Anaxagoras: Fragments

First transcribed: fifth century b.c.e. (The Fragments of Anaxagoras, 1981)

Type of Philosophy: Metaphysics

Context

Anaxagoras held that the universe is infinite in extent and composed of mind and matter, but mind is a special kind of matter. There is no empty space.

Matter

Matter is not composed of primary units; it is infinitely divisible. “Nor is there a least of what is small, but there is always a smaller; for it cannot be that what exists should cease to be by being cut.” If you take a piece of a certain kind of matter—a hair, say, or a steak—and begin cutting, no matter how finely you cut it the pieces will still have the characteristics of hair or flesh. “How can hair come from what is not hair, or flesh from what is not flesh?”

Nevertheless, we eat bread, and the bread (we say) becomes hair and flesh. This is not accurate, Anaxagoras says: “The Greeks follow a wrong usage in speaking of coming into existence and passing away; for nothing comes into existence or passes away, but there is mingling and separation of things that exist. Therefore, they would be right to call coming into existence mixture, and passing away separation.” The “coming into existence” of the hair is really mixture, then, and the “passing away” of the bread is separation. However, this prompts one to ask: Mixture and separation of what? Any crumb of bread, however tiny, has all the properties of the whole loaf. Bread is not made of bits of hair and flesh. Likewise a hair is not separable into microscopic breadcrumbs. How then can hair be a “mixture” into which bread enters, while at the same time it cannot “come from what is not hair”?

The answer is that “The things that are in one world are not divided nor cut off from one another with a hatchet.” Although bread contains no particles of hair, it nevertheless contains hair fused or dissolved in it. In general, “all things will be in everything; nor is it possible for them to be apart, but all things have a portion of everything. . . . And in all things many things are contained, and an equal number both in the greater and in the smaller of the things that are separated.”

A loaf of bread contains “portions of everything”; that is, it contains or rather is a complex of all the sensible qualities. The same is true of every crumb of the loaf. (Anaxagoras was notorious for asserting that snow is black—in the sense that even the purest white stuff yet contains a portion of every “thing,” including blackness.) Yet the loaf does not appear to our senses as a primordial chaos. “Each single thing is most manifestly those things of which it has most in it.” It presents us with a definite, restricted set of qualities, such as brownness, moisture, bread-smell, and bread-taste. Hair as we know it is black, shiny, oily. Hair is in bread in the sense that blackness, shininess, and oiliness are all there, but relatively in such small quantities that “the weakness of our senses prevents our discerning the truth.” If we were presented (per impossibile) with a loaf of “pure” bread, we could not distinguish it from an ordinary loaf by looking at it, smelling it, or tasting it; but it would not nourish us. Our insides, however, are able (in an unexplained manner) to separate out the traces of hair and flesh.

Anaxagoras used the word “seeds”—”seeds of all things, having all sorts of characteristics both of color and of savor,” “a multitude of innumerable seeds in no way like each other”—to indicate the diversity of quality-things to be found in even the smallest bit of matter. However, the word has no atomistic implications; anything, however large or small, that has a trace of hair in it is a hair “seed.” The word occurs only twice in the extant fragments, both times in a description of world formation, and all that is signified is that the original mixture of all things has the potentialities in it for eventual separation into the most diverse kinds of objects.

Mind

Mind, like blackness or the smell of bread, is a real stuff; consequently, it has location (“it is certainly there, where everything else is”) and occupies space (“it is the thinnest of all things and the purest”). Although this seems sufficient evidence to make it a kind of matter, it must be remembered that Anaxagoras does not make a distinction between stuff and the qualities of stuff; indeed, refusal to make this distinction is the key to his philosophy. Mind has or is the properties that in our experience we find it to have: It is conscious and cognitive (“it has all knowledge about everything”) and powerful, manifesting itself as will power or élan vital in living things (“mind has the greatest strength; and it has power over all things, both greater and smaller, that have life”). It is unique in not entering into mixtures: “All other things partake in a portion of everything, while Mind is infinite and self-ruled, and is mixed with nothing but is alone, itself by itself.” Anaxagoras argued that “if it were not by itself, but were mixed with anything else, it would partake in all things if it were mixed with any; for in everything there is a portion of everything, and the things mixed with it would hinder it, so that it would have power over nothing in the same way that it has now being alone by itself.” The thought seems to be that if mind mixed, it would lose its peculiar power just as the blackness in snow or the breadness in hair does; but this is impossible, both because what is essentially active cannot become passive and because our minds are experienced as unities. Also “it would partake in all things if it were mixed with any”; rocks and clods would be alive—an absurdity.

However, although mind is not mixed with anything, it is present in some living things: “In everything there is a portion of everything except Mind, and there are some things in which there is Mind also.” The power of mind is to initiate activity (motion) in these things and to move and “set in order all things” from outside. Anaxagoras also says “All Mind is alike, both the greater and the smaller.” It is the same mind stuff that is present in people as in other animals and vegetables. Humans’ greater intelligence is due not to possession of a superior grade of mind but to our having hands.

