Thales continued his legacy by passing on his ideals to his pupils by founding the Milesian school of philosophy – the first formal institute where philosophy could be taught. This wasn’t his only contribution, at this school he and his students indulged in philosophical arguments and counter-arguments that later became a basic practice in the philosophical investigation and still remain a significant part of scientific investigation.
The earliest of such an event scribed and survived till today is the debate between Thales and his students Anaximander and Anaximenes regarding his theory of Earth being supported by water. Anaximander was the first one to ask “If water supports the Earth then what supports the water?”. He theorized that Earth was a hanging cylinder in space and the top flat layer of this surface is the world we encounter. The legacy of counter-arguments continued further when Anaximenes, the pupil of Anaximander, reverted Thales’ explanation and suggested that the single element everything is made of is air because the Earth evidently floated on air. These might seem like bygone theories but they created a significant impact on philosophy in the later years.
