Archelaus (philosopher)
Archelaus | |
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Pluralist school |
Archelaus (.
Life
Archelaus was a
Philosophy
No fragments of Archelaus have survived; his doctrines have to be extracted from
Archelaus held that air and infinity are the principle of all things, by which Pseudo-Plutarch[9] supposes that he meant infinite air; and we are told, that by this statement he intended to exclude Mind from the creation of the world.[10] If so, he abandoned the doctrine of Anaxagoras at its most important point; and it seems safer to conclude that while he wished to teach the materialist notion that the mind is formed of air, he still held infinite Mind to be the cause of all things. This explanation has the advantage of agreeing with Simplicius.[3]
Beginning with primitive Matter, (identical with air mingled with Mind), by a process of thickening and thinning, arose cold and warmth, or water and fire, the one passive, the other active.
Of the other doctrines of Archelaus, he asserted that the Earth was flat, but that the surface must be depressed towards the centre; for if it were absolutely level, the sun would rise and set everywhere at the same time.
Notes
- ^ a b c Laërtius 1925, § 16
- ^ Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, i.
- ^ a b Simplicius, in Phys. Aristot. fol. 6, b.
- ^ Suda, Archelaos
- ^ a b c Chisholm 1911.
- ^ Diogenes Laërtius, ii. 23 Archived 2010-03-02 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Plato, Phaedo, 96b
- ^ John Burnet 1911, Plato: Phaedo, p. 100.
- ^ Pseudo-Plutarch, Plac. Phil. i. 3.
- ^ Stobaeus, Ecl. Phys. i. 1, 2.
- ^ Hippolytus 1886, Chapter 8.
- ^ Pseudo-Plutarch, Plac. Phil. iv. 19.
Sources
- Hippolytus (1886). "Chapter 8. Archelaus; System Akin to that of Anaxagoras; His Origin of the Earth and of Animals; Other Systems". Refutation of All Heresies (Book I). Translated by John Henry MacMahon. — From Roberts, Alexander; Donaldson, James; Coxe, A. Cleveland, eds. (1886). Ante-Nicene Fathers. Vol. 5. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Company.
Lives of the Eminent Philosophers. Vol. 1:2. Translated by Hicks, Robert Drew(Two volume ed.). Loeb Classical Library. § 16.
Attribution
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Archelaus of Miletus". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 2 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 362.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1870). "Archelaus". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.
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