Thales of Miletus · Philosophy

Nature Explains Nature

Thales’ deepest revolution was not water but method: the demand that natural events have natural causes. By taking the gods out of the business of explaining the world, he founded the naturalistic worldview on which all science rests.

What you'll be able to recall

You learned that Thales’ central methodological revolution was naturalism: the demand that natural events (earthquakes, eclipses, the variety of things) be explained by natural causes rather than by the will of gods. Explain why this shift, more than the water doctrine, founds science.

Leads to Heraclitus.

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