The Philosophy Of Anaxagoras

Anaxagoras of Clazomenae (circa. 500 B.C.-428 B.C.) was reportedly the first Presocratic philosopher to settle in Athens. He was a friend of Pericles and his ideas are reflected in the works of Sophocles and Aristophanes. Anaxagoras asserted that Mind is the ordering principle of the cosmos, he explained solar eclipses, and he wrote on a myriad of astronomical, meteorological, and biological phenomena. His metaphysical claim that everything is in everything and his rejection of the possibility of coming to be or passing away are fundamental to all his other views. Because of his philosophical doctrines, Anaxagoras was condemned for impiety and exiled from Athens. This volume presents all of the surviving fragments of Anaxagoras's writings, both the Greek texts and original facing-page English translations for each. Generously supplemented, it includes detailed annotations, as well as five essays that consider the philosophical and interpretive questions raised by Anaxagoras. Also included are new translations of the ancient testimonia concerning Anaxagoras's life and work, showing the importance of the philosopher and his ideas for his contemporaries and successors. This is a much-needed and highly anticipated examination of Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, one of the forerunners of Greek philosophical and scientific thought.

Philosophia facta est, Quae philologia fuit. "It is indeed disastrous that of those earlier philosophic masters so little has remained, and that we have been deprived of anything complete. Because of that loss, we unintentionally measure them in wrong proportions and allow ourselves to be influenced against them by the merely accidental fact that Plato and Aristotle have never been short of praisers and copyists. . . . Probably the grandest part of Greek thought, and of its expression in words, has got lost." Friedrich Nietzsche, who wrote these sentences in 1873,* is quite right (save that he takes for an accident what certainly was not one). Plato, our great Plato, is really but an imposing synthesis, the ad mirable architect of a grand building, practically none of the stones of which come from himself. And Aristotle, as far as his philosophy is concerned, is apparently little else but a Plato deprived of his poetical make-up, those ostensible differences notwithstanding which Aristotle himself is given to emphasizing. The truly great ones, the giants, the really original thinkers, the pure philosopher types, these are in the time before Plato. Again: Nietzsche is right.

Anaxagoras of Clazomenae (Vth century BCE) is best known in the history of philosophy for his stance that there is a share of everything in everything. He puts forward this theory of extreme mixture as a solution to the problem of change he and his contemporaries inherited from Parmenides - that what is cannot come from what is not (and vice versa). Yet, for ancient and modern scholars alike, the metaphysical significance of Anaxagoras's position has proven challenging to understanding. In Everything in Everything, Anna Marmodoro offers a fresh interpretation of Anaxagoras's theory of mixture, arguing for its soundness and also relevance to contemporary debates in metaphysics. For Anaxagoras the fundamental elements of reality are the opposites (hot, cold, wet, dry, etc.), which Marmodoro argues are instances of physical causal powers. The unchanging opposites compose mereologically, forming (phenomenologically) emergent wholes. Everything in the universe (except nous) derives from the opposites. The opposite exist as endlessly partitioned; they can be scattered everywhere and be in everything. Mardomoro further shows that their extreme mixture is made possible by the omni-presence and hence com-presence in the universe, which is in turn facilitated by the limitless divisibility of the opposites. Anaxagoras tackles the logical consequences of the limitless divisibility of the elements. He is the first ante litteram 'gunk lover' in the history of metaphysics. He also has a unique conception of (non-material) gunk and a unique power ontology, which Marmodoro refers to as 'power gunk'. Marmodoro investigates the nature of power gunk and the explanatory utility of the concept for Anaxagoras, for his theory of extreme mixture. Whilst most defenders of an atomless universe nowadays argue for material gunk as a conceptual possibility (only), Anaxagoras argues for power gunk as the ontology of nature.

In this seminal work, Felix M. Cleve explores the philosophical ideas of Anaxagoras, a pre-Socratic philosopher who believed in the concept of nous, or 'mind', as the driving force behind the universe. Cleve delves into Anaxagoras's theories on cosmology, knowledge, and ethics, providing readers with a thorough understanding of this fascinating philosopher's ideas. This book is an essential read for anyone interested in the history of Western philosophy. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

In Science before Socrates, Daniel W. Graham argues against the belief that the Presocratic philosophers did not produce any empirical science and that the first major Greek science, astronomy, did not develop until at least the time of Plato. Instead, Graham proposes that the advances made by Presocratic philosophers in the study of astronomy deserve to be considered as scientific contributions.

Offers a selection from the Greek philosopher's major works, including Metaphysics, Logic, Physics, Psychology, Ethics, Politics and Poetics; along with a contemporary reevaluation showing his continuing influence in the modern world.