World Creation

Like every other Greek philosopher, Anaxagoras held that nothing can come from nothing, nor can anything utterly vanish. The totality of world stuff is fixed: It is “all,” and “we must know that all of them are neither more nor less; for it is not possible for them to be more than all, and all are always equal.” However, the world of moving, changing, differentiated things that we know is not eternal. Anaxagoras postulated a primeval condition of homogeneity and motionlessness:

All things were together, infinite both in number and in smallness; for the small too was infinite. And, when all things were together, none of them were plain, because of their smallness. . . . But before they were separated off, when all things were together, not even was any color plain; for the mixture of all things prevented it—of the moist and the dry, and the warm and the cold, and the light and the dark, and of much earth that was in it, and of a multitude of innumerable seeds in no way like each other.

It is perhaps permissible to think of this initial condition as a gray, dim, damp, tepid, dirty vastness, or if you prefer, a luminosity: “Air and fire prevailed over all things, being both of them infinite; for amongst all things these are the greatest both in quantity and size.” That is, a homogeneous mixture of all things would look like air and fire, because those are what are most plentiful.

At some point in this mass, mind started a whirl: “And Mind had power over the whole revolution, so that it began to revolve in the beginning. And it began to revolve first from a small beginning; but the revolution now extends over a larger space, and will extend over a larger still.” We see the whirl of the heavenly bodies still going on overhead.

The centrifugal force of the whirl caused separation out of the homogeneous mass, “as these things revolve and are separated off by the force and speed. And the speed makes the force. Their speed is not like the speed of any of the things that are now among men, but in every way many times as fast.” He continues, “And when Mind began to move things, separating off took place from all that was moved, and so much as Mind set in motion was all separated. And as things were set in motion and separated, the revolution caused them to be separated much more.”

The separation resulted not just in differentiation but in a natural order: “And all the things that are mingled together and separated off and distinguished are all known by Mind. And Mind set in order all things that were to be . . . and that now exist, and this revolution caused the separating off, and the thin is separated from the thick, the warm from the cold, the light from the dark, and the dry from the moist. . . . The thick and the moist and the cold and the dark came together where the earth is now, while the thin and the warm and the dry and the bright went out towards the further part of the sky.” However (it is not clear how), “from the earth stones are solidified by the cold, and these rush outwards more than water.” They are the Sun, Moon, and stars, the Sun and stars being heated to incandescence by their motion, while the Moon, lower down and not moving so fast, shines by the reflected light of the Sun. The process described is only a local one. Anaxagoras reasoned that mind must “set things in order” in other parts of the boundless universe, producing other worlds.

We must suppose . . . that men have been formed in them, and the other animals that have life, and that these men have inhabited cities and cultivated fields as with us; and that they have a sun and a moon and the rest as with us; and that their earth brings forth for them many things of all kinds of which they gather the best together into their dwellings, and use them. Thus much have I said with regard to separating off, to show that it will not be only with us that things are separated off, but elsewhere too.

Anaxagoras followed Anaximenes in holding that the earth is a flat disc held up by the air. The Sun, he said, “is bigger than the Peloponnese.” He correctly explained winds as spawned by the thinning of the air by the sun. He theorized that earthquakes are caused by the air above striking on the air under the earth; the movement of the latter causes the earth, floating on it, to rock. He understood the causes of eclipses, but thought that some lunar eclipses are caused by the interposition of invisible bodies between the Sun and Moon. This theory was evidently intended to explain the eclipses that occur when the sun is still above the horizon.

Contrary to the theory of Empedocles, according to which perception is a process of uniting constituents of the sense organs with like things outside them, Anaxagoras held that perception is essentially an irritation by substances unlike those that compose the organs. He worked this theory out with considerable subtlety. We see light because the pupils of our eyes are dark; this explains also why we cannot see at night. We perceive warmth and cold only when in contrast our skin is colder or warmer than the object felt; when they are at the same temperature, there is no sensation. Salt, sweet, and sour tastes are known because though these qualities are in us, there is a deficiency that makes possible a contrast. It follows that all perception is subliminal pain, as is proved by the fact that any prolonged or violent sensation is felt as painful.

