Practice question · Put in order
Arrange the Milesian thinkers in chronological order and note how each responds to the one before.
- Anaximander proposes the boundless instead
- Thales proposes water as the archē
- Anaximenes returns to an observable element but adds a mechanism
- Anaximander objects that no observable element could be the origin
Hints
- Anaximander was Thales’ student and Anaximenes came after him.
- The sequence is a genuine argument, not merely three separate opinions.
Show the answer
- Thales proposes water as the archē
- Anaximander objects that no observable element could be the origin
- Anaximander proposes the boundless instead
- Anaximenes returns to an observable element but adds a mechanism
Why
The three form an argument rather than a list: Thales proposes, Anaximander objects and abstracts, Anaximenes returns to the observable but supplies the mechanism his predecessors lacked. Philosophy begins as a conversation.
Practise The Milesians
The app has 4 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. Philosophy I is free to start.
More questions on The Milesians
- What makes the Milesians the first philosophers rather than simply early scientists or theologians?
- Which considerations plausibly supported Thales’ choice of water as the archē?
- Anaximander argued that the earth remains at the centre of things because it is held up by symmetry, having…
- Sort each explanatory move by whether it is characteristic of mythological or Milesian explanation.
- Thales famously asserted that 'all things are full of gods'. Given the overarching Milesian shift away from…
- Complete the account of Anaximander’s argument for the apeiron.