Exploring the Foundations: The Role of Thales in the Birth of Greek Philosophy

In this episode, we delve into the history and philosophy, focusing on Thales of Miletus, who is often considered the first philosopher. We review the importance of understanding historical and intellectual contexts and explore Thales' groundbreaking idea that water is the fundamental substance of everything. The discussion touches on critical concepts such as the shapeless stream, fate, and the significance of autonomous human reasoning in the development of philosophy. The episode also examines skepticism and its recurring role in philosophical discourse, setting the stage for future explorations of early Greek philosophers.

00:00 Introduction and Recap

01:16 The Shapeless Dream: A Fundamental Concept

03:26 Greek Philosophy: Rational or Not?

04:31 The Dual Nature of Humans

06:25 The One and the Many

07:22 The First Philosophers

10:08 The Presupposition of Autonomous Human Reasoning

11:52 Skepticism and Its Implications

13:31 Revelation vs. Reason in Greek Philosophy

13:55 Philosophy in a Polytheistic Culture

14:11 Introduction to Early Philosophers

14:28 Thales of Miletus: Background and Contributions

15:47 Thales' Philosophical Ideas

17:28 The Concept of Arche

18:39 Thales' Famous Assertions

19:36 Philosophical Implications and Critiques

24:19 Concluding Thoughts and Next Episodes

All right.

2

So part two of history and philosophy.

3

As we're getting started here, can

you frame this by giving us a little

4

bit of review where we've been the

last episode and why it's important

5

to look at the history of philosophy?

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I still love that phrase that we

talked about last week or last episode.

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Then we study history, not to remember

the past, but to understand the present.

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I really find that true.

9

Yeah.

10

I like that older.

11

I get and become history

myself a little bit, I guess.

12

But I think that's true.

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our thoughts and our culture don't arise.

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Ecstasy, Hilo, whenever

we're born or, whatever.

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We are one of the branches of the tree.

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That arises from Greek philosophy

and Hebrew thought combined.

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So, unless we understand that tree and

what it's like, we're not really going

18

to understand ourselves very well.

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Anyway, that's my thought.

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So we talked about the quote intellectual

atmosphere in quote of the entire world.

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this would be the air that these

philosophers wouldn't breathe in.

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they did that.

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Get there.

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Teaching and their ideas extant.

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either.

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But they built upon currents

of thought already in place.

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They're kind of branches

in and of themselves.

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In a way, but they're more

fundamental because obviously

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they go back much further.

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Gotcha.

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Gotcha.

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So, what were some of the

currents that were already in

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place that we talked about?

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One that we talked about

was the shapeless dream.

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The idea that underneath all reality.

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Is this undefined force sometimes

symbolized by mother earth.

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From which all living things arise and

then they live for a while and then they

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go back into, so it's this idea of a

non-personal fundamental universal force.

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undergirding all people and

animals And other living things.

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all the things that we experience.

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That's going to be in

unconscious or subconscious

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validation, a great philosophy.

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No.

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What's interesting then.

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And the reason this is important

is because it's going to presuppose

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a couple of things about reality.

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Number one, that it's not a personal.

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So the shapeless dream is not a person.

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It's a forest.

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And because of that,

it's also not purposeful.

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So there's no purpose here given

by the nature of reality itself.

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And the third leads, irrational.

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we don't mean anti rational, like absurd.

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We just mean that it's not

necessarily based on ration

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and reasoning towards the goal.

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And then last it is also fateful

or is deterministic is a more

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technical, philosophical word.

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So the shape was stream.

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Is what determines when

you're born and when you die.

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And what operates that?

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What brings us about your birth

and your death and everything else?

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His fate.

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This impersonal universal.

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construct or forest.

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And if it controls when you begin

and when you end that's by necessity.

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Then really has to control all the forces

that led up to you in people's lives,

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as well as the events in your own life.

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when you think through it, it

becomes totally deterministic.

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So that idea of the non-personal

fundamental force is

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summarized by the term fate.

