ANAXIMANDER

( 610 B.C. - 546 B.C.)

The City of Miletus

Milesians

'Physiologists'

Rational account (logos) of nature (physis)

physis + logos

Physiologist

What is the
world
made of?

"origin"
The 'Arche'

"source"

"beginning"
"ruler"

'ARCHE'
alive
endowed with spirit
divine
intelligent

The Ruler of ALL things

birth
transformations
death

HYLOZOISM

Water

What is the
'arche' made
of?

Air

'APEIRON'
'a' (absence) + 'peras' (limited)

'apeiron'
The unlimited
The boundless
The indefinite

Hot

Wet

The Indefinite
Cold

Dry

The Indefinite

'apeiron'

Aetius wrote, "Anaximander of

Miletus says that the first
principle of existing thigs is the
Boundless; for from this all come
into being and into it all perish.
Wherefore innumerable worlds
are both brought to birth and
again dissolved into that out of
which they came."

Other
Contributions to
Philosophy

Anaximander said that the first living creatures

were born in moisture, enclosed in thorny barks
and that as their age increased they came forth
on to the drier part and, when the bark had
broken off, they lived a different kind of life for a
short time (Aetius, V, 19).
He says, further, that in the beginning man was
born from creatures of a different kind because
other creatures are soon self-supporting, but
man alone needs prolonged nursing. For this
reason he would not have survived if this had
been his original form (Plutarch, 2).

Anaximander the Milesian, a disciple

of Thales, first dared to draw the
inhabited world on a tablet; after him
Hecataeus the Milesian, a much
travelled man, made the map more
accurate, so that it became a source
of wonder. (Agathemerus, I, i).

References
Academy of Ideas
Ancient.au
Philosophybasics.com