Did you know ? Táles (or Thales, Thalés) from Miletus was an ancient Greek pre-Socratic philosopher, mathematician, astronomer, statesman and engineer, the first representative of the Miletus school. According to Democritus, Thales' parents, Examys and Cleobulus, were descendants of the mythical founder of Thebes, Cadmus, and came from Phoenicia. Táles died at the age of 78. However, we certainly get most of our knowledge about Thales from the works of the great Greek philosopher Aristotle. In his work Metaphysics, he refers to Thales as the originator of philosophy - this opinion is also confirmed by Hegel.