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Fade is more, what I would

say is what operates it.

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or what determines when things

arise and when they don't and when

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things arise and when they die.

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Okay.

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So it's not the same

as a shapeless stream.

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It's more kind of the mechanism by

which that shape of scream operates.

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Gotcha.

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Gotcha.

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So thinking about the official.

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start of the discipline

or practice of philosophy.

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Thinking about the Greek philosophers.

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is very rational.

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So, how does Greek philosophy fit into.

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these currents of thought that

were already in place by the time.

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Great philosophy began.

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Yeah, that's a good question.

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I'm not sure that grief philosophy

is as rational as most people

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think that it is so really.

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Yeah.

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I mean, if by rational, you mean.

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Employing human reasoning in arguments

then yes, Greek philosophy is rational.

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And in a deeper way than anything then we

have records of any way that went before.

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But if you mean, having a

foundation that is rational.

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Well, that's another question.

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Because this.

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Shapeless stream is a fade is blind.

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They're purposeless in universal.

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That doesn't really seem rational to me.

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But we'll have to see how that works

out in the individual philosophers.

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If you could make their

own judgment about that.

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Okay.

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So any other thoughts on the last

episode you want to highlight before

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we get into the first philosophers?

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Yeah, actually, it'd be good to

talk about two other related ideas.

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One is the idea that humans then are

really composed of two different things

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or two different kinds of things.

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We had this indestructable

and universal life force.

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That has manifested itself.

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And then we have this

actual physical body.

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Which is what it's manifested into.

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So of the two.

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One is eternal and then changeable and

universal and the other comes and goes.

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The life force then becomes more

important than the individual person.

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Just like a person is more fundamental

and important than the clothes he wears.

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One day changes the next.

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So this life force takes on

forms or manifestations of, life.

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But then those life forms

are Baptist stations.

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Go back into the screen.

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So you have, then unity.

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Of the shapeless stream that

somehow produces these, life

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forces as it were, but also.

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You see right from the beginning,

then you can begin to de-value the

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individual life Forbes, or even matters.

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So.

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Because those just come and go.

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Is that like an internal kind of soul?

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I know, I'm trying to

impose our categories on to.

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this philosophy, which I'm no expert

in, but I'm just kind of curious, cause

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that's almost what it sounds like to me.

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Sure.

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No, you can use that word.

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It's not a word that would have been

used before the Greek philosophers came

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about, but it's where the, some of them

would users, especially later, even

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Hegel would talk about our world's soul.

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That seems something like this.

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And of course, then he was a

German writing in the 19th century.

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So it's not too dissimilar from some

idea of a world soul and yes, some of

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the great philosophers would, would use

that kind of terminology or concept.

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Gotcha.

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Gotcha.

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Okay, well, anything else before we

jump into the first philosophers?

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Well, the other thing.

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Because you have this shapeless stream

and then you have individual things.

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You have this problem, that's going to be

really fundamental in Greek philosophy.

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And that is how the one

and the many fit together.

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So we've got one shapeless stream, right?

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And then you've got lots of people with

lots of animals and lots of things.

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The many.

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How those fit together or

if they can fit together.

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Is going to be one of the

fundamental questions.

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And I think when I was studying

philosophy, when I first ran into the

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history of philosophy, I didn't get that

at all, because we hadn't heard about this

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idea of the shapeless dream that predated

the philosophers since I've worked.

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So it helps me really understand

that they're working in these actual,

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actual, current and issues and problems.

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That to them seem very

obvious and fundamental.

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some of the answers that will be more

understandable if we keep that in mind.

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Yeah, that makes sense.

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So what marks out there?

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Greek philosophers as

the first philosophers.

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Yeah, that's a good question.

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And some people would say it's a loaded

question because it's assuming that

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they were the first philosophers.

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and that's a fair point.

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we have to recognize that

people in Egypt and Babylonia

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and probably many other places.

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Thought about deep philosophical issues.

