On Thales of Miletus
I started re-reading one of my textbooks last week, and I'm now twenty pages in! At this rate, I'll finish all my philosophy textbooks sometime before I die. Actually, I'm fine with that. I'm reading about the pre-Socratics now, that wacky bunch that thought everything was made of water, or aer, or something boundless. And then later, Pythagoras, who thought number was the most important thing. There are "no"* remaining fragments of pre-Socratic writing, so most of what we know about the group comes from things written about them, like this vignette about Thales (who thought everything was made of water):
The story goes that when they found fault with him for his poverty, supposing that philosophy is useless, he learned from his astronomy that there would be a large crop of olives. Then, while it was still winter, he obtained a little money and made deposits on all the olive presses both in Miletus and in Chios. Since no one bid against him, he rented them cheaply. When the right time came, suddenly many tried to get the presses all at once, and he rented them out on whatever terms he wished, and so made a great deal of money. In this way he proved that philosophers can easily be wealthy if they desire, but this is not what they are interested in. (Aristotle, Politics 1259a9-18 = 11A10)
That's right! One day I'll predict the olive crop and then you'll see. You'll all see!
*While there are no pieces of paper (or stone, or clay) that contain words written (or etched, or stamped) by the philosophers themselves, there are occasionally direct quotes, like this one from Anaximander, one of Thales's students: "The things that are perish into the things out of which they come to be, according to necessity, for they pay penalty and retribution to each other for their injustice in accordance with the ordering of time." We have it as quoted by Simplicius in his Commentary of Aristotle's Physics. Anaximander believed that everything is made of "the boundless". If you think of the boundless as energy, the man had a point.
The story goes that when they found fault with him for his poverty, supposing that philosophy is useless, he learned from his astronomy that there would be a large crop of olives. Then, while it was still winter, he obtained a little money and made deposits on all the olive presses both in Miletus and in Chios. Since no one bid against him, he rented them cheaply. When the right time came, suddenly many tried to get the presses all at once, and he rented them out on whatever terms he wished, and so made a great deal of money. In this way he proved that philosophers can easily be wealthy if they desire, but this is not what they are interested in. (Aristotle, Politics 1259a9-18 = 11A10)
That's right! One day I'll predict the olive crop and then you'll see. You'll all see!
*While there are no pieces of paper (or stone, or clay) that contain words written (or etched, or stamped) by the philosophers themselves, there are occasionally direct quotes, like this one from Anaximander, one of Thales's students: "The things that are perish into the things out of which they come to be, according to necessity, for they pay penalty and retribution to each other for their injustice in accordance with the ordering of time." We have it as quoted by Simplicius in his Commentary of Aristotle's Physics. Anaximander believed that everything is made of "the boundless". If you think of the boundless as energy, the man had a point.