Philosophy. Milesian school
Anaximander (610-546 BC) - a student and follower of Thales, was also a versatile educated person. He was interested in mathematics, physics, astronomy, geography, studied the origin of life, etc. Without essentially denying the teachings of Thales, his basic view of the world, Anaximander at the same time believed that water, being intermediate only between solid and vapor states, could not serve the basis of all things, since each thing comes "from its own beginnings." For example, hot and cold - from warm, white and black - from gray, etc. So each state, each pair of opposites must have its own special beginning, a special intermediate. But in this case there had to be a beginning of all beginnings - a beginning that gives rise to the world as a whole. And it cannot be either water or any other element (earth, air, fire), but it must be some other infinite nature, which is equally inherent in all elements. Anaximander calls this endless, active environment containing opposites “apeiron.” It is in this, according to the philosopher, that the cause of universal emergence and destruction lies.
It can be assumed that Anaximander imagined a certain material environment changing from point to point, like the transition from white To
black. This allowed the philosopher to look at it from an intermediate position and see opposites as excess and deficiency. Moreover, by looking at each of the opposite sides separately from the position of their intermediate, Anaximander could see new opposites and so on endlessly. Apparently, this view allowed Anaximander to suggest that the apeiron includes all types of opposites that give rise to all bodies “through differences in the density and rarefaction of the primary element, which in turn is the basis for the birth and death of the firmament worlds, which from time immemorial repeats itself in a circle.” .
Anaximander wrote several essays: “Map of the Earth”, “Globe”, “On Nature”. From their names one can judge that the philosopher mainly studied nature. From the last work, one small fragment has been preserved: “And from what (beginnings) things are born, at the same time death is accomplished according to a fatal debt, for they pay each other legal compensation for untruth (damage) at the appointed time.”
This passage suggests that the relationship between things arising from the infinite material medium, which Anaximander calls apeiron, is the same as the relationship between “debtor” and “creditor”
which indicates the relationship between Anaximander’s worldview and the mythological worldview and, above all, with the idea of compensation as the idea of cosmic justice (truth). Moreover, despite the mythological terminology, Anaximander no longer has these supernatural guardians of measure, since all cosmic processes are carried out according to his own immanent laws, determined by the activity of the material environment itself - the apeiron.
Therefore, the meaning embedded in the concept of “compensation for untruth” should be sought in mythology and, above all, in the Greek idea of compensation, as the idea of cosmic justice (truth), while the concept of “debt” is associated with the idea of decompensation (discord).
Here the connection between mythological and philosophical thinking is most clearly manifested, which at first go side by side, having as their sources elements of the original empirical knowledge. Based on the objective laws of existence, the mythological worldview was already capable of presenting the ideas of injustice and retribution, Discord and Truth, decompensation and compensation in the form of a physical phenomenon, i.e. in the form of scales in the hands of the goddess of justice, the bowls of which in one case come out of balance, in another they tend towards it. In this image, a characteristic feature of antiquity - thinking in opposites - found its concrete reflection. The latter are understood here exclusively as “excess” and “lack” of one or another substrate relative to the equilibrium position - that intermediate state from which opposites arise and to which, being destroyed, they tend.
Therefore, the main question of Milesian natural philosophy was to identify the essence of the “intermediate”, the condensation and rarefaction of which would determine the entire diversity of the sensory world. This indicates that mythological thinking, operating not only with ideas, but also with comparative concepts, is not only not arbitrary, but, on the contrary, has a very strict logic. Only this logic differs from the logic of our science today. Therefore, mythology is not only a product of imagination, but also the result of strict logical-theoretical thinking.
However, this can only be seen as a result of a thorough study of those mythological ideas that reflect the relationship of opposites in the process of their compensation and decompensation. It is no coincidence that in the first part of the fragment Anaximander draws our attention to that from which all things arise and into which, of necessity, they are destroyed. And if the words “compensation for untruth” are understood as compensation, and the word “debt” is understood as decompensation, then everything becomes extremely clear. It becomes possible to determine the “source of universal emergence and destruction.” All this suggests that the processes of “compensation” and “decompensation” are connected by a time frame for Anaximander and, in general, represent a kind of cyclical process.
Obviously, such a view of nature presupposes understanding it not from the standpoint of the correlated, i.e. not from the point of view of one of the poles of the gradation. Here, as in Thales, the starting point from which the world is comprehended is the middle, the intermediate, which divides the continuous environment into active, opposite parts.