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the issues of ultimate reality But

primarily three things What bank,

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the Greek philosophers have that

title of the first philosophers.

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One.

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Their ideas were written down

in a somewhat structured way.

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And therefore subsequent thinkers

could interact with their ideas

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and writings and push her back and

clarify and give their own opinion.

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, And then second, They sought

knowledge for knowledge, sake alone.

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Well, what do you mean by that?

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Going back to Hale again, writing much

later, but he dismissed Indian philosophy

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yet rather, currently as being nothing

else, nothing more than Indian religion.

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And what he meant by that is that

both had the same goal, the practical

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purpose of freed people from the

illusions and that happiness of life.

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Rather than seeking

knowledge for its own sake.

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Now, I'm not sure if he was

right to conflate those two, but

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I think he makes a good point.

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Philosophy seeks to know.

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Period.

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It doesn't seek to know for religious

purposes, As valuable as those might be.

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It doesn't seek to know for

cultural or political purposes.

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But it's simply a seeks to know

period knowledge for knowledge sake.

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. Okay.

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So what's the third thing that makes

these Greek philosophers philosophers.

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Well, the last thing is that the

Greek philosophers were there

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first thinkers that we know of.

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To seek answers to the basic

questions of life and reality.

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Based on human reasoning.

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Alone.

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. That is, they did not base

their ideas upon pre-existing.

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Uh, third rotated beliefs like

religious ideas or scriptures.

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Or the traditions of mythology.

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Now again, that's not to say they're

all their ideas arose X in the Hilo.

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We are talked about that philosophical

ideas of cultural motifs already bounded.

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And these were pervasive and unavoidable.

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But then I've had texts or traditions.

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Or priesthood they're prescribed

or proscribed how they could answer

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the questions that they were asking.

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So that's one of the main keys is this.

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Autonomous human reasoning.

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It's going to be about human

reasoning, that alone, not by the

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traditions I've received by the

elders or by priests or by some taxed.

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And this really actually

brings up an interesting point.

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One that I think is

ignored in most history.

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Of philosophy books, at least

the ones that I've seen.

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And that point is this.

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The, to make this work.

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To do philosophy in this way.

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You have to have a presupposition.

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A foundational belief.

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And in this case, one that is assumed.

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Instead of examined or argued for by the

very thinkers who are going to employ it.

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Okay, so that sounds pretty

interesting, and important.

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So what's that preset position?

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The presupposition is that

autonomous human reasoning.

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That is human reasoning,

unaided and unsupplemented.

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Is a sufficient tool to understand

the big questions that philosophy has.

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That's the big presupposition.

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Yeah, that's big.

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I feel like we've interacted a

little bit with that in the past.

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Talking about epistemology.

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Right.

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But here at the beginning, they're

not even asking that question.

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And in fact, you won't get

asked for a good deal later.

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But it leads to a big problem

and the problem is skepticism.

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Because there you're making a

presupposition that human reasoning

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could give all these answers.

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But you're not examining or you don't

have proof for that presupposition itself.

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So what do you mean by

skepticism in that point?

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That people can push back

against that preset position.

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That reason alone can get you there.

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Well, more than that, they pushed

back against the idea that you can

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have true knowledge of the world.

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Um, and that is very difficult to escape.

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If human reasoning unaided is

your only way to discover true.

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You don't know if the tool is adequate.

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Because the only means by which you could

examine it is by human reasoning itself.

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so the instrument is the only thing

that could test the instrument.

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But at the end students already

faulty, then you would never know.

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Because you'd have a faulty instrument.

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Testing itself, basically.

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. And that idea of skepticism, it's going

to come roaring into Greek philosophy.

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It's going to be one of the deep issues.

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In fact, I really think is probably the

most important philosophical problem.

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Hmm, it keeps rearing its head

is going to come back and brick

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philosophy is going to come back.

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later in the middle ages, not to quite

such a degree, but then in modern

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times, starting with David human,

especially, but also in post-modernity.

