Anaxímenes The third great name of the Milesian school, Anaximenes (c. 585–525 BCE) was a disciple of Anaximander. At first glance he took a step back, rejecting his master’s indeterminate apeiron and returning to a concrete element as the principle: air (aēr). But his choice carried a decisive advantage — air, being determinate, allowed him to explain how the single principle transforms into all things, something that neither Thales’s water nor the apeiron explained clearly. ...
Thales of Miletus A philosopher from Miletus, in Ionia (in present-day Turkey), who lived around 624–546 BCE, Thales is considered the first philosopher of the Western tradition and was counted among the legendary Seven Sages of Greece. He left no writings; what we know comes from later reports, above all from Aristotle, who hailed him as the founder of this kind of inquiry (Metaphysics I, 3). Many stories gathered around his name: he is said to have predicted a solar eclipse, measured the height of the pyramids by their shadow, and, according to Aristotle, demonstrated the practical value of philosophy by foreseeing a good harvest and cornering the olive-press market. ...