Engmann J Cosmic Justice in Anaximander

Cosmic Justice in Anaximander
Author(s): Joyce Engmann

Source: Phronesis, Vol. 36, No. 1 (1991), pp. 1-25
Published by: BRILL
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Cosmic Justice in Anaximander
JOYCE ENGMANN
In what may be our oldest surviving fragment of Greek literary prose,1
Anaximander refers to the redress of injustice among parties alternately
injured and injuring. Since the parties in question are impersonal entities,
and the redress is a cosmic process, Simplicius, probably repeating a remark
of Theophrastus, comments on Anaximander's mode of expression as
'rather poetical'. What in plain terms was the meaning of the metaphor? In
this paper I wish to look again at what Viastos has described as the most
controversial text in Presocratic philosophy.2
The preceding clause in Simplicius indicates that the process of redress is
one of perishing or passing away, phthora: not absolute phthora, but
phthora 'into' something. Two main views have been taken of this process.
It has often been thought that that into which perishing took place was the
infinite, and that that which perished was what Simplicius referred to as ta
Note on translation: - Kahn (Appendix II) has shown that the derivation (e.g.in
Liddell and Scott) of
6nfLQog
from the nouns
nEtQae
or
nkQag,
'limit', is to be
discarded in favour of a derivation from the root occurring in the verbs nd'Qw, 'try,
prove', nerdw, 'traverse', nEDatv', 'complete'. Etymologically speaking, therefore, lo
6JEELQOV means not 'the infinite', 'the boundless', 'the unlimited', but 'the inexhausti-
ble', 'the untraversable', etc. The structurally correct English renderings all suffer from
two disadvantages: they are clumsy, and, more seriously, the verbal stems they contain
are too precise to afford an equivalent to 6?1EtLDq. 'Inexhaustible', for example, sug-
gests material supply, 'untraversable' suggests motion. Each of these suggestions is
included in
CMrELqog,
but not to the exclusion of the other. Since 'the infinite' is devoid of
specific (because of any) verbal suggestions, it is convenient to use it or one of its
synonyms as a translation of l6 &6ELQOV; and since in the context of Anaximander's
cosmology there is little or no effectual difference between the negation of the verbal idea
and that of the nominal idea - in either case the a5nELQOV is incompassably vast -
in
practice this does not set up unwanted associations.
'
On the rival claims of the fragments of Pherecydes of Syros, see Kahn, 240, and Kirk,
Raven and Schofield, 50-2.
2
Vlastos, 'Equality and Justice', 73.
Phronesis 1991. Vol. XXXVI/I (Accepted October 1990) 1
onta, existing things, in effect the world, or a world (the difference is
immaterial for present purposes). Thus the, or a, world perished as a
totality into the infinite. The view which prevails today is that both that into
which perishing takes place and that which perishes are the opposites or
elements, which Simplicius refers to as ta stoicheia. I believe there are
difficulties in this view which have not been fully recognised.
In the reports of Anaximander in our sources, there are several pointers
to a third possibility, which is in a sense an amalgam of the two just
mentioned: that into which perishing takes place is the infinite, as on the
first view, while, as on the second view, the process of perishing is not a
sudden but an ongoing process, and, again, that which perishes is the
opposites or elements. The hypothesis of ongoing material interaction
between the world and the infinite at least seems to merit more consid-
eration than it has received. It has been mooted in one line and rejected in
two by Kirk; dismissed in a short footnote by Vlastos; and only taken
seriously by Heidel, who, however, does not apply it to the interpretation of
the fragment.3 I believe that it supplies the key to the understanding of the
fragment, and shall argue that it provides a way of reconciling Simplicius'
report on Anaximander with two supplementary categories of evidence the
value of which is often discounted - Simplicius' isolated statements about
Anaximander elsewhere, and the parallel reports of Aetius and pseudo-
Plutarch. I shall conclude by suggesting that equality did not play the role in
Anaximander's conception of justice that is commonly thought, and that
for him the natural world mirrored an aristocratic rather than a democratic
society.
L. The fragment and its setting in Simplicius
The fragment is found in the thirteen-line section on Anaximander4 in
Simplicius' commentary on Aristotle's Physics 24,13, where Simplicius is
making use of Book I of the Physical Opinions of Theophrastus, or of an
epitome of that work. As printed by Diels-Kranz, the fragment reads: Ft
V
t
YEvEo;ts
cnL t o'e oUNoY, xcA T?v pOoQ'av Ft; taict
yYveMOMa
xata Eo
XQU6
v. bL6ova yCtL aixTa
&xrv xcd 8Eolv kXAkotf ;
abtxtag
xacEa -riv Tou- xQvou xatdv ('And perishing too takes place into
that from which existing things have their ongin, according to what is right;
for they make redress and reparation to each other for their injustice
I
Kirk, Raven and Schofield, 116, l(b) and discussion; Vlastos, 127; Heidel,
227-28.
'
Diels, Dox. Gr. 476; DK 12A9.
2
according to the assessment of time.') The authenticity of the first clause up
to yLvEaOaL has often been suspected. For present purposes the
fragment
will be taken to begin with xata TO XQEWV.
