Anaximander

Anaximander (in ancient Greek Ἀναξίμανδρος; Miletus, Ionia; c. 610 BC-c. 546 BC) was a philosopher and geographer of Ancient Greece. A disciple and follower of Thales, as well as a companion and teacher of Anaximenes, he considered that the beginning of all things was the ápeiron .

Only one book is attributed to him, known under the title On Nature. The book has been lost and his word has reached the present day through doxographic comments by other authors. also a terrestrial chart, the measurement of the solstices and equinoxes by means of a gnomon, works to determine the distance and size of the stars and the affirmation that the Earth is cylindrical and occupies the center of the universe.

Biography

Anaximandro, detail in The school of Athens.

Anaximander, son of Praxiades, was born in Miletus during the third year of the 42nd Olympiad (610 BC). According to Apollodorus of Athens, he was 64 during the second year of the 58th Olympiad (547-546 BCE) and died shortly thereafter, having lived mainly in the time of Polycrates, tyrant of Samos (538-522 BCE).

A compatriot and student of Thales, he also seems to have been one of his relatives (according to the Suda). Anaximander's death was contemporary with the birth of Heraclitus.

In his Discourses, Themistius mentions that Anaximander would have been "the first of the Greeks known to publish a written work on nature" and, for this very fact, his texts would have been among the first Greek documents written in prose.

However, there is no mention of his texts before Aristotle, and for that reason it is sometimes assumed that, by Plato's time, his philosophy had fallen into oblivion; it was Aristotle who rediscovered it, and it is due to Aristotle, Theophrastus, and various doxographers that fragments of it have been preserved.Theophrastus wrote that Anaximander was the first to call the universe the world.

The Lives, Opinions and Sentences of the Most Illustrious Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius recount that Anaximander, singing on a certain occasion, was mocked by the boys, and having warned him, he said: «It is necessary to sing better because of the boys."

According to Aeliano, the Milesians would have entrusted him with directing a colony in Apollonia, on the Thracian coast of Pontus Euxino, which suggests that he was a citizen of some notoriety. Aeliano explains, in the Various History , that philosophers sometimes left the comfort of their thoughts to deal with political matters. It is very likely that he was sent as a legislator to provide a constitution or even to hold power there on behalf of Miletus.

Thought

Anaximander was considered by most ancient authors as the first thinker to adopt a naturalistic view of things. Thus, his contributions paved the way for the study of physics, geography, meteorology or biology as we know them, and helped to change the way of thinking about the world. In this sense, he is considered the initiator of a paradigm shift in knowledge, based on the rational investigation of nature.

The question of the arche

For Anaximander, the arjé is the ápeiron (from a: privative particle; and pears:, 'limit, perimeter'), that is, the indefinite, indeterminate and unlimited. What is the determining principle of all reality must be indeterminate, and precisely apeiron abstractly designates this quality. The apeiron is eternal, always active and self-moving. This is immortal, indestructible, unborn and imperishable and from him all things are generated. Everything goes out and everything returns to the apeiron according to a necessary cycle. From it the substances opposed to each other in the world are separated and, when one prevails over the other, a reaction is produced that restores the balance according to necessity, since they pay mutual penalty and retribution for their injustice according to the disposition of time.

This text is preserved from Anaximander, which is the oldest philosophical text that has been maintained over time and which, according to Themistius, is the first Greek text written in prose:

The principle (Arj) of all things is the undetermined (apeiron). Now, where there is a generation for things, there is also destruction, according to necessity; in fact, they pay the guilt one to another and the reparation of injustice, according to the order of time.. Anaximandro.

“Injustice” can have two meanings. First, that all individual existence and all becoming is a usurpation against the arché, insofar as being born, being individuated, is separating from the primitive unity. And second, that the beings that separate from the arché are condemned to oppose each other, to commit injustice with each other: heat commits injustice in summer and cold in winter. The future is animated by the unilaterality of each part, expressed before the others as an opposition.

Cosmology

probable aspect of the lost first map of the World, devised by Anaximandro.

In Anaximander there is already a cosmology that describes the formation of the cosmos by a rotation process that separates what is hot from what is cold. Fire occupies the periphery of the world and can be seen through those holes we call stars. The earth, cold and humid, occupies the center.

