Introduction to Anaxagoras

the presocratic lecture 6 anaxagoras in this lecture we will discuss anaxagoras another postp parmenidean presocratic philosopher who like edles had to construct his philosophical account of the universe without invoking the notion of things coming to be passing away and arising from what they are not as we will see anaxagoras abided by parmen law by constructing an intriguing and surprising Theory regarding the nature of matter however anaxagoras's name has gone down in history not for his theory of matter but for being the first philosopher to introduce the distinction between mind and matter in this lecture we will investigate both his theory of matter and his division of the universe into mind and matter to conclude the lecture we will discuss the difference between a mechanistic and Theological view of the universe and explain how anaxagoras philosophy developed both points of view to commence this lecture we must attend to the personality of anaxagoras for like all the presocratic philosophers he was an extremely unique and interesting individual anaxagoras was born into a wealthy aristocratic family but showed no interest in money and in fact shunned his Hefty inheritance and spent his life devoted to philosophy instead of striving after wealth and honors there is a tale that anex sagaris was once asked why it is better to be born than not to be born he replied that being alive is better than not being alive because it enables one to study the heavens and the whole universe it was common in ancient Greece for citizens to take great pride in the city or polus which they called Home In fact when naming a Greek individual it was traditional to include the city they were from as this was thought to form an integral part of the individual's identity moreover the Greeks prided themselves on being the most advanced race and considered other civilizations as less than human frequently referring to them as barbarians anaxagoras was unique in that he did not take great pride in being Greek nor did he identify himself with the city he was born in these were only arbitrary all too human conventions he thought instead he regarded himself as a citizen of the universe when asked why he failed to show any concern for his homeland anaxagoras replied that he indeed did show concern and pointing to the sky above said I honor her indeed and am deeply concerned for her as we saw in the last lecture edles asserted that there are four different categories of particles or roots earth water air and fire which make up everything in the universe edic thought for example that bone is composed of four parts fire two parts water and two parts Earth now edles believed himself to be abiding by parity's law against becoming which stated among other things that something cannot arise from what it is not or in other words one thing cannot morph or transform itself into another thing while on the surface it may appear that he successfully adhered to this Doctrine under closer examination it is clear that imples violated parity's law for example in claiming that bone comes into existence when fire water and Earth come together he is asserting that bone becomes or emerges from what it is not bone is not fire water nor Earth and therefore cannot emerge from these elements nor can it arise through their interaction with each other anaxagoras understood the Folly which beset imp pedicles for how can hair come out of not hair and flesh out of not flesh he asked clearly if one wants to abide by parity's law hair cannot come out of not hair nor can anything come out of what it is not therefore in order to explain how material things appear to transform into other things anaxagoras boldly stated that everything is in everything what does this statement mean surprisingly in saying everything is in everything anaxagoras meant literally that everything is in everything and he used digestion as an example to explain such an idea for example when we eat an apple the contents of the Apple are assimilated into our body and literally become a part of us however according to Parmenides it would make no sense to say that the Apple is transformed into let's say for Simplicity sake blood or bone for that would mean that Blood and Bone arose from what they are not that being an apple instead anaxagoras claimed that Blood and Bone and everything else pre-exist in an apple and when ingested The Blood and Bone that are in the Apple become incorporated into our body explaining this idea of anaxagoras's Aristotle wrote anaxagoras plausibly says that the flesh from the food is added to our flesh if everything is in everything then how is it that there are different things in the world to put the question differently if everything exists in Gold and Everything also exists in bone then why are gold and Bone qualitatively very different substances in order to explain this anex aoras invoked what is commonly called the principle of predominance while everything is in everything anaxagoras thought each thing is what it is as a result of whatever exists in the highest concentration within it so while there is indeed Flesh Blood hair grass wood and everything else in gold all of these substances exist only in minute concentrations and hence are perceptually IND discernible on the other hand within gold gold exists by far in the highest concentration which is why gold takes on the characteristics it does even though everything exists within it explaining this idea anaxagoras wrote nothing is like anything else but those things are and were most plainly each thing of which there are most in it as we mentioned at the outset of this lecture anaxagoras's most heralded contribution to the history of philosophy was his division of the universe into mind and matter earlier presocratic philosophers were hyoo in that they thought matter was imbued with life and intelligence and hence was