The most detailed exposition of the view that both the subject and the
terminus of perishing are the opposites or elements is Chapter III of Kahn's
monograph Anaximander and the Origins of Greek Cosmology. Arguments
for this view are put forward also by Kirk in 'Some Problems in Anaximan-
der', by Kirk, Raven and Schofield in The Presocratic Philosophers and by
Barnes in The Presocratic Philosophers.5 Kirk explains the meaning of the
fragment as follows:
The constant interchange between opposed substances is explained by Anaximan-
der in a legalistic metaphor derived from human society; the prevalence of one
substance at the expense of its contrary is 'injustice', and a reaction takes place
through the infliction of punishment by the restoration of equality
-
of more than
equality, since the wrongdoer is deprived of part of this original substance, too. This
is given to the victim in addition to what was his own, and in turn leads (it might be
inferred) to
x6pog,
surfeit, on the part of the former victim, who now commits
injustice on the former aggressor. Thus both the continuity and the stability of
natural change was motivated, for Anaximander, by means of this anthropo-
morphic metaphor.6
Examples such as the following are given by the proponents of this in-
terpretation. The moiring dew hepresents an advantage gained by the
moist over the dry; but by mid-day, the moist pays the penalty and the dry
gains the upper hand; for this it will, however, be punished when evening
comes round. Every payment of dike is itself an adikia which must be paid
for, a process which Kahn calls 'a relentless treadmill of offense and
compensation'.7 The natural world is thus 'an organized system, character-
ized by symmetry of parts, periodicity of events, and equilibrium between
conflicting factors'. The fragment, our earliest expression of the concept of
a law of nature, presents the natural world as a self-regulating, self-sustain-
ing system.'
According to this interpretation, then, both the justice and the injustice
of the fragment are explained as the change of the elements into one
another, the kind of cyclical process later referred to in Heraclitus B88,
Melissus B8 and the cyclical argument for the immortality of the soul in the
Phaedo.9 This is a plausible explanation of injustice, but not, I shall
5 Kirk, 340-47; Kirk, Raven and Schofield, 117-22; Barnes, 28-34.
6
Kirk, Raven and Schofield, 119-20.
'
Kahn, 180. For the dew and other examples, see 184.
8 Kahn, 230, 199.
9 Kahn, 184.
3
contend, of justice. Examination of the context in which Simplicus quotes
the fragment will supply part of the reason for this claim, but this must be
prefaced by some remarks concerning the meaning of 'elements' and 'exist-
ing things' in the passage.
Common to the interpreters in question is the assumption that Simplicius
did not, in our passage, intend any sharp distinction to be understood, with
respect to genesis and perishing, between 'elements' and 'existing things'.
For 'existing things', as the most general possible description of the con-
tents of the world, included the elements, while all existing things exemplify
the elements in that they either consist of, embody, are characterized by or
acted upon by the elements. ' It is supposed that Anaximander may actually
have used the expression Tla 'ovTa, which occurs in Homer (Kahn), or that
he perhaps used an equivalent such as natvta or zavTa
Xc q
RaTa
(Kirk)."I It
is not supposed that Anaximander had any general word corresponding to
TOLXELov,
which, as Simplicius tells us (in Phys. 7.13), was first used in a
cosmological sense by Plato, or that he had any general concept answering
to it, of which the Empedoclean 'roots of all things' seems to be the first
occurrence. He had, of course, the everyday notions of earth, air, fire and
water, which formed the extension of Empedocles' 'roots of all things'. It
may have been these which Simplicius had in mind when he speaks of the
elements in connection with Anaximander. Alternatively, he may have had
in mind the Peripatetic elements, the hot, the cold, the dry and the moist,
the first two of which figure largely in the doxographic accounts of Anaxi-
mander. Kahn, among others, believes that Anaximander actually spoke of
r6
Oq3t6v,
xA6
iVuX6v,
etc.: 'the linguistic stamp of the new mentality is a
preference for neuter forms, in place of the 'animate' masculines and
feminines which are the stuff of myth'. Others are more hesitant, but in any
case, it has long been agreed that if Anaximander did use such expressions,
he could not have meant by them the qualities heat, cold, etc., but used
them in a concrete sense to mean hot substance, cold substance, etc.; and
that even if he did not use opposite neuter terms to designate his cosmic
stuffs, the nature of the interactions he ascribes to them clearly suggest that
he conceived of them as opposed.'2 In this paper, I shall usually speak of
'elements' rather than 'opposites', but shall speak freely of 'the hot', 'the
cold', etc., as well as 'earth', 'water', etc., using expressions from both
ranges to designate 'the Anaximandrian cosmic stuffs, whatever he himself
10
See Kahn, 163 and 182 (the distinction hinted at by Kahn at 168, n.2 is not sustained in
the rest of his discussion); Kirk, 341-42; Kirk, Raven and Schofield, 119-20; Barnes, 33.
"
Kahn, 174-75; Kirk, 340-41.
12
Kahn, 193; Kirk, Raven and Schofield, 119-20; Lloyd, 259-68.
4
called them'. It is, indeed, likely enough that Anaximander himself used
terms from both ranges.
Also in need of consideration, before we turn to the Simplicius passage, is
a claim frequently made in conjunction with the cyclical interpretation of
the fragment, and sometimes without it."3 Kahn and others hold that it is a
commonplace of Greek thought from early times that all things perish into
their respective origins: if X becomes hot, it must have been (relatively)
cold first, and if the heat in X perishes, X goes back to being (relatively)
cold. For the Milesians, says Kahn, the interchange of the major elements
was merely the most significant case of that continuous change of opposing
forms or powers into one another, the description of which as a return to
origins was 'classic in Greece from an early period'.
