The Basis of Anaxagoras' Cosmology 1

J. E. Raven

doi:10.1017/S0009838800007989

The Basis of Anaxagoras' Cosmology 1

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009

J. E. Raven

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J. E. Raven: Affiliation:
King's College, Cambridge

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No pre-Socratic philosopher, perhaps, has caused more disagreement, or been more variously interpreted, than Anaxagoras of Clazomenae. Among recent attempts to reconstruct his system some of the more notable are those of Tannery, Bailey, Cornford, Peck, and Vlastos. Each of these reconstructions, and especially that of Tannery, has its adherents; and since none of them (with the possible exceptions of the first and last) has much in common with any other, a universally acceptable solution to the fundamental problems involved may well by now seem unattainable. It is my belief, however, and it is the object of this paper to try to prove, that all these modern reconstructions have at least one quality in common, namely an undue complication. The actual system of Anaxagoras was, I believe, considerably simpler than any reconstruction yet forthcoming. Unfortunately what I take to be the basis of the whole system, Anaxagoras' reaction to his Eleatic predecessors, is by.no means easy to convey in brief and simple terms. But if I should succeed in conveying it, then it will, I hope, be seen in itself to possess such a simplicity and neatness that my contention will carry with it a fair warrant of its own truth. I shall, for convenience, divide my argument into ten sections, to which I shall append a brief summary of my conclusions.

Type: Research Article
Information: The Classical Quarterly , Volume 4 , Issue 3-4 , December 1954 , pp. 123 - 137

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0009838800007989 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Classical Association 1954

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^{page 123 note 2} Pour l'histoire de la science helléne, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1930).Google Scholar

^{page 123 note 3} Greek Atomists and Epicurus (Oxford, 1928), Appendix I.Google Scholar

^{page 123 note 4} C.Q. xxiv (1930), 14 ff. and 83 ff.Google Scholar

^{page 123 note 5} C.Q. xx (1926), 57 ff.Google Scholar

^{page 123 note 6} Philosophical Review, lix, No. 1 (1950), 31 ff.Google Scholar

^{page 123 note 7} Fr. 8. 5.

^{page 125 note 1} Cf. Ar. De Caelo .

^{page 125 note 2} These genitives are admittedly ambiguous and the sentence has occasionally been misinterpreted to suggest that there are ‘portions of the great and small’ comparable with ‘portions of the hot and the cold’ or ‘por tions of flesh and gold’. But that Anaxagoras means ‘the portions pertaining to the great and small’ is clear bodi from the context in Fr. 6 and from a comparison with Fr. 3.

^{page 125 note 3} Here Burnet (E.G.P. ₄ 259) is surely right in translating: ‘and an equal number both in the greater and in the smaller of the things that are separated off’, and Peck, (op. cit., 58)Google Scholar surely wrong: ‘there is an equal number of the things which separate off in great things and in small things alike’.

^{page 126 note 1} Plato and Parmenides (London, 1931), 60–61.Google Scholar

^{page 127 note 1} Phys. 156. 9.

^{page 127 note 2} This time, as Mr. G. S. Kirk has pointed out to me, Burnet's translation (ib.), ‘those things having been thus decided’ is surely wrong. διακρίνω must bear the sense it bears in Frs. 12, 13, and 17, viz., ‘separate’.

^{page 128 note 1} This is of course just the point made by the ancient commentators from Aristotle onwards. The σπέρματα are ἄπειρα the μοῖραι in Simplicius' phrase (Phys. 460. 10), .

^{page 129 note 1} De Caelo 608. 24.

^{page 129 note 2} μήποτε here of course bears the sense, common in late writers from Aristotle onwards, of ‘perhaps’.

^{page 131 note 1} Cf. the other phrase in Fr. 4: ….

^{page 131 note 2} Sextus, Pyrrh. 1. 33.Google Scholar

^{page 132 note 1} Op. cit., 42.Google Scholar

^{page 133 note 1} Cf. also Fr. 16: . The phrase explicitly suggests this secondary agency of the opposites.

^{page 133 note 2} It would be reasonable to object that the opposites are therefore no more to be called ‘agents’ than are the natural substances with which they are mixed in the ; and it is certainly true that at a later stage in Anaxagoras' system, notably in his physiology, it is the substances—hair, flesh, and so on-which are operative in the attraction of like to like rather than the opposites. The fact remains, however, that it is evidently the opposites which axe first operative, in the earliest stages of cosmogony; and that fact, even if it does not entitle them to a real priority of status, does at least account for Anaxagoras' emphasis upon them.

^{page 133 note 3} 97 b-98 c, especially the words .

^{page 133 note 4} Met. A 4. 985 ^a 18.

^{page 133 note 5} Fr. 21 ap. Simpl. Phys. 327. 26.

^{page 133 note 6} Met. A 8. 989 ^b 29.

^{page 134 note 1} Fr. 17. 19–20.

^{page 134 note 2} Op. cit., 268.Google Scholar

^{page 135 note 1} Op. cit., 64–65.Google Scholar

^{page 135 note 2} C.Q. xx, 91.Google Scholar

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