**250 min**
Discuss what makes Thales’ method of knowing distinctly philosophical as opposed to mythology and religion.
Reply to each post **100 WORDS MIN**
1. Thales approach to making sense of the world would be considered radical during his time because a majority of people believed in multiple gods that controlled and made up everything as they knew it. He rejected the supernatural and mystical theories that were used by people to explain the various phenomena in the world. This would have been considered radical as he flat out abandoned the supernatural theories for one that made sense to himself. He questioned the typical theories of the time and came up with his own hypothesis. His hypothesis stimulates both thought process and observation. This to the best of my knowledge could have been considered “challenging” the supernatural powers, which many people believed in at the time. To many people that can be considered radical. Thales philosophy was simplistic in the fact that he believed everything was made of water. Upon further research, I found out that Thales lived most of his life on an Island. He was surrounded by water. Today we tend to know many things about water. From my previous medical schooling I know that the very blood that runs in our body is an aqueous solution containing ninety two percent water. We know that Plants and animals need water to survive. Water eats away at rocks and can dissolve many things. Water can evaporate, condense, and freeze; thus turning solid. Water is able to turn from a solid, to a gas ,and then back to a liquid. The observations I stated were probably witnessed by Thales. He most likely filtered sensory information through the thought process. Thus he could make sense of his observations and explain how the world worked utilizing his own simplistic philosophy of water being the “nature” of everything. This is simplistic in the thought of everything being made up of one particular element.
2. For this week’s forum I am going to explain why Thales approaches to the way things are is considered radicalism.
To understand why Thales was considered a radical, we have to first considered the time period he lived. Roughly around the time of 624 – 546 B.C. Thales lived on the Greek Island of Miletus. Pre-Socratic Greek culture during that time strongly revolved around the beliefs of polytheistic Greek mythology, and the beliefs in oracles, muses, and the fact that basically your entire life is planned out for you. Greek mythology believed that each aspect of the world around them was controlled by a certain God, (i.e. lightning/thunder, the sea, love, war, agriculture.)
Thales took a step away from these beliefs and used deductive reasoning to make claims based on the things he has observed or experienced as opposed the works of the divine. Thales was then considered a radical because his use of what is now called the scientific method, went against everything the average Greek citizen was conditioned to believe.
One of the most popular statements Thales made was his belief that everything comes from water. Considering Thales lived on an island his entire life surrounded by water, and given his ability to observe and think outside the box for his time. He probably came to this conclusion by seeing how water affects the world around him. Thales formed his beliefs on things that he could prove through experimentation and observation. Which may have regarded him as a radical in his society at that time, but it changed the way the world began to think from that point on.