A Thorough Rationalist

Anaxagoras was aware of the Italian philosophers—the Pythagoreans, Parmenides, Empedocles, and Zeno—and in some respects adopted their views (concerning eclipses), in others made concessions to their arguments (in rejecting a vacuum), and sometimes argued against them (his doctrine of infinite divisibility seems to stem from an attempt to refute Zeno). Primarily, however, Anaxagoras was the continuator of the Milesian school. His conception of the “beginning” and of the process of world formation, for instance, was an elaboration of Anaximander’s. Like the Milesians, he was a thorough rationalist: There is no trace of mysticism in his work, and if he had any emotional reaction to his vision of the nature of things, no report of it has come down to us. The Milesians still talked of “god” and “the divine” in connection with the cosmic process, although these terms had become mere abstract labels for stuffs and mechanisms. In Anaxagoras, on the other hand, even the words have disappeared. Nor was his mind an object of worship; it was not a personality, and (as Socrates complained) it was not even a cosmic designer. It was just the projection of human cognition and will (“known” in experience as initiator of motion) without any moral or religious attributes.

In one respect, Anaxagoras’s explanation of things was more consistent than that of any of his predecessors: Having postulated that nothing can come from nothing, and that “things are what they seem to be” (that is, the sensible qualities are literally the constituents of the things), he had no difficulty (as Empedocles did) in accounting for the diversity of objects of experience. However, at the same time this success was a great failure, for if there are as many principles of explanation as there are things to be explained, how can one be said to “explain” anything? Everything comes from just what it is. However, to say that visible, concentrated hair comes from obscured, diluted hair is not to satisfy the demand that impels us to ask for explanations. Granted that we do not want to be told that hair comes from nothing, we still look for some sense in which “hair comes from what is not hair.”

Thus the philosophy of Anaxagoras, in being the logical conclusion of the assumption that “things are what they seem to be,” was—like many logical conclusions—also a cul-de-sac. Like Parmenides’ similar working out of the implications of monism, it closed off one way of investigation and in doing so assured that the next advance in Greek thought (made by the atomists) would consist in denying the premise on which it rested.

Anaxagoras was the first to bring philosophy to Athens. He was also the first philosopher to suffer from Athenian religious and political bigotry. Tried and convicted of “impiety” (for his statements about the Sun and Moon) and allegiance to a foreign power (Persia), he was, it seems, condemned to death but escaped to Lampsacus in Ionia, where he spent the rest of his days as an honored schoolteacher.

Principal Ideas Advanced

•The universe is infinite and is composed of infinitely divisible matter.

•Everything that exists contains portions of every other kind of thing, but particular things are recognized by their most obvious characteristics.

•Mind is matter considered as conscious and knowing.

•Originally the universe was homogeneous and motionless, but as a result of the whirling influence of mind, the universe became differentiated and ordered.

Bibliography

Barnes, Jonathan. The Presocratic Philosophers. London: Routledge, 1993. Includes a chapter on Anaxagoras, reconstructing his philosophy from a careful examination of the fragments.

Davison, J. A. “Protagoras, Democritus, and Anaxagoras.” Classical Quarterly 3 (1953): 33-45. Establishes Anaxagoras’s position vis-à-vis other Greek philosophers and shows his influence on the “atomist” school that succeeded him. Also contains some information on his early life not available elsewhere in English and argues for an early date for his exile from Athens.

Gershenson, Daniel E., and Daniel A. Greenberg. Anaxagoras and the Birth of Physics. New York: Blaisdell, 1964. This controversial work suggests that the Anaxagoras fragments are not really the words of Anaxagoras, but rather his words as interpreted by later philosophers, notably Simplicius, who succeeded him. Contains a good, if somewhat theoretical, explanation of Anaxagoras’s system.

Guthrie, W. K. C. A History of Greek Philosophy. Vol. 2 Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1965. Contains the most complete account available of Anaxagoras’s life. Puts his life and teachings in the context of his times.

Kirk, Geoffrey S., John E. Raven, and M. Schofield. The Presocratic Philosophers. 2d ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. One chapter contains a scholarly account of Anaxagoras’s philosophy; includes Greek text of fragments.

Mansfield, J. “The Chronology of Anaxagoras’s Athenian Period and the Date of His Trial.” Mnemosyne 33 (1980): 17-95. Offers the most convincing arguments concerning Anaxagoras’s arrival in Athens, his trial, and his banishment. Also contains references to Anaxagoras’s relationship with Pericles and the political motives behind the former’s exile.

Mourelatos, Alexander P. D. The Pre-Socratics: A Collection of Critical Essays. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. Includes two essays by eminent scholars, Gregory Vlastos and G. B. Kerford, which attempt to reconstruct Anaxagoras’s philosophy in a way that makes it logically consistent. Both focus on his materialism.

Schofield, Malcolm. An Essay on Anaxagoras. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1980. A clear, witty exposition of the philosophy of Anaxagoras and his importance in the history of philosophy. Perhaps the best work on Anaxagoras’s system and its meaning available in English.

Taylor, A. E. “On the Date of the Trial of Anaxagoras.” Classical Quarterly 11 (1917): 81-87. A good discussion of the backdrop against which Anaxagoras’s sojourn in Athens was played and the political and intellectual milieu during which his book was written.