Editing Anaximenes of Miletus (section)

===Cosmology and weather===
[[File:Astrologia_(Sterrenkunde)_De_zeven_vrije_kunsten_(serietitel),_RP-P-BI-6393.jpg|thumb|300px|''[[Astrology]]'' by the 16th-century Dutch engraver [[Cornelis Cort]] has a book labeled "Anaximenes" (bottom left).]]
Anaximenes believed that the universe was initially made entirely of air and that liquids and solids were then produced from it through condensation.{{Sfn|Martins|2020|p=37}} He also used air to explain the nature of the Earth and the surrounding celestial bodies. He believed in a [[flat Earth]] that emerged as one of the first things to be condensed from air. This Earth is supported by the pressure of air underneath it to keep it afloat.{{Sfn|Dye|2014|pp=74–75}} 

Anaximenes considered celestial objects to be those which had separated from the Earth.{{Sfn|Kočandrle|2019|p=102}} The philosophers who recorded Anaximenes's ideas disagree as to how he theorized this happened. He may have described them as evaporating or rarifying into fire.{{Sfn|Kočandrle|2019|pp=103–104}} He is said to have compared the movement of the Earth, Sun, and stars to leaves floating in the wind, though he is also described as likening the stars to nails embedded in the sky. Some scholars have suggested that Anaximenes may have believed both models by distinguishing between planets and stars, which would make him the first person to do so.{{Sfn|Dye|2014|pp=74–75}}{{Sfn|Kočandrle|2019|p=102}} While the Sun is described as being a flame, Anaximenes thought it was not composed of rarefied air like the stars, but rather of Earth. According to [[Pseudo-Plutarch]], Anaximenes thought that its burning comes not from its composition, but rather from its rapid motion.{{Sfn|Kočandrle|2019|p=102}}

Anaximenes rejected the commonplace idea that the Sun went underneath the Earth, instead saying that it rotated around the Earth. [[Hippolytus of Rome|Hippolytus]] likened it to a hat spinning around a person's head.{{Sfn|Couprie|2018|p=99}} It's unknown whether this analogy was of Hippolytus's own creation or if it was part of Anaximenes's explanation.{{Sfn|Kočandrle|2019|p=104}} This model of the sun's movement has been interpreted in various ways by subsequent philosophers.{{Sfn|Couprie|2018|pp=99–130}}{{Sfn|Kočandrle|2019|pp=105–106}}

Anaximenes also described the causes of other natural phenomena. Like Anaximander, he believed that thunder and lightning occurred when wind emerged after being trapped in a cloud.{{Sfn|Martins|2020|p=37}} Earthquakes, he asserted, were the result of alternating drying and wetting of the earth, causing it to undergo a cycle of splitting and swelling.{{Sfn|Alexander|2020|loc=Chapter 7}} He was the first philosopher to attempt a scientific explanation of rainbows, and the only one to do so until Aristotle. He described them as a reflection of sunlight off of clouds, and he theorized that the various colors were caused by an interaction of light and darkness.{{Sfn|Naylor|2023|p=47}}