Anaximander postulates that the opposites are united in the apeiron, and separate to form all things leveled by certain cycles of dominance of each one. Thus, the world was formed when the cold was separated from the hot, the Earth (cold) surrounded by an igneous layer and another layer of inner air was formed. This layer broke (somehow) and this destabilization produced the birth of the Sun, the Moon and the stars. The Sun and the Moon are understood as rings of fire and air that surround the Earth; The Sun is 27 or 28 times larger (in diameter) than the Earth, and the Moon 18 times. However, we only see a part of these stars, through some holes in the celestial vault. About the stars and planets there is no clarity. To the radii of these rings or wheels that hold the stars, the Moon and the Sun assign different numerical magnitudes, placing them at different distances from the Earth; Thus, the Milesian philosopher breaks with the traditional idea that there was a celestial vault or dome —as the upper limit of the world— through which the stars moved, and he was able to intuit the depth of the sky and introduce the idea of the cosmos for the first time like an open space.

Anaximander empirically observes a decrease in water in the geographical areas he knows, and from this he deduces that "the Earth is drying up". This could be understood as the "vindication" of what is hot and dry (sky, Sun, Moon) against what is humid and cold (known world), indicating that the roles will soon be reversed.

For Anaximander, the Earth is shaped like a cylinder or drum. But the revolutionary concept that he expounded for the first time was to present our planet as a finite body that floats in equilibrium on space; that is, both above and below the Earth there is heaven. This idea has been described as revolutionary for the evolution of scientific thought; in the words of the philosopher of science Karl Popper: "This idea of Anaximander is one of the most daring, revolutionary and portentous ideas in the entire history of human thought [...] opened the way to the theories of Aristarchus, Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo".

Physics

Regarding atmospheric and terrestrial phenomena, he sought their explanation in naturalistic terms, without granting any causal role in them to myths and gods. According to Hippolytus, "[Anaximander maintains that] the rains are born from the vapor that springs from the things that are under the Sun"; Aetius and Seneca have transmitted to us that "[about thunder, lightning, lightning, hurricanes and typhoons] Anaximander says that all these phenomena occur because of the wind"; Aetius also says: "The winds arise when the finer vapors of the air are separated and set in motion when they come together." And so many other sources such as Amiano Marcelino, who has recorded Anaximander's explanation about the occurrence of earthquakes.

The originality of these explanatory theories lies in their total assumption of the physical nature of meteorological phenomena, being the first author we know of who referred to their origin in this way, without considering traditional religious explanations.

Generation of species

The first animals arose from water or silt heated by the Sun; from water they passed to land. Men are descended from fish, an idea that anticipates modern evolutionary theory.

By pure methodical observation, he concludes that life must have begun in water, with "beings wrapped in spiny bark" (Aetius) or scales. The Sun was evaporating "the humid", and in this species of slime, the men arose from these first creatures. For Anaximander (according to Plutarch) man is too weak to have survived as such in more hostile times; For this reason, he must necessarily come from animals similar to fish, which had greater protection and, in turn, offered protection and shelter to their young for a long time after their birth.

Fragments and testimonies of Anaximander

Timeline

• (D-K 12 A 1) D. Laercio, II 2: Apoldore of Athens... in his Chronicles says that [Anaximandro] was sixty-four years old in the second year of the 58th Olympiad (547-546 B.C.), and died shortly thereafter; so he reached his acronym in the time of Polícrates, Samos tyrant.
• (D-K 12 A 11) Hippolyte, Ref. I 6, 1-7: From Tales became a disciple Anaximandro... Anaximandro de Mileto, son of Praxíades, was born in the third year of the 42nd Olympics (610 BC).

Writings. The first prose book

• (D-K 12 A 7) Temistio, Orat. 36 p. 317: [Anaximandro] was the first of the Greeks we know who dared to publish a prose treaty on nature.
• (D-K 12 A 2) Suda: "write about nature", an Earth Perimeter, About fixed stars, a celestial sphere and some others...