The evidence that there was such a commonplace is really quite tenuous.
Kahn cites Xenophanes B27, 'Everything is from earth, and into earth
everything goes in the end' and Epicharmus B9, 'Earth to earth, spirit
aloft'. Each of these is too specific to yield the required generalisation. The
first has nothing to do with interchange among opposites: there is a cycle,
but it is pivoted uniquely on earth; the second concerns narrowly the fate of
man at his death. Kahn also cites two passages from Homer, Iliad VI. 146ff.
(the generations of men are like the fall and budding of leaves) and Odyssey
VII. 117ff. (the fruit never fails on the Phaeacian trees): neither of these
says that all things return to their origins.
The two halves of Heraclitus B126 'Cold things grow hot, hot cools, wet
dries, parched grows moist' exhibit changes in temperature and humidity as
proceeding backward and forward between opposite poles. On the basis of
this the generalisation can be made
-
as it is by Plato at Phaedo 70al-2
-
that
opposites come into being out of opposites. But that this was not a common-
place is shown by the fact that it takes Plato down to 71blO to explain to
Cebes what he means. To suppose that it was already a commonplace in
Anaximander's time is to read back into him Heraclitean insights and the
principle which Plato founded upon them.
These considerations may be reinforced by the following one. Even Plato
does not use
qOoe&
or
Wp0EeQEOOat
in connection with the disappearance
of a property-instance. rFyvEoOat, like Ecvat, has both a predicative
and an existential use: it occurs in sentences of the form 'x yiyvETac
4' ('x
becomes 4?') and in those of the form 'x
yiyvETaL' ('x comes into being').
The corresponding noun, yEv'Et; ('genesis'), can be used in either sense.
13
For example Kahn, 180, 183-4; McDiarmid, 191-93; Barnes, 33. The fullest discussion
is in Kahn.
5
But
(PW LQECCOaL
('perish') and
(pOoQa
('perishing') are only used in an
existential sense even by Plato. Thus if Anaximander said, or may be
paraphrased as saying, that things perish into that from which they orig-
inate, he is likely to have meant by this that when things perish, they 'go
into' that from which they derived their existence, and unlikely to have
meant that when a property disappears, it is replaced by the precedent
property.
If, then, Anaximander described the cyclical interchange of opposing
powers as a return of all things to their origins, it would not be merely as an
echo of received wisdom, but as a novel insight standing in need of
explanation.
We may now turn to the question of how the fragment fits into Simplicius'
report on Anaximander in the passage as a whole. The passage has been
divided into seven sections by Kahn. Barnes and Schwabl have a very
similar division. For our purposes, a division into three sections will render
the sequence of thought most perspicuous. Section (1) (lines 3-8) concerns
the infinite as source. Section (2) (lines 8-11) concerns the infinite as
terminus. Section (3) (lines 11-15) presents additional observations. Sec-
tion (1) reads:
Of those who say that it is one and moving and infinite, Anaximander son of
Praxiades, a Milesian, the successor and pupil of Thales, said that the source and
element of existing things was the infinite, being the first to introduce this name of
the source; and he says that it is neither water nor any other of the things that are
called elements, but some different, infinite nature, from which come into being the
heavens and the kosmoi within them;
Section (2) then proceeds:
and perishing too takes place into that from which things have their genesis
'according to what is right: for they make redress and reparation to each other for
their injustice according to the assessment of time', as he speaks of them in these
rather poetical terms.
Simplicius then adds (Section (3)):
It is clear that, having observed the change of the four elements into one another, he
did not think fit to make any one of these the substrate, but something else apart
from these. And he does not bring about genesis by means of the alteration of the
element, but by means of the separation of opposites through the eternal motion.
There are three differences in the explication of the passage
between the
cyclical account of cosmic justice and the one to be proposed here. These
concern (a) the relation between Section (1) and Section (2); (b) the
6
relation between the two parts of Section (2); and (c) the relation between
Section (2) and Section (3).
(a) The relation between (1) and (2)
Proponents of the cyclical interpretation of justice all posit a discontinui-
ty in the sequence of thought between Section (1) and Section (2). There
has been much controversy about the status of the clause which begins
Section (2), 'and perishing too takes place into that from which things have
their genesis'.'4 (A) Kahn supported the view of Diels that the clause was
Anaximander's own, combating the suspicions aroused by the occurrence
in it of the Peripatetic technical terms yEvVoEt and
6pOoQa
by examples of
the use of yEvEwFtg going back from Empedocles through Parmenides to
Homer, and by some arguments which indicate that
WpOoQa
may well have
been used by the Ionian philosophers. (B) Others regard the clause as a
Theophrastean paraphrase of Anaximander's words or views, but differ as
to what in Anaximander lay behind the paraphrase. (i) One possibility is
that Anaximander said both that everything comes from the infinite and
(not necessarily in the same sentence) that everything perishes into the
infinite, and Theophrastus put these two positions together into the state-
ment that perishing takes place into that from which things have their
genesis. This is the view suggested in the present paper, on the basis of a
comparison of the structure of Simplicius' observations with that of Aetius',
while it is acknowledged that the precise form which Theophrastus gave his
statement was probably determined by certain formulations of Aristotle
(cf.under (D) below and on the plurals (t zv .. . Ei; Tauta). (ii) Another
and stronger view of what lay behind the paraphrase is that Anaximander
actually stated the generalisation that things perish into that from which
they originate, meaning by this the infinite (Cherniss, Vlastos). (iii) It is
also held that Anaximander may have stated it as a general rule that things
perish into their respective origins; as earlier indicated, this is asserted to be
a commonplace of Greek thought from very early times. (C) Kirk holds that
Theophrastus intended to paraphrase Anaximander, but misinterpreted
him (see below). (D) McDiarmid took the view that the clause is neither
Anaximander's nor a paraphrase of Anaximander by Theophrastus, wheth-
er sound or unsound, but that Theophrastus, without warrant in the text of
Anaximander, was applying to Anaximander as an individual Aristotle's
formulation (e.g. at Met. 983b6-1 1) of the concept of the source held by the
14
See Kahn, 172-78; Cherniss, 376; Vlastos, nn. 95, 111; Kirk, 340-49; McDiarmid,
190-93.
