Anaxagoras Learning Materials

Anaxagoras Despite not being on par with Pythagoras, Heraclitus, or Parmenides, the philosopher Anaxagoras has had a significant historical impact. He was an Ionian who continued the Ionian tradition of rationalist science. He was the first to bring philosophy to the Athenians and to propose that changes in the body are mostly the result of mental processes. He was born at Clazomenae, in Ionia, about 500 B.C., although he lived at Athens for almost thirty years, from 462 to 432 B.C. Pericles, determined to bring his fellow townpeople to a more civilized state, most likely persuaded him to come. It's possible that Aspasia, a Miletus native, introduced him to Pericles. Pericles "fell in, it seems, with Anaxagoras, who was a scientific man; and satiating himself with the theory of things on high, and having attained to a knowledge of the true nature of intellect and folly, which were just what the discourses of Anaxagoras were mainly about, he drew from that source whatever was of a nature to further him in the art of speech," according to Plato in the Phaedrus. Although this is less certain, it is said that Anaxagoras had an impact on Euripides as well. Like people in other cities in other centuries and countries, the Athenians exhibited some degree of animosity toward anyone attempting to instill a more advanced degree of culture than what they were used to. As Pericles grew older, his adversaries launched an offensive against him by targeting his companions. They claimed that Pheidias had embezzled part of the wealth meant for his sculptures. They enacted legislation that made it possible to impeach anyone for teaching notions about "the things on high" and for not practicing religion. Anaxagoras was tried under this legislation for allegedly teaching that the moon represented Earth and the sun was a red-hot stone. (The Socrates' prosecutors mocked them for being antiquated as they rehashed the same charge.) It's unclear exactly what transpired, but he had to leave Athens. It is likely that Pericles was able to free him from prison and escape. After his return, he established a school in Ionia. His will stipulated that the anniversary of his passing would remain a holiday for students. According to Anaxagoras, every element is present in even the tiniest amount of substance, and everything is infinitely divisible. Things seem to be what they mostly consist of. As a result, for instance, everything has some fire, yet we only refer to anything as fire when it predominates. Similar to Empedocles, he refutes the existence of the vacuum by pointing out that an inflated skin or clepsydra indicates the presence of air in seemingly empty spaces. Unlike his forebears, he believed that the mind, ornous, is a substance that permeates living things and sets them apart from inanimate objects. He claims that everything has some aspect of everything other than mind, and that certain objects also include mind. All living things are subject to the power of the mind, which is self- governing, limitless, and unmixed with nothing. Everything, no matter how tiny, has elements of all opposites, including hot and cold and white and black, with the exception of the mind. He insisted that snow is partially black. The source of all motion is the mind. The heaviest objects fall toward the center and the lightest items move toward the periphery as a result of the revolution that is slowly spreading over the entire planet. Animals and humans have the same uniform mind. The reason for man's seeming superiority is his hands; all apparent intellectual distinctions are actually caused by physical variations. Aristotle and the Platonic Socrates express dissatisfaction with Anaxagoras for his little use of the mind after it is introduced. As Aristotle notes, he presents the mind as a cause only in cases when he is ignorant of any other. He provides a mechanical explanation wherever possible. Despite rejecting necessity and chance as the sources of things' origins, his cosmology lacked "Providence." It appears that he did not give ethics or religion any attention; his prosecution claimed that he was an atheist. All his forebears save Pythagoras had an impact on him. In his situation, Parmenides had the same impact that Empedocles had. His merit in science was immense. He was the one who initially clarified that the moon glows due to reflected light, but a mysterious passage in Parmenides implies that he was already aware of this. The moon is below the sun, as Anaxagoras correctly explained when he proposed the eclipse hypothesis. He said that although the sun and stars are both flaming stones, we are unable to sense their heat due to their great distance from us. The Peloponnesus is smaller than the sun. There are mountains on the moon, and people, he supposed. It is said that Anaxagoras belonged to the school of Anaximenes; he undoubtedly preserved the Ionian legacy of reason and science. He lacks the ethical and theological concerns that, starting with the Pythagoreans and continuing with Socrates and Plato, introduced an obscurantist slant into Greek philosophy. Although he is not exactly at the top, he is significant since he was the first to introduce philosophy to Athens and because he was one of the factors that shaped Socrates.