Anaximander's doctrine of being is brief. Philosophical doctrine of Anaximander

Anaximander (610-546 BC) - a student and follower of Thales, was also a versatile educated person. He was interested in mathematics, physics, astronomy, geography, studied the origin of life, etc. Without essentially denying the teachings of Thales, his basic view of the world, Anaximander at the same time believed that water, being intermediate only between solid and vaporous states, could not serve the basis of all things, since each thing comes "from its own beginnings." For example, hot and cold - from warm, white and black - from gray, etc. So each state, each pair of opposites must have its own, special beginning, a special intermediate. But in this case, there should have been the beginning of all beginnings - the beginning that gives rise to the world as a whole. And it cannot be either water or any other element (earth, air, fire), but it must be some other boundless nature, which is equally inherent in all elements. Anaximander calls this endless, active medium containing opposites "apeiron". It is in it, according to the philosopher, that the reason for the universal emergence and destruction lies.

It can be assumed that Anaximander imagined a certain material environment changing from point to point, like a transition from white to

black. This allowed the philosopher to look at it from an intermediate position and see the opposites as excess and deficiency. Moreover, looking at each of the opposite sides separately from the positions of their intermediate, Anaximander could see new opposites, and so on without end. Apparently, such a view allowed Anaximander to suggest that the apeiron includes all kinds of opposites that give rise to all bodies “through differences in the density and rarefaction of the primary element, which in turn is the basis for the birth and death of worlds-firmaments, which from time immemorial has been repeated in a circle” .

Anaximander wrote several works: "Map of the Earth", "Globe", "On Nature". By their names, one can judge that the philosopher mainly studied nature. From the last work, one small fragment has been preserved: “And from what (beginning) things birth, in the same ones, death is done on a fatal debt, because they pay each other legal compensation for unrighteousness (damage) at the appointed time.”

This passage indicates that the relationship between things arising from the infinite material environment, which Anaximander calls apeiron, is such as the relationship between "debtor" and "creditor",

which indicates the relationship of Anaximander's worldview with the mythological worldview and, above all, with the idea of ​​compensation, as the idea of ​​cosmic justice (truth). Moreover, Anaximander, despite the mythological terminology, no longer has these supernatural guardians of measure, since all cosmic processes take place in him according to their own immanent laws, due to the activity of the material environment itself - the apeiron.

Therefore, the meaning invested in the concept of “reimbursement of unrighteousness” should be sought in mythology and, above all, in the Greek idea of ​​compensation, as the idea of ​​cosmic justice (truth), while the concept of “debt” is associated with the idea of ​​decompensation (discord).

Here the connection between mythological and philosophical thinking is most clearly manifested, which at first go side by side, having elements of initial empirical knowledge as their sources. Based on the objective laws of being, mythological worldview was already able to represent the ideas of injustice and retribution, Discord and Truth, decompensation and compensation in the form of a physical phenomenon, i.e. in the form of scales in the hands of the goddess of justice, the bowls of which in one case go out of balance, in the other they tend to it. In this image has found its concrete reflection feature antiquity - thinking opposites. The latter are understood here exclusively as the "excess" and "lack" of one or another substrate in relation to the equilibrium position - that intermediate state from which the opposites arise and to which, being annihilated, strive.

Therefore, the main issue of Milesian natural philosophy was to identify the essence of the “intermediate”, the condensation and rarefaction of which would determine the entire diversity of the sensually perceived world. This indicates that mythological thinking, which operates not only with representations, but also with comparative concepts, is not only not arbitrary, but, on the contrary, has a very strict logic. Only this logic differs from the logic of our science today. Therefore, mythology is not only a product of the imagination, but also the result of strict logical-theoretical thinking.

However, this can only be seen as a result of a thorough study of those mythological ideas that reflect the relationship of opposites in the process of their compensation and decompensation. It is no coincidence that in the first part of the fragment, Anaximander draws our attention to that from which everything that exists arises and into which, of necessity, it is destroyed. And if the words "compensation for untruth" are understood as compensation, and the word "debt" is understood as decompensation, then everything becomes extremely clear. It becomes possible to determine the "source of universal emergence and destruction." All this suggests that the processes of "compensation" and "decompensation" in Anaximander are connected by time frames and, in general, represent a kind of cyclical process.