7
lonians as a group, 'that from which all existing things are, from which they
come into being first and into which they perish last'.
The interpretation of the fragment which I shall propose is compatible
with views (A), (B)(i) and (B)(ii) as to the status of the clause. The cyclical
interpretation of the fragment is compatible with (A), (B)(iii), (C) and (D).
The question of the relation between Section (1) and Section (2) is not
dependent on the status of the clause which begins Section (2). For on the
one hand, as I have just indicated, it is possible to hold any one of three
views on this question in combination with the judgement that there is a
break in sense between (1) and (2); thus Kahn, for example, holds that
these may well be Anaximander's own words, Barnes that they are prob-
ably a Theophrastean paraphrase and Kirk that they are a Theophrastean
paraphrase, but an incorrect one. On the other hand, (2) may be regarded
as continuous in sense with (1) whether one supposes that Theophrastus
had quoted Anaximander or merely paraphrased him. I shall not therefore
discuss the question of the status of this clause, as distinct from its meaning.
However, some parts of the discussion will have implications as to its status.
For example, the objections to Kirk on meaning will cast doubt on the
plausibility of (C), and the same considerations will apply with greater force
to (D). And since the presupposition on which (B)(iii) rests has already
been called in question, (A), (B)(i) and (B)(ii) will remain as the available
options on the status of the clause.
The clause had traditionally been taken to refer to the infinite, so that
Section (2) builds on what has been said in Section (1). Kahn, however,
gave two reasons why the clause cannot refer to the infinite."5 Firstly, the
pronoun is plural, i xv ('from which'), whereas the infinite is singular and
is so referred to in the
qpvoiv
6.EiLQov it
Aj
('infinite nature from which')
of the two preceding clauses. Cherniss and Vlastos, likewise, objected to
the standard translation (which I adopted above) of t 'Wv . . . at C TcL5T
as 'into that from which', for obscuring the fact that the infinite is referred to
in the plural. Cherniss took this to show that Anaximander conceived the
infinite as a plurality, a mixture of the opposites
- an argument criticized by
McDiarmid, Kirk and Gottschalk on the grounds of the collective or
generic sense which the neuter plural has in Greek, exemplified in a ne-uter
plural subject's taking a singular verb.16 McDiarmid points out that the
particular cast which Theophrastus gave to his statement probably
reflected
lS Kahn, 167-68.
16
Cherniss, 377; Vlastos, 77-80; McDiarmid, n. 42; Kirk, 343-44; Gottschalk, n. 33. Cf.
Schwyzer on the origin of the neuter plural in a singular collective, II.i.1 580f. and Il.i.2
39.
8
the formula for the Ionian concept of the source found in at least six
passages of Aristotle, and he observes that Aristotle sometimes uses the
singular in such statements (e.g. Met. B4, lOOOb25-26, ;t6vta yaQ wOW-
QETatL
ELg
TOt' oV ?EOTLV: 'for everything perishes into those things
(or that) from which it is') and sometimes the singular (e.g. Met. A3,
983b8-9, *t oZ ya ETtv a`navaTa 6VTa xai
E'
oV yL7VFTaL 7nQWTOv
xat
eLg
6 WOELQETaL TEv-Ta'ov ...: 'for that from which every-
thing is, and from which it comes first and into which it perishes last . .
Further, at Phys. F5, 204b33-34, we read: a7EavTa yat t oia uTEc, xat
btaQlQEaL EiL ToiDTo ('for everything is resolved into that from which it
is'); an identical statement occurs at Met. K10, 1066b37, except that some
manuscripts read the singular and some the plural: dnavta ya e wv
tOTL, xaL bLakXETac
Fig
TaiTa. These variations make clear what we
might have known from the overall character of the neuter plural in Greek,
that in the context of the formula it is indifferent whether the singular or the
plural is selected. Thus the fact that Simplicius employed the plural at the
beginning of Section (2) does not mean that the reference is being changed
between Section (1) and Section (2) from the source to the elements.
The second reason Kahn gives why the first clause in Section (2) cannot
refer to the infinite is that 'the particle in if dv b?
'
YEVEOL5 LElL TOX0
OVaL
introduces a new
development'.
