Thales –泰勒斯

Birth ca. 624–625 BC

Death ca. 547–546 BC

School/tradition 學(xué)派/傳統(tǒng)

Ionian Philosophy, Milesian school, Naturalism 愛奧尼亞哲學(xué)，米利都學(xué)派，自然主義

Main interests 主要興趣

Ethics, Metaphysics, Mathematics, Astronomy 倫理學(xué) 形而上學(xué)，數(shù)學(xué)，天文學(xué)

Notable ideas 著名思想

Water is the physis, Thales' theorem 水是基磚，泰勒斯定理

Influenced by 所受影響

Ancient Egyptian mathematics and religion 古埃及數(shù)學(xué)與宗教

Influenced 影響

Pythagoras, Anaximander, Anaximenes 畢達(dá)哥拉斯，阿那克西曼德，阿那克西米尼

Thales of Miletus was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher from Miletus in Asia Minor, and one of the Seven Sages of Greece. Many, most notably Aristotle, regard him as the first philosopher in the Greek tradition. According to Bertrand Russell, "Philosophy begins with Thales."

米利都的泰勒斯是小亞細(xì)亞的米利都得前蘇格拉底希臘哲學(xué)家，希臘七賢之一。很多人（最有名的是亞里士多德）把他作為希臘傳統(tǒng)的第一個(gè)哲學(xué)家。按照貝特蘭?羅素的說法，“哲學(xué)始于泰勒斯。”

Thales lived around the mid 620s–547 BC and was born in the city of Miletus. Miletus was an ancient Greek Ionian city on the western coast of Asia Minor (in what is today the Aydin Province of Turkey) near the mouth of the Maeander River.

泰勒斯生活在公元前620年到547年之間，生于米利都城。米利都是處于小亞細(xì)亞西海岸的古希臘愛奧尼亞城市（在當(dāng)今的土耳其艾登省），距離緬安達(dá)河口很近。

The dates of Thales' life are not known precisely. The time of his life is roughly established by a few dateable events mentioned in the sources and an estimate of his length of life. According to Herodotus, Thales once predicted a solar eclipse which has been determined by modern methods to have been on May 28, 585 BC. Diogenes La?rtius quotes the chronicle of Apollodorus as saying that Thales died at 78 in the 58th Olympiad, and Sosicrates as reporting that he was 90 at his death.

我們對(duì)泰勒斯的生活年代知道得不甚確切。我們可以用資料中提到的一些確定日期的事件來確定他生平的大概事件并估計(jì)他的壽命。按希臘多德[希臘歷史學(xué)家]所說，泰勒斯曾經(jīng)預(yù)測過一次日食，用當(dāng)代技術(shù)確定這次日食發(fā)生于公元前585年5月28日。第歐根尼?拉爾修援引阿波羅多祿斯編年史，認(rèn)為泰勒斯78歲時(shí)死于第五十八屆奧運(yùn)會(huì)，索西克拉底認(rèn)為泰勒斯是90歲時(shí)死的。

Thales involved himself in many activities, taking the role of an innovator. Some say that he left no writings, others that he wrote "On the Solstice" and "On the Equinox". Neither have survived. Diogenes Laeuml;rtius quotes letters of Thales to Pherecydes and Solon, offering to review the book of the former on religion, and offering to keep company with the latter on his sojourn from Athens. Thales identifies the Milesians as Athenians.

泰勒斯自己參與很多起革新者作用的活動(dòng)。有些人說他沒有留下什么作品，有些人說他寫下了“論四季”與“論春分”。但這兩個(gè)作品沒有留下來。拉爾修援引泰勒斯致菲勒塞德斯與梭倫的信，其中就有提到評(píng)價(jià)前者論宗教，后者到雅典逗留時(shí)泰勒斯陪伴他。泰勒斯把米利都人看成是雅典人。

An olive mill and an olive press dating from Roman times in Capernaum, Israel. Several anecdotes suggest that Thales was not solely a thinker; he was involved in business and politics. One story recounts that he bought all the olive presses in Miletus after predicting the weather and a good harvest for a particular year. Another version of this same story states that he bought the presses not to become wealthy, but merely to demonstrate to his fellow Milesians that he could use his intelligence to enrich himself.

