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making this discovery have also cast doubt on Pherecydes being a mythologist , as much of what is attributed to him is similar the work of Thales ; if Pherecydes predated Thales , then he may have been the source for ideas wrongly attributed to Thales for 2500 years . History records that Pythagoras borrowed from Pherecydes ; I argue that Thales did too .
Key words : Pythagoras ; Pre-Socratic Philosophy ; History of Philosophy ; Pherecydes ;
Introduction
Consult any book on the history of philosophy , and whether it is an academic text or a popular work , the first entry in almost every case will be the Milesian philosopher , Thales 58 . Emerging from work on the philosophical underpinning to the religion known as Christian Science , however , is evidence which disputes this almost universally held idea , and instead argues for Pherecydes as the true holder of this epithet , a figure from antiquity previously dismissed as both a mere mythologist and to have post-dated Thales .
In an obscure reference to a rare work on philosophy published at the end of the eighteenth century 59 , there is , amongst much else , an absolutely unambiguous date for when Pherecydes was active as a philosopher , using the ordinal number of a specific Olympiad 60 . Translating this date into the familiar form ( the method for which is explained later ) gave the figure of 600 BCE , and given that Pherecydes lived to 85 years of age 61 , a plausible estimate regarding the year of his birth would be approximately 640 BCE ; Pherecydes was therefore likely to have been a professional philosopher before Thales had even been born .
Many other works also cast doubt on Pherecydes as being a mythologist , as much of what is attributed to him is similar to the work of Thales . If Pherecydes predated Thales , then he may have been the source for ideas wrongly attributed to Thales for 2500 years . History records that Pythagoras borrowed from Pherecydes ; I argue that Thales did too .
Before embarking on a description of Pherecydes ’ life and work , a little contextualisation is needed . The group of philosophers which includes Thales is known as the Presocratics , and although , as one would expect , most members of the group lived before Socrates ( b . 469BCE - d . 399BCE ), somewhat counterintuitively , several were contemporaneous with him . Taken as a
58
e . g . Guthrie 1962 , p . 40
59
Enfield 1792
60
Ibid . p . 385
61
Ibid . p . 386