PHIL 338 Lecture Notes - Lecture 22: Anaximander
Document Summary
Simplicius"s words (just before he begins quoting anaximander) add something important which seems to capture anaximander"s idea: The process does not just happen , but must be that way. For the elements are opposed to each other (for example, air is cold, water moist, and fire hot), and if one of these were infinite the rest would already have been destroyed. But, as it is, they say that the infinite is different from these, and that they come into being from it. There are two possible lines of thought here (3a vs. 3b): the conflict of opposites: the opposites are at war with one another, hot, cold, etc. are thought of as things , not qualities . No one of the opposites could have been infinite , or there would be nothing else. These have all been considered possibilities: spatially infinite, qualitatively indefinite, temporally infinite (i. e. , eternal). (2) seems most plausible: anaximander posits the apeiron in response to thales.
