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Thales of Miletus
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Etching by Jacob de Gheyn III showing Thales of Miletus seated with a long beard, draped in robes, holding a compass over an open book with geometric diagrams. Chord in a circle
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Agathon (centre) greeting guests in "Plato's Symposium" oil on canvas by Anselm Feuerbach, 1869; in the Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe, Germany.
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Etching by Jacob de Gheyn III showing Thales of Miletus seated with a long beard, draped in robes, holding a compass over an open book with geometric diagrams.
Jacob de Gheyn III: Thales of Miletus Pre-Socratic philosopher Thales of Miletus, etching by Jacob de Gheyn III, 1616; in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Thales of Miletus

Greek philosopher
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Thales of Miletus (born c. 624–620 bce—died c. 548–545 bce) was a philosopher renowned as one of the legendary Seven Wise Men, or Sophoi, of antiquity. He is remembered primarily for his cosmology based on water as the essence of all matter, with Earth a flat disk floating on a vast sea. The Greek historian Diogenes Laërtius, quoting Apollodorus of Athens, placed the birth of Thales during the 35th Olympiad and his death in the...

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