Anaximander: And the Nature of Science

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Friedrich Nietzsche, Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Gateway, 1962). As Rovelli’s fans will expect, this book is excellent. It is never less than engaging, and enviably compendious.”— The Telegraph (UK) It seems that Anaximander not only put forward the thesis that the Boundless is the principle, but also tried to argue for it. We might say that he was the first who made use of philosophical arguments. Anaximander’s arguments have come down to us in the disguise of Aristotelian jargon. Therefore, any reconstruction of the arguments used by the Milesian must remain conjectural. Verbatim reconstruction is of course impossible. Nevertheless, the data, provided they are handled with care, allow us to catch glimpses of what the arguments of Anaximander must have looked like. The important thing is, however, that he did not just utter apodictic statements, but also tried to give arguments. This is what makes him the first philosopher. a. The Boundless has No Origin For him, it became no longer a mere point in time, but a source that could perpetually give birth to whatever will be. The indefiniteness is spatial in early usages as in Homer (indefinite sea) and as in Xenophanes (6th century BC) who said that the Earth went down indefinitely (to apeiron) i.e. beyond the imagination or concept of men. [26]

A column of stone", Aetius reports in De Fide (III, 7, 1), or "similar to a pillar-shaped stone", pseudo-Plutarch (III, 10).

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The Anaximander (31st) High School of Thessaloniki, Greece is named after Anaximander. [77] Works [ edit ] It defies common sense but it happens to be true. Anaximander held that the Earth was a flattened cylinder, which is less true but does not undermine his achievement. As Rovelli argues, it is the conceptual shift that opens the questions of the Earth’s shape and size in the first place (the former firmly established as a sphere within a century after Anaximander, and the latter measured quite accurately by the third century BC). It is the power to produce such a shift that makes Anaximander special, and which, in Rovelli’s view, makes him the father of scientific thought. It is with him that “a search for knowledge based on the rejection of any obvious-seeming ‘certainty’” begins. He is, in short, Rovelli’s hero, and Anaximander and the Nature of Science sets out to show how important he was. As Rovelli’s fans will expect, this book is excellent. It is also a chance to see a slightly different Rovelli in action. Just hitting English shelves now, it was in fact published seven years before his million-copy-selling Seven Brief Lessons on Physics (2014) made him a star. Compared to his later books, Anaximander is both a little more guarded and a little more combative – and a little less convincing, when he strays into arguments about myth and religious thought – but it is never less than engaging, and enviably compendious. Despite its modest length Rovelli finds room for everything from a brief history of ancient Greek colonialism to critiques of Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn, with disquisitions on religion, myth and Chinese astronomy thrown in for free. It also has the merit, for those of us who just cannot quite grasp quantum gravity, of leaving the Earth solid beneath our feet. Anaximander held an evolutionary view of living things. The first creatures originated from the moist element by evaporation. Man originated from some other kind of animal, such as fish, since man needs a long period of nurture and could not have survived if he had always been what he is now. Anaximander also discussed the causes of meteorological phenomena, such as wind, rain, and lightning. The Oxford Literary Festival has in my mind become the leading literary festival of the year. The organisation, the roster of speakers, the ambience and the sheer quality of it all is superb. May it now go from strength to strength each year stretching its ambition more and more. I believe it will.

The above two works each have a good survey of Anaximander’s thoughts in the context of ancient Greek philosophy, with translations of the most important doxography. Anaximander, (born 610 bce, Miletus [now in Turkey]—died 546 bce), Greek philosopher who was the first to develop a cosmology, or systematic philosophical view of the world. He saw the sea as a remnant of the mass of humidity that once surrounded Earth. [60] A part of that mass evaporated under the Sun's action, thus causing the winds and even the rotation of the celestial bodies, which he believed were attracted to places where water is more abundant. [61] He explained rain as a product of the humidity pumped up from Earth by the sun. [9] For him, the Earth was slowly drying up and water only remained in the deepest regions, which someday would go dry as well. According to Aristotle's Meteorology (II, 3), Democritus also shared this opinion. According to Simplicius, Anaximander already speculated on the plurality of worlds, similar to atomists Leucippus and Democritus, and later philosopher Epicurus. These thinkers supposed that worlds appeared and disappeared for a while, and that some were born when others perished. They claimed that this movement was eternal, "for without movement, there can be no generation, no destruction". [54] These accomplishments are often attributed to him, notably by Diogenes Laertius (II, 1) and by the Roman historian Eusebius of Caesarea, Preparation for the Gospel (X, 14, 11).

