The Milesians

Notes for Class Thirteen: The Milesians I. Thales of Miletos (c. 580 BC) was the first thinker in the West to provide a rational explanation of things. By claiming that everything can be explained in terms of water, he proposes that there is a way to make sense of our experience of changes in the world. Behind the appearance of change, he suggests, is something constant (a one behind the many) in terms of which everything …

…way of thinking we identify as "metaphysical." They highlight the distinction between appearance and reality, search for what is constant beneath what we experience as change, challenge the reliability of our senses, and indicate how the examination of reality is an on-going development. All three adopt a materialist metaphysics, one in which reality is understood primarily in physical terms. The mythic elements that survive in their thought are often ignored or rejected by later materialists.