The author of Ecclesiastes identifies themself as the Teacher/Preacher immediately in the very first verse of the book. In the words of Ecclesiastes 1:1 and 1:12, the author also calls himself the king of Jerusalem, and in 1:1, he refers to himself as a son of David. There is only one son of David who becomes king in the Bible accounts: Solomon, the ruler associated with great wisdom who nonetheless fails to uphold several basic, major obligations of a monarch as prescribed by Deuteronomy 17 in Mosaic Law.
Solomon actually almost does not become the ruler at all (1 Kings 1:5-40). Adonijah, described here as very handsome and born next after Absalom, tries to take the throne, and Bathsheba and Nathan the prophet visit David so that he would fulfill his promise to Bathsheba, that her son Solomon would sit on the throne after him. Indeed, Solomon becomes king, but his mother first worries that the two of them will be treated as criminals if David's vow to her before God was not kept (Deuteronomy 23:21-23, 1 Kings 1:29-30).
Her son survives, reigns, and, as Ecclesiastes conveys, becomes fixated on understanding what, if anything, is either objectively meaningful or subjectively satisfying to him. He contemplates how the universe seems to endure as people labor and die (Ecclesiastes 1:3-7), how knowledge can bring sadness (1:18; almost any rationalist can likely relate to this on multiple levels!), and how power, accomplishment, and pleasure alone do not make a person escape this cycle (2:4-11). The looming, approaching event of death overtakes both the fool and the wise (2:14-16), which sobers the Teacher.
A great deal of the Teacher's statements nevertheless do not acknowledge many relevant, demonstrable truths. For instance, they do not dive directly into the rationalistic epistemology of how his subjective perceptions and experiences do not make anything true, such as life or perhaps all things allegedly being meaningless (Ecclesiastes 1:2). He does not address how logical axioms, the core of necessary truths, transcend even nature and God [1], nor does he readily admit that the finality of human death (though there is resurrection to come according to verses like Daniel 12:2 and Revelation 20:11-15) does not necessitate that everything in the life that precedes it is morally meaningless as opposed to temporary and thus finite.
Even so, the author of Ecclesiastes, King Solomon himself, has a unique position of prosperity in Israel's history from which to dwell on philosophical issues that are accessible to every willing person--for every man, woman, and child can look to the necessary truths of reason and engage in introspection [2]. Wealth and social status are not in any way required to discover and savor what is true by logical necessity, and since everything relies on logical axioms and their ramifications anyway, and they do not stop being true, there is no such thing as an inability to think about the nature of reality even amidst personal suffering or professional toil.
[1]. For some elaboration, see posts like these:
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