Obviously, such a view of nature presupposes its comprehension not from the standpoint of the correlated, i.e. not from the point of view of one of the poles of the gradation. Here, as in Thales, the starting point from which the world is comprehended is the middle, intermediate, which divides the continuous environment into active, opposite parts.

The essence of Anaximander's teaching about the fundamental principle of all things can be reduced to the following: none of the visible four elements can claim to be the fundamental principle. The primary element is apeiron, which is beyond the perception of our senses, a substance intermediate between fire, air, water and earth, which contains elements of all these substances. It contains all the properties of other substances, for example, heat and cold, all opposites are united in it (later Heraclitus developed this position of Anaximander into the law of unity and struggle of opposites, inherited from him by Hegel and Marx). An integral property of apeiron is an endless movement, primarily circling. As an example of rotational motion, the ancients presented the change of day and night, which they explained as the rotation of the sun, moon, and stars around the Earth. Under the influence of this perpetual motion, the infinite apeiron is divided, opposites are separated from the previously existing single mixture, homogeneous bodies move towards each other. The largest and heaviest bodies, during rotational motion, rush to the center, where they huddle into a lump, so the Earth, located in the center of the Universe, is formed. It is immovable and in balance, not needing any supports, since it is equidistant from all points of the Universe (for Thales, the Earth rests on water. But then the question arises of what water rests on, and the question of support becomes insoluble. Anaximander simply eliminates this question). Anaximander cites two examples to support his thought: 1) if millet grain is placed in an inflatable bubble and then inflated, the grain will be motionless in suspension in the center of the bubble; “So the earth, being pushed by the air from all sides, remains motionless in a state of equilibrium in the center of the cosmos.” 2) If you tie the ropes at the same time and pull them with equal force in different directions, then the body will be immovable. Thus, Anaximander, as it were, anticipates the law of universal gravitation, the concept of gravity for him did not at all mean falling down.

Lighter particles of water, according to Anaximander, previously enveloped the Earth in a single water cover, which has now been significantly reduced due to evaporation. The water was surrounded by an air layer, which in turn was embraced by a fiery sphere. The latter does not represent a single whole, as it was fragmented due to the rotation. This is the picture of the universe. In addition, everything material is doomed to perish due to the same perpetual motion. The unarisen and indestructible Anaximander seemed to be only the primordial substance apeiron, from which everything arose and into which everything must return. Anaximander considered the emergence and development of the world to be a periodically repeating process: at certain intervals, the world is absorbed by the boundless beginning surrounding it, and then arises again. Later, the Stoics, who inherited many of the teachings of Anaximander through the medium of Heraclitus, added that the universe, after certain periods of time, should burn in the fire that forms its outer layer.

According to P. Tannery, Anaximander was a naturalist who built an idea of ​​the cosmos based on natural laws. He, like the physicists of the New Age, deduced a picture of the world, comprehending simple experimental models, generalizing the model of centrifugal motion. Only, unlike the scientists of the New Age, he had less experimental data, which he had to compensate for with brilliant guesses. However, the teaching of Anaximander is similar to the Kant-Laplace hypothesis about the emergence celestial bodies from nebulae due to rotational motion.

However, like Thales, Anaximander was not free from mythological roots, from the ideological heritage of his time. As in the teaching of Thales about the origin of the world there are parallels with the myth set forth in the Iliad, so the teaching of Anaximander is similar to the cosmogony only not of Homer, but with Hesiod's Theogony. Apeiron has its analogue, like the water of Thales - the deity Ocean, it is Chaos, the primary element that existed when there was nothing else besides it, from which everything else comes. Chaos is a disorderly mixture from which the gods and elements subsequently emerge, bringing the world into order. Gaia (Earth), Tartarus (the bowels of the Earth), then the god of love Eros, Night and Erebus (darkness), Day and Ether (light), Uranus (sky), mountains, seas, Ocean are born from Chaos. But Anaximander not only modifies the scheme of the origin of the world, outlined by Hesiod, he creatively reworks it, introducing completely new provisions. In Hesiod, all of the above concepts are personified, these are all deities that have their own personal name. There are male deities, there are female deities, they, like people, produce offspring from each other. The question of what Anaximander thought about the gods, we will touch on later. In the meantime, it should be noted that all the elements he describes - fire, air, water, earth - are the offspring of apeiron, they are material, not humanoid. In Hesiod, one generation of gods replaces another, Anaximander's apeiron is eternal. In general, Anaximander was the first to come to the idea that matter exists eternally in time and infinitely in space.

