Thales of Miletus · Philosophy
Thales held that the magnet has a soul because it moves iron, and that ‘all things are full of gods.’ His doctrine of a living, self-moving cosmos - hylozoism - shows that the first naturalism was not a dead mechanism but an enchanted, animate world.
You learned that Thales held the magnet to have a soul because it moves iron, and that ‘all things are full of gods’ - the doctrine of hylozoism, that matter is itself alive and self-moving. Explain why this means the first naturalism conceived a living cosmos, not a dead mechanism.
Leads to Aristotle.
Begin this lesson →epoché — a humanities education that remembers you.