Thales is the hero of any modern-day
philosophy student. These poor souls are constantly
derided by their counterparts in the Engineering and Business departments, who are
wont to inform aspiring philosophers that thinking about
metaphysics and
epistemology and other
polysyllabics doesn't
pay the bills.
Our man Thales was one of the first, if not the first, in
Western culture to be so derided. Everyone in
Miletus, especially the many money-minded
merchants, loved to laugh at Thales, who was constantly carrying on about
constellations, and the
universe, and all sorts of other things that don't
bring home the bacon. Or so everyone said.
According to
Aristotle1, Thales eventually got pretty sick of being a
laughingstock. He had figured out something important about the positions of the
stars and the
olive crops, and after looking at the sky for a while he was pretty darn sure that there was going to be a
bumper crop of olives that year. So he got it into his head that he'd
corner the market on
olive presses.
Sure enough, the olives that year were quite bountiful. And when those
jokers came with their olives to use the
presses, Thales jacked up the price. He
made a killing! Who says
philosophy doesn't pay?
Footnotes
1. Aristotle,
Politics XI, 1259b