橄欖工廠與橄欖榨油機(jī)的始于以色列迦百農(nóng)的羅馬時(shí)代。幾個(gè)逸事說明泰勒斯并非只是一個(gè)思想家；他也參與商業(yè)與政治活動(dòng)。有個(gè)故事說的是，在他預(yù)測了某年的天氣與豐收之后，他購買了米利都的所有橄欖榨油機(jī)。此故事的另外一種版本說的是，他購買榨油及不是為了變富，而只是為了向他的米利都同胞證明：他可以使用自己的智慧變富。

Thales’ political life had mainly to do with the involvement of the Ionians in the defense of Anatolia against the growing power of the Persians, who were then new to the region. A king had come to power in neighboring Lydia, Croesus, who was somewhat too aggressive for the size of his army. He had conquered most of the states of coastal Anatolia, including the cities of the Ionians. The story is told in Herodotus.

泰勒斯的政治生涯主要是參與愛奧尼亞人防衛(wèi)安納托利亞免遭日益強(qiáng)大的波斯人的進(jìn)攻，那時(shí)波斯人剛剛來到這一地區(qū)。有個(gè)國王克里塞斯在鄰國莉迪亞上臺(tái)，由于他軍隊(duì)的數(shù)量龐大，由此太有些侵略性。他已經(jīng)征服了沿海安納托利亞的多數(shù)城邦，包括愛奧尼亞城。這種說法根據(jù)的是希羅多德。

Before Thales, the Greeks explained the origin and nature of the world through myths of anthropomorphic gods and heroes. Phenomena such as lightning or earthquakes were attributed to actions of the gods.

在泰勒斯之前，希臘人是通過人格神與英雄的神話來解釋世界的起源與性質(zhì)的。像閃電活地鎮(zhèn)這樣的現(xiàn)象都被歸之于神的活動(dòng)。

Nature as the principles in the form of matter 根據(jù)物質(zhì)的起源來解釋自然

In contrast to these mythological explanations, Thales attempted to find naturalistic explanations of the world, without reference to the supernatural. He explained earthquakes by hypothesizing that the Earth floats on water, and that earthquakes occur when the Earth is rocked by waves.

與那些神話解釋相反，泰勒斯企圖不考慮超自然的力量找到對(duì)世界的自然主義解釋。

Water as a first principle 水是第一始基

Thales' most famous belief was his cosmological thesis, which held that the world started from water. Aristotle considered this belief roughly equivalent to the later ideas of Anaximenes, who held that everything in the world was composed of air.

泰勒斯最著名的信仰是他的宇宙學(xué)觀點(diǎn)，認(rèn)為世界源于水。亞里士多德認(rèn)為此信仰大致相當(dāng)于后來阿那克西米尼的觀點(diǎn)，阿那克西米尼認(rèn)為宇宙萬物是由空氣構(gòu)成的。

The term, Pre-Socratic, derives ultimately from Aristotle, a qualified philosopher ("the father of philosophy"), who distinguished the early philosophers as concerning themselves with substance. This is not entirely true.

前蘇格拉底這一術(shù)語從源頭上說肇始于資深哲學(xué)家亞里士多德（哲學(xué)之父），由于這些早期哲學(xué)家關(guān)注物質(zhì)，所以亞里士多德把他們加以區(qū)分。但這并不完全正確。

Influence on others

Many philosophers followed Thales' lead in searching for explanations in nature rather than in the supernatural; others returned to supernatural explanations, but couched them in the language of philosophy rather than of myth or of religion.

很多哲學(xué)家沿著泰勒斯的足跡而非超自然力量尋求對(duì)自然的解釋；有些哲學(xué)家又重返到超自然的解釋上來，但他們傾向于語言哲學(xué)而不是神話或宗教哲學(xué)。

Selected Fragments from Thales 泰勒斯片斷

Since no writings of the pre-Socratics are extant, what we know of their teachings has come from references made to them by later writers. If the references are seen as direct quotations, they are called fragments, otherwise, they are called testimonies or simply statements about the philosophers in question.

