c. 625 B.C.E.–c. 547 B.C.E.

Philosopher
Mathematician
Astronomer

The Founder of Greek Philosophy.

The Greeks looked upon Thales as the founder of Greek philosophy and the first man to attempt to provide a scientific explanation for the origin of the world. He was born in Miletus on the south-west coast of Asia Minor around 625 B.C.E. and in his youth he was an avid traveler. As Hieronymus of Rhodes indicates in his report, Thales measured the pyramids by their shadow, having observed the time when a person's shadow is equal to the person's height. It wasn't long after his trip to Egypt that Thales went to Greece to further his study of geometry. It was in Greece that he began to lecture on natural sciences and philosophy and he founded one of the first Greek schools of philosophy the Ionian School, also called the...