The essence of Anaximander's teaching about the first principle of all things can be summarized as follows: none of the visible four elements can claim to be the first principle. The primary element is apeiron, which is beyond the perception of our senses, a substance intermediate between fire, air, water and earth, which contains elements of all these substances. It contains all the properties of other substances, for example, heat and cold, all opposites are united in it (later Heraclitus developed this position of Anaximander into the law of the unity and struggle of opposites, inherited from him by Hegel and Marx). An integral property of the apeiron is endless movement, primarily rotational. As an example of circular motion, the ancients presented the change of day and night, which they explained as the rotation of the sun, moon, and stars around the Earth. Under the influence of this eternal movement, the endless apeiron is divided, opposites are separated from the previously existing single mixture, homogeneous bodies move towards each other. During rotational motion, the largest and heaviest bodies rush to the center, where they bunch together into a ball, thus forming the Earth, located at the center of the Universe. It is motionless and in balance, not needing any supports, since it is equidistant from all points of the Universe (in Thales, the Earth rests on water. But then the question arises, on what does the water rest, and the question of support becomes insoluble. Anaximander simply eliminates this question). To support his thought, Anaximander gives two examples: 1) if you place a millet grain in an inflatable bubble and then inflate it, the grain will appear motionless in suspension in the center of the bubble; “So the earth, experiencing air shocks from all sides, remains motionless in a state of equilibrium in the center of space.” 2) If you tie ropes at one time and pull them with equal force in different directions, then the body will turn out to be motionless. Thus, Anaximander, as it were, anticipates the law of universal gravitation; the concept of gravity for him did not at all mean falling down.
Lighter particles of water, according to Anaximander, previously enveloped the Earth in a single cover of water, which has now significantly decreased due to evaporation. The water was surrounded by an air layer, which in turn was surrounded by a fiery sphere. The latter does not represent a single whole, since it was fragmented due to rotation. This is the picture of the universe. In addition, everything material is doomed to destruction due to the same eternal motion. Only the primal substance apeiron, from which everything arose and to which everything must return, seemed to Anaximander to be unemerged and indestructible. Anaximander considered the emergence and development of the world to be a periodically repeating process: at certain intervals the world is absorbed by the boundless principle surrounding it, and then arises again. Later, the Stoics, who inherited many of the teachings of Anaximander through Heraclitus, added that the Universe after certain periods of time should burn in fire, forming its outer layer.
According to P. Tannery, Anaximander was a natural scientist who built an idea of the cosmos based on natural laws. He, like the physicists of the New Age, developed a picture of the world by comprehending simple experimental models, generalizing the model of centrifugal motion. Only, unlike the scientists of the New Age, he had less experimental data, which he had to compensate for with brilliant guesses. However, Anaximander’s teaching is similar to the Kant-Laplace hypothesis about the emergence of celestial bodies from nebulae due to rotational motion.
However, like Thales, Anaximander was not free from mythological roots, from the ideological heritage of his time. Just as in the teaching of Thales on the origin of the world there are parallels with the myth set forth in the Iliad, so the teaching of Anaximander is similar to the cosmogony of Hesiod, but not to Homer. Apeiron has its analogue, like the water of Thales - the deity Ocean, it is Chaos, the primary element that existed when there was nothing else besides it, from which everything else comes. Chaos is a chaotic mixture from which gods and elements subsequently emerge, bringing order to the world. From Chaos are born Gaia (Earth), Tartarus (the bowels of the Earth), then the god of love Eros, Night and Erebus (darkness), Day and Ether (light), Uranus (sky), mountains, seas, Ocean. But Anaximander not only modifies the scheme of the origin of the world set out by Hesiod, he creatively reworks it, introducing completely new provisions. In Hesiod, all of the above concepts are personified; these are all deities who have their own personal name. There are male deities, there are female deities, they, like people, produce offspring from each other. We will touch on the question of what Anaximander thought about the gods later. For now, it should be noted that all the elements he describes - fire, air, water, earth - are creations of apeiron, they are material, and not human-like. In Hesiod, one generation of gods replaces another, Anaximander’s apeiron is eternal. In general, Anaximander was the first to come to the idea that matter exists eternally in time and infinitely in space.
