1-152-191 - Ann Ronan Picture Library/Heritage-Images

Anaximines (fl c500 BC), Ancient Greek philosopher, 1493. With Thales and Anaximander, Anaximenes was one of three great thinkers from Miletus. Like the other two philosophers, Anaximenes believed that all the diversity of nature was derived from a single basic fundamental element. Whereas Thales believed that element was water and Anaximander considered it to be a form of matter which he called the apeirion, Anaximenes believed air to be the basic form of matter. From Liber chronicarum mundi (Nuremberg Chronicle) by Hartmann Schedel. (Nuremberg, 1493).