Inventions and anecdotes

• (D-K 12 A 1) D. Laercio, II, 1-2: Anaximandro, son of Praxíades of Mileto, said that the beginning and the element is the indefinite, without distinguishing the air, water or anything else... was also the first to invent a gnomon and placed it on the watches of Sol in Lacedmonia, as Favorino says in his varia history, and built the solccios. He was the first to trace the perimeter of the Earth and the sea and also built a celestial sphere.
• (D-K 12 A 3) Herodote, II, 109: The Greeks acquired from the Babylonians the knowledge of the celestial sphere, of the gnomon, and of the twelve parts of the day.
• (D-K 12 A 6) Agathemero, Geographiae informatio, I, 1: Anaximandro de Mileto, disciple of Tales, was the first to dare to draw the land inhabited on a tablet. After him, Hecateo de Mileto, a man who traveled a lot, perfected him, so he produced admiration.
• (D-K 12 A 6) Strabon, I, 7: Eratosthenes says that the first [students of geography] after Homer were two: Anaximandro, friend and fellow citizen of Tales, and Hecateo of Mileto. The first published a geographical map, while Hecateo left a sketch that can be believed to be his for the rest of his writings.
• (D-K 12 A 5.a) Cicero, De divinitate, I, 50, 112: The laces were warned by the physicist Anaximandro that they would leave the city and the houses and spend the night prepared in the field, because an earthquake was near. On that occasion the entire city collapsed and the summit of Mount Taigeto was broken as the stern of a ship.
• (D-K 12 A 3) Ael., Hist. Several III, 17: And Anaximandro was set in front of the colony of Mileto in Apolonia.

The "apeiron"

Lo apêiron as content of the arché

• (D-K 12 A 9) Simplicity, Fís. 24:13-25: among those who say that it is one, in motion and infinite, Anaximandro de Mileto, the son of Praxíades, who was successor and disciple of Tales, said that the beginning and element of all existing things was the apeiron [indefinite or infinite], and was the first to introduce this name of "Arché" or beginning. He affirms that this is not water or any other of the so-called elements, but some other nature they have attached, from which all the heavens and the worlds in them are generated. Now, from where there is a generation for things, there is also destruction, "according to necessity; in fact, they pay each other guilt and retribution for their injustice, according to the disposition of time", thus speaking of these things in rather poetic terms.
• (D-K 12 A 10) Ps. Plutarco, Strom. 2: Anaximandro, a companion of Tales, says that he was attached is the whole cause of the generation and destruction of all.
• (D-K 12 A 11) Hippolyte, Ref., I 6, 2: Anaximandro... this said that the beginning and element of things is the one that appealed, being the first to use this name of principle.
• (12-14) Aecio, I, 3, 3: Anaximandro... said that the beginning of things is the same thing, for from it all things are generated and in it all perish.

Ápeiron as a mixture and as an intermediate element

• (D-K 12-16) Arist., Fís. I 4, 187a: some think that from the one the opposites are separated, as Anaximandro says, and how many claim that there is one and the multiple, such as Empédocles and Anaxagoras: for they also separate the other things from the mixture.
• Arist. II 1, 328b, 34-35: some say that the substrate matter of these [sensitive bodies] is one, thinking that it is air or fire or something intermediate (metaxiù) between them.
• Arist. II 5, 332a, 19-25: it is not of one of these [four elements] from which all things proceed, nor of something other than these, as something intermediate (meson) between air and water or between air and fire, more dense than air and fire, and more subtle than the others..., from where it follows that it is not possible that [the intermediate] will ever be reduced to one, as some say.

Gónimos and the generation of opposites

• (D-K 12 A 10) Ps. Plutarco, Strom, 2: also says that, in the generation of this cosmos, the germ (tò gonimon) of the hot and the cold was segregated from the eternal, and that from it came a sphere of flames around the air that surrounds the earth, as a bark around the tree; when [the sphere] was broken and locked [their flames] in some circles, the sun was formed.
• (D-K 12 A 9) Simplicity, Fís. 24, 23-25: [Anaximandro] does not derive the generation of the alteration of the element, but from the separation of the opposites by the work of the eternal movement. Therefore Aristotle connects him with the disciples of Anaxagoras.
• Simplify, Fís. 150, 20-25: it does not explain the generations by substrate alteration, but by separation, because the opposites are contained in the substrate, which is a body attached, and they separate, according to Anaximandro, the first that called the substrate principle. The opposites are: hot, cold, dry, wet, and others.