capable of initiating its own movement however this notion was inherited from earlier mythological beliefs and was slowly discarded by the later presocratic when the belief that matter could initiate its own movement became untenable it was necessary to account for the movement and transformation of the material Universe by postulating a separate external cause this external cause which moves matter anaxagoras asserted is new which is Greek for mind mind is a substance separate and independent from matter standing over and above matter so to speak mind is an intelligent Force which governs the movement of the material Universe anaxagoras wrote it is the finest and purest of all things and has Judgment of everything and greatest power and everything that has life both greater and smaller all these mind controls our own mind is a reflection of the Universal Mind operating through our material bodies mind is the life force of everything without it the universe would be inert static and wholly devoid of life and intelligence anaxagoras also claimed mind to be responsible for the birth of the cosmos in the beginning he claimed matter without an external cause to move it remained still for an infinite period of time it was only when mind sprang to action and acted on the inert state of matter that movement was initiated and the creation of the cosmos began we must now turn our attention to the difference between a theological and mechanistic view of the universe as we will see anaxagoras was unique in that his philosophical Vision combined both a teleological and a mechanistic view much to the Chagrin of later philosophers the wordology comes from the Greek word tilos which means end or purpose those who assert a theological view of the universe believe there is a purpose to existence some end the universe and everything in it is striving towards in other words theologists claim that there is future state which exerts a causal influence on things in the Here and Now impelling them forward so as to realize this future State those who assert a mechanistic view of the Universe on the other hand don't believe there is a purpose to the universe and thus deny the existence of some future state which impels things to move or evolve in a certain direction mechanists instead view the universe and everything in it solely as the product of past forces anaxagoras was unique in that his philosophical account of the universe combined both a teologicas view in the beginning he thought mind acted as a teologicas it set matter in motion for a purpose or end that being to produce an ordered Cosmos however the rest of his philosophy is saturated with mechanistic principles as he explains the development of the universe and the workings of nature as the result of purely physical and mechanistic causes in claiming that a theological principle set the universe in motion but that after this initial Push by mind the universe was left to unfold and evolve solely according to physical and mechanical laws anaxagoras utilized what the philosopher Lewis Hicks called a UT axiological view anaxagoras's mixture resulted in mixed reactions from the prominent Greek philosophers who followed him as we mentioned Plato utilized anaxagoras's designation of Mind as an intelligent causal force from the universe to support his own teic arguments however as David Sly explained Plato and other teleological thinkers could not accept anaxagoras's UT axiological view Plato like nearly every other thinker in and well after Antiquity associated thology with conscious purpose to make the world a propose of structure just is to posit an intelligent mind as its cause true the intelligent mind could have created the world and then left it to run itself mechanically but no ancient thinker after at any rate anaxagoras was ready to contemplate a split level theory of that kind Socrates who was committed to a wholly theological View and thought everything in the universe was constructed by an intelligent designer was said to have been extremely excited when he heard that anaxagoras used mind to explain the order and development of the universe however Socrates is reported to have said my extravagant expectations were all dashed to the ground when I went on and found that the man made no use of mind at all he ascribed no causal power whatever to it in The Ordering of things but to erors and ethers and Waters and a host of other strange things Aristotle thought that in his postulation of Mind as the causal Force responsible for the birth of the universe anex agoris in his words stood out like a single sober Man by comparison with The Wild assertions of his predecessors yet much to the dismay of Aristotle he discovered that anex sagas uses mind to account for the formation of the world and whenever he is at a loss to explain why anything necessarily is he drags it in but in other cases he makes anything rather than then mind the cause despite his mixture of teologicas principles to explain the birth and development of the universe anaxagoras is widely considered the first philosopher to introduce the concept of a teologico which is responsible for the birth and initial ordering of the world and along with being the first philosopher to introduce the division of mind and matter he is rightly considered a highly significant philosopher in the history of philosophy in the next lecture we will finish this series on the presocratic by discussing democratus who as we will see wholly rejected a teleological view of things with his assertion that the universe is nothing but atoms and void

Channel: Academy of Ideas

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Keywords: presocratic philosophers, presocratics, anaxagoras, academy of ideas, everything is in everything, mind, nous, teleological, eutaxiological

Id: 4V62XmEvCTo

Length: 13min 45sec (825 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 29 2013