Detail of The School of Athens by Raphael (1509)

Anaximander

Anaximander Quotes: 1. Ayperon is one and absolute, immortal and indestructible, which encompasses everything and rules everything. 2. The Infinite (iperon) is every cause of every birth and destruction. 3. From the one, the opposites contained in it stand out. 4. The infinite is the beginning of being. For everything is born from it and everything is resolved into it. That is why an infinite number of worlds arise and resolve back into that from which it arises. 5. The number of worlds is infinite and each of the worlds (arises) from this infinite element. 6. Countless heavens (worlds) are gods. 7. Parts change, but the whole is unchanged. 8. The first animals were born in moisture and were covered with prickly scales; upon reaching a certain age, they began to go out on land, and there, when the scales began to burst, they soon changed their way of life.

Achievements and contributions:

Professional, social position: Anaximander was a Greek philosopher, a pre-Socratic, who lived in Miletus, a city in Ionia.
Main contribution (what is known): Anaximander was one of the greatest minds that ever lived on earth. He is considered the first metaphysician. He also pioneered the application of scientific and mathematical principles to the study of astronomy and geography.
Contributions: He proposed the first transcendental and dialectical approach to nature and a new level of conceptual abstraction. He argued that physical forces, not supernatural entities, create order in the universe.
Neither water, nor any other elements, are first principles. At the basis of everything lies the “apeiron” (“unlimited” or “indefinable”), an infinite, unperceivable substance from which all the heavens and the numerous worlds within them arise.
Apeiron always existed, filled all space, encompassed everything and was in constant motion, dividing from the inside into opposites, for example, into hot and cold, wet and dry. Opposite states have a common basis, being concentrated in a certain unity, from which they are all singled out.
The first version of the law of conservation of energy."Apeiron" causes the movement of things, many forms and differences are produced from it. These multiple forms return to infinity, to the diffuse immensity from which they arose. This endless process of arising and disintegration is inexorably carried out throughout the ages.
Cosmology. He argued that the Earth remained unsupported at the center of the universe because there was no reason to move it in any direction.
He discovered the tilt of the ecliptic, the celestial globe, the gnomon (to determine the solstice), and also invented the sundial.
Cosmogony. He suggested that the worlds arose from an unchanging and eternal reservoir, in which they are eventually absorbed. In addition, he anticipated the theory of evolution. He said that man himself man and animals arose in the process of transmutation and adaptation to the environment.
His new ideas:
Apeiron is the first element and principle.
He never gave a precise definition of apeiron, and he, in general (for example, Aristotle and St. Augustine) was understood as some kind of primitive chaos. In some respects, this concept is analogous to the concept of "abyss", which occurs in the cosmogony of the East.
He first proposed the theory of Multiple Worlds and populated them with various gods.
In his opinion, man reached his modern state by adapting to the environment, believed that life developed from moisture and that man originated from fish.
He said that the earth has a cylindrical shape, and the depth of the cylinder is equal to the third part of its width.
According to Themistius, he was "the first known Greek to publish a written document on nature".
Anaximander was the first Greek to draw a geographical map of the Earth.
He was the first to introduce the term "law", applying the concept of social practice to nature and science.
He was the first to lay the foundation for the dialectical concepts of subsequent philosophy - he proposed the law of "the unity and struggle of opposites." In his opinion, apeiron, as a result of a vortex-like process, is divided into physical opposites hot and cold, wet and dry.
Main works:"On Nature" (547 BC) - the first written document, in Western philosophy. Earth rotation, Sphere, Geometric measurements, Map of Greece, Map of the World.

Career and personal life:

Origin: Anaximander, son of Praxiades, was born at Miletus during the third year of the 42nd Olympias (610 BC).
Education: He was a student and companion of Thales. He was influenced by Thales's theory that everything comes from water.
Influenced on: Thales
The main stages of professional activity: He was a student and companion of Thales and the second master of the Miletus school, where Anaximenes and Pythagoras were his students.
Anaximander took part in the creation of Apollonia on the Black Sea and traveled to Sparta.
He also took part in the political life of Miletus and was sent as a legislator to the Miletus colony Apollonia located on the Black Sea coast (now Sozopol, Bulgaria).
The main stages of personal life: Only a small part of his life and work is known to researchers today. He may have traveled a lot. He exhibited stately manners and wore pompous clothes.
Zest: He believed that things for a while, "in debt", acquire their being and composition, and then, according to the law, at a certain time, return the debts to the principles that gave rise to them. It is believed that Thales may have been his uncle.

