From Myth to Knowledge
Mythological knowledge, narrated in Hesiod’s Theogony between the eighth and seventh centuries BCE, arose as a divine gift transmitted by the Muses, who inspired the poet on the slopes of Mount Helicon. It was a form of knowledge that thus found its legitimacy in the transcendent sphere and made use of humanity as a privileged intermediary. This vision reflected a civilization in which the relationship with the divine constituted the very foundation of knowledge and of the order of the world. Every truth came from the gods, and human beings could only receive it with reverence, without the possibility of questioning it.
But shortly thereafter, along the coast of Asia Minor, a new mode of thought was gradually taking shape. No longer revelation from above, but the need to understand the world through human capacities: observation, reasoning, and the comparison of hypotheses. Thus was born a form of knowledge grounded in the search for truth which, while not rejecting its mythical roots, began to emancipate itself from them. Philosophy therefore emerged as a different instrument: the attempt to give answers no longer entrusted to myth, but to an inquiry that was increasingly autonomous and self-aware, and that had humanity itself as its center.
The Dawn of Philosophical Thought
Considered the initiator of this new way of thinking, Thales was born around 625 BCE in Miletus. A cosmopolitan and vibrant city, it was a crossroads of trade, cultures, and knowledge, and thus offered fertile ground for the development of innovative reflection. In this context, Thales inaugurated an approach that united rationality with the observation of nature, opening the way to an inquiry destined to shape the entire philosophical tradition. His figure soon became a symbol of a form of thought capable of rooting itself in reality without renouncing a tension toward the universal.
No longer an intermediary of divine knowledge, but a man among men, Thales investigated reality directly, questioning what eluded common understanding. His greatness lies precisely in this: confronting radical questions with accessible tools, without invoking supernatural revelation. In him, for the first time, takes shape the profile of the philosopher as a figure distinct from the poet or the priest: not a bearer of revealed truths, but a builder of rational paths. A position which, while still moving within a horizon permeated by myth, introduced an epochal turning point.
Arché: The Original Principle
Thales elaborated the idea of an original principle, the Arché, from which everything originates and in which everything finds meaning. Not a purely theoretical concept, but a foundation aimed at explaining reality in a unitary way. The Arché is at once source, meaning, and ultimate reason of things: a point of departure that makes it possible to trace the multiplicity of phenomena back to an essential core. Within this notion was condensed a tension that still today lies at the heart of philosophy: the search for what unifies and gives coherence to existence.
By observing nature, Thales identified water as the first principle, capable of generating and sustaining life. His choice did not derive from myth, but from empirical reflection: water is necessary to every living being, it runs through the cycles of nature, and it manifests itself in different forms while remaining the same. In it, he recognized a substance that includes and connects all things, giving rise to a constant and universal movement. Water, then, no longer a mythical element, but the symbol of a dynamic that encompasses continuity, transformation, and life.
The Rhythm of Becoming
In this principle, Thales recognized an eternal movement that precedes every beginning and goes beyond every end. There is, in fact, no absolute moment of creation, nor a definitive conclusion: reality takes shape as a continuous flow, in which the arising and the fading of things are nothing more than phases of an incessant transformation. A vision that broke with the linearity of mythical time and introduced a cyclical conception, in which everything is bound to a universal rhythm. Becoming was no longer a threat or a disorder, but the manifestation of a deep rule that embraces all things.
The sensible and the transcendent merged into a single dimension, keeping the Arché within a sacred realm while at the same time rooting it in nature and in human experience. In this way, life was no longer split between body and spirit, but inscribed within a unitary process that encompasses every phase of its unfolding. Birth and death became different expressions of the same movement, without any break in continuity. Such a vision anticipated reflections that would run through the entire history of thought, nourishing an inexhaustible dialogue in search of a balance between immanence and transcendence.
The Soul of the World
That living soul is found in everything, even in things that appear inanimate. An emblematic example is the magnet, whose properties Thales was among the first to observe. Its capacity to attract and move other bodies reveals the existence of an internal force, a vital principle that animates even what seemed devoid of life. In this intuition, the universe appears as an intrinsically dynamic whole, traversed by invisible yet real energies: subtle but decisive forces that erase any sharp distinction between the living and the non-living.
The fire of rational knowledge thus began to burn, even within a civilization still steeped in myth and poetry. The novelty lay in the fact that, while it remained impossible to conceive of oneself as entirely separate from divinity, humanity began to make use of its own instruments: philosophy, mathematics, geometry, and astronomy. These disciplines became autonomous paths of inquiry, capable of producing knowledge beyond mythical tradition. It was a profound change, because it opened onto the idea of a human intelligence capable of exploring reality with method, precision, and confidence in its own capacities.
Know Thyself
Those who mastered these instruments no longer stood out as mediators of the divine, but as interpreters of essential truth. The philosopher thus assumed a public role, participating in the concrete life of the community. Thales, like other sages of his time, thus became a model of conduct and a point of reference for the polis. His ability to bring every question back to what is essential made him a practical as well as a theoretical guide, capable of orienting human life in harmony with a greater order and of giving rise to the new social function of philosophy.
“What is the most difficult thing in the world?” he is asked. “Know thyself,” he replies. This saying, which has become emblematic, still retains its force today: not so much in its literal meaning as in its evocative power. It points to the need to recognize the divine and vital source present within each individual, which may at times be lost, but from which both a task and a destiny arise. No longer passive spectators, but co-creators of the movement of life, it becomes a matter of choosing how to orient oneself in freedom. A challenge that runs through the centuries and remains today as urgent as ever.
From the thought of Thales was born the adventure of philosophy: the human attempt to give meaning to the world without relying solely on myth. In his gesture—seeking in water the origin of all things—lay the audacity of tracing the infinite variety of reality back to an essential core, intuiting an order that runs through everything. It is in this tension toward the universal that his greatness endures: a legacy that still today invites contemplation, with wonder and ever-renewed questions, of the hidden harmony of the cosmos.