But the b is
sufficiently explained by
the fact that Simplicius is now passing from the role of the infinite as source
to its role as terminus; it is not necessary to suppose that he is substituting a
different source of genesis from that which he has set up in Section (1).
Kirk also posits a break in sense between (1) and (2), but suggests it arose
in a different way from Kahn.'7 He conjectures that Anaximander may have
made a statement to the effect that each opposite turns into its own
opposite, from which also it had originally come, and not into any other
opposite. Theophrastus then misunderstood this as applying to the oppo-
sites going back into the infinite, from which they had originated. Thus by
the phrase 'that from which things have their genesis' Theophrastus meant
the infinite, and Simplicius so understood it, but by using the phrase in this
way Theophrastus misreported Anaximander. In view of the extent to
which we have to make use of information deriving from Theophrastus
himself in identifying and correcting any supposed mistake by him, it would
obviously be preferable to avoid an interpretation which hinges on the
occurrence of such a mistake.
'"
Kirk, Raven and Schofield, 121-22.
9
Barnes argues for a break in sense between (1) and (2) of a different
kind.'8 The topic of the last clause in (1) is the genesis of 'the heavens and
the kosmoi in them'; that of the clause which begins (2) is the genesis of
'existing things'; and these are two distinct topics. The first concerns the
creation of the cosmos, the second the changes which take place within the
cosmos. By 'existing things' Simplicius meant the furniture of the world,
which is produced from the opposites, whereas it is the heavens and the
world which are produced from the infinite. This dichotomy is, however,
extremely difficult to sustain in view of the fact that before Simplicius'
statement that all the heavens and the kosmoi in them came into being from
the infinite, he had said that the infinite was the source of existing things.
According to the standard terminology of Peripatetic history of philosophy,
'X is from Y' is a variant of the formula 'Y is the source of X': as Aristotle
puts it in the Metaphysics, 'that from which they come into existence is the
source of all things'.19 Thus it would appear that for Theophrastus 'existing
things' and 'all the heavens and the worlds in them' are coextensive descrip-
tions, designating 'everything that exists, apart from the infinite'; and there
is no suggestion that existing things come into being from a different source
from the heavens and the worlds.
Apart from the specific objection(s) to which is exposed each of the
accounts of the relation between Section (1) and Section (2) offered by
proponents of the cyclical interpretation of justice, their sheer variety may
be seen as a testimony that there is no intuitively plausible version of that
relation associated with this interpretation. In favour of the traditional
reading, whereby the clause 'that from which things have their origin' refers
to the infinite, we may adduce three facts about it.
Firstly, it follows directly, with no intervening words, upon the statement
that all the heavens and the kosmoi in them come into being from the
infinite. There is thus no other candidate in view as the origin of genesis
than the infinite. Secondly, the terms used are the same. FEvEoL; is merely
the noun form of yNvEGOaL, used only eleven words earlier, and the
identical preposition, (x, is used. To speak as Kahn does of 'a certain
resemblance between the two formulas' is much too weak. These are two
occurrences of the same formula. Thirdly, all other views founder on the
bareness of the first part of Section (2). They represent the gist of Sections
(1) and (2) as follows. 'Anaximander said the infinite was the source of
existing things. He said that from it come into being all the heavens and the
18
Barnes, 32-33.
19
Ar. Met. A3, 983b24-25.
10
worlds in them. And that from which existing things come into being (i.e.
each other) is that into which they also perish.' It is almost inconceivable
that, without any explanation of what he is doing, Simplicius should thus
jettison the framework he has carefully built up in (1). Without some
explicit addition corresponding to 'i.e. each other', he could not have
hoped, had that been his meaning, to be understood by the reader. Since
there is no such addition, we must take it that the clause refers to the
infinite; and therefore the burden of Section (2) is that things perish (not
into each other, but) into the infinite.
(b) The relation between the two parts of (2)
As we have seen, the clause that begins Section (2), which constitutes the
first part of this brief section, says: 'And perishing too takes place into that
from which existing things have their genesis, according to what is right'.
The fragment then says: 'for they make redress and reparation to each other
for their injustice according to the assessment of time'. 'They' on any
interpretation refers to existing things. 'For' presumably explains 'accord-
ing to what is right': in effect, 'they deserve to perish, for they have
committed injustice against each other'. The injustice is a new element in
the situation. What have existing things done wrong?
Kahn equates genesis with injustice, destruction with justice.20 A similar
equation was involved in the view of Diels and others that the world
commits an injustice by coming into being out of the infinite.2' In support of
this equation, Kahn says: 'To all appearances, the
y'vEotg
and
qpOoda
of
the first member must somehow correspond to the &ixi and &&x(a of
the second'. There would seem to be no grammatical basis for this state-
ment. Although Kahn goes on to speak of 'this careful period', there is only
limited parallelism between the two parts of Section (2). In the first part,
the main verb is qualified by a local relative clause, describing into what
things perish. In the second part, the direct object is qualified by a descrip-
tive genitive. Although the connective and the sense make it reasonable to
see the main verb of the second part as equivalent to the main verb of the
first part, so that the perishing is identified with the paying of redress, there
is no reason to see any such correspondence between the local relative
qualifying the main verb of the first part and the descriptive genitive
qualifying the direct object of the second part. If this is correct, then we
have had an indication of what the payment of justice consists in
- it is
20
Kahn, 177.
21
Diels, 'Anaximandros von Milet'.