Anaximander (c. 610 - after 547 BC), ancient Greek philosopher, representative Milesian school, author of the first philosophical essay on Greek"About nature". A student of Thales. Created a geocentric model of the cosmos, the first geographical map. He expressed the idea of ​​the origin of man "from an animal of another species" (fish).

Anaximander of Miletus (Anaximandros) (c. 610 - c. 546 BC). Philosopher and astronomer. According to tradition, he wrote the first philosophical treatise in prose (“On the World”), was the first in Greece to use the gnomon, installed the first sundial in Greece (in Sparta), created an astronomical model of the sky and compiled the first map of the Earth. He also rationalized astronomy.

Adkins L., Adkins R. Ancient Greece. Encyclopedic reference book. M., 2008, p. 445.

Anaximander (c. 610-547 BC) - A student and follower of Thales, at the basis of all things, he assumed a special primary matter - apeiron (that is, infinite, eternal, unchanging). Everything arises from it and returns to it. (In modern science, perhaps, the cosmic vacuum corresponds to this.) Only a few fragments of his writings have survived. His work "On Nature" is considered the first scientific and philosophical work, where an attempt was made to give a reasonable explanation of the universe. At its center, Anaximander placed the Earth, which has the shape of a cylinder. He was the first in Hellas to draw a geographical map, invented a sundial (a gnomon, a vertical rod, the shadow of which fell on the likeness of a dial) and astronomical instruments. One of Anaximander's ideas: "From the same things from which all existing things are born, they inevitably collapse into these same things"...

Balandin R.K. One Hundred Great Geniuses / R.K. Balandin. - M.: Veche, 2012.

Anaximander ("Αναξίμανδρος") from Miletus (c. 610-546 BC) - the ancient Greek materialist philosopher of the Milesian school, the author of the first spontaneously materialistic and naive-dialectical work "On Nature" in Greece, which has not come down to us. For the first time introduced into philosophy the concept of "arche" (principle), by which he meant that from which all things arise and into which they, being destroyed, are resolved and what lies at the basis of their being. boundless), “indefinite matter”, is a single, eternal, infinite matter; it is in perpetual motion and generates from itself the infinite diversity of everything that exists.

Philosophical Dictionary / ed.-comp. S. Ya. Podoprigora, A. S. Podoprigora. - Ed. 2nd, sr. - Rostov n / a: Phoenix, 2013, p. 16.

Other biographical material:

Anaximenes (6th century BC), ancient Greek philosopher, student of Anaximander.

Greece, Hellas, southern part of the Balkan Peninsula, one of the most important historical countries antiquities.

Fragments:

DC I, 81-90; MaddalenaA. (ed.). Ionici. Testimonials e frames. Firenze, 1970;

Colli G. La sapienza greca, v. 2Mil., 1977, p. 153-205;

Conche M. Anaximandre. Fragments and temoignages. P., 1991;

Lebedev A. V. Fragments, p. 116-129.

Literature:

Kahn Ch. Anaximander and the origin of Greek cosmology N. Y., 1960;

Classen C. J. Anaximandros, RE, Suppl. 12, 1970col. 30-69 (bibl.);

Lebedev A. V. ... No. not Anaximander, but Plato and Aristotle. - Bulletin of Ancient History 1978, 1, p. 39-54; 2, p. 43-58;

He is. Geometric style and cosmology of Anaximander. - In: Culture and arts of the ancient world. M., 1980, p. 100-124.

