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Anaximenes (1), of *Miletus (traditional floruit 546–525 bce) followed in the footsteps of *Anaximander in composing a treatise in Ionian prose in which he developed a world system on the basis of an infinite or unlimited principle, which he identified as aēr. His system differed from that of his predecessor in several respects. Instead of suspending the earth in the centre of the universe by cosmic symmetry, he supported it from below by cosmic air. And instead of leaving the infinite starting-point for world formation indeterminate in nature, he specified it as elemental air, which he probably conceived as a kind of vital world-breath that dominates the world order as our own breath-soul rules over us. Anaximenes also offered a mechanistic explanation for world formation and change in terms of the condensation and rarefaction of the air. Air becomes fire by rarefaction; by motion it becomes wind; by condensation it becomes water and, by more condensation, earth and stones.

Atomism, a term used of theories that posit the existence of small indivisible particles as the ultimate components of matter. The Greek term atomon, used by some ancient philosophers to describe these ultimate components, means ‘uncuttable' or ‘indivisible'. The theories in ancient philosophy that fall under the general term ‘atomism' share certain features: all posit an infinite number of these microscopic particle-type entities (atoma, atoms) as the physical occupants of the universe; these atoms are in motion through empty space, and the space itself has neither boundaries nor distinct places within it; atoms come in different varieties, which are differentiated in shape and have certain fundamental features such as solidity, resistance, texture, and possibly weight. The atom's intrinsic features never change, but when the atoms gather together to form larger bodies (either collections of several atoms of the same sort, or an assortment of different kinds) their intrinsic or primary qualities account for other secondary effects that are features of larger bodies, including the appearance of colour, flavour, and scent (what we might call secondary qualities). These derivative effects can change as the arrangement of the atoms in a body or collection of bodies change, even though the atoms themselves do not acquire or lose any properties of their own.

W. E. Gladstone's 19th-cent. philological studies of Greek colour terms led him to conclude that the Greeks suffered from defective vision (1858). More recently, in the wake of Berlin and Kay (1969), ancient colour perception has been a locus for debating cross-cultural universals and cultural relativism.

Ancient concepts of colour were in fact contested and negotiable even amongst ancient theorists. The Greeks could certainly distinguish hues (paceGladstone), and the etymology of the Greek chrōma implies that Greek conceptions of colour were closely related to skin, bodily complexion (chrōs, chroia), and to the surface of the body as an index of what is subjectively felt or lies within. But Greek colour terms do not organize visual experience primarily according to hue as does the modern English lexicon, but, rather, luminosity, texture, contrast, and further properties of the objects or phenomena they qualify.

The Socratic school of philosophy founded by *Euclides(1) of *Megara in the early 4th cent. bce. Its last known head, *Stilpon, died about a century later.

Its preoccupations were ethical and metaphysical. The combined influence of *Socrates and *Parmenides is captured in its slogan ‘The good is one thing, called by many names’. It taught the unity and invulnerability of virtue, reduced potentiality to actuality, and espoused some provocative metaphysical theses. ‘Megarian questionings’ became a byword for sophistry.

An independent branch, the Dialectical school, was founded by Dionysius of Chalcedon and included *Diodorus(2) Cronus and *Philon(6) among its members. Its work became a formative influence on Stoic logic (see Stoicism).