Ancient · c. 624–546 BC
Who did Thales of Miletus influence?
Students and legacy
The first philosopher: explained the world through nature alone and predicted an eclipse.
Thales of Miletus influenced Anaximander and Anaximenes of Miletus. That is 2 lines of the 448 documented lines of influence between the 279 thinkers on this map.
Read on Wikipedia Portrait: Sailko, CC BY-SA 3.0 See the whole map
Who was Thales of Miletus?
Thales of Miletus, in Ionia, was one of the Seven Sages of ancient Greece. Since the 18th century many historians have treated him as the first philosopher of the Greek tradition, the first to explain the world through nature rather than myth, and so as a pioneer of mathematics, science and deductive reasoning.
He held that everything in nature comes from a single substance, which he took to be water, and that the Earth floats on water. Thales's theorem bears his name; he is said to have measured the height of the pyramids, predicted a solar eclipse and helped the Lydian army cross the River Halys.
Summarized from the lead of the Wikipedia article.
Who did Thales of Miletus influence?
2 thinkers on this map draw directly on Thales of Miletus.
- Anaximander c. 610–546 BC
- Anaximenes of Miletus c. 586–526 BC
Two steps away from Thales of Miletus
The second generation
- Through Anaximander: Pythagoras
- Through Anaximenes of Miletus: Anaxagoras
Thales of Miletus by the numbers
- Direct influences
- 0
- Direct followers
- 2 — #43 of 279 on this map
- Thinkers upstream
- 0
- Thinkers downstream
- 223
- Wikipedia languages
- 118 — #8 of 54 among ancient philosophers
- Card rarity
- Legendary
Questions about Thales of Miletus
- Who influenced Thales of Miletus?
- No earlier thinker on this map is recorded as a direct influence on Thales of Miletus.
- Who did Thales of Miletus influence?
- Anaximander and Anaximenes of Miletus.
- When did Thales of Miletus live?
- c. 624–546 BC. The map files Thales of Miletus under the ancient world.
- How rare is the Thales of Miletus card?
- Wikipedia carries an article on Thales of Miletus in 118 languages, which makes it a Legendary card. Legendary starts at 100 languages, Epic at 50 and Rare at 25.
More ancient philosophers
- Confucius 551–479 BC
- Aristotle 384–322 BC
- Plato c. 428–348 BC
- Socrates c. 470–399 BC
- Pythagoras c. 570–495 BC
- Laozi c. 6th c. BC
- Cicero 106–43 BC
- Marcus Aurelius AD 121–180