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Full Idea
Thales says water is the first principle (which is why he declared the earth is on water); perhaps he concluded this from seeing that all food is moist.
Gist of Idea
Thales said water is the first principle, perhaps from observing that food is moist
Source
report of Thales (fragments/reports [c.585 BCE], A12) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 983b12
Book Ref
'The First Philosophers', ed/tr. Waterfield,Robin [OUP 2000], p.12
| 1597 | Thales was the first western thinker to believe the arché was intelligible [Roochnik on Thales] |
| 3013 | Nothing is stronger than necessity, which rules everything [Thales, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 1713 | Thales must have thought soul causes movement, since he thought magnets have soul [Thales, by Aristotle] |
| 1742 | Thales said the gods know our wrong thoughts as well as our evil actions [Thales, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 1494 | Thales said water is the first principle, perhaps from observing that food is moist [Thales, by Aristotle] |