Anaximenes, << an ak SIHM uh neez, >> was an early Greek philosopher who lived in Miletus in Asia Minor (now part of Turkey) during the 500’s B.C. Like other Greek philosophers of his time, Anaximenes was interested in giving an account of the natural world. He did so by describing how he believed the universe had begun, followed by a discussion of astronomy and meteorology. Almost nothing remains of a book he wrote on nature, and we rely for our knowledge of his work on the reports of other ancient authors.
Anaximenes believed that the world developed out of air. He argued that air turned into such substances as water and earth through condensation, and into fire through a process called rarefaction. Anaximenes’s theory may be partly based on the observation of the phenomenon of evaporation. He also believed that human souls consisted of air, and he may have chosen air as the original substance of the universe because of this belief.
See also Pre-Socratic philosophy .
