1 Thales of Miletus (ca 624–546 BCE)

Thales of Miletus is considered to be the first philosopher by

Aristotle and others. Bertrand Russell identifies Thales as the
starting point of Western philosophy. The followers of Thales,
Anaximander and Anaximenes, also hailed from Miletus, Ionia.
They were the founders of the Milesian School (also known as the
Ionian School) of thought.

In the episode Deeper, Deeper, Deeper Still of the series Cosmos:

A Spacetime Odyssey, first aired in May 2014, the host Neil
deGrass Tyson pointed out that the ancient Greeks brought us the
theater and democracy. But the most important contribution was
that Thales was the first person to describe natural
phenomena without reference to the gods of mythology. Events
such as earthquakes were not punishment of the gods for
something one did that displeased the gods but rather was due to
natural material processes. As might be anticipated in an
emerging field, many of the explanations were wrong. The
influence of Thales toward the understanding of Nature is not in
his explanations, but the fact that he was the first to ask questions
about things as they really are and not wondering about the
mythical origin of the world!

Most of what is known about Thales comes from the writings of

Herodotos. Thales was an engineer, astronomer, financier, and
politician. He was the first named Sage (wise man) of the Seven
Sages of Greece. After a career in politics, Thales turned to the
study of natural phenomena and introduced the study of nature to
the Greeks. Aristotle wrote that Thales was the founder of natural
philosophy.

Thales traveled to Egypt, where he learned of geometry. Among

his contributions, Thales was the first to prove that a circle was
bisected by its diagonal, the first to inscribe a right triangle inside
a circle, and recognized that the base angles of an isosceles
triangle were equal and that the angles of the vortex of
intersecting lines were equal. He measured the height of pyramids
by the length of the shadow they cast. Thales introduced
geometry to Greece.

Thales also visited Babylonia, where he learned about astronomy.

According to Burnet (1920, p. 41), the most remarkable statement
of Herodotos was that Thales predicted a solar eclipse during the
war between the Lydians and the Medes. What is remarkable is
that Thales did not know the cause of solar eclipses, and that
therefore Thales could not have known exactly where solar
eclipses may occur. Astronomers today give May 28, 585 BCE,
as the date of the eclipse.

Thales was the first to discover the period of one solstice to the
next. He discovered the seasons, which he divided into 365 days.
He was the first to state that the size of the Sun was 1/720 part of
the solar orbit just as the Moon was 1/720 part of the lunar orbit.
To appreciate these accomplishments one must go back in time to
this period and what was known about the solar system. It was
obvious by observation that both the Sun and the Moon orbited
about the fixed Earth.

Thales wanted to know why things behaved the way they do.

Thales was the founder of the philosophy that all of Nature had
developed from one source. According to Heraclitus Homericus
(540–480 BCE), Thales drew this conclusion from the
observation that most things turn into air, slime, and earth. Thales
thus proposed that things change from one form to another.
Thales observed that water was important in everyday life. Most
things were moist. Life needed water for nourishment, and many
things lived near water. Thales believed that water was the origin
of all things in Nature. To explain earthquakes, he envisioned the
earth floating on water. The waves of the water virtually “rocked
the boat,” thus causing earthquakes.