Practice question · Select all that apply
Which considerations plausibly supported Thales’ choice of water as the archē?
Hints
- Three are reconstructible from what water visibly does; one is a claim about air.
- Lightness was the sort of consideration that favoured air, not water.
Show the answer
- A. It is familiar in solid, liquid and gaseous states
- C. All living things require it
- D. The earth appeared to rest upon it
Why
Water’s three states, its necessity to life and the apparent floating of the earth are all reconstructible motivations. Lightness is what recommended air to Anaximenes, and it points the other way.
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?
- Anaximander argued that the earth remains at the centre of things because it is held up by symmetry, having…
- Arrange the Milesian thinkers in chronological order and note how each responds to the one before.
- 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.