ABSTRACT
Thales’ ‘water’was a geometry for giving an account of things. All things are variants of water. But the term ‘variant’ is vague, and maybe obscure. I have suggested that Thales and Anaximander offered a geometry or a grammar within which things can be discussed. The problem for such thinkers, as we have seen, is in distinguishing between the geometry offered, whether it be Anaximenes’ air, or something else, and what is actually said, the descriptions we give of things. Are the descriptions supposed to be derived logically or causally from the geometry?
