Chapter 5 03 THALES "Father of Philosophy" Thales

3.1 The intuition of "everything is one" Greek philosophy seems to have begun with an absurd idea, it began with the proposition that water is the principle and womb of all things.Is it really necessary to pay attention to and take this proposition seriously?Yes, for three reasons: first, because the proposition expresses something about the question of the origin of things; second, because it is expressed in such a way that it is not a metaphor or an allegory; is embryonic - the idea that "all are one".The above-mentioned first reason still makes Thales (Thales, known as the "father of philosophy" in ancient Greece) associate with people who believe in religion and superstition; but the second reason distinguishes him from these people, showing that he was a natural scientist; and for a third reason Thales qualifies as the earliest Greek philosopher.

If Thales said that the earth came from water, then we just have a scientific hypothesis, a false but hard to refute hypothesis.However, he has gone beyond scientific assumptions.When using this water hypothesis to express his unified concept, Thales did not overcome, but at most jumped over the low level of physical understanding at that time.Thales's empirical observations of the occurrence and change of water—or, more precisely, of moisture—are so pitiful and messy that they cannot allow or even induce such great general inferences.The impetus for such an inference is a metaphysical belief whose roots lie deep in some sort of mystical intuition.We find this belief in all philosophers, in their indefatigable efforts to express it better, and it is the proposition that "all are one."

It is remarkable how powerfully such a belief governs all experience.It is from Thales that we can understand how philosophy always—when it pursues the goal that magically attracts it—must transcend all barriers of experience.It uses easy-to-reach supports, and hope and premonition quicken its pace.The thoughtful intellect trails behind, panting, for better support, and also to reach that alluring goal which the spiritual companion has already reached.We seem to see two travelers standing beside a swift forest stream rolling with boulders.One of them stepped on those stones and kept jumping, not caring that the stones suddenly fell into the abyss behind him, and finally crossed the stream vigorously.The other stood there all the time in despair. He first had to build himself a foundation strong enough to bear his cautious and heavy steps, and sometimes failed to do so, and no god could help him across the river.

So, what is it that enables philosophical thinking to achieve its purpose so quickly?Does it differ from thinking that counts and measures only in its rapid flight over larger spaces?No, because what makes it soar is a strange, illogical force—imagination.It flies from one possibility to another on the wings of imagination, and these temporarily serve as its anchorages, and it sometimes clings to such anchorages in flight.A premonition of genius pointed it out to these stepping-stones; the imagination guessed from afar, and the verifiable point of reference was here.Capable of capturing and illuminating analogies with lightning speed, here lies the great power of the imagination.Then introspection comes with scales and norms, trying to replace analogy with equations, synchronicity with causality.Still, even if this were completely unfeasible, unprovable philosophical thinking would still have a value, even in Thales' case.

When the rigidity of logic and experience tries to leap to the proposition of "everything is water", even if all the supports are broken, after the collapse of the scientific building, there is still something left.It is in this remnant that there is a drive, even a hope of future fruition. 3.2 Grasp of abstract concepts As mentioned above, I certainly do not think that Thales' thought may still retain a kind of "poetic truth" in a restricted or weakened sense.For example, imagine a plastic artist standing in front of a waterfall. He sees the rushing water playing a game of artistic modeling, transforming into human body, animal body, mask, plant, stone, Lin Ze goddess, eagle-headed flying lion, etc. All existing sculptural images, so the proposition "everything is water" seems to have been confirmed.Rather, even if it has been recognized that Thales' idea is unprovable, it still has value, precisely because its meaning is not mythical or metaphorical.

The Greeks--thales so prominently among them--are the antithesis of all realists, because they believe only in the reality of men and gods, and see the whole of nature as a disguise, a mask, or a metamorphosis of men and gods.In their view, people are the truth and core of things, and everything else is just a play of suspicion and illusion.Because of this, it is incredibly burdensome to grasp concepts as concepts.With the modern man, even the most individual things are sublimated into abstract ideas; with the Greeks, on the contrary, the most abstract things are always reduced to an individuality.

