NATURALISM

Naturalism may be defined as the system of thought holding that all phenomena can be explained in terms of natural causes or causes consistent with cause-and-effect relationships freely and mechanistically occurring in nature.

Thales of Miletus (624 - 546 B.C.E.), in the Ancient Greek intellectual tradition, attempted to explain natural phenomena without reference to religious ideology. Thus, according to Bertrand Russell, "Western philosophy begins with Thales." Many others , including Aristotle, regard Thales as the first philosopher in the Greek tradition.

The attempt by Thales to explain natural phenomena without reference to "the gods," was tremendously influential. All of the other pre-Socratic philosophers followed him in attempting to provide an explanation of ultimate substance, change, and the existence of the world without reference to religious ideology.

Thales rejection of religious explanations became an essential idea for the modern scientific revolution. He was also the first known to define general principles and set forth hypotheses, and as a result has been called the "Father of Science."

In mathematics, Thales used geometry to solve problems such as calculating the height of a pyramid and the distance of ships from the shore. He is credited with the first use of deductive reasoning applied to geometry, by deriving four corollaries to a theorem named after him (Thales's Theorem). As a result, he has also been called the first true mathematician and is the first known individual to whom mathematical discovery has been attributed.

[Thales' theorem (named after Thales of Miletus) states that if A, B and C are points on a circle where the line segment AC is a diameter of the circle, then the angle ABC is a right angle (which measures 90 degrees).]

Although Thales shared many great theories with Western Civilization (some of which he probably learned from the Ancient Egyptians), perhaps his greatest contribution to the intellectual and (subsequently) to the technological greatness of Western Civilization was his break from the Ancient Greek tradition of religiously attributing natural phenomena to the will of anthropomorphic gods. Contrary to explaining natural occurrences with religious explanations, Thales aimed to explain natural phenomena by way of rational explanations that referenced natural processes inherent within nature itself.