由于沒有現(xiàn)存的前蘇格拉底哲學(xué)家的作品，所以我們對(duì)他們的了解都是通過參考后來作家的對(duì)他們的討論。如果資料可以看成是直接引用的，那么他們就被稱之為“殘篇”，否則就被稱之為“證言”或只是有關(guān)哲學(xué)家的“陳述”。

Thales? 泰勒斯

Testimonies? 證言

1. Thales is traditionally the first to have revealed the investigation of nature to the Greeks; he had many predecessors, as also Theophrastus thinks, but so far surpassed them as to blot out who came before him. He is said to have left nothing in the form of writings except the so-called Nautical star-guide.

傳說泰勒斯是第一個(gè)向希臘人展現(xiàn)自然研究的人；正像狄奧弗拉斯特所認(rèn)為的他有很多前輩， 但是泰勒斯遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)超過并掩蓋了他的前輩。據(jù)說他除了所謂的《航海星圖》沒有留下任何文字形式的作品。

2. Yet they do not agree as to the number and the nature of these principles. Thales, the founder of this type of philosophy, says the principle is water (for which reason he declared that the earth rests on water), getting the notion perhaps from seeing that the nutriment of all things is moist, and that heat itself is generated from the moist and kept alive by it (and that from which they come to be is a principle of all things). He got his notion from this fact, and from the fact that the seeds of all things have a moist nature, and that water is the origin of the nature of moist things.

但是他們?cè)谶@些始基的數(shù)目和性質(zhì)上意見不一。這種哲學(xué)的創(chuàng)建者泰勒斯說始基是水（為此他宣稱地球漂浮在水之上），這種看法也許得自這些觀察：萬物的營養(yǎng)都是潮濕的，熱本身也得自潮濕并通過它得以維持（而且，它們的來源都是萬物的始基）。他從這一事實(shí)得出他的看法，即萬物的種子都具有潮濕的性質(zhì)，水就是潮濕事物性質(zhì)的來源。

3. For moist natural substance, since it is easily formed into each different thing, is accustomed to undergo very various changes: that part of it which is exhaled is made into air, and the finest part is kindled from air into aither, while when water is compacted and changes into slime it becomes earth. Therefore Thales declared that water, of the four elements, was the most active, as it were, as a cause.

對(duì)于潮濕性質(zhì)的物質(zhì)，由于它容易形成每種不同的東西，所以通常要?dú)v經(jīng)十分不同的變化：發(fā)散出來的部分變成空氣，最完善的部分是經(jīng)過點(diǎn)燃從空氣變成以太，而水變稠而成粘土，粘土再變成土。所以泰勒斯宣稱，這四種元素中的水是最為活躍的，可以說是原因。

4. Certain thinkers say that soul is intermingled in the whole universe, and it is perhaps for that reason Thales came to the opinion that all things are full of gods.

有些思想家認(rèn)為，精神貫穿于整個(gè)宇宙中，也許就是這個(gè)原因，泰勒斯得出這樣一個(gè)判斷：萬物都充滿了神。

5. Some think he (Thales) was the first to study the heavenly bodies and to foretell eclipses of the sun and solstices, as Eudemus says in his history of astronomy; for which reason both Xenophanes and Herodotus express admiration; and both Heraclitus and Democritus bear witness for him.

有些認(rèn)為，泰勒斯第一個(gè)進(jìn)行了天體研究并預(yù)測日食與至點(diǎn)，歐德摩斯在他的天文學(xué)史中就是這樣說的；由此，色諾芬尼與希羅多德都表示了欽佩；而且赫拉柯利特與德謨克利特也為他作證。

6. Hieronymus says that he (Thales) actually measured the pyramids by their shadow, having observed the time when our own shadow is equal to our height.

希爾羅尼瑪斯說，在觀測到我們自己的身高與影子的長度相等時(shí)，泰勒斯實(shí)際上通過金字塔的影子測量了其高度。