Anaximander's realization that the Earth floats free without falling and does not need to be resting on something has been indicated by many as the first cosmological revolution and the starting point of scientific thinking. [45] Karl Popper calls this idea "one of the boldest, most revolutionary, and most portentous ideas in the whole history of human thinking." [46] Such a model allowed the concept that celestial bodies could pass under the Earth, opening the way to Greek astronomy. Rovelli suggests that seeing the stars circling the Pole star, and both vanishing below the horizon on one side and reappearing above it on the other, would suggest to the astronomer that there was a void both above and below the Earth. [47] The sight of stars circling the Pole star and vanishing and reappearing at the horizon could have suggested to Anaximander that the Earth was surrounded above and below by a void. [47] Cosmology [ edit ] Map of Anaximander's universe Several sources give another argument which is somehow the other way round and answers the question of why the origin should be boundless. In Aristotle’s version, it runs like this: “(The belief that there is something Boundless stems from) the idea that only then genesis and decay will never stop, when that from which is taken what has been generated, is boundless” (Physics 203b18-20, DK 12A15, other versions in DK12A14 and 12A17). In this argument, the Boundless seems to be associated with an inexhaustible source. Obviously, it is taken for granted that “genesis and decay will never stop,” and the Boundless has to guarantee the ongoing of the process, like an ever-floating fountain. c. The “Long Since” Argument We may distinguish roughly two lines of interpretation, which may be labeled the “horizontal” and the “vertical.” The horizontal interpretation holds that in the fragment nothing is said about the relation of the things to the Boundless, whereas the vertical interpretation maintains that the fragment describes the relationship of the things to the Boundless. The upholders of the horizontal interpretation usually do not deny that Anaximander taught that all things are generated from the Boundless, but they simply hold that this is not what is said in the fragment. They argue that the fragment describes the battle between the elements (or of things in general), which accounts for the origin and destruction of things. The most obvious difficulty, however, for this “horizontal” interpretation is that it implies two cycles of becoming and decay: one from and into the Boundless, and the other caused by the mutual give and take of the elements or things in general. In other words, in the “horizontal” interpretation the Boundless is superfluous. This is the strongest argument in favor of the “vertical” interpretation, which holds that the fragment refers to the Boundless, notwithstanding the plural relative pronouns. According to the “vertical” interpretation, then, the Boundless should be regarded not only as the ever-flowing fountain from which everything ultimately springs, but also as the yawning abyss (as some say, comparable with Hesiod’s “Chaos”) into which everything ultimately perishes.

The only existing fragment of Anaximander’s book (DK 12B1) is surrounded by all kinds of questions. The ancient Greeks did not use quotation marks, so that we cannot be sure where Simplicius, who has handed down the text to us, is still paraphrasing Anaximander and where he begins to quote him. The text is cast in indirect speech, even the part which most authors agree is a real quotation. One important word of the text (“allêlois,” here translated by “upon one another”) is missing in some manuscripts. As regards the interpretation of the fragment, it is heavily disputed whether it means to refer to Anaximander’s principle, the Boundless, or not. The Greek original has relative pronouns in the plural (here rendered by “whence” and “thence”), which makes it difficult to relate them to the Boundless. However, Simplicius’ impression that it is written in rather poetic words has been repeated in several ways by many authors. Therefore, we offer a translation, in which some poetic features of the original, such as chiasmus and alliteration have been imitated: In addition to Simplicius, Hippolytus [55] reports Anaximander's claim that from the infinite comes the principle of beings, which themselves come from the heavens and the worlds (several doxographers use the plural when this philosopher is referring to the worlds within, [56] which are often infinite in quantity). Cicero writes that he attributes different gods to the countless worlds. [57]Dirk L. Couprie; Robert Hahn; Gerard Naddaf (1 February 2012). Anaximander in Context: New Studies in the Origins of Greek Philosophy. State University of New York Press. pp.1, 167. ISBN 978-0-7914-8778-5. OCLC 1018071798.