Aither 27/2022:4-27

Thalétova Země plovoucí na vodě

Radim Kočandrle

Fakulta filozofická Západočeské univerzity v Plzni

Aristotle, as well as some other ancient scholars, ascribe to Thales of Miletus the conception of Earth floating on water. Current researchers tend to view this ascription as well-founded, but there are reasons to suppose that it does not reflect Thales’s authentic views. To wit, already in antiquity there were doubts regarding the existence of Thales’s treatise. Reports which describe his views regarding the shape of the Earth and the substance which heavenly bodies consist of are, moreover, provably based on much later concepts. Above all, archaic Ionian cosmologies tended to view the earth as the lower boundary of the universe and not as a cosmic body, the Earth, that might need some external physical support. Aside from that, it is likely that the notion of Earth resting on water was of a Near Eastern origin. When Aristotle claims that this was the oldest conception of Earth at his disposal, he may have anachronically ascribed it to Thales, whom he considered one of the oldest thinkers in the Greek philosophical tradition. Reports which describe Thales’s cosmology are thus influenced by much later conceptions and views.

Received: October 3, 2022; Revised: November 14, 2022; Accepted: November 30, 2022; Published: February 21, 2023  Show citation