Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
Anaximenes

Anaximenes

1 9.9
An early Greek thinker who said air is the basic stuff of everything
  • proper noun
  • /ˌænəksɪˈmiːniːz/
: Anaxímenes
  • Thus air for Anaximenes is the sort of thing that can be tariffed and compressed; it is ratified and compressed when it undergoes the relevant changes.

Examples

  • The teachings of Anaximenes had a significant impact on later philosophical thought about the universe.

  • The difference between the constitutive models of, e.g., Anaximenes and Democritus leads to different views concerning unity and diversity.

    Academic text (1991)

  • Like early Greek philosophers Thales and Anaximenes, who tried to figure out the origin of the world, the author of the biblical creation story did his best, but he was wrong.

    Academic text (2010)

  • The basic constituents in the early Ionian analyses, like that of Anaximenes, are designated by "mass terms"; i.e., terms that do not pluralize and hence do not individuate their ranges of application.

    Academic text (1991)

  • Anaximenes believed that air is the fundamental substance from which all things are formed.

  • According to Anaximenes, differences in density were responsible for the variety of substances in the world.

Synonyms

Anaximenes of Miletus
vsAnaximenes
9.9

Greek thinker from Miletus who said air is the basic material of all things

focuses on teaching that air creates all things through varying density

Surface Forms

Anaximenes main

Etymology

Anaximenes is an ancient Greek name that likely mixes anax meaning 'ruler' and menos meaning 'force'. A helpful way to remember him is to think 'ruler of the air', because Anaximenes taught that air is the basic substance that makes everything.