The agora was a constant public forum for political issues, philosophical debate, and the exchange of goods. The Greeks were accustomed to debate and the discussion of important matters in their daily course of life. Producing this ideal environment to bear fruit to new and innovative ideas.
In 600 BCE Thales began an Ionian school, which triggered the discussion for topics that would later spawn other great philosophy. What is known about Thales can only be extracted through what is mentioned by others. Though what can be learned is his significance to the uprising of philosophical thinking through his key concepts in illustrating a natural world. Thales began the discussion for understanding and investigation the nature of the world without incorporating supernatural intervention. This can best be exemplified through a description presented by Ede and Cormack, "Thales pictured the world as a drum or a sphere that floated on a celestial sea."(Page 7) The significance of this depiction lies in the separation of the natural world from a supernatural celestial sea. This was new and groundbreaking in this time period because he suggests a world that functioned by it's own natural set of laws that could be both investigated and explained without the intervention of mystical properties. This would give rise to many more significant ideas by many other great philosophers, all in a search to explain the laws of this natural world. .
Thales also explored the important topic of matter and what exactly makes up matter. Today we all know the atom to be the common element that makes up all matter. Thales was headed in this direction by searching for a single fundamental element in which all things are made. He didn't discover the atom but instead came to the conclusion that all things were made out of water in one form or another. The significance of this idea lies in his explanation of matter without the hint of a supernatural constituent; matter is realized to be the resulting formation of a natural element.