Western philosophy first came about when a philosopher named Thales, who was born in approximately 585 B.C., became the first man to think outside the box and sway away from using myths and gods as the answer for all intellectual questions. Known as the first Greek philosopher, Thales initiated a way of understanding the world that was based on reason and nature (Sullivan). Once he revealed this whole new way of philosophizing, Western philosophy was born. There are many different subjects that Western philosophy covers, including logic, natural philosophy, ethics, poietics, and metaphysics. Philosophy can be described as the certain knowledge of things through their ultimate causes seen in the light of the principles of reason (Sullivan). .
Western philosophy consists of expanding the mind and exercising the intellect. It differs from other types of philosophy because it is the only type that analyzes things to such a certain extreme. For example, under Western philosophy, the very question of "what is beauty?" is brought up under the subject of poietics. While a normal human being living today would not really think twice about what is beautiful, Western philosophers such as St. Thomas Aquinas suggest that "the beautiful can be reduced to the good, nevertheless it differs from it in concept. It is a special kind of good - that which pleases on being apprehended- and he continues to go on and discuss the concept of both good and beauty (Sullivan). .
Not only are things such as beauty philosophized about, but also things such as truth, what it is, and if we as people can actually know truth. The study of truth is what makes up epistemology, a category of the subject Metaphysics. Philosophers known as skeptics argue that humans can never know truth, while those in opposition believe that evidence is the decisive factor in determining truth ("Tomlin"). Questions such as these are what separates Western philosophy from other philosophies.
