Responding to the claims ofParmenides on the impossibility of change, Anaxagoras introduced the concept ofNous (Cosmic Mind) as an ordering force. He also gave several novel scientific accounts of natural phenomena, including the notion ofpanspermia, that life exists throughout the universe and could be distributed everywhere. He deduced a correct explanation foreclipses and described the Sun as a fiery mass larger than thePeloponnese, and also attempted to explainrainbows andmeteors. He also speculated that the sun might be just another star.[1]
Anaxagoras was born in the town ofClazomenae in the early 5th century BC,[2] where he may have been born into an aristocratic family.[3][2] He arrived at Athens, either shortly after the Persian war (in which he may have fought on the Persian side),[4] or at some point when he was a bit older, around 456 BC.[2] While at Athens, he became close with the Athenian statesmanPericles.[2] According toDiogenes Laërtius andPlutarch, in later life he was charged withimpiety and went into exile inLampsacus; the charges may have been political, owing to his association withPericles, if they were not fabricated by later ancient biographers.[5] According to Laërtius, Pericles spoke in defense of Anaxagoras at his trial[a],c. 450. Even so, Anaxagoras was forced to retire from Athens toLampsacus inTroad (c. 434 – 433). He died ofstarvation there around the year 428. Citizens of Lampsacus erected an altar to Mind and Truth in his memory and observed the anniversary of his death for many years. They placed over his grave the following inscription:
Here Anaxagoras, who in his quest of truth scaled heaven itself, is laid to rest.[b][c]
Additionally, in his honor, the annual celebration known as theAnaxagoreia was established.[d]
Responding to the claims ofParmenides on the impossibility of change, Anaxagoras described the world as a mixture of primary imperishable ingredients, where material variation was never caused by an absolute presence of a particular ingredient, but rather by its relative preponderance over the other ingredients; in his words, "each one is... most manifestly those things of which there are the most in it".[6] He introduced the concept ofnous (cosmic mind) as an ordering force, which moved and separated the original mixture, which washomogeneous or nearly so.
Anaxagoras brought philosophy and the spirit of scientific inquiry fromIonia to Athens. According to Anaxagoras, all things have existed in some way from the beginning, but originally they existed in infinitesimally small fragments of themselves, endless in number and inextricably combined throughout the universe. All things existed in this mass but in a confused and indistinguishable form.[7] There was an infinite number of homogeneous parts (ὁμοιομερῆ) as well as heterogeneous ones.[7][8]
The work of arrangement, the segregation of like from unlike, and the summation of the whole into totals of the same name, was the work ofMind or Reason (νοῦς). Mind is no less unlimited than the chaotic mass, but it stood pure and independent, a thing of finer texture, alike in all its manifestations and everywhere the same. This subtle agent, possessed of all knowledge and power, is especially seen ruling all life forms.[e] Its first appearance, and the only manifestation of it which Anaxagoras describes, is Motion. It gave distinctness and reality to the aggregates of like parts.[7]
Decrease and growth represent a new aggregation (σὐγκρισις) and disruption (διάκρισις). However, the original intermixture of things is never wholly overcome.[7] Each thing contains parts of other things or heterogeneous elements, and is what it is only on account of the preponderance of certain homogeneous parts which constitute its character.[9] Out of this process arise the things we see in this world.[9]
Plutarch[f] says "Anaxagoras is said to have predicted that if the heavenly bodies should be loosened by some slip or shake, one of them might be torn away, and might plunge and fall to earth."
His observations of the celestial bodies and the fall ofmeteorites led him to form new theories of the universal order, and to the prediction of the impact of meteorites. According to Pliny[g], he was credited with predicting the fall of themeteorite in 467.[10] He was the first to give a correct explanation of eclipses, and was both famous and notorious for his scientific theories, including the claims that the Sun is a mass of red-hot metal, that the Moon is earthy, and that the stars are fiery stones.[h] He thought that the Earth was flat and floated supported by 'strong' air under it, and that disturbances in this air sometimes caused earthquakes.[i] He introduced the notion ofpanspermia, that life exists throughout the universe and could be distributed everywhere.[11][12]
He attempted to give a scientific account ofeclipses,meteors,rainbows, and theSun, which he described as a mass of blazing metal, larger than thePeloponnese; he also said that the Moon had mountains, and he believed that it was inhabited. The heavenly bodies, he asserted, were masses of stone torn from the Earth and ignited by rapid rotation.[7] His theories about eclipses, the Sun, and Moon may well have been based on observations of the eclipse of 463 BC,[j] which was visible in Greece.