They epitomized it as different from the four elements

• D-K 12 A 16) Arist., Fís. G 5, 204b: there are some, in fact, who assume that this [that which exists outside the elements] is admonished, and not air or water, so that the other elements are not destroyed because they are attached to one of them, for the elements are contrary to one another: as for example, the air is cold, the wet water, the hot fire; and if one were attached, the others would be destroyed. That's why they say that what they come from is different.
• Simpl, Fís. 479-480: and that none of the elements may be admonished is evident also because Anaximandro, wishing that the element should be adduced, did not propose that it be air, fire, or any of the four elements; for when they behaved against each other, if any of them were attached, their opposites would be destroyed by him.

The Cosmos

• (D-K 12-18) Aecio, II, 15, 6: Anaximandro, Metrodoro de Quíos and Crates de Malos say that above all the Sun is bet, after it the Moon and under them fixed stars and planets.
• (D-K 12-18) Aecio, II, 16, 5: Anaximandro says that the stars are dragged by the circles and spheres on which each star rides.
• (D-K 12 A 11) Hippolyte, Ref., I 6, 4: the stars are generated as a circle of fire, separated from the fire of the world, surrounded by air... The circle of the Sun is 27 times greater than that of the Earth and 18 that of the Moon.
• (D-K 12 A 21) Aecio II, 24, 2: Anaximandro says that the eclipse of the sun occurs when the opening of exhalation of the fire is obstructed.
• (D-K 12 A 11) Hippolyte, Ref. I, 6, 3: the earth is suspended in the air, and nothing sustains it. He remains in his place because of his equidistance of all things.
• (D-K 12 A 10) Ps. Plutarco, Strom., 2: says that the Earth has a cylindrical shape, and its thickness (height) is a third of its width.
• (D-K 12 A 11) Hippolyte, Ref. I, 6, 3: its form [the Earth's] is circular, round, like a stone column; we move on one of its flat surfaces, for there is another antipod.
• (D-K 12-25) Aecio, III, 10, 2: Anaximandro says the Earth looks like a stone column.
• (D-K 12 A 27) Alexander, In Arist. Meteor., 67, 3: indeed, some of them say that the sea is a residue of primitive humidity; for the space surrounding the earth was wet. Then a part of the humidity evaporated because of the sun and became winds, and therefore also in rotations of the Sun and the Moon,... As for the part that remained in the concavities of the earth, it is sea. Therefore, by being dried by the Sun, it is diminishing and there will come a time when it will dry completely. From this opinion, according to Teofrasto, were Anaximandro and Diogenes.

Origin of animals and man

• (D-K 12-30) Aecio, V, 19, 4: Anaximandro says that the first living creatures were born in the wet, surrounded by spiny crusts, but as they advanced in age, they moved to the dryest, and when the bark was broken, they lived, for a little while, a different life.
• (D-K 12 A 10) Ps. Plutarco, Strom. 2: further says that man originally came from animals of other species, because the other species are fed soon by themselves, and only man needs a long period of breeding. Therefore, if it had originally been as it is [now], it would not have been able to survive.
• (D-K 12 A 30) Censorino, 4, 7: Anaximandro de Mileto thought that from the water and the hot land a fish or animals similar to fish originated: in these men grew held in their interior, as if they were fetuses, until puberty; only then did those break up and men and women who could already feed themselves.

Plurality of worlds

• (D-K 12 A 10) Ps. Plutarco, Strom., 2: Anaximandro... says that they attached it is the whole cause of the generation and destruction of everything, from which — he says — the heavens are segregated and in general all the worlds, which are infinite.
• (D-K 12-17) Simplicio, Fis. 1121, 5: for those who assumed that the worlds were infinite in number, as the followers of Anaximandro, Leucipo and Democritus and, after them, those of Epicuro, assumed that they were born and perceived for an infinite time, always being born and perishing others; and they affirmed that the movement was eternal...
• (D-K 12-17) Augustine, Civ. Dei, VIII, 2: did not think (Anaximandro) that every thing was born of one, like Tales of the water, but of its own principles, and believed that the principles of the singular things were infinite and gave origin to countless worlds and to how many things that are born in them; and he maintained that these worlds, praying, are dissolved, praying, are born again, according to the age to which each one.

Eponymy

• The moon crater Anaximander carries this name in his memory.
• The asteroid (6006) Anaximandros also commemorates its name.