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skepticism is a problem.

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Skepticism again about.

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the validity of building on the Greek

philosophers because of the faulty.

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Maybe circular reasoning,

precept position.

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No skepticism about the ability

of us to know anything at all.

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That's a really interesting point., Yeah,

and I think it's such an important issue.

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It's like, We're assuming autonomous

human reasoning can do this.

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But have we.

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Competence in that assertion.

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How would we establish

that as a fact that we can?

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Yeah.

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What's the warrant for that belief?

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Yeah.

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So not to say that Greek philosophers

were wrong about a lot of stuff.

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They were right about a lot of stops.

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Sure.

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But also that.

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It's going to be limited.

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It's going to be limited because this

foundational question is difficult

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to answer from their worldview.

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Well, I think so.

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And One of my goals is that

perhaps people can think through.

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Does philosophy of the Western

tradition actually work if it's

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not based on anything other

than autonomous human reasoning.

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I'm skeptical of that.

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I think.

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There are significant and foundational

problems with that, but we'll let others.

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judged from themselves.

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So real fast.

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And then I want to get into.

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the first philosopher.

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We've talked in the past that.

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you aren't just using reason, then

we talked about also revelation.

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So the Greeks don't believe in any

sort of divine revelation as part

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of their epistemological framework.

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Well, the Greek philosophers do not.

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Okay.

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Yeah.

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So whether they believe

in the gods or not.

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They're not using any sort of revelation.

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Or tradition or mythology.

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Yeah.

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To establish their viewpoint.

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Okay.

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Okay.

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That's interesting that there.

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practice.

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Philosophy, doesn't take that into

account, even though they're living

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in a very polytheistic culture.

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And that's both a glory,

but also perhaps a weakness.

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It's a glory.

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It's what makes it philosophy.

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Yeah.

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But at the very heart of it,

then you have this question.

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Yeah.

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Gotcha.

310

Cool.

311

Cool.

312

Well, let's dig into the early

philosophers or the first philosopher.

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So I think you mentioned

failure last week.

314

We're going to unpack that

a little bit more today.

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So tell us about dailies.

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How do you say, how do

you say his full name?

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They lose from my latest, because he

was from Our city called my elitists.

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A little bit of background

here for history.

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The first three philosophers were

going to look at her all for my

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latest, which is interesting.

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my latest is going to be a town.

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On the west coast of what we would now

call Turkey, but it's a Greek town.

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About five centuries before

this, for centuries before this.

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You have what's called the Doric invasion.

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Where the grease talked about.

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These people called the Dorians

who were coming in and taking

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over much of the mainland Greece.

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And so many Greeks at that time.

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Cross the sea and went over

and established these colonies.

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Some of them became very

wealthy and powerful.

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Like Melitas.

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Eventually the established

colonies have their own.

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Okay.

334

And you set up that time.

335

What kind of timeframe

are we talking about here?

336

So the Doric invasion is

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But they always were looking at.

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Most people think is

birth about six 20 BC.

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Okay.

340

And we don't really know that, but.

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The records say that he predicted

any clips that came about.

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Uh, five ADBC.

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So people are thinking, well, if he has

maybe 40 at that time, that seems like

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you're good guests and we'll go back

40 years before that for his birth.

345

Gotcha.

346

but, uh, yeah, they didn't

have Wikipedia back then to

347

kind of put these things down.

348

That's too bad.

349

That's a good tool.

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So Bailey's.

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And the early Greek philosophers

are going to be Most concerned.

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With not ethics, But we would

probably call at holiday.

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Some people would call it.

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Metaphysics Those two terms

tend to get blurred a lot.

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The idea of trying to figure

out what's ultimately real.

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so there's sometimes called physicist

philosophers because they were as

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involved in science as philosophy.

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The division between

science and philosophy.

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That was not a division that

existed in the ancient world.

360

Well, that's interesting.

361

Yeah.

