ANAXAGORAS

 

Anaxagoras of Clazomene (in Asia Minor), born about 500BC, reduced all origin and decay to a process of mingling and unmingling, but assumed as ultimate elements an unlimited number of primitive, qualitatively determinate substances, which were called by him seeds of things, by Aristotle, elements consisting of homogeneous parts, and by later writers (employing a term formed from the Aristotelian phraseology) Homoeomeriae. Originally there existed, according to Anaxagoras, an orderless mixture of these diminutive parts: "all things were together". But the divine mind, which, as the finest among all things, is simple, unmixed and passionless reason, brought order to them, and out of chaos formed the world. In the explanation of individual existence, Anaxagoras confined himself, according to the testimony of Plato and Aristotle, to the search for mechanical causes, and only fell back on the agency of the divine reason, when he was unable to recognize the presence of such causes.

Essentially the same doctrine of the world-ordering mind is ascribed, among earlier philosophers, to Hermotimus of Clazomene, and among the later, to Archelaus of Miletus (or, according to others, of Athens).

 

Anaxagoras was descended from a reputable family in Clazomene. From this city he removed to Athens. Here he lived a long time as the friend of Pericles, until, having been accused of impiety on account of his philosophical opinions by the political opponents of the great statesman, he found himself compelled to seek safety in Lampsacus, where he is said to havo died soon afterward. The chronological data respecting him are in part discrepant. The accusation took place, according to Diodorus and Plutarch, in the last years before the outbreak of the Peloponnesian war. Allowing this date to be correct, it is inadmissible, to place the birth of the philosopher in 534 BC; it is more probable that the version of Apollodorus is the correct one, and that Anaxagoras was born in 500-491.

In Athens he is said to have lived thirty years; the statement referred  to Demetrius Phalereus, that he began to philosophize in the twentieth year of his life at Athens, while Callias (Calliades?) was archon, probably arose from a misinterpretation of the report that he began to philosophize while Callias was archon at Athens. The statement of Aristotle that Anaxagoras was prior to Empedocles in point of age, but subsequent in respect of his (philosophical) performances, is probably to be taken purely chronologically, and not as pointing to a relative inferiority or advance in philosophical insight. The difference of age can not have been great. Anaxagoras seems already to have known and to have accepted in a modified form the doctrines of Empedocles.

The written work of Anaxagoras is mentioned by Plato and others.

In the place of the four elements of Empedoeles, Anaxagoras assumes the existence of an infinite number of elementary and original substances.  Every thing that has parts qualitatively homogeneous with the whole, owes its origin, according to Anaxagoras, to the coming together of these parts from the state of dispersion among other elements, in which they had existed from the beginning. This combination of the homogeneous is, in his view, that which really takes place in what is called becoming or generation. Each primitive particle remains unchanged by this process. In like manner, that which is called destruction, is in fact only separation.

Anaxagoras finds the moving and shaping force of the world neither (with the old Ionians) in the nature of the matter assumed as principle itself, nor (with Empedocles) in impersonal psychical potencies, like love and hate, but in a world-ordering mind. This mind is distinguished from material natures by its simplicity, independence, knowledge, and supreme power over matter. Every thing else is mixed with parts of all other things besides itself, but mind is pure, unmixed, and subject only to itself. All minds, whatever their relative power or station, are (qualitatively) alike. The mind is tho finest of things. Matter, which is inert and without order, it brings into motion, and there­by creates out of chaos the orderly world.  There is no fate and no chance.

The Mind first effected a revolving motion at a single point; but ever-increasing masses were gradually brought within the sphere of this motion, which is still incessantly extending farther and farther in the infinite realm of matter. As the first consequence of this revolving motion, the elementary contraries, fire and air, water and earth, were separated from each other. But a complete separation of dissimilar and union of similar elements was far from being hereby attained, and it was necessary that within each of the masses resulting from this first act, the same process should be repeated. By this means alone could things originate, having parts really homogeneous, e. g., gold, blood, etc. But even these consist not entirely, but only prevailingly, of like parts. In gold, for example, however pure it may seem, there are, says Anaxagoras, not merely particles of gold, but also particles of other metals and of all other things; but the denomination follows the predominant constituent.

In the middle of the world rests the earth, which is shaped like a short section of a cylinder, and is supported by the air. The stars are material; the moon is inhabited like the earth; the sun is a glowing mass of stone, and the stars are of like nature. The moon receives its light from the sun. The sky is full of stones, which occasionally fall to tho earth, when the force of their revolving motion is relaxed; witness the meteor of Aegospotomos. Plants have souls; they sorrow and rejoice. Plants and animals owe their origin to the fecundation of the earth, whence they sprung, by germs previously contained in tho air. In our perception of things by the senses, like is not known by like, but by unlike, e. g., heat by cold, cold by heat; that which is equally warm (etc.) with ourselves, makes no impression on us. The senses are too weak to know the truth; they do not sufficiently distinguish the constituents of things. By the mind we know the world of external objects; every thing is known to the divine reason. The highest satisfaction is found in the thinking knowledge of the universe.

The explanation of phenomena sought by Anaxagoras was essentially the genetic and physical; he did not investigate the nature of their order. For this reason Plato and Aristotle charge that his mind plays a rather idle role. Plato, in the Phaedo, represents Socrates as saying that he had rejoiced to see the mind, designated as cause of the order of tho world, and had supposed that as the reason why every thing is as it is, tho fitness of its being so (the final cause) would bo pointed out; but that in this expectation he had been fully deceived, since Anaxagoras specified only mechanical causes. Aristotle praises Anaxagoras in view of his principle; in rising to the conception of a world-ordering mind, he was like a sober man coming among the drunken; but he knew not how to make the most of this principle, and employed the MIND only as a mechanical god for a make-shift, wherever the knowledge of natural causes failed him.

If, now, another thinker directed his attention only to that which the mind really was for Anaxagoras, not to the word and tho possible content of the concept, he must consider a mind as cause of motion and distinct from material objects, to be unnecessary (following a line of thought similar to that of Laplace and others, in modern times, who ridicnle tho "God" of the earlier aetronomers, as only "standing upon one side and giving things a push"). Such a philosopher would necessarily deem it a more scientific procedure to reject the dualism of Anaxagoras, and find in things themselves the sufficient causes of their motions. It is thus that the doctrine of Democritus stands contrasted with the doctrine of Anaxagoras. On the other hand, the conception of the mind might occasion a real investigation of the nature of mind, and consequently conduct beyond mere cosmology. In this way, though not till a later period, the Anaxagorean principle continued to exert an influence, not so much in the teachings of the Sophists, as, rather, in those of Socrates and his continuators.

Of Hermotimus, Aristotle says  that the hypothesis of a world-ordering mind was ascribed to him; but that nothing certain or precise was known in regard to his doctrine. Later writers repeat many miraculous legends concerning the man. Probably he belongs to the ancient "theologians" or cosmogonists.

Archelaus, the most important among the disciples of Anaxagoras, appears to have interpreted the original medley of all substances as equivalent to air, and to have toned down the antithesis between mind and matter, thus receding again nearer to the older Ionic natural philosophy, aud in this respect occupying a position relative to Anaxagoras similar to that of his contemporary, Diogenes of Apollonia. The doctrine that right and wrong are not natural distinctions, but depend on human institution, is ascribed to Archelaus.