2.2. ANAXIMANDER
Anaximander is a student and follower of Thales. We know almost nothing about his life. He is the author of the first philosophical work written in prose, which laid the foundation for many works of the same name by the first ancient Phaenic philosophers. Anaximander's work was called "Peri fuseos", i.e. "About nature". The very name of this and the works of the same name suggests that the first ancient Greek philosophers, unlike the ancient Chinese and ancient Indian ones, were primarily natural philosophers, or, more precisely, physicists (the ancient authors themselves called them physiologists). Anaximander wrote his work in the middle of the 6th century. BC. From this work, several phrases and one integral small passage, a coherent fragment, have been preserved. The names of other scientific works of the Milesian philosopher are known - “Map of the Earth” and “Globe”. Philosophical teaching Anaximander is known from doxography.
It was Anaximander who expanded the concept of the beginning of all things to the concept of “arche”, i.e. to the beginning, substance, that which lies at the foundation of all things. The late doxographer Simplicius, separated from Anaximander by more than a millennium, reports that “Anaximander was the first to call that which lies at the basis beginning.” Anaximander found such a beginning in a certain apeiron. The same author reports that Anaximander taught: “The beginning and foundation of all things is apeiron.” Apeiron means "boundless, boundless, endless." Apeiron is the neuter form of this adjective; it is something boundless, limitless, infinite.
All ancient authors agree that Anaximander’s apeiron is material, substantial. But it's hard to say what it is. Some saw apeiron as “migma”, i.e. a mixture (of earth, water, air and fire), others - “metaxue”, something between two elements - fire and air, others believed that apeiron is something indefinite. Aristotle thought that Anaximander came to the idea of apeiron, believing that the infinity and limitlessness of any one element would lead to its preference over the other three as finite, and therefore Anaximander made his infinite indefinite, indifferent to all elements. Simplicius finds two reasons. As a genetic principle, apeiron must be limitless so as not to dry out. As a substantial principle, apeiron must be limitless, so that it can underlie the mutual transformation of elements. If the elements transform into each other (and then they thought that earth, water, air and fire were capable of transforming into each other), then this means that they have something in common, which in itself is neither fire, nor air, nor land or water. And this is the apeiron, but not so much spatially boundless as internally boundless, that is, indefinite.
The apeiron itself is eternal. According to the surviving words of Anaximander, we know that apeiron “does not know old age,” that it is “immortal and indestructible.” He is in a state of perpetual activity and perpetual movement. Movement is inherent in apeiron as an inseparable property.
Apeiron is not only the substantial, but also the genetic principle of the cosmos. Not only do all things essentially and fundamentally consist of it, but also everything comes into being. Anaximander's cosmogony is fundamentally different from the cosmogony of Hesiod and the Orphics, who were theogonies only with elements of cosmogony. Anaximander no longer has any elements of theogony. From theogony, only the attribute of divinity remained, but only because apeiron, like the gods of mythology, is eternal and immortal.
Apeiron produces everything from itself. Being in rotational motion, the apeiron distinguishes from itself such opposites as wet and dry, cold and warm. Paired combinations of these main properties form earth (dry and cold), water (wet and cold), air (wet and hot), fire (dry and hot). Then the earth gathers in the center as the heaviest mass, surrounded by water, air and fire spheres. There is an interaction between water and fire, air and fire. Under the influence of heavenly fire, part of the water evaporates, and the earth partially emerges from the world ocean. This is how land is formed. The celestial sphere is torn into three rings surrounded by dense opaque air. These rings, Anaximander said, are like the rim of a chariot wheel (we will say: like a car tire). They are hollow inside and filled with fire. Being inside the opaque air, they are invisible from the ground. The lower rim has many holes through which the fire contained in it can be seen. These are the stars. There is one hole in the middle rim. This is the Moon. There is also one in the top. This is the Sun. From time to time, these holes can close completely or partially. This is how solar and lunar eclipses. The rims themselves rotate around the Earth. The holes move with them. This is how Anaximander explained the visible movements of the stars, the Moon, and the Sun. He even looked for numerical relationships between the diameters of the three cosmic rims or rings.
This picture of the world is incorrect. But what is still striking in it is the complete absence of gods, divine powers, and the courage of the attempt to explain the origin and structure of the world from internal causes and from a single material principle. Secondly, the break with the sensory picture of the world is important here. How the world appears to us and what it is are not the same thing. We see the stars, the Sun, the Moon, but we do not see the rims, the openings of which are the Sun, the Moon, and the stars. The world of feelings must be explored; it is only a manifestation of the real world. Science must go beyond direct contemplation.
Anaximander also had the first deep guess about the origin of life. Living things were born on the border of sea and land from silt under the influence of heavenly fire. The first living creatures lived in the sea. Then some of them came to land and shed their scales, becoming land dwellers. Man came from animals. In general, all this is true. True, according to Anaximander, man did not descend from a land animal, but from a sea animal. Man was born and developed to adulthood inside some huge fish. Born as an adult (for as a child he could not survive alone without his parents), the first man came onto land.
