Anaxagoras
Anaxagoras | |
---|---|
Ionian school | |
Main interests | Natural philosophy |
Notable ideas | Nous, or Mind ordering all things |
Anaxagoras (
Responding to the claims of
Biography
Anaxagoras was born in the town of
Here Anaxagoras, who in his quest of truth scaled heaven itself, is laid to rest.[b][c]
Philosophy
Responding to the claims of
Anaxagoras brought philosophy and the spirit of scientific inquiry from Ionia to Athens. According to Anaxagoras, all things have existed in some way from the beginning, but originally they existed in infinitesimally small fragments of themselves, endless in number and inextricably combined throughout the universe. All things existed in this mass but in a confused and indistinguishable form.[6] There was an infinite number of homogeneous parts (ὁμοιομερῆ) as well as heterogeneous ones.[6][7]
The work of arrangement, the segregation of like from unlike, and the summation of the whole into totals of the same name, was the work of Mind or Reason (νοῦς). Mind is no less unlimited than the chaotic mass, but it stood pure and independent, a thing of finer texture, alike in all its manifestations and everywhere the same. This subtle agent, possessed of all knowledge and power, is especially seen ruling all life forms.[d] Its first appearance, and the only manifestation of it which Anaxagoras describes, is Motion. It gave distinctness and reality to the aggregates of like parts.[6]
Decrease and growth represent a new aggregation (σὐγκρισις) and disruption (διάκρισις). However, the original intermixture of things is never wholly overcome.[6] Each thing contains parts of other things or heterogeneous elements, and is what it is only on account of the preponderance of certain homogeneous parts which constitute its character.[8] Out of this process arise the things we see in this world.[8]
Astronomy
Plutarch[e] says "Anaxagoras is said to have predicted that if the heavenly bodies should be loosened by some slip or shake, one of them might be torn away, and might plunge and fall to earth."
His observations of the celestial bodies and the fall of meteorites led him to form new theories of the universal order, and to the prediction of the impact of meteorites. According to Pliny[f], he was credited with predicting the fall of the meteorite in 467.[9] He was the first to give a correct explanation of eclipses, and was both famous and notorious for his scientific theories, including the claims that the Sun is a mass of red-hot metal, that the Moon is earthy, and that the stars are fiery stones.[g] He thought that the Earth was flat and floated supported by 'strong' air under it, and that disturbances in this air sometimes caused earthquakes.[h] He introduced the notion of panspermia, that life exists throughout the universe and could be distributed everywhere.[10][11]
He attempted to give a scientific account of
Anaxagoras was one of the first to assert that the moon reflected sunlight and did not produce light by itself; a statement translated as “the sun induces the moon with brightness” was found in his writings.[12]
Mathematics
According to Plutarch in his work On exile, Anaxagoras is the first Greek to attempt the problem of squaring the circle, a problem he worked on while in prison.[j]
Legacy
Anaxagoras wrote a book of philosophy, but only fragments of the first part of this have survived, through preservation in the work of Simplicius of Cilicia in the 6th century AD.[k]
Anaxagoras' book was reportedly available for a drachma in the Athenian marketplace.[1] It was certainly known to Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes, based on the contents of their surviving plays,[1] and possibly to Aeschylus as well, based on the testimony of Seneca.[1] However, although Anaxagoras almost certainly lived in Athens during the lifetime of Socrates (born 470 BCE), there is no evidence that they ever met. In the Phaedo, Plato portrays Socrates saying of Anaxagoras as a young man: 'I eagerly acquired his books and read them as quickly as I could'. However, Socrates goes on to describe his later disillusionment with his philosophy.[l] Anaxagoras is also mentioned by Socrates during his trial in Plato's Apology.
He is also mentioned in Seneca's Natural Questions (Book 4B, originally Book 3: On Clouds, Hail, Snow). It reads: "Why should I too allow myself the same liberty as Anaxagoras allowed himself?"
The Roman author Valerius Maximus preserves a different tradition; Anaxagoras, coming home from a long voyage, found his property in ruin, and said: "If this had not perished, I would have"—a sentence described by Valerius as being "possessed of sought-after wisdom".[13][m]
Dante Alighieri places Anaxagoras in the First Circle of Hell (Limbo) in his Divine Comedy (Inferno, Canto IV, line 137).
Chapter 5 in Book II of De Docta Ignorantia (1440) by Nicholas of Cusa is dedicated to the truth of the sentence "Each thing is in each thing" which he attributes to Anaxagoras.
Anaxagoras appears as a character in the second Act of
Friedrich Nietzsche also frequently mentions Anaxagoras in the later chapters of his book entitled Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks. He speaks fondly of Anaxagoras's nous, and defends the idea by claiming philosophers had "failed to recognize the meaning of Anaxagoras' [nous]..." and believed that it was "perfectly sufficient for his in·sight to have found a motion which is capable of creating visible order in a thoroughly mixed chaos, by means of a simple continuous action."[14] Nietzsche believes it is essential to understand Anaxagoras's nous as a sort of act of free will, not determined by any previous action before.
