Anaximenes of Miletus

The Greek cities of Ionia were already renowned for their thinkers.

Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes were all in search of a single underlying principle, the arch, the origin of all things.

Yet, Heraclitus had a hunch they were missing a crucial element.

He saw that change is the rule, not the exception.

Thales was part of the group of the Milesians.

The three ancient philosophers from Miletus in Greece, and that's Anaximander, Anaximenes, and Thales.

And Thales, obviously, one of the seven ancient sages.

I mean, how fucking cool is that? Imagine if you die in like a thousand years, people are calling you like one of the seven sages.

The Presocratics Lecture 2 The Milesians In the last lecture we introduced the Presocratics, noted why they are significant, and explained the difference between mythology and philosophy.

In this lecture we will discuss the earliest Presocratics, Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes, who are widely considered the first philosophers in Western civilization.

All three philosophers lived in the city of Miletus in the 6th century BC, and for this reason are referred to as the Milesians.

Miletus was located in Ionia on the western coast of Asia Minor, or what today is western Turkey.

The Milesians were physiologists, as they attempted to provide a rational account, or logos, of nature, the Greek word for nature being physis, hence the word physiologist, or one who provides a logos of physis.

Note that today the word physiologist has a different meaning.

In attempting to give a rational account of nature, Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes were all interested in the fundamental question, what is the world made of? Looking out into the world, they noted that reality displays two fundamental characteristics.

Firstly, everything in the world is constantly changing or constantly in flux.

Since Thales was an Ionian, the school perpetuating his tenets became known as the Ionic.

He died in five forty-six BC and was succeeded by Anaximander, who in turn was followed by Anaximenes, Anaxagoras, and Archilochus, with whom the Ionic school ended.

Anaximander, differing from his master Thales, declared measureless and indefinable infinity to be the principle from which all things were generated.

Anaximenes asserted air to be the first element of the universe, that souls and even the deity itself were composed of it.

Anaxagoras, whose doctrine savors of atomism, held God to be an infinite self-moving mind; that this divine infinite mind, not enclosed in any body, is the efficient cause of all things out of the infinite matter consisting of similar parts, everything being made according to its species by the divine mind, who when all things were at first confusedly mingled together, came and reduced them to order.

Archilochus declared the principle of all things to be twofold: mind, which was incorporeal, and air, which was corporeal, the rarefaction and condensation of the latter resulting in fire and water respectively.

7.

Anaximenes We shall see presently what causes brought the genuinely scientific movement of the Milesian school to an end.

Before expiring, it produced one more great representative in Anaximenes, the successor of Anaximander.

With less speculative daring, he seems to show a closer observation of fact.

For him also there is a primal substance of infinite extent, in which and from which all finite things have their being.

To use his own words, that which is our soul and constitutive principle also holds the universe together.

A philosopher who so expressed himself now, or indeed at any time after Plato, would be properly called a materialist.

But we can hardly apply the name to Anaximenes.

Seven.

Anaximenes.

We shall see presently what causes brought the genuinely scientific movement of the Milesian school to an end.

Before expiring, it produced one more great representative in Anaximenes, the successor of Anaximander.

With less speculative daring, he seems to show a closer observation of fact.

For him also, there is a primal substance of infinite extent in which and from which all finite things have their being.

To use his own words, that which is our soul and constitutive principle also holds the universe together.

A philosopher who so expressed himself now, or indeed at any time after Plato, would be properly called a materialist.