DK-11A12

## Thales Cosmogony: Water is the First Principle

DK 11A12; Aristotle, Metaphysics A3, 983b6

**A Note on the Numbering System**

"Of the writings of the Presocratics, only quotations embedded in the works of later authors have survived. These quotations, along with reports about the Presocratics and imitations of their works, were first compiled into a standard edition (Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker) in the nineteenth century by Hermann Diels (1848-1922) with revisions by Walther Kranz and subsequent editors, in a complete edition of all the works of Presocratic authors which has become standard in the field of ancient philosophy." Carol Poster, The Diels-Kranz Numbering System

The reference "DK 11A12" effectively breaks down to mean "Dielz-Kranz, Chapter 11 (on Thales), Part A (testimonia), Item 9 (Cosmogony Fragment). The quote itself is taken from Aristotle's Metaphysics, Book A (first book), Line number 983b6.

### Insightful Commentary

*Listed in no particular order.*

"He [Aristotle] commenced his investigation of the wisdom of the philosophers who preceded him, with Thales, the first philosopher, and described Thales as the founder of natural philosophy (Metaph. 983 b21-22). He recorded: 'Thales says that it is water'. 'it' is the nature, the archê, the originating principle. For Thales, this nature was a single material substance, water." Patricia O'Grady (http://www.iep.utm.edu/thales/)

"The kind of cosmology and cosmogony that the Ionians (the three Milesians and Xenophanes) were led to construct with the help of their scientific attitudes then came to be criticized by Parmenides and (if some scholars are right) by Heraclitus, before being reinstated ingeniously by the ‘Neo-Ionians’ who followed the Eleatics. But in all its phases Presocratic thought was holistic: it was an attempt to give a systematic account of the whole known universe and all its major features." Waterfield, Page xx

### Notable English Translations

*Listed in no particular order.*

**Robin Waterfield Translation**

Milesians, T8 "Most of the original seekers after knowledge recognized only first principles of the material kind as the first principles of all things. For that out of which all existing things are formed––from which they originally come into existence and into which they are finally destroyed––whose substance persists while changing its qualities, this, they say, is the element and first principle of all things... However, they disagree about how many of such first principles there are, and about what they are like. Thales, who was the founder of this kind of philosophy, says that water is the first principle (which is why he declared that the earth was on water); he perhaps reached this conclusion from seeing that everything’s food is moist, and that moisture is the source and prerequisite for the life of warmth itself (and the source of anything is the first principle of that thing).

"So, as I say, it was perhaps this that led him to reach this conclusion, and also the fact that the seeds of all things have a moist nature (and water is the first principle of the moist nature of moist things). And there are people who think that those in the dim, distant past who first began to reason about the gods, long before our present generation, shared this conception of the underlying nature; for these poets made Ocean and Tethys the parents of creation, and claimed that the gods took their oath upon water––the river Styx, as the poets call it."

**W.D. Ross Translation**

"Of the first philosophers, then, most thought the principles which were of the nature of matter were the only principles of all things. That of which all things that are consist, the first from which they come to be, the last into which they are resolved (the substance remaining, but changing in its modifications), this they say is the element and this the principle of things, and therefore they think nothing is either generated or destroyed, since this sort of entity is always conserved, as we say Socrates neither comes to be absolutely when he comes to be beautiful or musical, nor ceases to be when loses these characteristics, because the substratum, Socrates himself remains. just so they say nothing else comes to be or ceases to be; for there must be some entity-either one or more than one-from which all other things come to be, it being conserved.

"Yet they do not all 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."

**Daniel Graham Translation**

**Kirk, Raven and Schofield Translation**

 Thales 85 "Most of the first philosophers thought that principles in the form of matter were the only principles of all things; for the original source of all existing things, that from which a thing first comes-into-being and into which it is finally destroyed, the substance persisting but changing in its qualities, this they declare is the element and first principle of existing things, and for this reason they consider that there is no absolute coming-to-be or passing away, on the ground that such a nature is always preserved... for there must be some natural substance, either one or more than one, from which other the other things come-into-being, while it is preserved. Over the number, however, and the form of this kind of principle they do not all agree; but Thales, the founder of this type of philosophy, says that it is water (and therefore declares that the earth is on water), perhaps taking this supposition from seeing the nurture of all things to be moist, and the warm itself coming-to-be from this and living by this (that from which they come-to-be being the principle of all things) - taking the supposition both from this and from the seeds of all things having a moist nature, water being the natural principle of moist things."

**Hippocrates G. Apostle Translation**

 "Most of those who first philosophized regarding the material kinds of principles as the principles of all things; for that of which things consist, and the first from which things come to be and into which they are finally resolved after destruction (this being the persistent substance of the thing, while the thing changes in its affections), this they say is the element and the principle of things; and because of this they think that nothing is generated and nothing perishes, since such a nature is always preserved...

"However, these thinkers do not all agree as to the number and kinds of such principles. Thales, the founder of such philosophy, says that this principle is Water (and on account of this he also declared the earth rests on water), perhaps coming to this belief by observing that all food is moist and that heat itself is generated from the moist and is kept alive by it (and that from which things are generated is the principle of all); and he came to believe this both because of this fact and because the seed of all things have a moist nature, and water is the principle nature of moist things.

"Some think that even the ancients, who lived long before the present generation and were first to speculate about divine things, had similar beliefs about nature, for the represented Ocean and Tethys as fathers of generation, and the oath of the Gods as being by Water or Styx (as the poets called it); for that which is most honorable is that by which one swears."

### Resources

*Primary and secondary sources are listed after Attic Greek reference material.*

H. Hansen and G. M. Quinn, Greek: An Intensive Course (New York: Fordham University Press, 2009)

H. G. Liddell and R. Scott, An intermediate Greek-English lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon  Press, 2013).

H. Diels, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 3 vols., ed. W. Kranz, 6th edn. (Zurich: Weidmann, 1951–2).

Archive.org URL: https://archive.org/details/diefragmenteder00krangoog

W. D. Ross, Metaphysics by Aristotle (Originally published 1908).

MIT Classics URL: http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/metaphysics.1.i.html

H. G. Apostle, Aristotle's Metaphysics (Indiana: The Peripatetic Press, 1979).

R. Waterfield, The First Philosophers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

D. W. Graham, The Texts of Early Greek Philosophy, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).

G. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven, and M. Schofield, The Presocratic Philosophers, 2nd edn. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).