Milesians the pre-Socratic philosophers of Miletus, a Greek city-state on the Ionian coast of Asia Minor. During the 6th century B.C. Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes produced the earliest Western philosophies, stressing an arche or material source from which the cosmos and all things in it were generated. See also ANAXI- MANDER , ANAXIMENES OF MILETUS , THALES OF MILETU. D.W.G.