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person500 BCE-428 BCE

Anaxagoras

Disciplines:
cosmology
metaphysics

Summary

Ancient Greek philosopher who posited Nous (Mind) as the principle that initiated the cosmic rotation separating opposites, and who argued that all natural substances contain portions of everything.

Core Contribution

Nous (Mind) is the finest and purest of all things, unmixed with any other substance, and it initiated the cosmological rotation by which the world was formed. Everything contains a portion of everything — except Nous, which is pure.

Key Spikes & Highlights

  • Claimed the sun was a fiery stone larger than the Peloponnese — a claim that got him tried for impiety in Athens and exiled.
  • Was Pericles's teacher and intellectual companion — the first philosopher to live in Athens as the center of intellectual life.

Notable Works & Achievements

On Nature

Historical Influences

Anaximander Parmenides

Intellectual Lineage

Pre-Socratic Philosophy Milesian Cosmology

Contemporaries & Peers

Parmenides Empedocles Zeno of Elea

Minds Influenced

Plato Aristotle Plotinus

Intellectual Posterity

Nous Teleological Cosmology

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