Thales of Miletus

Thales of Miletus

Thales of Miletus ( THAY-leez; Greek: Θαλῆς (ὁ Μιλήσιος), Thalēs; c. 624/623 – c. 548/545 BC) was a Greek mathematician, astronomer and pre-Socratic philosopher from Miletus in Ionia, Asia Minor. He was one of the Seven Sages of Greece. Many, most notably Aristotle, regarded him as the first philosopher in the Greek tradition, and he is otherwise historically recognized as the first individual in Western civilization known to have entertained and engaged in scientific philosophy.Thales is recognized for breaking from the use of mythology to explain the world and the universe, and instead explaining natural objects and phenomena by naturalistic theories and hypotheses, in a precursor to modern science. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Thales of Miletus has received more than 1,473,677 page views. His biography is available in 102 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 98 in 2019). Thales of Miletus is the 25th most popular philosopher (up from 26th in 2019), the 7th most popular biography from Turkey and the 2nd most popular Turkish Philosopher.

Thales of Miletus is most famous for his belief that everything in the world is made up of water, air, earth, and fire.