Anaximander - 1
ANAXIMANDER
Anaximander (610 BCE - 546 BCE) was a Milesian School Pre-Socratic Greek Philosopher. Like most of the Pre-Socratics, very little is known of Anaximander’s life. He was born, presumably in 610 BCE, in Ionia, the present day Turkish west coast, and lived in Miletus where he died in 546 BCE. He was of the Milesian school of thought and, while it is still debated among Pre-Socratic scholars, most assert that he was a student of Thales and agree that, at the very least, he was influenced by his theories. He is infamously known for writing a philosophical prose poem known as On Nature, of which only a fragment has been passed down. In that fragment Anaximander innovatively attributes the formation of a regulating system that governs our world, the cosmos. Furthermore, he put forth the radical idea that it is the indefinite (apeiron), in both the principle (archē) and element (stoicheion), from which are the things that are. In addition to such ingenuity, Anaximander also developed innovative ideas and theories in astronomy, biology, geography, and geometry. For Anaximander, the origination of the world could not be reduced to a single element or a collection of elements alone. Rather, one needed to understand that the origin was in both principle and element not definable in a definite sense or attribution. While this was a radical perspective in relation to the more determinate theories of others from the Milesian school, it does seem to have some derivation from older Greek mythology that posited the origin of all things from an originary Chaos—a formless state, void, gap. And thus precisely Anaximander’ theory does remain radical in part in its “formlessness” or “unknowability” given the overall Greek tradition of harmony, symmetry and form in all things, in all things in their positive existence.
THALES
Thales of Miletus was born in around the mid c. 624 BC in the city of Miletus. The place was an ancient Greek Ionian city, located on the western coast
Anaximander (610 BCE - 546 BCE) was a Milesian School Pre-Socratic Greek Philosopher. Like most of the Pre-Socratics, very little is known of Anaximander’s life. He was born, presumably in 610 BCE, in Ionia, the present day Turkish west coast, and lived in Miletus where he died in 546 BCE. He was of the Milesian school of thought and, while it is still debated among Pre-Socratic scholars, most assert that he was a student of Thales and agree that, at the very least, he was influenced by his theories. He is infamously known for writing a philosophical prose poem known as On Nature, of which only a fragment has been passed down. In that fragment Anaximander innovatively attributes the formation of a regulating system that governs our world, the cosmos. Furthermore, he put forth the radical idea that it is the indefinite (apeiron), in both the principle (archē) and element (stoicheion), from which are the things that are. In addition to such ingenuity, Anaximander also developed innovative ideas and theories in astronomy, biology, geography, and geometry. For Anaximander, the origination of the world could not be reduced to a single element or a collection of elements alone. Rather, one needed to understand that the origin was in both principle and element not definable in a definite sense or attribution. While this was a radical perspective in relation to the more determinate theories of others from the Milesian school, it does seem to have some derivation from older Greek mythology that posited the origin of all things from an originary Chaos—a formless state, void, gap. And thus precisely Anaximander’ theory does remain radical in part in its “formlessness” or “unknowability” given the overall Greek tradition of harmony, symmetry and form in all things, in all things in their positive existence.
THALES
Thales of Miletus was born in around the mid c. 624 BC in the city of Miletus. The place was an ancient Greek Ionian city, located on the western coast