Anaxagoras of Clazomene . Greek philosopher, inconsistent materialist, ideologue of slave democracy. Accused of atheism , he was sentenced to death, but saved himself by leaving Athens. He recognized the infinite qualitative diversity of the primary elements of matter (“seeds of things”), later called homeomeries, from whose different combinations all existing things are formed. He considered that the driving force, determining the combination and separation of elementary particles, is the νούς (intelligence), understood as the lightest and finest substance. The Anaxagoras cosmogony explains the origin of the system of celestial bodies from the primitively disordered mixture of substances, as a result of their rotation in the form of a whirlwind. [1]
Summary
[ hide ]
- 1 Biographical synthesis
- 2 Cosmology
- 3 Contributions
- 4 Philosophy
- 5 Phrases
- 6 See also
- 7 External links
- 8 References
- 9 Sources
Biographical synthesis
From the middle of the 5th century BC. from. ne, Athens became the center of ancient Greek philosophical thought . The economic and political rise of Athens, which at the beginning of the 5th century BC. from. ne, spearheads the victorious rejection of the Persian invasion, created the premises for the future splendor of the arts. In the time of Pericles , prominent democratic statesman appears in Athens Philosophy. His first outstanding figure was Anaxagoras, whom Pericles introduced into his circle.
Anaxagoras (500-427 BC), was born in Clazomenae (near present-day İzmir, Turkey ). Anaxagoras was the first thinker to settle in Athens, later a leading philosophical center. Among his students were the Greek statesman Pericles, the Greek playwright Euripides , and perhaps also Socrates . Anaxagoras had taught in Athens for nearly thirty years when he was imprisoned on charges of impiety for suggesting that the Sun was a hot stone and the Moon came from Earth . Later he went to Ionia (in Asia Minor) and settled in Lampsacus (a colony of Miletus), where he died.
Cosmology
Image of Anaxagoras
Anaxagoras explained his philosophy in his Peri physeos, but only a few fragments of his books have survived. He maintained that all matter had existed in its primitive form as atoms or molecules ; that these atoms, infinitely numerous and infinitesimally small, had existed from eternity; and that the order that arose at the beginning of this infinite chaos of tiny atoms was the effect of the action of an eternal intelligence (nous). He also considered that all bodies are simple aggregations of atoms; Thus, a bar of gold, steel, or copper is made up of inconceivable minute particles of the same material.
Anaxagoras accepts the theory of the immutability of being, following in this the thought of Empedocles. But he makes an effort to reconcile the two tendencies: that of the immobility of being and that of eternal becoming. If Empedocles explained the constitution of beings from the quantitative point of view (based on the four elements), Anaxagoras will do so by appealing to the qualitative aspect. The constitutive particles are not four, but infinite. The point is that there are many qualitatively different germs (spérmata) in everything. Anaxagoras wonders how hair could arise from non-hair, for example. He comes to the conclusion that for something to arise it must first be present in what it comes from. That is to say: it arrives like this at the beginning Everything is in everything. There is here a precursor doctrine of the theory of atoms.
Anaxagoras placed the principle of all things (arché) in the nous (understanding), charged with giving order to the original chaos, and in his treatise On Nature , of which only a few fragments have reached us, he affirmed the indefinite divisibility of space and weather.
Contributions
The great contribution of Anaxagoras to philosophical thought is precisely to have introduced in the explanation of the universe the nous as the motive force of everything that exists. The entity of the nous is such that it is above any other reality. The nous “is infinite and autonomous, and it mixes with nothing”, and all things are impregnated with it. Aristotle warns well: “When he affirmed that there is a mind, both in living beings and in nature, a judicious man appeared among the folly who preceded him.”
His philosophy marks a great turning point in the history of Greek philosophy; his doctrine of the nous was adopted by Aristotle, and his interpretation of atoms paved the way for the atomic theory of the philosopher Democritus .
Anaxagoras also gave a great impulse to the investigation of nature based on experience, memory and technique. He is credited with rational explanations of eclipses and fish respiration, as well as research on the anatomy of the brain.
Philosophy
The essential purpose of Anaxagorian philosophy is to reconcile the eternity and indestructibility of true being, which the Eleatas had proclaimed, with the changes, movement and multiplicity of which the senses give us reason. For Anaxagoras, the universe is not a unit alien to diversity and multiplicity. The world is made up of an infinite number of germs or seeds that are subdivided into infinite particles. In each thing there is a particle of another. Just as there are hairs, nails, tendons, arteries, nerves, bones in germs, the other is present in all other things: for example, in white, black; in the black the white.
Phrases
- If you cheat on me once, it’s your fault; if you fool me two, it’s mine.
- Intelligence is the purest of all things. He has a total knowledge of everything and is the maximum force.
- Intelligence knows all things and ordered all the things that are going to be and those that were and those that are now and those that are not.
- Man is smart because he has hands.
- The spirit governs the universe.
- Science damages those who do not know how to use it as much as it is useful to others.
- It must be assumed that in everything that is combined there are many things of all kinds, and seeds of all things, which have different shapes and different colors and flavors.
- All things participate in everything, while intelligence is infinite and governs itself and is not mixed with anything.