11
perishing into the infinite - but we do not yet know what the injustice
consists in.
The equation between injustice and genesis can be questioned on com-
mon-sense grounds as well. For it would seem natural to suppose that things
have to come into being before they can commit injustice. I therefore
submit that injustice relates to the behaviour of existing things after they
have come into being out of the infinite; although what that behaviour
consists in, is not yet clear. Further, I would submit that nowhere in our
passage is injustice connected with genesis.
(c) The relation between (2) and (3)
Simplicius now says, 'And it is clear that, having observed the change of
the four elements into one another, he did not think fit to make any one of
these the substrate, but something else apart from these.' The content of
the observation Simplicius attributes to Anaximander reveals what in-
justice consists in: it is the change of the elements into one another. The
point need not be laboured, since so much is generally accepted (with
justice also being normally thought to consist in the very same phenom-
enon). Then, after mentioning what constitutes injustice, Simplicius moves
on to what he has already told us constitutes the penalty: perishing into
something else apart from each other, i.e. the infinite. He does not repeat
this in so many words, however, but having, in Section (1), described how in
Anaximander's view all things come from the infinite, and, in Section (2),
how all things perish into the infinite, this recalls to his mind Aristotle's
justification in Metaphysics A3 for describing the source of the Milesian
philosophers by his own technical form of hypokeimenon, substrate. 22 Since
the common framework of their theories was that there is something from
which all things come into being and into which they perish, this must have
been there throughout the changes which intervened between genesis and
perishing, and can therefore be justly described as a substrate. This move
on Aristotle's part is of course nowadays rightly thought to be erroneous
and to confuse his account of the Milesians. Simplicius however follows the
usual Peripatetic terminology. 'Having observed', he says, 'the change of
the four elements into one another, he did not think fit to make one of these
the substrate, but something else apart from these.' In other words, while
the elements change into one another, they do not come from or perish into
one another. He then concludes by specifying the manner in which things
11
Ar. Met. A3, 983b8-9.
12
come into being out of the infinite: it is by means of the separation off of the
opposites through the eternal motion.
To summarise, the passage starts by describing the role of the infinite as
source: it is that out of which all existing things, i.e. the heavens and the
kosmoi in them, come into being. And all things also perish into the
infinite, thus paying the penalty for the wrongs they have committed
against each other. The wrongs consist in the change of the elements into
one another. When Anaximander meditated on this phenomenon, he saw
reason to make something apart from the elements their terminus and their
source. And the manner in which he derives all things from the infinite is by
means of the separation off of the opposites through the eternal motion.
This I would claim to be a natural sequence of thought, involving no
implausible transitions and no inconsistencies with what we know of Anaxi-
mander from other sources. There are, however, other readings of Section
(3). Discussion has largely centred on the source, if any, which Simplicius is
using in these concluding observations. Kahn argued that it was still Theo-
phrastus. Holscher believed that the remarks are due to Simplicius himself.
Schwabl suggested that they are due to a Stoic source of Simplicius. Barnes
thought that they are most probably 'a baseless invention'. Again, the
question of meaning can be addressed without resolving these issues. The
basic question at present as regards meaning is how the remarks relate to
the rest of the passage. Kahn took it that they give Anaximander's reason
for positing the infinite as source: but they do so cryptically, and only when
they are taken in conjunction with two passages in Aristotle, Phys. 189bl-8
and 204b22-29, each of which supplies one of the two connecting links
necessary to proceed from the premise that the elements change into one
another to the conclusion that the source is something apart from the
elements. The fact that all this additional reasoning has to be supplied by
the reader is something of a drawback in Kahn's suggestion. A second count
against it is that although Kahn speaks of 'the direct connection between
this sentence and the fragment, on which it serves as commentary', it is on
his view only the participial phrase which relates to the fragment; the main
clause has nothing to do with it; whereas this is not true of the alternative
proposed above. Thirdly, Kahn's reading jolts Simplicius' thought right
back to the middle of Section (1) where he had said that Anaximander had
not made the source water or any other of the so-called elements. It seems
preferable to understand Simplicius's remarks about the substrate being
apart from the elements as relating to the role of the infinite as terminus of
the contending elements set up in Section (2)
-
a role which, of course, is
denied by Kahn and others. Thus I take it that the whole of the first
13
sentence of Section (3) springs naturally from, and amplifies, Section (2); it
does not hark back, via an unexpressed process of reasoning, to Section (1).
I conclude, therefore, that Simplicius did say, or intend to say, that for
Anaximander everything perishes into the infinite.
II. Theophrastus, Aristotle and Simplicius on
y?LvCULg
and
qOoed
in
Anaximander
Hippolytus, Aetius and pseudo-Plutarch in the Stromateis give accounts of
Anaximander's theory of the source each of which parallels the version of
Simplicius at several points. Both Aetius and pseudo-Plutarch attribute to
Anaximander a doctrine that all things perish into the infinite. Aetius says:
'Anaximander son of Praxiades, the Milesian, says that the source of
existing things is the infinite; for out of this everything comes into being and
into this everything perishes. Thus infinite worlds are generated and perish
again into that from which they come into being.'23
Aetius, it is clear, understood Theophrastus to say that for Anaximander
all things perish into the infinite. This gives added plausibility to the view
that Simplicius so understood Theophrastus. Once that is taken seriously as
a possibility, the manner in which Aetius expounds this doctrine is bound to
suggest further that the gr"ater liability to misunderstanding of Simplicius'
version is due to his having compressed at this point what Theophrastus or
his epitomator said more tightly than has done Aetius. For (ignoring for the
moment the 'infinite worlds', perhaps an insertion by Aetius) Aetius' main
schema is as follows: (1) (a) everything comes from the infinite; (b) every-
thing perishes into the infinite; (2) thus things perish into that from which
they came into being. Simplicius has included only (1)(a) and (2), leaving
(1)(b) implicit.