Materialism and dialectics of Anaximander. The materialistic monism (the doctrine according to which everything arose from one beginning) of Anaximander’s worldview amazed the ancient Greeks themselves. The ancient author Pseudo-Plutarch emphasized: “Anaximander... argued that apeiron is the only cause of birth and death.” The Christian theologian Augustine bitterly complained to Anaximander that he “left nothing to the divine mind.”
Anaximander's dialectics was expressed in the doctrine of the eternity of the movement of the apeiron, the separation of opposites from it, the formation of four elements from opposites, and the cosmogony itself was expressed in the doctrine of the origin of living things from non-living things, humans from animals, i.e., in the general idea of the evolution of living nature.
Eschatology (eschatological wisdom) is the doctrine of the end of the world. “Eschatos” – extreme, final, last. We learn about this from the surviving fragment of Anaximander. It says: “From what comes the birth of all things, at the same time everything disappears by necessity. All receive retribution (from each other) for injustice and according to the order of time.” The words “from each other” are in brackets because they are in some manuscripts, but not in others. One way or another, from this fragment we can judge the form of Anaximander’s work. In terms of the form of expression, this is not a physical, but a legal and ethical essay. The relationship between the things of the world is expressed in ethical terms.
J. Thomson thought that the expression “receives retribution” was taken from the ethical and legal practice of the tribal society. This is a formula for settling disputes between rival clans. So the first Greek philosophers were not so completely different from the Chinese and Indian ones. But the Greek philosophers had only an ethical form in which, however, they represented the physical world, the world of nature, and not the human world. But the fact that the natural world was represented through the human world is nothing more than a relic of the socio-anthropomorphic worldview, which is generally characteristic of proto-philosophy. However, there is no longer any personification, nor is there complete anthropomorphization.
In the Greek text, the expression “from which” is in the plural, and therefore this “from which” cannot mean apeiron, but things are born from each other. This interpretation contradicts the cosmogony of Anaximander.
We think that things arising from apeiron are guilty of each other. Their fault is not in their birth, but in the fact that they violate the limit, in the fact that they are aggressive. Violation of measure is the destruction of measure, limits, which means the return of things to a state of immensity, their death in the immeasurable, i.e. in apeiron.
Anaximander's apeiron is self-sufficient. Apeiron, the Milesian philosopher proudly declared about the origin and substance of the universe, “embraces everything and controls everything.” Apeiron leaves no room for gods and other supernatural forces.
Anaximander introduced into use what the ancient Greeks called a “gnomon” - an elementary sundial that was previously known in the East. This is a vertical rod installed on a marked horizontal platform. The time of day was determined by the direction and length of the shadow. The shortest shadow during the day determined noon, during the year - the summer solstice, the longest shadow during the year - winter solstice. Anaximander built a model of the celestial sphere - a globe, and drew a geographical map. He studied mathematics and “gave a general outline of geometry.”
OK. 610540 BC) - ancient Greek naturalist, geographer and natural philosopher, the second representative of the Milesian school, according to doxographers, “student”, “comrade” and “relative” of Thales. In 547/546 he published the first early scientific prose treatise “On Nature” (the title may have been later), the main content of which was cosmogony, cosmography, and the etiology of meteorological phenomena. The idea of Anaximander as an abstract metaphysician, reasoning about the principle of being, is certainly erroneous (the term arche-beginning itself was most likely unknown to Anaximander, as well as to all Milesians) and is based on an uncritical adherence to peripatetic doxography. Anaximander's method is characterized by the fundamental role of binary oppositions and analogies. In cosmology, he proceeds from the universal idea of an “infinite encompassing” - a spatially limitless bodily continuum that “encompasses” the cosmos from the outside after its birth and absorbs it after its death. The nature of the “embracing” Anaximander was already unclear to the ancient readers of his book, perhaps due to the archaic style. The term apeiron (infinite), which in doxography denotes the “beginning” of Anaximander, is not authentic: Anaximander used the adjective “infinite” as one of the attributes of “eternal and ageless nature”, “embracing all the firmaments (= worlds) and cosmos (= spaces) in them " According to the reliable testimony of Aristotle (Met. 1069b22; Phys. 187a21) and Theophrastus (Ar. Simpi. Phys. 27, 11-23), Anaximander thought of “eternal nature” as a “mixture” of all qualitatively different substances, thus anticipating Anaxagoras’s concept of matter. Cosmogony of Anaximander: 1st phase - “separation” from the “embracing” world “embryo” (analogue of the “world egg”); 2nd phase - “separation” and polarization of opposites (moist cold core and hot fiery “crust”), 3rd phase - interaction and struggle of “hot and cold” gives rise to a formed cosmos. In the only surviving fragment (B l DK), Anaximander gave the first formulation of the law of conservation of matter: “Things are destroyed into the same elements from which they arose, according to their purpose: they pay (the elements) legal compensation for damage within a prescribed period of time.” In cosmology (cosmography), Anaximander created the first geometric model of the Universe (visually illustrated by a celestial globe), from him originate the geocentric hypothesis and the “theory of spheres” in astronomy, associated with the discovery of the Southern celestial hemisphere, he created the first geographical map (possibly based on the Babylonian model ). Anaximander’s teaching about the origin of the “first people” “from animals of another species” (such as fish), with all the significant differences, makes him the ancient predecessor of Darwin.
