PHIL 338 Lecture Notes - Lecture 21: Theophrastus, Anaximander, Monism
Document Summary
But he rejected thales" supposition that water is the material arch . Instead, he proposed the apeiron (the indefinite, or the infinite). There is only one extant fragment ( 6 = b1). Simplicius (6th c. ), who was preserving an account of anaximander given by. Aristotle"s student theophrastus; it"s possible that simplicius may have gotten the quote from yet another commentator, alexander, in his now lost commentary on. They pay penalty and retribution to each other for their injustice in accordance with the ordering of time . Before trying to figure out what this means, let"s look at the context in simplicius: He says that the first principle is neither water nor any other of the things called elements, but some other nature which is indefinite Here"s a quite different translation (barnes, egp 74-75): Anaximander said that the infinite is principle and element of the things that exist. He was the first to introduce this word principle .
