On Thales "Water Is Arche" The Significance Of The Birth Of Rational Thinking

In ancient Greek philosophy, beginning with Thales, through Anaximander, Anaximenes , Heraclitus to Empedocles, Anaxagoras, to Democritus, they all have made a material explanation for "Arche". This paper focus on and analyze into the claim, "arche is water". It is said that Thales started the Western Philosophy, as the founder of Miletus School. In his book, The History of Western Philosophy, Russell makes this comment: "In every history of philosophy for students, the first thing mentioned is that philosophy began with Thales, who said that everything is made of water." By referring to water as arche, Thales introduced a thinking in which the myth of the world is denied, and such a denial marks the birth of philosophy.In this paper, we will start with "Why water, instead of other substances, as arche?" I will attempt to define the term arche as a philosophical concept, and then explain the transformation from the mythical thinking to rational thinking. The thesis is to explore the significance of the awakening of subjectivity consciousness and the birth of rational thinking.There are five chapters in this essay. The first chapter discusses about the philosophical definition arche. Linguistically, arche means a substance of which everything is constituted, and from which all things are generated and into which all things last. Ontologically, it means the original of everything. The second chapter traces briefly the development of the concept after Thales. We will examine Anaximander's language of "unlimited", Anaximenes' "gas", "number" in Pythagorean school, Heraclitus' "fire", Empedocles' "four elements" (water, fire, air, soil), Anaxagoras' "seed", and Democritus' "atom". We will reveal a fact that these philosophers had actually followed Thales' concept of arche and employed the concept to explain the unity of diversity in the universe and take all things into account in this changing world. This is the transition from the mythical thinking to philosophical thinking. We see this as the evidence of the emergence of philosophy.The second chapter will explain the reasons as to what drives Thales to conceive water instead of other substances as arche. Thales observed that all things share a common feature: wet. An extreme case may be the heat. Thales considered that heat is also from wet. For example, when animals are alive, they warm; but they must consume water to maintain their life. No water, no life. He then concludes that arche must be water. In addition, we may also discuss about ancient Greece environment, including a geography structure, climatic conditions, crops growth and so on. These factors may contribute Thales' thought, too.The chapter three is to reveal the relationship between Thales' water and the ancient Greek myth. The essential difference between them is rational thinking vs. imaginary thinking. Before Thales, mythology is the way for people to explain the things around them. In this thinking, the origin of the world is a personified god, which is present only in our imagination. Yet, when Thales proposed that arche is water, it is an object of nature which can be seen and touched. It is not an imaginary thing, but can be experienced and therefore can be thought of. In such a thinking, God is not necessary for him to understand the world. It is a way to understand nature by experience. It is observed that the new thinking turn around our thinking. We may call it the awakening of subjectivity consciousness, which changed human thinking fundamentally. In other words, the myth thinking turned into the rational thinking..