Anaxagoras was one of the first to assert that the Moon reflectedsunlight and did not produce light by itself; a statement translated as “the sun induces the moon with brightness” was found in his writings.[13]
According toPlutarch in his workOn exile, Anaxagoras is the first Greek to attempt the problem ofsquaring the circle, a problem he worked on while in prison.[k]
Anaxagoras wrote a book of philosophy, but only fragments of the first part of this have survived, through preservation in the work ofSimplicius of Cilicia in the 6th century AD.[l]
Anaxagoras's book was reportedly available for a drachma in theAthenianmarketplace.[2] It was certainly known toSophocles,Euripides, andAristophanes, based on the contents of their surviving plays,[2] and possibly toAeschylus as well, based on the testimony ofSeneca.[2] However, although Anaxagoras almost certainly lived in Athens during the lifetime of Socrates (born 470 BC), there is no evidence that they ever met. In thePhaedo, Plato portrays Socrates saying of Anaxagoras as a young man: 'I eagerly acquired his books and read them as quickly as I could'. However, Socrates goes on to describe his later disillusionment with his philosophy.[m] Anaxagoras is also mentioned bySocrates during his trial inPlato'sApology.
He is also mentioned in Seneca's Natural Questions (Book 4B, originally Book 3: On Clouds, Hail, Snow). It reads: "Why should I too allow myself the same liberty as Anaxagoras allowed himself?"
The Roman authorValerius Maximus preserves a different tradition; Anaxagoras, coming home from a long voyage, found his property in ruin, and said: "If this had not perished, I would have"—a sentence described by Valerius as being "possessed of sought-after wisdom".[14][n]
Chapter 5 in Book II ofDe Docta Ignorantia (1440) byNicholas of Cusa is dedicated to the truth of the sentence "Each thing is in each thing" which he attributes to Anaxagoras.
Friedrich Nietzsche also frequently mentions Anaxagoras in the later chapters of his book entitledPhilosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks. He speaks fondly of Anaxagoras'snous, and defends the idea by claiming philosophers had "failed to recognize the meaning of Anaxagoras's [nous] ..." and believed that it was "perfectly sufficient for his insight to have found a motion which is capable ofcreating visible order in a thoroughly mixed chaos, by means of a simple continuous action."[15] Nietzsche believes it is essential to understand Anaxagoras's nous as a sort of act of free will, not determined by any previous action before.
The most recent edition of this catalogue isDiels, Hermann; Kranz, Walther (1957). Plamböck, Gert (ed.).Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (in Ancient Greek and German). Rowohlt.ISBN5-87560-741-6. Retrieved11 April 2022.{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
Curd, Patricia, ed. (2007).Anaxagoras of Clazomenae. Fragments and Testimonia: A Text and Translation with Notes and Essays. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Graham, Daniel W. (2010).The Texts of Early Greek Philosophy: The Complete Fragments and Selected Testimonies of the Major Presocratics, Part 1. New York: Cambridge University Press.ISBN978-0-521-73763-0.
Sider, David (ed.),The Fragments of Anaxagoras, with introduction, text, and commentary, Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag, 2005.
Kirk G. S.;Raven, J. E. and Schofield, M. (1983)The Presocratic Philosophers: a critical history with a selection of texts (2nd ed.) Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,ISBN0-521-25444-2; originally authored by Kirk and Raven and published in 1957OCLC870519
Burnet J. (1892).Early Greek Philosophy A. & C. Black, London,OCLC4365382, and subsequent editions, 2003 edition published by Kessinger, Whitefish, Montana,ISBN0-7661-2826-1
Couprie, Dirk (2004). "How Thales Was Able to "Predict" a Solar Eclipse Without the Help of Alleged Mesopotamian Wisdom".Early Science and Medicine.9 (4):321–337.doi:10.1163/1573382043004631.ISSN1383-7427.
Bakalis Nikolaos (2005).Handbook of Greek Philosophy: From Thales to the Stoics Analysis and Fragments, Trafford Publishing, Victoria, BC.,ISBN1-4120-4843-5
Barnes J. (1979).The Presocratic Philosophers, Routledge, London,ISBN0-7100-8860-4, and editions of 1982, 1996 and 2006
Gershenson, Daniel E. andGreenberg, Daniel A. (1964)Anaxagoras and the birth of physics, Blaisdell Publishing Co., New York,OCLC899834
Graham, Daniel W. (1999). "Empedocles and Anaxagoras: Responses to Parmenides" Chapter 8 of Long, A. A. (1999)The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 159–180,ISBN0-521-44667-8
Guthrie, W. K. C. (1962).A History of Greek Philosophy. Vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Luchte, James (2011).Early Greek Thought: Before the Dawn. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.ISBN978-0-567-35331-3.