Kahn discounts the value of Aetius' testimony:
The decisive documentary fact . . . is the absolute superiority here of Simplicius'
excerpt over that of the other doxographers. Diels' proof that Aetius is no inde-
pendent source, but only a poorer extract from Theophrastus, has left no justifica-
tion for using 4A [the Aetius passage] as a basis for interpreting the more accurate
quotation of the fragment in 4S [the Simplicius passage].24
Nonetheless, if there be grounds intrinsic to the Simplicius passage for
finding in it a reading of Theophrastus which concurs with that of Aetius,
that concurrence must needs constitute a reason for feeling greater confi-
3 Aet. 1.3.3; ps. Plut. Strom. 2. For the parallels, see Kahn, 12-42.
4 Kahn, 195.
14
dence that we are getting back to the meaning, if not the words, of Theo-
phrastus or his epitomator. By the same principle, for example, Kahn treat
Aetius' statement that the heaven consists of a mixture of heat and cold as
proving that pseudo-Plutarch's mention of heat and cold in the formation of
the heaven goes back to Theophrastus.25
Like Aetius, pseudo-Plutarch links perishing as well as genesis with the
infinite, and there is no suggestion that either consists in inter-elemental
change: 'Anaximander, who was the companion of Thales, says that the
infinite is entirely responsible for the genesis and perishing of everything.'26
In view of the unanimity of Simplicius, Aetius and pseudo-Plutarch, it
seems reasonable to suppose that Theophrastus himself attributed to Anax-
imander the view that all things perish into the infinite.
But what can Anaximander have meant by perishing into the infinite?
Those who take it that he did hold such a notion presume that he meant by it
the end of the world. Thus Vlastos posited a reabsorption of the world into
the Boundless, Holscher an end of the cycles of cosmic rise and decay in the
limitless. It is normally assumed that, if the terminus of perishing is the
infinite, what perishes can only be a/the entire world: 'in das Apeiron kann
nur ein (oder besser der) ganze Kosmos vergehen.' Thus Schwabl artic-
ulates a presupposition almost general among interpreters.27 The possibility
now being canvassed is that for Anaximander perishing into the infinite
(and genesis out of it as well) is a continual process, linked with the
continuing existence of the world. Not only does the suggestion that this is
what Anaximander is talking about in his metaphor of cosmic justice open a
way of making sense of the Simplicius passage; it also agrees with Aristot-
le's testimony about Anaximander without the shifts and reservations
required to accommodate that testimony to the end-of-the-world
hypothesis.
A first pointer may be drawn from Aristotle's argument in Phys. F4,
204b22-35, designed to refute the conception of the source as an infinite
body apart from the elements. Since everything is resolved (bLakVETat)
into it, he says, it ought to be there for us to see apart from air, fire, earth
and water; but we do not see any such body. In this argument, Aristotle
plainly does not see destruction into the infinite as a process whereby the
world, including potential percipients, perishes as a totality into the
infinite.
2 Kahn, 57.
26
Strom. 2.
`7
Vlastos, 80; Holscher, 298-300; Schwabl, 66.
15
Anaximander's motive(s) for positing the infinite as source may cast light
on how he conceived the relation between the world and the infinite.
Aristotle in Phys. r4, 203bl5-30, gives five reasons for positing an infinity,
without naming any particular thinker. The main criteria used for assigning
any one of these reasons to a particular Presocratic are whether the reason
is consistent with the rest of his thought, and whether the attribution is
confirmed by other sources. On both these criteria the third reason, which
we may call the reservoir argument, has almost always been credited to
Anaximander.2 It runs: 'Further, because only so would genesis and per-
ishing not cease, if there were an infinite source from which what comes into
being is taken.' Aetius assigns this argument to Anaximander by name,
saying: 'The reason why he says that it [sc. the
source]
is unlimited, is so the
existing genesis may not fail.' It should be noted that Aetius differs from
Aristotle in making the infinity of the source a necessity only for the
continuation of genesis, and not of perishing as well. The latter necessity is
certainly less readily comprehensible than the former; but this is not to say
that Aristotle was wrong in having (as he presumably did) Anaximander in
mind in respect to the latter.