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MILETS SCHOOL
the first is naive-materialistic. and spontaneous-dialectical. school of ancient Greek philosophy represented by Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes. It received its name from the city of Miletus in Ionia (western coast of Asia), which bloomed in the 6th century. BC. economical center. In Miletus, the rapid development of crafts and trade caused the rise of trade and industry. class, which, having strengthened economically, conquered the main. positions in politics life of the policy. Along with the fall of power of the family aristocracy, its traditions began to play an increasingly smaller role. representation. Ordinary religious-mythological. ideas about gods as the external causes of everything that happens in the world did not meet the needs of a person striving for nature. explaining the phenomena of reality. Doubts arise about the authenticity of the myths. Development of mathematical, astronomical, geographical and other knowledge is explained by the general rise of all aspects of societies. life, incl. development of trade, navigation, crafts and construction. affairs, as well as the use of the achievements of Eastern science.
All Milesian philosophers are spontaneous materialists; for them, the single essence ("primary principle") of diverse natural phenomena lies "in something definitely corporeal", for Thales this essence is water, for Anaximander - an indefinite and boundless primal substance (apeiron), for Anaximenes - air. In the ideas of philosophers M. sh. the origins and laws of existence are reflected aesthetically. perception of the world, related artistic activities. imagination and imaginative thinking, remnants of mythological, anthropomorphic. and hylozoistic. representations.
The Milesian school for the first time abolished the mythological picture of the world, based on the axiologization of the concepts of top-bottom and the opposition of the heavenly (divine) to the earthly (human) (Arist. De caelo 270a5), and introduced the universality of physical laws (a line that Aristotle could not cross). Fundamental to all Milesian theories remains the law of conservation (ex nihil nihil), or the negation of absolute “emergence” and “destruction” (“birth” and “death”) as anthropomorphic categories (Anaximander, fi; B l; Arist. Met. 983b6).
Anaximander of Miletus(ancient Greek Ἀναξίμανδρος, 610 - 547/540 BC) - ancient Greek philosopher, representative of the Milesian school of natural philosophy, student of Thales of Miletus and teacher of Anaximenes. Author of the first Greek scientific work written in prose (“On Nature,” 547 BC). He introduced the term “law”, applying the concept of social practice to nature and science. Anaximander is credited with one of the first formulations of the law of conservation of matter (“from the same things from which all existing things are born, into these same things they are destroyed according to their destiny”).
Cosmology
Anaximander considered the celestial bodies not to be separate bodies, but to be “windows” in opaque shells that hide fire. The earth looks like part of a column - a cylinder, the diameter of the base of which is three times the height: “of two [flat] surfaces we walk on one, and the other is opposite to it.”
The earth floats in the center of the world, not supported by anything. The earth is surrounded by gigantic tubular rings filled with fire. In the closest ring, where there is little fire, there are small holes - stars. In the second ring with stronger fire there is one large hole - the Moon. It can partially or completely overlap (this is how Anaximander explains the change of lunar phases and lunar eclipses). In the third, farthest ring, there is the largest hole, the size of the Earth; the strongest fire shines through it - the Sun. Anaximander's universe is closed by heavenly fire.
Anaximander's world system (one of the modern reconstructions)
Thus, Anaximander believed that all heavenly bodies are at different distances from the Earth. Apparently, the order corresponds to the following physical principle: the closer it is to the celestial fire and, therefore, the further from the Earth, the brighter it is. According to modern reconstruction, the inner and outer diameters of the Sun’s ring are, according to Anaximander, 27 and 28 diameters of the earth’s cylinder, respectively; for the Moon these values are 18 and 19 diameters, for stars 9 and 10 diameters. Anaximander's Universe is based on a mathematical principle: all distances are multiples of three.