362

So I already told you

he predicted an eclipse.

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Apparently There's

another story about him.

364

Looking at the natural world and

discerning when there was going to be.

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In abundant olive harvest.

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So He bought all the, all their presses

in the, village and the surrounding

367

area and made a fortune when the

time came because he controlled.

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All the presses where the outlets.

369

Hmm again.

370

These are kind of the legends

they may or may not be true.

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So he's a philosopher, a physicist

and astronomer, and it's agriculture.

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Man.

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They were, uh, they were

the whole package back then.

374

Yeah.

375

That's pretty sweet.

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Yeah.

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And these aren't the only one,

most of the others are going

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to have that same background.

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So he was not simply teaching

any university or writing tones.

380

That was not his day job.

381

that wouldn't not be.

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Uh, job actually for a

good while after he had.

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But what he's known for.

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Is he's the first one that we know of.

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Who.

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Systematically taught

a philosophical idea.

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Which could be interacted with

which wasn't based upon myth

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or, or tradition or religion.

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And he was really concerned.

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Do you understand the

ultimate nature of reality?

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The one, what it is that

makes everything, what it is.

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there's a Greek word called RK.

393

Which it can be a translator principal.

394

sometimes it just means.

395

What the cosmos consists of, or

from which it comes into existence.

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Or both.

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Oh Aristotle.

398

When he was writing about this.

399

A few centuries later.

400

He said.

401

The arcade.

402

is that up?

403

Which all existing things are composed.

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And that from which they

originally come to be.

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And that into webs, they finally perish.

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This they stayed is the element and

the principle of things that are.

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It's like matter.

408

Yeah.

409

Let me read that again.

410

Yeah, because I didn't read it very well.

411

Aristotle looking back on

these early philosophers and

412

especially daily said, The arcade.

413

Is that a, which all

assistant things are composed.

414

And that from which they

originally come to be.

415

And that into which they finally perish.

416

This they state, they be in the

philosophers is the element and

417

principle of all the things that are.

418

No.

419

That's what they was going to look for and

his going to give one, answer that he's.

420

Kind of famous for it.

421

He's going to say it's water.

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Water.

423

Yeah.

424

Everything comes from water.

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Everything returns to water.

426

Water is the base substance

of everything that is.

427

That's interesting.

428

Why?

429

So my water.

430

we're not told, but reading between the

lines, I mean, water is ubiquitous, right?

431

It's in the sea falls from the sky.

432

It runs in your veins.

433

Kind of a plant you see has liquid inside.

434

we, and all the animals

and plants die without it.

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It's essential for life.

436

Maybe you could say water could be

said to produce the earth itself.

437

Because in their cosmology, the

earth was floating on waters and

438

underneath the waters in the sky.

439

Hmm.

440

And probably again, this is

reading between the line.

441

Water is the only substance that

they always knew of that can

442

occupy the three material states.

443

Right.

444

It's solid and liquid and gas.

445

Oh yeah.

446

So you might indeed say Hey,

this is a pretty good choice.

447

Yeah.

448

Yeah.

449

His particular answer though.

450

It's not really as important

as a question he asked.

451

What is everything made of?

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What's the underlying principle.

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What's the unity.

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Of all things.

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And the way that he answered again.

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He's trying to give a.

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Explanation by human reasoning,

observing the world around him.

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Instead of looking towards tradition

or understanding what a religion

459

would say about that It's.

460

Only on the basis of unaided.

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Autonomous human reasoning.

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I see.

463

So he didn't, receive that from any

sort of cultural myth or from any

464

scripture or anything like that.

465

He's just observing and

trying to understand.

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Using his own mind.

467

Right.

468

And that's what makes it important?

469

The questions he asked

and how we answered it.

470

Okay.

471

The particular question

water is not thoroughly.

472

Really going to be that important

in the history of philosophy.

473

That's, really interesting.

474

So that's the birth of.

475

when we talk about philosophy as

a discipline or practice, It is.

476

Wow.