However, Thales said: "The real thing is not people, but water." At least as far as he believed in water, he began to believe in nature.As a mathematician and astronomer, he was disgusted with all myths and similes.Although he could not soberly reach the purely abstract concept of "everything is one", and he still stayed on the expression of a concrete thing, he was, after all, a surprising exception among the Greeks of his time. Perhaps the most eminent Orpheans have mastered the skill of grasping abstract ideas without relying on concrete things, and their proficiency even exceeds that of Thales, but they can only express those abstract ideas in metaphorical form.Pherekydes aus Syros is close to Thales both in time and in certain empirical ideas, and in expressing these ideas he also moves in the middle ground of the marriage of myth and metaphor.For example, he dared to compare the earth to a winged oak tree hanging in the air with outstretched wings. After the god Zeus defeated his father Cronus, he covered the oak tree with a cloak of fields, water and flowers embroidered with his own hands. , the magnificent brocade robes of the river.

Compared with this kind of obscure and metaphorical philosophical thinking that is almost imperceptible, Thales is a creative master who has insight into the depths of nature without fanciful fables.If in doing so he makes use of the scientific and positive methods, but sometimes leaps over them, this is precisely the characteristic of the philosophical mind. 3.3 The Unique Art of the Philosopher The Greek word for "sage" can be traced etymologically to sapio, "I discern taste", sapiens, "one who discerns taste", and sisyphos, "one who has a keen sense of taste".Thus, in the eyes of this nation, a keen faculty of taste and discrimination, a faculty of meaningful distinction, constitutes the peculiar art of the philosopher.

If you call a wise man a man who knows how to find success in matters that concern him, then a philosopher is not a wise man.Aristotle was right: "What Thales and Anaxagoras knew would be called extraordinary, astonishing, difficult, divine, but never useful, For they do not seek knowledge for the benefit of mankind." Philosophy distinguishes itself from science by selecting and extracting the extraordinary, the astonishing, the difficult, the sacred, just as it distinguishes itself from the intellect by valuing the useless.Science has no such choice, no such "taste," and it rushes toward all that is knowable, governed by a blind desire to know all at any cost.Philosophical thinking, on the contrary, is always based on the things that are most worth knowing, on the great and important knowledge.No matter in the field of morality or in the field of aesthetics, since the concept of "greatness" is changeable, then philosophy starts from legislating "greatness", and a naming activity is closely related to it."This is great," it says, by which it lifts man's blind and unbridled desire for knowledge beyond himself.It uses the concept of "greatness" to restrain the above desires, and in particular, it regards the greatest knowledge, the knowledge of the essence and core of things, as attainable and attainable.

When Thales said "everything is water", human beings broke through the worm-like touching and crawling of a single science, intuitively discerned the ultimate answer to things, and with the help of this intuition, overcame the general limitations of lower levels of understanding .The philosopher tries to listen to the echo of the world symphony in his own mind, and then projects it in the form of concepts.When he contemplates like a sculptor, pities like a religious man, detects goals and causality like a scientist, when he feels himself expanding into the universe, he still maintains a kind of composure and can calmly see himself as The mirror of the world.This composure is characteristic of dramatists who transform themselves into other bodies, speak from there, and still be able to transpose this transformation and project it into the poem they write.

The relationship of dialectical thinking to philosophers is exactly the same as the relationship of poetry to poets mentioned here.In order to record and fix his magic changes, philosophers hold on to dialectical thinking.But just as for the dramatist, words and poetry are merely stammering a foreign language, trying to express in it what he experiences and sees (which can only be expressed directly in music and gestures), dialectics and scientific reflections to express any deep philosophical intuition, which, while on the one hand the only means of conveying what one sees, is on the other hand a poor means, in essence Even a metaphorical and totally unreliable translation to a different domain and a different language.This is how Thales saw the unity of beings, but when he wanted to communicate this discovery, he talked about water!