OK. 610540 BC) - an ancient Greek naturalist, geographer and natural philosopher, the second representative of the Miletus school, according to doxographers, a "student", "comrade" and "relative" of Thales. In 547/546 he published the first early scientific prose treatise "On Nature" (the title may be later), the main content of which was cosmogony, cosmography, and the etiology of meteorological phenomena. The notion of Anaximander as an abstract metaphysics, discussing the principle of being, is certainly erroneous (the term arche-beginning itself was most likely unknown to Anaximander, as well as to all Milesians) and is based on an uncritical adherence to peripatetic doxography. Anaximander's method is characterized by the fundamental role of binary oppositions and analogies. In cosmology, he proceeds from the general Milesian idea of ​​an "infinite embracing" - a spatially unlimited bodily continuum, "embracing" the cosmos from the outside after its birth and absorbing it after death. The nature of the “encompassing” Anaximander was already unclear to the ancient readers of his book, perhaps due to the archaic style. The term apeiron (infinite), which in doxography denotes the “beginning” of Anaximander, is inauthentic: Anaximander used the adjective “infinite” as one of the attributes of “eternal and ageless nature”, “embracing all the firmaments (= worlds) and cosmos (= spaces) in them ". According to reliable evidence from Aristotle (Met. 1069b22; Phys. 187a21) and Theophrastus (ar. Simpi. Phys. 27, 11-23), Anaximander conceived "eternal nature" as a "mixture" of all qualitatively different substances, thus anticipating Anaxagora's the concept of matter. Cosmogony of Anaximander: 1st phase - "isolation" from the "encompassing" world "embryo" (analogous to the "world egg"); 2nd phase - "separation" and polarization of opposites (moist cold core and hot fiery "crust"), 3rd phase - interaction and struggle of "hot and cold" generates a formed cosmos. In the only surviving fragment (B l DK), Anaximander gave the first formulation of the law of conservation of matter: "Things are destroyed in the same elements from which they arose, according to their destination: they pay (to the elements) legal compensation for damage within a specified period of time." In cosmology (cosmography), Anaximander created the first geometric model of the Universe (visibly illustrated by a celestial globe), the geocentric hypothesis and the "theory of spheres" in astronomy, associated with the discovery of the Southern celestial hemisphere, originate from him, he created the first geographical map (perhaps, on the Babylonian model ). Anaximander's doctrine of the origin of the "first people" "from animals of another species" (such as fish), with all significant differences, makes him an ancient predecessor of Darwin.

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MILETE SCHOOL

the first naive-materialistic and spontaneous dialectic. the school of ancient Greek philosophy represented by Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes. It received its name after the city of Miletus in Ionia (the western coast of M. Asia), which bloomed in the 6th century. BC. economic center. In Miletus, the rapid development of crafts and trade caused the rise of trade and industry. class, to-ry, getting stronger economically, won the main. positions in politics. the life of the polis. Along with the fall of the power of the tribal aristocracy, their traditions began to play an ever smaller role. representation. Ordinary religious-mythological. ideas about the gods as the external causes of everything that happens in the world did not meet the needs of a person striving for nature. explanation of the phenomena of reality. There is doubt about the authenticity of the myths. The development of mathematical, astronomical, geographical. and other knowledge is explained by the general rise of all aspects of society. life, incl. the development of trade, navigation, crafts and construction. affairs, as well as using the achievements of Eastern science.

All the Milesian philosophers are spontaneous materialists; for them, the single essence ("the beginning") of the diverse phenomena of nature lies "in something definitely bodily", for Thales this essence is water, for Anaximander it is an indefinite and boundless primordial substance (apeiron), for Anaximenes it is air. In the views of philosophers M. sh. about the origin and laws of existence are affected by aesthetic. perception of the world, related activity of arts. imagination and figurative thinking, remnants of mythological, anthropomorphic. and hylozoistic. representations.

Milesian school for the first time she canceled the mythological picture of the world, based on the axiologisation of the concepts of top-bottom and the opposition of the heavenly (divine) to the earthly (human) (Arist. De caelo 270a5), and introduced the universality of physical laws (the line that Aristotle could not cross). Fundamental to all Milesian theories remains the law of conservation (ex nihil nihil), or the denial of absolute “emergence” and “annihilation” (“birth” and “death”) as anthropomorphic categories (Anaximander, fi; B l; Arist. Met. 983b6).

Anaximander of Miletus(ancient Greek Ἀναξίμανδρος, 610 - 547/540 BC) - an ancient Greek philosopher, a representative of the Milesian school of natural philosophy, a student of Thales of Miletus and teacher of Anaximenes. Author of the first Greek scientific work written in prose ("On Nature", 547 BC). Introduced the term "law", applying the concept of social practice to nature and science. Anaximander is credited with one of the first formulations of the law of conservation of matter (“from the same things from which all existing things are born, into these same things they are destroyed according to their destiny”).

Cosmology

Anaximander considered the celestial bodies not as separate bodies, but as “windows” in opaque shells that hide fire. The earth has the appearance of a part of a column - a cylinder, the diameter of which is three times the height: "from two [flat] surfaces, we walk on one, and the other is opposite to it."

