Imagine from: http://deloespeculativoaloaplicable.blogspot.com/2008/11/otro-que-nos-dice-quien-fue-primero-yo.html, edited by Rocío Cruz.Anaximenes continued with Anaximander and Thales’s position about the first principle, but he proposed a new one.
Anaximenes followed Anaximander’s teaching that said that the first principle must be one of the basic elements and so he chose AIR AS THE ARCHÊ. (Helen Buss Mitchell)
According to Helen Buss Mitchell, Anaximenes thought that everything comes from air and therefore everything is air. When I say everything, it means that even divine things derive from it. He supported his theory saying that since AIR IS INFINITE it can produce all things without being produced by anything.
I was trying to find out why Anaximenes chose air and not water or another element as the first principle. Suddenly, I realized that maybe he concluded that it was the most important element because of what he observed in the environment.
For example, I imagined Anaximenes watching what a horse does in a normal day. He may have seen the horse drinking water and he may have concluded that water was something basic in our lives, but that it wasn’t necessary to drink it the whole day, just at some hours.
He may have noticed that unlike water, air is something that we need all the time. Every single second we need to get air from our environment to stay alive, even though we don’t think about it.
This is the way that Anaximenes may have thought that air is the origin of everything and that we are all air. I would like to say that this wasn’t the way Anaximenes concluded his theory. I’m just imagining how it could have been.
Bibliography:
Mitchell, Helen Buss. Roots of Wisdom. Belmont, CA: Thomson, 2008.
For example, I imagined Anaximenes watching what a horse does in a normal day. He may have seen the horse drinking water and he may have concluded that water was something basic in our lives, but that it wasn’t necessary to drink it the whole day, just at some hours.
He may have noticed that unlike water, air is something that we need all the time. Every single second we need to get air from our environment to stay alive, even though we don’t think about it.
This is the way that Anaximenes may have thought that air is the origin of everything and that we are all air. I would like to say that this wasn’t the way Anaximenes concluded his theory. I’m just imagining how it could have been.
Bibliography:
Mitchell, Helen Buss. Roots of Wisdom. Belmont, CA: Thomson, 2008.
Posted by Rocío del Mar Cruz López.
I think your idea is very interesting, I actually do imagine why Anaximenes thought of air as the arché. Just by observing that without air we die, we could tell that air is the base for life.
ResponderEliminarI liked your hypothesis a lot.
Gabriela Maldonado
Concluding in those days that air was the arché I think that was a interesting idea. Especially when nowadays we know that air is composed of many essencial elements that are basic for life. For example the H ( hydrogen), now with all the techonology , astronomers conclude that most of the planets are composed by this element. And this joined with oxygen become water. So then comparing Anaximenes with the other milesian monists, I can say that he was the most credible of all.
ResponderEliminar=)!
by Mia Andrea
hi totis:
ResponderEliminari agree with gaby maldonado about what she said that air is very important in our life.
great example of the horse. it only needed to drink water just a couple of times in the day but the air it needed allways.
julio Diaz
I agree with you when you explained why Anaximenes choose air as the arche, because after all, most of the living creatures need air and oxygen to live and without air we would collapse. I think that what Anaximenes forgot was that there are somethings like rocks that doesn't need air, but for his time he had an answer to one of the most important questions. I really enjoyed your picture and I agree with your deductions!!
ResponderEliminarAbril C.
I do understand why he choose air, because it is a unique substance that even though we can see it, we are able to feel it and to used it for our own good; but with what I don't agree is that he generalize air as live and we now know that air is a mixture of different types of gases and that oxygen is the principal gas that our body uses for living.
ResponderEliminarCathy
Rocío del Mar! Very interesting idea. Did you read Cathy´s comment about oxygen? Interesting ah?
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