon, the great Athenian politician, who drafted the Constitution of Athens. The current meaning of "sophist" derived from Plato's extensive use of the term, which is quite derragatory, as Plato considered his contemporary group of people calling themselves as "sophists" as first professional teachers of knowledge (in reality they did not recognize the existence of knowledge in general, but the mere rhetorical technique to make an argument to appear stronger, while it is invalid. Falsely Socrates was accused of being a sophist.)

According to Herodotus I 170 in Diels-Kranz, This philosopher from Miletus was a "Phoenician by ultimate descent..., although Herodotus implied further that almost all Miletians are racial mixtures of Greek and Carian. Further to see the elaborated by Diogenes Laertius I, 22.

Now Thales, as Herodotus and Douris and Democritus say, was the son of Examynes as father and Cleobuliné as mother, from the descendants of Theleus, who are Phoenician nobles from the line of Cadmus and Agenor... And he[Agenor] was enrolled as a citizen in Miletus when he came with Neileos, when the latter was exiled from Phoenicia.

However, it was generally contended by European classic philologists that Thales was a pure Greek.

Kirk and Raven, the translators of Diels Kranz, the Presocratic Philosophers for example, being Eurocentric and thus rather skeptical about the greater Egyptian heritages, only acknowledges possibly Thales's visits to Egypt and do not see the undeniable significant cultural influences.

It was the custom to credit the sixth -century sages (notably, for example, Solon) with visits to Egypt, the traditional fountain-head of Greek science.Thales the earliest known Greek geometer had a special reason for being associated with the home of land (gh-)- measurement (metria‹gewmetrias ....however, that he spent a considerable time there is unique and not persuasive.

It is also interesting to note that of course, Homer's reference to the Okeanos (Oceanus), which also seems to trace back to the Egyptian's understanding of Nile (and possible Tigris Euphrates in Mesopotamia). Plutarch de Ls. et Osir. 34, 364D states, "They think that Homer also, like Thales, made water principle and birth of all things through learning from the Egyptians." According to Herodotus II, 107, "It seems to me that geometry was discovered from this source (sc. Re measurement of holdings after the Nile's flood) and so came to Greece."

Thus, Thales' visit to Egypt, whether once or many times, while his stay was longer or shorter, must be fact and to not acknowledge of the Persian and Egyptian influences is self-deceptive. Astronomy, Geometry, technical knowledge in civil engineering (e.g., Thales was supposed to divert a portion of a river such that the original flow became shallower for the military to cross it.) and even this thought about water as the principle and genesis of the universe.

Thus, perhaps not all of Thales' knowledge and learning were obviously of purely Greek origins although his "wisdom" in approach could very well be his own. In fact it is more natural and correct to consider that Thales' major portion of learning and profound knowledge must derive from Egypt, Persia, the Babylonian-Mesopotamian heritages, which had been of a much higher civilization at that time.

In order to understand, we may have to remind ourselves of the regularity of historical development between two distinct cultures.

Culture always flows from the higher to the lower just like water. This can be easily comprehended if we ask ourselves why the historical development of the Greek civilization started with Asia Minor's Greek colonies rather than anywhere else. They are neighbors west to Persia whose cultural origins went back to the Babylonian Mesopotamian civilizations. The naive ethno centric contention that everything important originates in the West is no more than a prejudice.

If, for example, we globally look at the history of the humankind, the height of civilization was in the Near, Middle East and North Africa (and Greece) in the Prehistoric and Ancient ages: It was in the Far East (=China and her sister civilizations like Korea and Japan) in the Middle ages, then there was the period of the highest culture in the Middle and South America, and it was clearly in the West in the contemporary periods since Renaissance.

In his Metaphysics, Aristotle chose Thales as the founder of the Western philoso