Anaximander

  • Thales’ pupil
  • Arche is apeiron (the unbounded, infinite)
  • Wrote “on nature”, first recorded words of philosophy
  • First person to draw a world map
  • Predicted an earthquake
  • Developed sundial for marking the seasons
  • Established a Milesian colony on the shores of the Black Sea
  • Humans came originally from fish
  • We should not eat fish because they were our kin
  • Sun is pure fire and larger than earth
  • Moon shines by reflecting light of sun
  • Rain comes from vapors that rise and condense into cloud
  • Earth is a short fat cylindrical, the upper flat surface is where we live, surrounded by ocean, hangs motionless in the midst of the infinite
 
Why infinite is the principle of all things:
  • infinite has no purpose other than being the origin
  • Generation and destruction will come to an end unless there is something infinite from which everything is subtracted from
 
Next:
Anaximenes