Anaximander
The Boundless — apeiron as first principle
Thales' pupil and the first systematic cosmologist. He proposed the apeiron — the Boundless, an indefinite substance — as the origin of all things, and speculated that humans evolved from fish-like creatures. He drew the first map of the known world and conceived the earth as floating free in space.
Key works
- On Nature~547 BC— Lost — the first prose work of Greek philosophy