In Anaximander’s system of the world, the paths of celestial bodies are entire circles. This view, now quite obvious, was innovative in the time of Anaximander. This first geocentric model of the Universe in the history of astronomy with the orbits of luminaries around the Earth made it possible to understand the geometry of the movements of the Sun, Moon and stars.
The Universe is thought of as centrally symmetrical; hence, the Earth, located in the center of the Cosmos, has no reason to move in any direction. Thus, Anaximander was the first to suggest that the Earth rests freely in the center of the world without support.
Cosmogony
Anaximander sought not only to describe the world geometrically accurately, but also to understand its origin. In the essay “On Nature,” known from retellings and the only surviving fragment, Anaximander gives a description of the Cosmos from the moment of its origin to the origin of living beings and humans.
The universe, according to Anaximander, develops on its own, without the intervention of the Olympian gods. Anaximander believes that the source of the origin of all things is a certain infinite, “ageless” [divine] principle - apeiron (ἄπειρον) - which is characterized by continuous movement. The apeiron itself, as that from which everything arises and into which everything turns, is something constantly abiding and indestructible, boundless and infinite in time.
As a result of a vortex-like process, the apeiron is divided into physical opposites of hot and cold, wet and dry, etc., the interaction of which gives rise to a spherical cosmos. The confrontation between the elements in the emerging cosmic vortex leads to the appearance and separation of substances. In the center of the vortex there is “cold” - the Earth, surrounded by water and air, and outside - fire. Under the influence of fire, the upper layers of the air shell turn into hard crust. This sphere of solidified aer (ἀήρ, air) begins to burst with vapor from the boiling earth’s ocean. The shell cannot withstand it and swells (“comes off,” as indicated in one of the sources). At the same time, it must push the bulk of the fire beyond the boundaries of our world. This is how a sphere of fixed stars arises, and the stars themselves become pores in the outer shell. Moreover, Anaximander claims that things acquire their being and composition for a time, “on credit,” and then, according to the law, at a certain time, they return their due to the principles that gave birth to them.
The final stage of the emergence of the world is the appearance of living beings. Anaximander suggested that all living things originated from the sediments of the dried seabed. All living things are generated by moisture evaporated by the sun; when the ocean boils away, exposing the land, living creatures arise “from the heated water with the earth” and are born “in the moisture, enclosed inside a muddy shell.” That is, natural development, according to Anaximander, includes not only the emergence of the world, but also the spontaneous generation of life.
Anaximander considered the Universe to be similar to a living being. In contrast to ageless time, it is born, reaches maturity, grows old and must die in order to be reborn again: “... the death of the worlds takes place, and much earlier their birth, and from time immemorial, the same thing is repeated in a circle.”
Discussing the various types of existence of the first principle, Anaximander put forward the idea of parity of material states. Wet can dry out, dry can moisten, etc. Opposite conditions have common ground, being concentrated in a certain unity, from which they are all isolated. This idea paved the way for one of the most important dialectical concepts of subsequent philosophy - the concept of “unity and struggle of opposites.”
Astronomy and Geography
Anaximander tried to compare the size of the Earth with other planets known at that time. It is believed that he compiled the first map of the Earth (which has not reached us, but can be reconstructed from the descriptions of ancient authors). For the first time in Greece, a gnomon was installed - the simplest sundial. Introduced the celestial globe into use.
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Introduction
1. Biography
2. Teachings of Anaximander
Conclusion
Introduction
Greek ancient philosophy was formed in the 7th - 6th centuries. BC.
In its character and direction of content, especially in its method of philosophizing, it differs from the ancient Eastern philosophical systems and is, in fact, the first attempt in history to rationally comprehend the surrounding world.
In development ancient philosophy Four main stages can be roughly distinguished:
I. - from the formation of Greek proper philosophical thinking before the turn of the V - IV centuries. BC - as a rule, is defined as Pre-Socratic, and the philosophers who worked at this time - as Pre-Socratics.
II. - approximately from the half of the 5th century. and a significant part of the 4th century. BC is defined as classical. It is characterized by the influence and activities of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle.
III. - end of IV - II centuries. BC - in the vast majority of works it is defined as Hellenistic. Unlike the classical period, when significant philosophical systems, at this time a number of various philosophical trends and schools enter the arena.
