By: A.C. Grayling
Thales’ pupil Anaximander rather startlingly fast-forwards the concept of the arche, saying that it is the apeiron, ‘the unbounded’ or ‘indefinite’ or ‘infinite’. This is a remarkable leap from the idea that the arche must consist of some form of matter. Unlike his teacher, he wrote a book, ‘On Nature’, Peri Phuseos, and a quotation from it by Simplicius counts as the very first recorded words of philosophy.
Like all the early philosophers, Anaximander was a man of many abilities. He is credited with being the first person to draw a map of the entire world, as the world was then thought to be; and he is said to have predicted an earthquake. The ability to foresee awesome natural phenomena (Thales had his eclipse) seems to have been a mark of genius attributed by later writers, for whereas eclipses might – with difficulty – have been predictable in those days, the ability to predict earthquakes is still, so far, largely beyond science.
Anaximander was said by Eusebius to have developed gnomons for identifying ‘solstices, timespans, hours [horai] and equinoxes’. Modern scholarship suggests that what he made was a sundial for marking the seasons – not the hours of the day; apparently no sundial for telling the time of day has been recorded as existing before 350 BCE, and horai anyway meant both hours and seasons. Diogenes Laertius reports that Anaximander erected a gnomon in Sparta. As this suggests, he travelled; he is said among other things to have been involved in establishing a Milesian colony on the shores of the Black Sea. Anaximander thought that humans came originally from fish, which looks like an anticipation of evolutionary theory but to think so would be to ‘read in’ present ideas to what superficially sounds suggestive in ancient ideas. In any case he said we should not eat fish, on the grounds that they are our kin. He said that the sun is pure fire and is not, as most people appear to have then believed, smaller than the earth. He said that the moon shines by reflecting light from the sun, and that rain comes from vapors that rise and condense into clouds. He attempted calculations of the relative sizes of the sun, moon and earth, and said that the earth is cylindrical; it is a short fat cylinder, and the upper flat end is where we live, surrounded by an ocean. Diogenes Laertius, however, says that he thought the earth is spherical. In either case the earth hangs motionless in the midst of the infinite, having no more reason to fall than to rise, or indeed to move in any direction at all.
Anaximander’s most distinctive thesis, however, concerns the arche. He said that the apeiron, ‘the infinite’ or ‘indefinite’, is that from which everything comes into being and into which everything finally reverts, by a process which is like reciprocity or compensation. Those famous first-ever words of philosophy, as quoted by Simplicius, express this idea: ‘where things have their origin there too their passing away occurs according to necessity; they pay justice and reparation to one another for their injustice in conformity with the ordinance of time.’ The concept at work is that nature operates according to laws, and when they are disturbed ‘reparation’ sets in to restore their proper operation. When ‘justice’ is interpreted as ‘balance’ the point becomes yet clearer. His view is reported at more length by Plutarch thus: ‘the infinite is the universal cause of the generation and destruction of the universe. From it the heavens were separated off and in general all the worlds, infinite in number. He asserted that destruction, and, much earlier, generation occur from time immemorial, all the same things being renewed.’
The reasoning behind Anaximander’s view is suggested by Aristotle in the Physics, where he discusses why it might be held that the infinite is the principle of things. First he notes that the infinite can have no other purpose than to be a principle, and can itself have no principle – that is, cannot derive from anything more fundamental than itself, for if it did it would not be a principle. The idea of the infinite is attractive, Aristotle remarks, when we think of the nature of time, and also of mathematics. Moreover, if it is held that ‘the region outside the heavens is infinite, then body and worlds also seem to be infinite, for why should there be “here” rather than “there” in the void? If body is anywhere, then it is everywhere. Again, if void and space are infinite, body too must be infinite – for with eternal things there is no difference between being possible and being actual.’ And Aristotle then identifies a consideration that might relate more closely to Anaximander’s view: that ‘generation and destruction will come to an end unless there is something infinite from which what comes into being is subtracted.’
The range of Anaximander’s interests is impressive, as is the nature of his thinking. His ideas are imaginative and striking – from drawing a map of the world to measuring time and the seasons and the relative sizes of the sun and moon, to conceiving of nature’s laws and their balance, of a plurality of worlds, and finally of the cosmos itself as emerging from the infinite – all this indicates a gifted and ingenious mind. Among the early Ionian philosophers he is the most imaginative.
Taken from the book History of philosophy.
