Thales of Miletus, generally called the first philosopher and renowned as one of the legendary Seven Wise Men, or Sophoi, of antiquity, is remembered primarily for his cosmology based on water as the essence of all matter, with Earth a flat disk floating on a vast sea. He dwelled on the question that held the interest of many pre-Socratic philosophers, “What is our world made of?”.
No writings by Thales survived, and no contemporary sources exist. Thus, his achievements are difficult to assess. Inclusion of his name in the canon of the legendary Seven Wise Men led to his idealization, and numerous acts and sayings, many of them no doubt spurious, were attributed to him. The claim that Thales was the founder of European philosophy rests primarily on Aristotle – who wrote that Thales was the first to suggest a single material substratum for the universe namely, water. He reasoned that water was by far the most essential element of life and it appeared in several forms. Through the advancement of science, we now know that all matter can indeed be ultimately reduced to one factor – energy. The idea might look simplistic to us, but for its time the thought-provoking description he put forth was a newfound occurrence.