477

So that was one thing he was

famous for and the other.

478

phrase or aphorism that he's famous

for is more ambiguous when he said.

479

Everything is full of gods.

480

What does that mean?

481

I dunno.

482

Uh, what did he mean by that?

483

There is different interpretations.

484

could be an early form of pantheism and

most people don't think that that's it.

485

It's more, probably this idea that, um,

486

Well, It could be an attempt to give just

a rational direction to the random flow.

487

So.

488

There's this water.

489

But then.

490

What makes it work the way it does that

it produces these individual things.

491

Like you alright.

492

If you're fully water, then

why are you different than say.

493

Uh, goat or.

494

A Sycamore tree.

495

Yeah.

496

so some people feel like he would say that

somehow the gods are involved in that.

497

And so somehow they, direct that.

498

And so therefore they're everywhere.

499

Or another way of thinking of

that another way to interpret him.

500

Is that he is viewing gods as

simply another word for this life

501

force, this, shapeless stream.

502

So.

503

Scientifically you'd call a water,

but philosophical you'd call it

504

or religiously you'd call it the

gods, but it means the same thing.

505

Not sure what he meant there,

interpretations of that.

506

However, this begins the first

problem that you have with dailies.

507

And more broadly.

508

Again, using habit as an example.

509

Of using autonomous human reasoning alone.

510

if water is everything and

everything is water and all things

511

are full of God's will, are the

gods also that made of water.

512

Yeah.

513

That's a good question.

514

Yeah.

515

So if they, are water,

Like Zeus and Apollo.

516

So if they're just water

themselves, God-like forum.

517

Then they are.

518

Victims or controlled by the flowing

streams, not controllers of it.

519

Hmm.

520

So if they're not, then.

521

Everything's not really made of water.

522

There's something more fundamental.

523

but more importantly, And I don't know.

524

Whereas seeing this really brought out.

525

Too often.

526

But to me, this is an obvious question.

527

All right.

528

If everything was full of water.

529

Does that mean that the mind making

that statement, everything is full

530

of water is itself just water.

531

And if it's water.

532

That's just.

533

Waves and wavelets waves and wavelets

occurrences that just happened to take

534

place in the movements of my inner C.

535

So my thoughts, just like your thoughts.

536

Are just somehow water or the movement

of water, but there's no way to.

537

Judge, which of those two, movements

of water is going to be more

538

correct than the other one, right?

539

Why should we think that one

wave is more true than the other.

540

More valid or more

illuminated, more profound.

541

So.

542

again.

543

Draws us back to this question.

544

That I think is unanswered.

545

Ken, autonomous human reasoning.

546

Adequately explain reality.

547

And if you give some of these

mechanistic, natural answers.

548

I don't think you can say that

because then the human mind

549

itself that produced that claim.

550

Is also the result of

those same processes.

551

Yeah.

552

this sounds like a familiar conversation.

553

That people have been listening to while.

554

Yeah, we talked about

this with naturalism.

555

There is an argument that

I think is a good one.

556

That natural is a bit self-defeating

for many of the same reasons.

557

Yeah.

558

Yeah.

559

if you're, if the mind making

a truth claim is the byproduct

560

of processes that aren't.

561

Made an order to try to understand truth

claims that they're making, then it's.

562

It's kind of self-defeating exactly.

563

And at the mind has made a water.

564

Who's to say that that

water is finding truth.

565

And if your mind and my mind.

566

I have a difference of opinion,

but they're both just water.

567

Why should I value my opinion over years?

568

Hmm.

569

Wow.

570

that's super interesting.

571

And that's where we'll leave it for today.

572

We'll talk about the philosophers

who came right after him.

573

Next episode.

574

But I wanted to talk about him

just to give an illustration

575

of some of the themes.

576

that we've already been discussing a bit.

577

Great.

578

Great.

579

Well, thanks.

580

looking forward to the

discussion next time.

581

All right, sounds good.

582

Thanks.