See also
- Anaxagoras (crater) on the Moon
Notes
Footnotes
- ^ Laertius 2.15
- Ancient Greek: ἐνθάδε, πλεῖστον ἀληθείας ἐπὶ τέρμα περήσας οὐρανίου κόσμου, κεῖται Ἀναξαγόρας.
- ^ Laertius 2.15
- ^ B12
- ^ Life of Lysander 12.1
- ^ Natural History 2.149
- ^ Curd
- ^ Burnet
- ^ "NASA - Total Solar Eclipse of -462 April 30".
- ^ Plutarch, On exile
- ^ Simplicius
- ^ Plato, Phaedo, 85b
- ^ Val. Max., VIII, 7, ext., 5: Qui, cum e diutina peregrinatione patriam repetisset possessionesque desertas vidisset, "non essem – inquit "ego salvus, nisi istae perissent." Vocem petitae sapientiae compotem!
Citations
- ^ a b c d e f g Curd 2019, 1.
- ^ DK 59A1.
- ^ Copleston 2003, p. 66.
- ^ Filonik 2013, pp. 26–33.
- ^ Curd 2011, B12.
- ^ a b c d e Wallace & Mitchell 1911, p. 943.
- ^ Schmitz 1870.
- ^ a b Smith 1952.
- ^ Couprie 2004.
- ^ Hollinger 2016.
- ^ Kolb & Clark 2020, p. 47.
- ISBN 9781599423814.
- ^ Curd 2007.
- ^ Nietzsche (1873). Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks. pp. 115–116.
References
Ancient testimony
In the
The most recent edition of this catalogue is Diels, Hermann; Kranz, Walther (1957). Plamböck, Gert (ed.). Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (in Ancient Greek and German). Rowohlt.
Biography
- A1. Lives of the Eminent Philosophers. Vol. 1:2. Translated by Hicks, Robert Drew(Two volume ed.). Loeb Classical Library.
- A3. "Heraclitus". Suda.
- A5. Lives of the Eminent Philosophers. Vol. 2:9. Translated by Hicks, Robert Drew(Two volume ed.). Loeb Classical Library. § 41.
- A12. Plutarch. Life of Lysander. §12.
- A13.Plutarch. Life of Pericles. §16.
- A15. Phaedrus. 270a.
- A16. Plutarch. Life of Pericles. §6.
- A17. Plutarch. Life of Pericles. §32.
- A18. Plutarch. Life of Nicias. §23.
Writings
Doctrines
Fragments
- B1. Simplicius of Cilicia. Commentary on Aristotle's Physics. 155.23.
- B2. Simplicius of Cilicia. Commentary on Aristotle's Physics. 155.30.
- B3. Simplicius of Cilicia. Commentary on Aristotle's Physics. 164.16.
- B4. Simplicius of Cilicia. Commentary on Aristotle's Physics. 34.28.
- B5. Simplicius of Cilicia. Commentary on Aristotle's Physics. 156.9.
- B6. Simplicius of Cilicia. Commentary on Aristotle's Physics. 164.25.
- B7. Simplicius of Cilicia. Commentary on Aristotle's On the Heavens. 155.23.
- B8. Simplicius of Cilicia. Commentary on Aristotle's Physics. 175.11.
- B9. Simplicius of Cilicia. Commentary on Aristotle's Physics. 35.13.
- B10. Simplicius of Cilicia. Commentary on Aristotle's Physics. 460.16.
- B11. Simplicius of Cilicia. Commentary on Aristotle's Physics. 164.22.
- B12. Simplicius of Cilicia. Commentary on Aristotle's Physics. 164.24.
- B13. Simplicius of Cilicia. Commentary on Aristotle's Physics. 300.27.
- B14. Simplicius of Cilicia. Commentary on Aristotle's Physics. 157.5.
- B15. Simplicius of Cilicia. Commentary on Aristotle's Physics. 179.3.
- B16. Simplicius of Cilicia. Commentary on Aristotle's Physics. 179.6.
- B17. Simplicius of Cilicia. Commentary on Aristotle's Physics. 163.18.
- B18. Plutarch. On the Face Which Appears in the Orb of the Moon. Stephanus p.929b.
- B21. Against the Logicians. Book I.90.
- B21a. Against the Logicians. Book I.140.
- B21b. Plutarch. On Fortune. Stephanus p.98f.
