Anaximander was a philosopher who was born in the Ionian city of Miletus in 610 BC and died n 546

BC. He was the pupil of Thales of Miletus, who founded the Milesian school of thought, which
deviated from the anthropomorphic and mythological explanations of the world at the time, in
favour of a more naturalistic account of the world.

According to writers GS Kirk and JE Raven, Anaximander made the first detailed attempt to explain
all aspects of the world of man's experience. Central to this experience was the apeiron. The
aperion which meant 'spatially infinite' to Aristotle, is an indefinite and essentially primordial entity
that surrounds everything- it is the arche. Due to the obscurity of Anaximanders writings, many
scholars have debated on the features of the apeiron.

That it is indefinite because it is not identified as an element like water.

And also that it is indefinite because its unlimited extent and duration. An immortal entity.

Aristotles attempted to decipher the mystery of the apeiron by positing that it acted as an
intermediate or mixture of elements therefore giving qualitative features to a supposedly indefinite
entity. He does however suggested that there is a calibrated balance between the elements in the
apeiron, as an imbalance of the elements would 'disallow the rise of other elements through
saturation'.

Now the apeiron is external to our world and surrounds us. The flow of things 'to' and 'from' the
apeiron is dealt with a cosmological law called 'the law of retribution between opposites'. Here you
can see that Anaximander still attempts to give his naturalistic account the qualities of Homeric
Gods.

When things die they go back to the apeiron, and then new things emerge. These new substances
were created based on the features of opposites like hot and cold; wet and dry, much like how the
sea gains and causes flooding, and how it falls in order to cause drought. There is a cyclical element
to Anaximanders theory as he emphasizes on cosmic stability. Therefore one could say that the
universe originated in 'the separation of opposites'.

Several philosophers have also argued whether this rigid thought process applies to the creation of
worlds. Does a new world take the place of world that has just died and gone back to the apeiron?
Or are there an innumerable amount of worlds that coexist as one giant cosmic organism? The
Atomists tended to favour the latter, however thinkers like Simplicius would argue otherwise, in
support of successive single worlds.

Based on Anaximander's description of celestial bodies that surrounded the Earth it is more likely
that he approved of a more Atomistic interpretation of world regeneration.

Anaximander also offers a quasi-evolutionary theory of humans, where the first creatures generated
from slime and that man emerged from fish.

The theory of the apeiron is an interesting one, however it is hard to compare it to the rigid
philosophy of people like Anaximenes, because it delves into thinking that is too abstract to be
verified or even quantified. This is why there are many interpretations that have been posited with
thinkers even arguing whether the Apeiron is circular or has a vortex motion, but they fail to realize
that the purpose of the apeiron is as an indefinite thing, meaning that it cannot be prescribed
qualitative features.