Chapter 11 Chapter Eight: Anaxagoras

The philosopher Anaxagoras, though not on a par with Pythagoras, Heraclitus, and Parmenides, nonetheless had considerable historical importance.He was an Ionian, and continued the Ionian tradition of science and rationalism.He was the first to introduce philosophy to the Athenians, and the first to suggest that the mind might be the primary cause of physical change. He was born about 500 BC at Crasmene, Ionia, but spent about thirty years of his life in Athens, about 462-432 BC.He was probably attracted by Pericles, who was at this time engaged in civilizing his countrymen.Perhaps it was Asbacia from Miletus who introduced him to Pericles.Plato said in Phaedro:

Pericles "seems to be quite congenial to Anaxagoras, a scientist; Pericles studied theories of celestial After the knowledge of the nature of nature—which is the chief thing of which Anaxagoras speaks—draws from this source all that will enhance his own art of oratory.: Anaxagoras is also said to have influenced Euripides, but this is even more doubtful. The citizens of Athens, like those of other cities at other times and elsewhere, expressed a hostility towards those who tried to introduce a culture of a higher order than that to which they were accustomed.When Pericles grew old, his opponent began a struggle against Pericles by attacking his friend.They accused Phidias of embezzling the gold for his statue.They passed a law allowing the exposure of those who did not practice religion and preached theories about various "things above".Under this law they prosecuted Anaxagoras, who was charged with preaching that the sun was a red-hot stone and the moon was earth. (Socrates' censors repeated the same indictment, and Socrates derided them as obsolete.) What happened is uncertain, except that Anaxagoras had to leave Athens.It seems probable that Pericles managed to get him out of prison by getting him out.He returned to Ionia and founded a school.According to his will, the anniversary of his death was designated as a holiday for the students.

Anaxagoras believed that all things can be divided infinitely, and even the smallest bit of matter contains various elements.What things express is what they contain most.Thus, for example, everything contains some fire, but we can call it fire only when the element of fire predominates.Like Empedocles, he also makes an argument against the void, saying that the hourglass or puffed skin shows that there is air where there seems to be nothing.Unlike his predecessors, he considered the mind (nous) also to be a substance that participates in the composition of living bodies, and he distinguished them from dead matter.He said: Every thing contains a part of every thing except the mind; but some things also contain the mind.The mind has power over all living things, it is infinite, and self-governing; it does not mix with anything.Every thing, however small, except the mind, contains a part of all opposites, such as hot and cold, white and black.He asserts that the snow (some parts) is black.

The heart is the root of all movement.It creates a rotation which gradually spreads throughout the world, causing the lightest things to float to the surface and the heaviest to fall towards the centre.The hearts are the same, and the hearts of animals are as kind as human hearts.The apparent superiority of man consists in the fact that he has hands; all apparent differences of intellect are really due to differences of body. Both Aristotle and Plato's Socrates complained that Anaxagoras, after introducing the heart, did not use it.Aristotle pointed out that he only introduced the mind as a cause because he did not know of any other causes.Wherever he could, he gave mechanical explanations everywhere.He opposes necessity and chance as the origin of things; however, there is no "God's will" in his cosmology.He doesn't seem to think much about ethics or religion; perhaps he's an atheist, as his whistleblowers say.He was influenced by all his predecessors except Pythagoras.Parmenides had the same influence on him as on Empedocles.

He has great merit in science.He was the first to explain that the moon shines by reflection, although Parmenides also has a very obscure passage suggesting that Parmenides knew this too.Anaxagoras had the correct theory of lunar eclipses and knew that the moon was below the sun.He said that the sun and the stars are fiery stones, but we do not feel the heat of the stars because they are so far away from us.The sun is bigger than the Peloponnese.The moon had mountains and (he thought) inhabitants. Anaxagoras is said to have descended from the school of Anaximenes; he clearly and unquestionably preserved the Ionian tradition of rationalism and science.In his thinking one does not find that predilection for ethics and religion - a predilection which passed from the Pythagoreans to Socrates, and from Socrates to Plato, and put a kind of obscurantism The prejudices of the writers were brought into Greek philosophy.He wasn't exactly first-rate, but he was important as the first to bring philosophy to Athens, and as one of the influences that shaped Socrates.