Translations of the fragments
- Curd, Patricia, ed. (2011). A Presocratics reader: selected fragments and testimonia (Second ed.). Indianapolis. ISBN 978-1-60384-305-8.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link - Curd, Patricia, ed. (2007). Anaxagoras of Clazomenae. Fragments and Testimonia: A Text and Translation with Notes and Essays. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
- Graham, Daniel W. (2010). The Texts of Early Greek Philosophy: The Complete Fragments and Selected Testimonies of the Major Presocratics, Part 1. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-73763-0.
- Simplicius: On Aristotle Physics 1.1–2. Bloomsbury Publishing. 7 April 2022. ISBN 978-1-350-28570-5.
- Simplicius: On Aristotle Physics 1.3-4. A&C Black. 22 April 2014. ISBN 978-1-4725-1531-5.
- Simplicius: On Aristotle On the Heavens 1.3-4. A&C Black. 22 April 2014. ISBN 978-1-4725-0170-7.
- Sider, David (ed.), The Fragments of Anaxagoras, with introduction, text, and commentary, Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag, 2005.
- OCLC 870519
Sources
- ISBN 0-7661-2826-1
- ISBN 978-0-8264-6895-6.
- Couprie, Dirk (2004). "How Thales Was Able to "Predict" a Solar Eclipse Without the Help of Alleged Mesopotamian Wisdom". Early Science and Medicine. 9 (4): 321–337. ISSN 1383-7427.
- Curd, Patricia (2019). "Anaxagoras". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- Filonik, Jakub (2013). "Athenian impiety trials: a reappraisal". Dike. 16 (16). .
- Hollinger, Maik (2016). "Life from Elsewhere – Early History of the Maverick Theory of Panspermia". Sudhoffs Archiv. 100 (2): 188–205. S2CID 4942706.
- Kolb, Vera M.; Clark, Benton C. III (13 July 2020). "10". Astrobiology for a General Reader: A Question and Answers - Panspermia hypothesis. ISBN 978-1-5275-5502-0.
- Schmitz, Leonhard (1870). "Anaxagoras". In Smith, William (ed.). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Vol. 1.
- Smith, Homer W. (1952). Man and His Gods. New York: Grosset & Dunlap. p. 145.
- Wallace, William; Mitchell, John Malcolm (1911). . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 1 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 943.
Further reading
- Bakalis Nikolaos (2005). Handbook of Greek Philosophy: From Thales to the Stoics Analysis and Fragments, Trafford Publishing, Victoria, BC., ISBN 1-4120-4843-5
- Barnes J. (1979). The Presocratic Philosophers, Routledge, London, ISBN 0-7100-8860-4, and editions of 1982, 1996 and 2006
- Davison, J. A. (1953). "Protagoras, Democritus, and Anaxagoras". Classical Quarterly. 3 (n.s) (1–2): 33–45. S2CID 170730707.
- Gershenson, Daniel E. and OCLC 899834
- Graham, Daniel W. (1999). "Empedocles and Anaxagoras: Responses to Parmenides" Chapter 8 of Long, A. A. (1999) The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 159–180, ISBN 0-521-44667-8
- Guthrie, W. K. C. (1962). A History of Greek Philosophy. Vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Luchte, James (2011). Early Greek Thought: Before the Dawn. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-0-567-35331-3.
- JSTOR 4430850.
- Mansfield, J. (1980). "The Chronology of Anaxagoras' Athenian Period and the Date of His Trial". .
- Sandywell, Barry (1996). Presocratic Reflexivity: The Construction of Philosophical Discourse, c. 600–450 BC. Vol. 3. London: Routledge.
- Schofield, Malcolm (1980). An Essay on Anaxagoras. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-22722-3.
- Taylor, A.E. (1917). "On the Date of the Trial of Anaxagoras". Classical Quarterly. 11 (2): 81–87. .
- Taylor, C. C. W. (ed.) (1997). Routledge History of Philosophy: From the Beginning to Plato, Vol. I, pp. 192–225, ISBN 0-415-06272-1
- Teodorsson, Sven-Tage (1982). Anaxagoras' Theory of Matter. Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis, Göteborg, Sweden, ISBN 91-7346-111-3
- Torrijos-Castrillejo, David (2014) Anaxágoras y su recepción en Aristóteles. Romae: EDUSC, ISBN 978-88-8333-325-5(in Spanish)
- Warren, James (2007). "Anaxagoras". Presocratics. Stocksfield: Acumen. pp. 119–134. ISBN 978-1-84465-391-1.
- Wright, M.R. (1995). Cosmology in Antiquity. London: Routledge.
- Zeller, A. (1881). A History of Greek Philosophy: From the Earliest Period to the Time of Socrates, Vol. II, translated by S. F. Alleyne, pp. 321–394
External links
- Anaxagoras entry by Michael Patzia in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Anaxagoras", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews
- Translation and Commentary from John Burnet's Early Greek Philosophy.
- Works by or about Anaxagoras at Internet Archive
- Works by Anaxagoras at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)