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From: Immortalist on 13 Mar 2010 21:50
Just wondering what that was. Is it some kind of stereotype used to
derogate people who know more than others?

---------------------------

It is interesting that Thales has both stories told about his great
practical skills and also about him being an unworldly dreamer.
Aristotle, for example, relates a story of how Thales used his skills
to deduce that the next season's olive crop would be a very large one.
He therefore bought all the olive presses and then was able to make a
fortune when the bumper olive crop did indeed arrive. On the other
hand Plato tells a story of how one night Thales was gazing at the sky
as he walked and fell into a ditch. A pretty servant girl lifted him
out and said to him "How do you expect to understand what is going on
up in the sky if you do not even see what is at your feet". As
Brumbaugh says, perhaps this is the first absent-minded professor
joke!

http://phoenicia.org/thales.html
From: Pat Flannery on 14 Mar 2010 10:34
On 3/13/2010 6:50 PM, Immortalist wrote:
On the other
> hand Plato tells a story of how one night Thales was gazing at the sky
> as he walked and fell into a ditch. A pretty servant girl lifted him
> out and said to him "How do you expect to understand what is going on
> up in the sky if you do not even see what is at your feet".

Thales just laughed as he had been getting a great view up her dress
from down there in the ditch.

Pat
From: Robert Bannister on 14 Mar 2010 20:16
Immortalist wrote:
> Just wondering what that was. Is it some kind of stereotype used to
> derogate people who know more than others?
>
> ---------------------------
>
> It is interesting that Thales has both stories told about his great
> practical skills and also about him being an unworldly dreamer.
> Aristotle, for example, relates a story of how Thales used his skills
> to deduce that the next season's olive crop would be a very large one.
> He therefore bought all the olive presses and then was able to make a
> fortune when the bumper olive crop did indeed arrive. On the other
> hand Plato tells a story of how one night Thales was gazing at the sky
> as he walked and fell into a ditch. A pretty servant girl lifted him
> out and said to him "How do you expect to understand what is going on
> up in the sky if you do not even see what is at your feet". As
> Brumbaugh says, perhaps this is the first absent-minded professor
> joke!
>
> http://phoenicia.org/thales.html

I wonder how the attractiveness of the servant or even the fact that she
was female added to the story.

--

Rob Bannister
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