5
votes
Academic consensus on Thales being hylozoist or panpsychist (or alternatives)
Both hylozism and panpsychism post-dated Thales. The former describes one of Aristotles doctrines and the latter is a 20th C doctrine.
We have far too little evidence to characterise him as either. ...
- 48.8k
4
votes
Contextual meaning of a philosophical text
He [Aristotle] suggests that Thales chose water because of its fundamental role in coming-to-be, nutrition, and growth, and [that Thales] claims that water is the origin of the nature of moist things.
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3
votes
Why are theories of Greek philosophers so ineffectual?
Ineffectual? Goodness, that's cold! The short answer, as other have noted, is the whole cumulative history of technology, along with changing social structures, taboos, and belief systems. Plus, the ...
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3
votes
Accepted
Thales's views on marriage and sexuality
The source of stories about Thales, marriage, children and sexuality is mainly Diogenes Laertius, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, given extra circulation in Plutarch's Lives.
Given, ...
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3
votes
Why are theories of Greek philosophers so ineffectual?
Now my question is, if Greek philosophers wanted to explain natural phenomena (as Einstein says) then, why were their theories so ineffectual.
Their theories were ineffectual relative to modern ...
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2
votes
Did Thales believe in Hylozoism?
Welcome, Tommy Greim
We have to rely mainly on Aristotle for our 'knowledge' of Thales' beliefs. Aristotle tells us (though under the proviso of labon isos - an admission of conjecture) that for ...
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1
vote
Why are theories of Greek philosophers so ineffectual?
Anthropologist David Graeber has a nice suggestion in his
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt:_The_First_5000_Years, that the ideas of a single unifying substance emerging in that era, whether fire, ...
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1
vote
Accepted
Is Thales's claim that everything starts with water/wetness, in ontological meaning, in agreement with his claim that: "Everything is full of gods"?
Water, when poured into a vase, takes the shape of the vase; when poured into a hollow statue, it takes the shape of a statue. Then it's easy to go from here to think water is the arche of everything: ...
- 48.8k
1
vote
Is Thales's claim that everything starts with water/wetness, in ontological meaning, in agreement with his claim that: "Everything is full of gods"?
Water is the arche. Everything is full of gods.
They're consistent if only for the reason that they're not logically connected i.e. the truth/falsity one doesn't imply the truth/falsity of the other. ...
- 5,460
1
vote
Accepted
List of phenomena which can be explained by law of Thales that the earth floats on water
Thales proposed that everything is water. So there are two reasons to guess that the land floats on the waters before the idea that earthquakes are because of waves in that underlying water.
Ice is ...
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