Download Anaxagoras - Zorrilla Hist. of W. Philosophy

Pluralists: Reality’s
Many Elements
Anaxagoras and Friends
Pluralists
After Parmenides, impossible to return
to monist explanation of reality
 Reality can not be reduced to one thing

– Not like Monists (Thales & Co.)
 World
is composed of many elements
Empedocles
 Like
Pythagoras (scientific+spiritual)
 Expertise was medicine and math
 Theory: everything made up of all 4
elements (fire, earth, air, water)
 Forces of Love and Strife
complementary and impact world
Anaxagoras
500-432 BC
 First to introduce philosophy to Athenians
(encouraged by Pericles)

– Athenians prosecuted him so he left
First to suggest mind as primary cause of
physical changes
 First to explain moon shines by reflected
light
 Correct theory of eclipses, sun (hot stone)
and moon (mountains and…inhabitants?)

Infinitely Divisible
No new reality can originate, therefore
everything existed since always
 reality reducible to an infinite number of
“seeds.”
– “seeds” contain elements of everything and
are in everything (some more than others)
– “Everything participates in everything“
– Particles originally in huge mass that began
separating… how??
Nous
 Omniscient,
impersonal MIND
– Not mixed with anything
 Gives
order and constancy to universe
 Source of all motion
 Enters into the composition of living
things
– Differentiates them from dead matter
Understanding
 Nous
is an exterior cause/understanding
– Opens perspectives for Plato and Aristotle
 First
time idea of God as principal ruler of
universe
– “intelligent design?”
 Yet
always returns to whirlpool motion
promoted by nous
Legacy
 Brought
philosophy to Athens
 Rationalist and scientific
 Helped form Socrates and Athenian
schools
 No religious or ethical preoccupations
 Set stage for Democritus