Thales (624-546 B.C.)

Thales is considered by many to be the first philosopher, first scientist and the first economist. In many ways he was the precursor to most modern philosophical and scientific thought. A short list of his accomplishments include making night time nautical guidance possible, predicting the solar eclipse of May 28, 585 B.C., acting as a military engineer and according to some sources he even took control over the entire economy of Miletus just to make a point about the practical application of Philosophy.

By and far his most major contribution to the history of philosophical and scientific thought is his idea that there exists a type of underlying material which forms the basic form of everything in the material creation. In modern scientific vernacular this ‘underlying material’ is most often referred to as being the atom. The main difference of thought between Thales and modern science is in the claim of what this underlying material consists of.

Modern science says that subatomic particles suck as quarks make up the atom. Whereas Aristotle said that "...earliest of philosophers regarded principles of a material kind as the only principles of all things...Thales, the founder of this type of philosophy, says it is water." To the modern mind it seems a silly notion to suggest that everything in the universe consists of water, until one remembers that all organic life needs water in some form in order to live.

This idea plays directly into the second major contribution that Thales made, which is that of the nature of this ‘underlying material’ was that its existence was consistent in both nature and existence. Thales among other pre-Socratic philosophers held that "...nothing is ever generated or annihilated, since this primary entity always persists." This notion bears a striking resemblance to the law of conservation of mass which holds that matter itself can be neither created nor destroyed, it simply changes in form.

The work of Thales is considered instrumental in the progression of much of modern thought. For further reading one can consult:

http://www.iep.utm.edu/t/thales.htm
http://www.thebigview.com/greeks/thales.html
http://www.philosophy.gr/presocratics/thales.htm