Anaximander was a Greek philosopher of the sixth century BC, born around 610 BC and dying around 546 BC in Miletus, in Ionia on the coast of present day Turkey, where he was a member of the Milesian school alongside Thales and Anaximenes. He is remembered as one of the first thinkers to propose a naturalistic account of the origin of the cosmos, arguing that the source of all things is not any single familiar element such as water but the apeiron, an unbounded or indefinite substance from which the opposites, hot and cold, wet and dry, separate out to form the world. Anaximander also described a mechanical, unsupported Earth floating freely at the center of the universe and offered early speculative accounts of the origins of animals and human beings, work that has led some historians to credit him as an early founder of cosmology and of scientific inquiry into nature more broadly.
Facts
Birth YearSourced to the subject's own account Defining MomentSourced to the subject's own accountHis theory of the apeiron (the boundless) as the arche, the source of all things 1 Notable PublicationSourced to the subject's own accountOn Nature (Peri physeos), the earliest known Greek prose work on nature 1 Office HeldLeader sent by Miletus to its colony of Apollonia on the Black Sea coast 1 Sourced to the subject's own accountReported by the 3rd-century rhetorician Aelian; some historians take it as evidence he was a prominent citizen. Death YearSourced to the subject's own accountApollodorus reports him as 64 years old in 547-546 BC and dying shortly after. BirthplaceSourced to the subject's own accountMiletus, Ionia (in modern-day Turkey) 1 TraditionSourced to the subject's own accountMilesian school of Ionian natural philosophy; second master of the school after Thales 1 Classification
NationalitySourced to the subject's own account Anaximander
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Influenced
Source Anaximenes of Miletus (Wikipedia)
In the Other Atlases
- Also in Geography Atlas: Greece, originated there.
Sources
1. Anaximander (Wikipedia)
WikipediaBiography section, on his birth
Anaximander, son of Praxiades, was born in the third year of the 42nd Olympiad (610 BC).
Biography section, on his age and death
he was sixty-four years old during the second year of the 58th Olympiad (547-546 BC) and died shortly afterwards.
Lead section, on the Milesian school
He belonged to the Milesian school and learned the teachings of his master Thales. He succeeded Thales and became the second master of that school
Lead section, on his written work
he is the first philosopher known to have written down his studies, although only one fragment of his work remains.
Lead section, on the apeiron
his postulation that the infinite (or apeiron) was the source of all things, led Greek philosophy to a new level of conceptual abstraction.
Biography section, on Apollonia
3rd-century Roman rhetorician Aelian depicts Anaximander as leader of the Milesian colony to Apollonia on the Black Sea coast
Lead section, on Miletus
was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher who lived in Miletus, a city of Ionia (in modern-day Turkey).
View the Source Anaximenes of Miletus (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia (Wikimedia Foundation)Influenced: Anaximenes, Lead section, second paragraphQuote, Influenced: Anaximenes, Lead section, second paragraph
It is generally accepted that Anaximenes was instructed by Anaximander, and many of their philosophical ideas are similar.
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