泰勒斯的学生，由于水本身是有特定性质的，他提出万物的本原是“阿派朗”（Apeiron，即无定形、无限者），万物由它产生并复归于它。
Student and successor of Thales. He drew the first known world map and introduced astronomical instruments such as the sundial to the Greeks. He boldly proposed that the Earth was cylindrical and floated freely in space, sustained by symmetry rather than physical support.
Anaximander argued that the arche cannot possess any specific sensible quality, naming it "Apeiron" (the Boundless or Infinite). Since any concrete element like water or fire would exclude its opposite, the ultimate principle must be an abstract, indefinite background from which opposites (hot and cold, dry and wet) separate. Things emerge from the Apeiron and eventually return to it, paying penance for their "injustice" of breaking the cosmic balance.
"All things originate from it and must return to it by necessity; things suffer the judgment and punishment of time's order for their injustice."
万物不来自任何具体的物质，而是来自虚空般无限、不可规定的‘阿派朗’。你是否相信生命的起点和终点其实也来自某种不可名状的‘无限无定形之海’，而我们特定的欲望和个性只是时间长河中暂时的秩序涟漪？
Thales identified the principle as the concrete substance water. Anaximander argued that water as arche would eliminate opposites like fire, so the principle must be the fully abstract, boundless Apeiron that embraces all opposites.
In explaining complex unknowns, should we appeal to tangible physical elements, or to abstract concepts that necessarily underlie them logically?
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