IV. - I century BC - V - VI centuries. AD - so-called Roman period.
The works of pre-Socratic philosophers have survived only in fragments and only thanks to the citation and criticism of later ancient authors.
The Milesian school is known as the first philosophical school. In it, for the first time, the question of the fundamental principles of all things was consciously raised. In the first place here is the question of the essence of the world. And although individual representatives of the Milesian school solve this issue in different ways, their views have a common denominator: they see the basis of the world in a certain material principle.
We can say that this first Greek philosophical school spontaneously gravitated towards materialism. Of course, the question of the mutual relationship between the material and spiritual principles has not yet been raised; it was formulated later. Representatives of the Milesian school intuitively understood the world as material. Along with spontaneous materialism, “naive” dialectics also appears in the thinking of these philosophers, with the help of the conceptual means of which they strive to comprehend the world in the dynamics of its development and change. To the main question of the previous cosmogony about the first cause of the world, they gave, in contrast to all mythological concepts, a completely materialistic answer, although still naive.
The first of the Ionic philosophers, Thales of Miletus, lived approximately 640-562. BC. Thales's versatile knowledge (in the field of astronomy, geometry, arithmetic) had a certain influence on the development of his philosophical thinking. So, for example, geometry at that time was such a developed science that it was a certain basis of scientific abstraction. This is precisely what influenced Thales’s views aimed at understanding the essence of the world.
Thales considered water to be the basis of all things. This idea already appears in pre-philosophical cosmogony. However, Thales's approach is completely different from it. He understood water not as a specific form or personification of mythological force, but as an amorphous, flowing concentration of matter. Moreover, “water” of Thales means the fundamental principle both in the sense of “stoicheyon” and in the sense of “arche”.
Aristotle, expounding the teaching of Thales, used two expressions: water as an element of matter, an element of nature, and water as the fundamental principle, the common, the substratum of all things, the original principle, modifications of which give rise to different states. Everything else arises through the “condensation” or “rarefaction” of this primary matter. Thales considered all the existing diversity of things as a manifestation of this single, eternal principle. He argued that all things arise from water and, when destroyed, turn back into water.
Another outstanding Milesian philosopher was Anaximander (611-546 BC).
Like Thales, he spontaneously gravitated towards materialism. Just like Thales, Anaximander raised the question of the beginning of the world. He argued that “the origin and basis is the infinite (APEIRON), and did not define it either as air, or as water, or as anything else. He taught that the parts change, but the whole remains unchanged."
Thales attributed all the material diversity of the world to water, but Anaximander moves away from this material certainty. His “apeiron” is characterized as something limitless, indefinite, which is not one of the so-called elements, but is “some other unlimited nature from which all the vaults of heaven and the worlds in them arise.” Anaximander's "Apeiron" is limitless and unlimited not only in space, but also in time. Anaximander explained the emergence of things not by the play of the elements, but by the fact that in eternal motion opposites are revealed, i.e. With this philosopher we apparently encounter for the first time an awareness of the meaning of opposites in relation to development. Anaximander encounters problems that Thales only abstractly designates - the problems of the emergence and formation of life. The capacity for life is here attributed directly to a specific type of matter. In addition, Anaximander also includes humans in the natural series of animal development.
1. Biography
Anaximander, son of Praxiades, was born in Miletus c. 610 BC, was a friend and student of Thales, lived at the court of Polycrates in Samos, died in 546 BC.
Representative of the Milesian school of natural philosophy and teacher of Anaximenes. Author of the first Greek scientific work written in prose (“On Nature - 547 BC”). He introduced the term law, applying the concept of social practice to nature and science. Anaximander is credited with one of the first formulations of the law of conservation of matter (“from the same things from which all existing things are born, into these same things they are destroyed according to their destiny”).
2. Teachings of Anaximander
antique philosophy anaximander being
He considered the celestial bodies not as separate bodies, but as “windows” in opaque shells hiding the fire. The earth looks like part of a column - a cylinder, the diameter of the base of which is three times the height: “of two [flat] surfaces we walk on one, and the other is opposite to it.”
