— Thales of MiletusReported in Aristotle, Metaphysics A3, 983b; close paraphrase of Aristotle's report, not a verbatim saying
Commentary
This claim, reported by Aristotle at the opening of the Metaphysics, is the earliest surviving statement of a natural principle of the cosmos, and it is the starting point of the Greek tradition of physics. Aristotle presents Thales as the founder of inquiry into the arche, the first principle, which he treats as a matter of material cause. G. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven, and M. Schofield, in The Presocratic Philosophers, emphasise that the claim is known only through Aristotle's interpretation and that its precise sense is therefore uncertain. Charles Kahn, in Anaximander and the Origins of Greek Cosmology (1960), argues that Thales' choice of water was shaped by observed phenomena such as moisture as the condition of life. Jonathan Barnes, in his commentary on the Presocratics, notes that the claim may have been a hypothesis rather than a doctrine. W. K. C. Guthrie, in A History of Greek Philosophy (1962), discusses the ways in which later writers credited Thales with ideas he may not have held. The wording is a paraphrase of Aristotle's report and should not be quoted as Thales' own words without the context of the Metaphysics.
Commentary
This claim, reported by Aristotle at the opening of the Metaphysics, is the earliest surviving statement of a natural principle of the cosmos, and it is the starting point of the Greek tradition of physics. Aristotle presents Thales as the founder of inquiry into the arche, the first principle, which he treats as a matter of material cause. G. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven, and M. Schofield, in The Presocratic Philosophers, emphasise that the claim is known only through Aristotle's interpretation and that its precise sense is therefore uncertain. Charles Kahn, in Anaximander and the Origins of Greek Cosmology (1960), argues that Thales' choice of water was shaped by observed phenomena such as moisture as the condition of life. Jonathan Barnes, in his commentary on the Presocratics, notes that the claim may have been a hypothesis rather than a doctrine. W. K. C. Guthrie, in A History of Greek Philosophy (1962), discusses the ways in which later writers credited Thales with ideas he may not have held. The wording is a paraphrase of Aristotle's report and should not be quoted as Thales' own words without the context of the Metaphysics.