The earth floats in the center of the world, without leaning on anything. The earth is surrounded by gigantic tubular rings-tori filled with fire. In the closest ring, where there is little fire, there are small holes - stars. In the second ring with stronger fire there is one large hole - the Moon. It can partially or completely overlap (this is how Anaximander explains the change of lunar phases and lunar eclipses). In the third, farthest ring, there is the largest hole, the size of the Earth; through it shines the strongest fire - the Sun. The universe of Anaximander closes the heavenly fire.

Anaximander's system of the world (one of the modern reconstructions)

Thus, Anaximander believed that all heavenly bodies are at different distances from the Earth. Apparently, the order of succession corresponds to the following physical principle: the closer it is to heavenly fire and, therefore, the farther from the Earth, the brighter it is. According to modern reconstruction, the inner and outer diameters of the Sun's ring, according to Anaximander, are respectively 27 and 28 diameters of the Earth's cylinder, for the Moon these values ​​are 18 and 19 diameters, for stars 9 and 10 diameters. Anaximander's universe is based on a mathematical principle: all distances are multiples of three.

In Anaximander's system of the world, the paths of celestial bodies are whole circles. This point of view, now quite obvious, was innovative in the time of Anaximander. This geocentric model of the Universe, the first in the history of astronomy, with the orbits of the stars around the Earth, made it possible to understand the geometry of the movements of the Sun, Moon and stars.

The Universe is thought to be centrally symmetrical; hence the Earth, which is at the center of the Cosmos, has no reason to move in any direction. Thus, Anaximander was the first to suggest that the Earth rests freely in the center of the world without support.

Cosmogony

Anaximander sought not only to accurately describe the world geometrically, but also to understand its origin. In the essay "On Nature", known from retellings and the only surviving fragment, Anaximander gives a description of the Cosmos from the moment of its origin to the origin of living beings and man.

The universe, according to Anaximander, develops on its own, without the intervention of the Olympian gods. Anaximander believes that the source of the origin of all things is a certain infinite, "ageless" [divine] beginning - apeiron (ἄπειρον) - which is characterized by continuous movement. The apeiron itself, as that from which everything arises and into which everything turns, is something permanently abiding and indestructible, boundless and infinite in time.

Apeiron, as a result of a vortex-like process, is divided into physical opposites of hot and cold, wet and dry, etc., the interaction of which generates a spherical cosmos. The confrontation of the elements in the emerging cosmic vortex leads to the appearance and separation of substances. In the center of the vortex is "cold" - the Earth, surrounded by water and air, and outside - fire. Under the influence of fire, the upper layers of the air shell turn into a hard crust. This sphere of solidified aer (ἀήρ, air) begins to burst with vapors of the boiling earth's ocean. The shell does not hold up and swells ("tear off", as stated in one of the sources). At the same time, it must push the bulk of the fire beyond the boundaries of our world. This is how the sphere of fixed stars arises, and the pores in the outer shell become the stars themselves. Moreover, Anaximander claims that things acquire their being and composition for a while, “in debt”, and then, according to the law, at a certain time, they return their due to the principles that gave birth to them.

The final stage in the emergence of the world is the appearance of living beings. Anaximander suggested that all living things originated from the sediments of the dried seabed. All living things are generated by moisture evaporated by the sun; when the ocean boils away, exposing the land, living beings arise "from the heated water with the earth" and are born "in moisture, enclosed within a silty shell." That is, natural development, according to Anaximander, includes not only the emergence of the world, but also the spontaneous generation of life.

Anaximander considered the universe to be like a living being. Unlike ageless time, it is born, reaches maturity, grows old and must die in order to be reborn: “... the death of the worlds takes place, and much earlier their birth, and from time immemorial, the same thing is repeated in a circle.”

Discussing the different types of existence of the beginning, Anaximander put forward the idea of ​​the parity of material states. Wet can dry out, dry can get wet, etc. The opposite states have a common basis, being concentrated in a single one, from which they are all isolated. This idea paved the way for one of the most important dialectical concepts of subsequent philosophy - the concept of "the unity and struggle of opposites."

Astronomy and geography

Anaximander tried to compare the size of the Earth with other planets known at that time. It is believed that he compiled the first map of the Earth (which has not reached us, but can be restored according to the descriptions of ancient authors). For the first time in Greece, he installed a gnomon - the simplest sundial. Introduced the celestial globe.