Thales –泰勒斯
Birth ca. 624–625 BC
Death ca. 547–546 BC
School/tradition 学派/传统
Ionian Philosophy, Milesian school, Naturalism 爱奥尼亚哲学，米利都学派，自然主义
Main interests 主要兴趣
Ethics, Metaphysics, Mathematics, Astronomy 伦理学 形而上学，数学，天文学
Notable ideas 著名思想
Water is the physis, Thales' theorem 水是基砖，泰勒斯定理
Influenced by 所受影响
Ancient Egyptian mathematics and religion 古埃及数学与宗教
Influenced 影响
Pythagoras, Anaximander, Anaximenes 毕达哥拉斯，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亚细亚的米利都得前苏格拉底希腊哲学家，希腊七贤之一。很多人（最有名的是亚里士多德）把他作为希腊传统的第一个哲学家。按照贝特兰?罗素的说法，“哲学始于泰勒斯。”
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年之间，生于米利都城。米利都是处于小亚细亚西海岸的古希腊爱奥尼亚城市（在当今的土耳其艾登省），距离缅安达河口很近。
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.
我们对泰勒斯的生活年代知道得不甚确切。我们可以用资料中提到的一些确定日期的事件来确定他生平的大概事件并估计他的寿命。按希腊多德[希腊历史学家]所说，泰勒斯曾经预测过一次日食，用当代技术确定这次日食发生于公元前585年5月28日。第欧根尼?拉尔修援引阿波罗多禄斯编年史，认为泰勒斯78岁时死于第五十八届奥运会，索西克拉底认为泰勒斯是90岁时死的。
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.
泰勒斯自己参与很多起革新者作用的活动。有些人说他没有留下什么作品，有些人说他写下了“论四季”与“论春分”。但这两个作品没有留下来。拉尔修援引泰勒斯致菲勒塞德斯与梭伦的信，其中就有提到评价前者论宗教，后者到雅典逗留时泰勒斯陪伴他。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.
橄榄工厂与橄榄榨油机的始于以色列迦百农的罗马时代。几个逸事说明泰勒斯并非只是一个思想家；他也参与商业与政治活动。有个故事说的是，在他预测了某年的天气与丰收之后，他购买了米利都的所有橄榄榨油机。此故事的另外一种版本说的是，他购买榨油及不是为了变富，而只是为了向他的米利都同胞证明：他可以使用自己的智慧变富。
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参与爱奥尼亚人防卫安纳托利亚免遭日益强大的波斯人的进攻，那时波斯人刚刚来到这一地区。有个国王克里塞斯在邻国莉迪亚上台，由于他军队的数量庞大，由此太有些侵略性。他已经征服了沿海安纳托利亚的多数城邦，包括爱奥尼亚城。这种说法根据的是希罗多德。
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，希腊人是通过人格神与英雄的神话来解释世界的起源与性质的。像闪电活地镇这样的现象都被归之于神的活动。
Nature as the principles in the form of matter 根据物质的起源来解释自然
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.
与那些神话解释相反，泰勒斯企图不考虑超自然的力量找到对世界的自然主义解释。
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学观点，认为世界源于水。亚里士多德认为此信仰大致相当于后来阿那克西米尼的观点，阿那克西米尼认为宇宙万物是由空气构成的。
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.
前苏格拉底这一术语从源头上说肇始于资深哲学家亚里士多德（哲学之父），由于这些早期哲学家关注物质，所以亚里士多德把他们加以区分。但这并不完全正确。
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.
很多哲学家沿着泰勒斯的足迹而非超自然力量寻求对自然的解释；有些哲学家又重返到超自然的解释上来，但他们倾向于语言哲学而不是神话或宗教哲学。
Selected Fragments from Thales 泰勒斯片断
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.
由于没有现存的前苏格拉底哲学家的作品，所以我们对他们的了解都是通过参考后来作家的对他们的讨论。如果资料可以看成是直接引用的，那么他们就被称之为“残篇”，否则就被称之为“证言”或只是有关哲学家的“陈述”。
Thales 泰勒斯
Testimonies 证言
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.
传说泰勒斯是第一个向希腊人展现自然研究的人；正像狄奥弗拉斯特所认为的他有很多前辈， 但是泰勒斯远远超过并掩盖了他的前辈。据说他除了所谓的《航海星图》没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.
但是他们在这些始基的数目和性质上意见不一。这种哲学的创建者泰勒斯说始基是水（为此他宣称地球漂浮在水之上），这种看法也许得自这些观察：万物的营养都是潮湿的，热本身也得自潮湿并通过它得以维持（而且，它们的来源都是万物的始基）。他从这一事实得出他的看法，即万物的种子都具有潮湿的性质，水就是潮湿事物性质的来源。
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.
对于潮湿性质的物质，由于它容易形成每种不同的东西，所以通常要历经十分不同的变化：发散出来的部分变成空气，最完善的部分是经过点燃从空气变成以太，而水变稠而成粘土，粘土再变成土。所以泰勒斯宣称，这四种元素中的水是最为活跃的，可以说是原因。
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.
有些思想家认为，精神贯穿于整个宇宙中，也许就是这个原因，泰勒斯得出这样一个判断：万物都充满了神。
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.
有些认为，泰勒斯第一个进行了天体研究并预测日食与至点，欧德摩斯在他的天文学史中就是这样说的；由此，色诺芬尼与希罗多德都表示了钦佩；而且赫拉柯利特与德谟克利特也为他作证。
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.
希尔罗尼玛斯说，在观测到我们自己的身高与影子的长度相等时，泰勒斯实际上通过金字塔的影子测量了其高度。