[aalleavitch]

The modern idea of a scientist is almost purely an enlightenment-era concept, and only represents one revision towards a better understanding of the world out of many throughout human history.

I think your distinction is pretty arbitrary; in what way does a mathematician not attempt to reason about the world in a systematic fashion and according to empiricism and logic? The only real difference over time has been in our ability to determine valid logic, our rigor in what empirical evidence we'll accept, and our sophistication in how we systematically go about this process. Early philosophers were attempting each of these things to various degrees, they just weren't as good as we are now at them. Really defining the "first scientist" is like defining the "first mammal"; the category is fuzzy and doesn't really mean anything at that level of granularity.