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This book offers a comprehensive, iconoclastic account of Thales of Miletus, considering the full extent of our evidence to build a new picture of his interests and activity. Suitable for students and scholars in the history of philosophy, science, and life sciences.
List of contents
1. Who were these ancient masters?, 2. A context for Thales, 3. Elements of a biography, 4. How to measure the height of a pyramid, 5. Thales dates the
tropai, 6. From the dating of the
tropai to the dating of the
is¿meriai, 7. What explains a solar eclipse?, 8. A measurement of ¿°, 9. Surface water,
arch¿, earth and, it seems, some fragments of Thales, 10. The periodic flooding of the Nile and the 'Atlantic corollary'
, 11. Thales and the stones of Magnesia
, 12. The sky according to Thales, 13. To measure the distance of a ship from land, 14. Thales and the theorems of plane geometry, 15. Thales 'el injenioso hidalgo', 16. Thales the
sophos, 17. The 'new' fragments of Thales, 18. Thales the measurer, 19. The research bug.
About the author
Livio Rossetti, now retired, served for many years as Professor of the History of Ancient Philosophy at the University of Perugia, Italy. His most recent books are
Convincere Socrate (Pistoia 2021) and
Verso la filosofia: nuove prospettive su Parmenide, Zenone e Melisso (this is a book to which several editors and interlocutors contributed; Baden Baden 2020). The provisional title of his next book is
Rethinking the Presocratics.
Summary
This book offers a comprehensive, iconoclastic account of Thales of Miletus, considering the full extent of our evidence to build a new picture of his interests and activity. Suitable for students and scholars in the history of philosophy, science, and life sciences.
