Editing Thales of Miletus (section)

=== Influence ===
[[File:Tales de Mileto (1906) - Veloso Salgado.png|thumb|upright=0.8|Detail of Thales from ''The Beginnings of Science'' (1906) by [[Veloso Salgado]]]]

Thales had a profound influence on other Greek thinkers and therefore on [[Western world|Western]] history. However, due to the scarcity of sources concerning Thales and the discrepancies between the accounts given in the sources that have survived, there is a scholarly debate over the extent of the influence Thales had and on which of the Greek philosophers and mathematicians that came after him.{{efn|[[Edmund Husserl]]<ref>''The Vienna Lecture''</ref> attempts to capture the new movement as follows. Philosophical man is a "new cultural configuration" based in stepping back from "pregiven tradition" and taking up a rational "inquiry into what is true in itself;" that is, an ideal of truth. }}

The first three philosophers in the Western tradition were all [[Physical cosmology|cosmologists]] from Miletus, and Thales was the very first, followed by [[Anaximander]], who was followed in turn by [[Anaximenes of Miletus|Anaximenes]]. They have been dubbed the [[Milesian School|Milesian school]]. According to the ''Suda'', Thales had been the "teacher and kinsman" of Anaximander.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Kirk |first=G. S. |author-link=G. S. Kirk |title=Popper on Science and Presocratics |year=1960 |journal=Mind |series=New Series |volume=67 |number=275 |page=330 |doi=10.1093/mind/LXIX.275.318 |doi-access=free |jstor=2251995 }}</ref>  Rather than water, Anaximander held all was made of ''[[apeiron]]'' or the unlimited; while Anaximenes, the successor of Anaximander, perhaps more like Thales with water, held that everything was composed of [[air]].<ref>{{cite web |last=Graham |first=Daniel W. |title=Anaximenes (d. 528 B.C.E.) |url=https://www.iep.utm.edu/anaximen/ |access-date=20 July 2019 |work=IEP}}</ref>

[[John Burnet (classicist)|John Burnet]] (1892) noted<ref>{{cite book |last=Burnet |first=John |url=https://archive.org/details/earlygreekphilo01burngoog |title=Early Greek Philosophy |page=[https://archive.org/details/earlygreekphilo01burngoog/page/n41 29] |year=1892|publisher=A. and C. Black }}</ref>
{{blockquote|Lastly, we have one admitted instance of a philosophic guild, that of the [[Pythagoreans]]. And it will be found that the hypothesis, if it is to be called by that name, of a regular organisation of scientific activity will alone explain all the facts. The development of doctrine in the hands of Thales, [[Anaximander]], and [[Anaximenes of Miletus|Anaximenes]], for instance, can only be understood as the elaboration of a single idea in a school with a continuous tradition.}}
As two of the first Greek mathematicians, Thales is also considered an influence on Pythagoras. According to Iamblichus, Pythagoras "had benefited by the instruction of Thales in many respects, but his greatest lesson had been to learn the value of saving time."<ref>Life of Pythagoras 3.13</ref> Early sources{{which|date=October 2021}} report that Pythagoras, in this story a pupil of Anaximander, visited Thales as a young man, and that Thales advised him to travel to Egypt to further his philosophical and mathematical studies.

Thales was also considered the teacher of the astronomer Mandrolytus of Priene.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6lnwAgAAQBAJ|title=The Philosophers of the Ancient World: An A–Z Guide|first=Trevor|last=Curnow|date=22 June 2006|publisher=A&C Black |isbn=9780715634974 }}</ref> It is possible he was also the teacher of [[Cleostratus]] of Tenedos.<ref>{{Cite journal |title=Cleostratus Redivivus |last=Webb |first=E. J. |year=1921 |journal=The Journal of Hellenic Studies|volume=41|pages=70–85 |doi=10.2307/624797 |jstor=624797 |s2cid=250254883 |url=https://archive.org/details/journalofhelleni41sociuoft/page/n147/ }}</ref>