The earth floats in the center of the world, not supported by anything. The earth is surrounded by gigantic tubular rings filled with fire. In the closest ring, where there is little fire, there are small holes - stars. In the second ring with stronger fire there is one large hole - the Moon. It can partially or completely overlap (this is how Anaximander explains the change lunar phases and lunar eclipses). In the third, farthest ring, there is the largest hole, the size of the Earth; the strongest fire shines through it - the Sun. Anaximander's universe is closed by heavenly fire. Thus, Anaximander believed that all heavenly bodies are at different distances from the Earth. Apparently, the order corresponds to the following physical principle: the closer it is to the celestial fire and, therefore, the further from the Earth, the brighter it is. According to modern reconstruction, the inner and outer diameters of the Sun’s ring are, according to Anaximander, 27 and 28 diameters of the earth’s cylinder, respectively; for the Moon these values are 18 and 19 diameters, for stars 9 and 10 diameters. Anaximander's Universe is based on a mathematical principle: all distances are multiples of three.
In Anaximander’s system of the world, the paths of celestial bodies are entire circles. This point of view, now quite obvious, was innovative in the time of Anaximander (we cannot directly observe that part of the trajectory that lies “underground”, and such a conclusion required unorthodoxy of conclusions). This first geocentric model of the Universe in the history of astronomy with the orbits of luminaries around the Earth made it possible to understand the geometry of the movements of the Sun, Moon and stars.
The Universe is thought of as centrally symmetrical; hence, the Earth, located in the center of the Cosmos, has no reason to move in any direction. Thus, Anaximander was the first to suggest that the Earth rests freely in the center of the world without support. Some ancient authors attributed to Anaximander the idea of the existence of an infinite number of worlds; modern historians have not agreed on the reliability of this evidence. Anaximander sought not only to describe the world geometrically accurately, but also to understand its origin. In the essay “On Nature,” known from retellings and the only surviving fragment, Anaximander gives a description of the Cosmos from the moment of its origin to the origin of living beings and humans.
The universe, according to Anaximander, develops on its own, without the intervention of the Olympian gods. Anaximander believes that the source of the origin of all things is a certain infinite, “ageless” [divine] principle - apeiron (???????) - which is characterized by continuous movement. The apeiron itself, as that from which everything arises and into which everything turns, is something constantly abiding and indestructible, boundless and infinite in time. (Before Aristotle, everyone used the word “apeiron” ancient thinkers, including Anaximander, acted as an adjective, that is, an attribute of a certain noun.)
As a result of a vortex-like process, the apeiron is divided into physical opposites of hot and cold, wet and dry, etc., the interaction of which gives rise to a spherical cosmos. The confrontation between the elements in the emerging cosmic vortex leads to the appearance and separation of substances. In the center of the vortex there is “cold” - the Earth, surrounded by water and air, and outside - fire. Under the influence of fire, the upper layers of the air shell turn into hard crust. This sphere of solidified aer (???, air) begins to burst with vapor from the boiling earth’s ocean. The shell cannot withstand it and swells (“comes off,” as indicated in one of the sources). At the same time, it must push the bulk of the fire beyond the boundaries of our world. This is how a sphere of fixed stars arises, and the stars themselves become pores in the outer shell. Moreover, Anaximander claims that things acquire their being and composition for a time, “on credit,” and then, according to the law, at a certain time, they return their due to the principles that gave birth to them.
The final stage of the emergence of the world is the appearance of living beings. Anaximander suggested that all living things originated from the sediments of the dried seabed. All living things are generated by moisture evaporated by the sun; when the ocean boils away, exposing the land, living creatures arise “from the heated water with the earth” and are born “in the moisture, enclosed inside a muddy shell.” That is, natural development, according to Anaximander, includes not only the emergence of the world, but also the spontaneous generation of life.
Anaximander considered the Universe to be similar to a living being. In contrast to ageless time, it is born, reaches maturity, grows old and must die in order to be reborn again: “... the death of the worlds takes place, and much earlier their birth, and from time immemorial, the same thing is repeated in a circle.”
Discussing the various types of existence of the first principle, Anaximander put forward the idea of parity of material states. Wet things can dry out, dry things can become moisturized, etc. Opposite states have a common basis, being concentrated in a certain unity, from which they are all isolated. This idea paved the way for one of the most important dialectical concepts of subsequent philosophy - the concept of “unity and struggle of opposites.”
Conclusion
Philosophy arose and developed in close connection with the beginnings of specific knowledge about nature. The first ancient Greek philosophers were also natural scientists.
First, they made attempts to scientifically explain the origin of the Earth, the Sun, the stars, animals, plants and humans.
Secondly, during this period interesting ideas were expressed about being, the fundamental principle of movement, matter, knowledge, which determined the main directions of philosophizing for a fairly long subsequent period.
Thirdly, the specificity of ancient Greek philosophy in its initial period was the desire to understand the essence of nature, the world as a whole, the cosmos, i.e. cosmogonism.
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