Anaximander

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Anaximander : biography

c.610 BC – c. 546 BC

Friedrich Nietzsche, in Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, claimed that Anaximander was a pessimist who asserted that the primal being of the world was a state of indefiniteness. In accordance with this, anything definite has to eventually pass back into indefiniteness. In other words, Anaximander viewed "…all coming-to-be as though it were an illegitimate emancipation from eternal being, a wrong for which destruction is the only penance". (Ibid., § 4) The world of individual objects, in this way of thinking, has no worth and should perish.Friedrich Nietzsche, Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Gateway, 1962).

Martin Heidegger lectured extensively on Anaximander, and delivered a lecture entitled "Anaximander’s Saying" which was subsequently included in Off the Beaten Track. The lecture examines the ontological difference and the oblivion of Being or Dasein in the context of the Anaximander fragment.Martin Heidegger, Off the Beaten Track (Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002). Heidegger’s lecture is, in turn, an important influence on the French philosopher Jacques Derrida.Cf., Jacques Derrida, Margins of Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), pp. 66–7; Derrida, "Geschlecht II: Heidegger’s Hand," in John Sallis (ed.), Deconstruction and Philosophy (Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 1987), pp. 181–2; Derrida, Given Time: I. Counterfeit Money (Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 1992), p. 159, n. 28.

Biography

Detail of [[Raphael’s painting The School of Athens, 1510–1511. This could be a representation of Anaximander leaning towards Pythagoras on his left.This character is traditionally associated with Boethius, however his face offering similarities with the relief of Anaximander (image in the box above), it could be a representation of the philosopher. See http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/SchoolAthens2.htm for a description of the characters in this painting.]]

Anaximander, son of Praxiades, was born in Miletus during the third year of the 42nd Olympiad (610 BC).Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies (I, 5) According to Apollodorus of Athens, Greek grammarian of the 2nd century BC, he was sixty-four years old during the second year of the 58th Olympiad (547–546 BC), and died shortly afterwards.In his Chronicles, as reported by Diogenes Laërtius, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (II, 2).

Establishing a timeline of his work is now impossible, since no document provides chronological references. Themistius, a 4th-century Byzantine rhetorician, mentions that he was the "first of the known Greeks to publish a written document on nature." Therefore his texts would be amongst the earliest written in prose, at least in the Western world. By the time of Plato, his philosophy was almost forgotten, and Aristotle, his successor Theophrastus and a few doxographers provide us with the little information that remains. However, we know from Aristotle that Thales, also from Miletus, precedes Anaximander. It is debatable whether Thales actually was the teacher of Anaximander, but there is no doubt that Anaximander was influenced by Thales’ theory that everything is derived from water. One thing that is not debatable is that even the ancient Greeks considered Anaximander to be from the Monist school which began in Miletus with Thales followed by Anaximander and finished with Anaximenes.Richard D. McKirahan, Philosophy before Socrates, Ch 5, 32–34 3rd-century Roman rhetorician Aelian depicts him as leader of the Milesian colony to Apollonia on the Black Sea coast, and hence some have inferred that he was a prominent citizen. Indeed, Various History (III, 17) explains that philosophers sometimes also dealt with political matters. It is very likely that leaders of Miletus sent him there as a legislator to create a constitution or simply to maintain the colony’s allegiance.