Anaximander

Through criticism and analysis of ancient traditions, Kahn reconstructs the pattern of Anaximander's thought using historical methods akin to the reconstructive techniques of comparative linguists.

Promoting a new, broadly interdisciplinary horizon for future studies in early Greek philosophy, Dirk L. Couprie, Robert Hahn, and Gerard Naddaf establish the cultural context in which Anaximander's thought developed and in which the origins of Greek philosophy unfolded in its earliest stages. In order to better understand Anaximander's achievement, the authors call our attention to the historical, social, political, technological, cosmological, astronomical, and observational contexts of his thought. Anaximander in Context brings to the forefront of modern debates the importance of cultural context, and the indispensability of images to clarify ancient ideologies.

Anaximander and the Architects opens a previously unexplored avenue into Presocratic philosophy—the technology of monumental architecture. The evidence, coming directly from sixth century B.C.E. building sites and bypassing Aristotle, shows how the architects and their projects supplied their Ionian communities with a sprouting vision of natural order governed by structural laws. Their technological innovations and design techniques formed the core of an experimental science and promoted a rational, not mythopoetical, discourse central to our understanding of the context in which early Greek philosophy emerged. Anaximander's prose book and his rationalizing mentality are illuminated in surprising ways by appeal to the ongoing, extraordinary projects of the archaic architects and their practical techniques.

Anaximander, the sixth-century BCE philosopher of Miletus, is often credited as being the instigator of both science and philosophy. The first recorded philosopher to posit the idea of the boundless cosmos, he was also the first to attempt to explain the origins of the world and humankind in rational terms. Anaximander's philosophy encompasses theories of justice, cosmogony, geometry, cosmology, zoology and meteorology. Anaximander: A Re-assessment draws together these wide-ranging threads into a single, coherent picture of the man, his worldview and his legacy to the history of thought. Arguing that Anaximander's statements are both apodeictic and based on observation of the world around him, Andrew Gregory examines how Anaximander's theories can all be construed in such a way that they are consistent with and supportive of each other. This includes the tenet that the philosophical elements of Anaximander's thought (his account of the apeiron, the extant fragment) can be harmonised to support his views on the natural world. The work further explores how these theories relate to early Greek thought and in particular conceptions of theogony and meterology in Hesiod and Homer.

Translated into English for the first time, an award-winning theoretical physicist discusses the theories of Anaximander, the sixth-century BC Greek philosopher, and examines the influence he had on scientific thinking in a historical and philosophical context.

This book offers an innovative analysis of the Greek philosopher Anaximander’s work. In particular, it presents a completely new interpretation of the key word Apeiron, or boundless, offering readers a deeper understanding of his seminal cosmology and, with it, his unique conception of the origin of the universe. Anaximander traditionally applied Apeiron to designate the origin of everything. The authors’ investigation of the extant sources shows, however, that this common view misses the mark. They argue that instead of reading Apeiron as a noun, it should be considered an adjective, with reference to the term phusis (nature), and that the phrase phusis apeiros may express the boundless power of nature, responsible for all creation and growth. The authors also offer an interpretation of Anaximander's cosmogony from a biological perspective: each further step in the differentiation of the phenomenal world is a continuation of the original separation of a fertile seed. This new reading of the first written account of cosmology stresses the central role of the boundless power of nature. It provides philosophers, researchers, and students with a thought-provoking explanation of this early thinker's conception of generation and destruction in the universe.

Through a close reading of two presocratic philosophers, Heidegger demonstrates that all of Western philosophy is rooted in the question of Being. This volume comprises a lecture course given at the University of Freiburg in 1932, five years after the publication of Being and Time. During this period, Heidegger was at the height of his creative powers, which are on full display in this clear and imaginative text. Heidegger analyses two of the earliest philosophical source documents, fragments by Greek thinkers Anaximander and Parmenides. Heidegger develops their common theme of Being and non-being and shows that the question of Being is indeed the origin of Western philosophy. His engagement with these Greek texts is as much of a return to beginnings as it is a potential reawakening of philosophical wonder and inquiry in the present.

The most striking merits of Guthrie's work are his mastery of a tremendous range of ancient literature and modern scholarship.