However, Aristotle later limits himself to genesis when he criticizes the
reservoir argument (Phys. r8, 208all): 'Nor, in order that genesis should
not give out, is it necessary for perceptible body to be actually infinite: for it
is possible for the perishing of one thing to be the genesis of another, the
whole being finite.' This is the very possibility which the cyclical interpreta-
tion of the fragment has Anaximander see and espouse. Genesis and
perishing is a stable cycle, confined to and regulated by the elements
themselves. But how is this compatible with his advancing the reservoir
argument for the infinity of the source? His metaphysics would then be
broken-backed, his reason for positing the infinite as source negated by his
closing off the circuit of genesis and perishing from the infinite. Kraus was
surely right in objecting that the discrepancy between the reservoir argu-
ment and the
fragment
under its standard
interpretation
-
'ein krasser
Widerspruch' as he called it - has been passed over too lightly.29 If the
source makes a one-off contribution to the world, there is no way in which
its infinity serves to sustain the processes of generation
and destruction. As
far as these are concerned, it might just
as well be finite. It is only
if
Anaximander considered the source necessary to fuel these processes
I
Cf. Kraus, 366-67; Kahn, 38; Barnes, 30.
2 Kraus, 367-69.
16
throughout the life of the world, that it has to be infinite if genesis and
perishing are to continue indefinitely.
Kraus's own way of dealing with this problem was to cast doubt, like
Cherniss earlier and McDiarmid later, on the whole Peripatetic account of
the Milesian concept of the source. Aristotle, Kraus held, overstressed its
material nature, and misrepresented Anaximander when he suggested he
held that things return to the infinite. I hope, however, that sufficient
reasons have been given in what precedes for taking the return to the
infinite seriously as a feature of Anaximander's thought strongly and unani-
mously attested by sources deriving from Theophrastus.
An alternative way of escaping the problem is one of two kinds of
scepticism about the attribution of the reservoir argument. Kirk suggested
that Theophrastus, finding the reservoir argument in Aristotle, applied it,
on the basis of no further evidence, to Anaximander.30 Against this may
perhaps be cited the slightly different form, noted above, which the argu-
ment takes in Aetius, and the fact that dmE'QavTov rather than atELtov is
used. These differences may suggest that Theophrastus had a source for his
formulation of the argument other than Phys. 203bl8-20. Another possibil-
ity, advocated by Diels, is that Aetius drew the argument directly from
Aristotle. Kahn rightly comments that there is nothing to support this, in
view of the fact that Anaximander's name is not given by Aristotle.3'
In view of the implausibility of both these kinds of scepticism, there
seems no way of avoiding the conclusion that a deep inconsistency is
charged to Anaximander by the interpretation of the justice of the fragment
as a self-perpetuating cycle of genesis and perishing,32 for this makes the
infinite outside source demanded by the reservoir argument unnecessary.
Material interchange between the infinite and the world should not be
restricted, as it is on the cyclical view, to the birth and death of the world.
That genesis from the infinite is continual for Anaximander is very clearly
stated by Simplicius at in Phys. 465.5-10:
For this reason those who posited the infinite alone as source and did not recognize
in addition any other causes . .. were contented for purposes of the genesis of all
things with the nature of the infinite and with a material source of this kind, thinking
3 Kirk, Raven and Schofield, 113-14; cf. Kirk, 330, where the incompatibility of the
fragment, as there interpreted, with the reservoir argument is clearly acknowledged.
31
Diels, Dox. Gr. 180; Kahn, 38.
32
This description might be thought incompatible with Kahn's equation of injustice to
genesis and justice to perishing (cf. n. 20 above). But that equation is explicitly dropped
when Kahn comes to the analysis of actual examples, e.g. 184, where any instance of
genesis is treated as at the same time an instance of perishing.
17
that because of the unfailing provision of this (ba
t'iv &VEnLXEL3tTOV TOi'TOV
XoQlyiav)
there would
always
be
genesis,
and all
things
were surrounded and
steered
by
this.
The value of this statement by Simplicius, and of other statements by him
about Anaximander which harmonize perfectly with the presuppositions of
the reservoir argument, has been discounted by Kahn.33 He contends that
Simplicius' report in in Phys. 24.13, which is supported by the parallel
versions of Aetius, Hippolytus and pseudo-Plutarch, may be ranked as an
excellent source for Theophrastus' discussion of the
&QXaL'
But informa-
tion given by Simplicius in other commentaries, or in other parts of the
commentary on the Physics, does not have the same authority. For since
these passages are not backed by parallel sources, they may not be based on
Theophrastus at all, or if they are, that need not presuppose that Simplicius
had consulted the Physical Opinions freshly. Further, some of Simplicius'
detailed information about Anaximander comes from avowedly non-Theo-
phrastean sources. For example, Simplicius took his statement about Anax-
imander's discussion of the sizes and distances of the heavenly bodies from
Eudemus of Rhodes.
The depreciation of Eudemus as a source is somewhat surprising.34 Any
information which derives from him is at the least worth serious consid-
eration; and the fact that Simplicius was familiar with the evidence about
Anaximander supplied by other leading Peripatetics should make his com-
ments more, not less valuable. Even were he not on a given occasion writing
with either the Physical Opinions (or its epitome), Eudemus or any other
authority open before him, the general understanding of Anaximander
which he had formed from consultation of these sources is not to be
despised.
The discussion of this section has shown that the interpretation of in
Phys. 24.13 offered in Section I permits us to unify Simplicius' report on
Anaximander there with the information about genesis from and perishing
into the infinite found both in other passages of Simplicius and in the
parallel reports of Aetius and pseudo-Plutarch. Further, it permits us to
Kahn, 14-15, 37-38. Cf. Simp. in Cael. 615.13: 'Anaximander the fellow-citizen and
companion of Thales
[supposed]
that it [the one] was something indeterminate, finer
than water but thicker than air, because the substrate had to be of a suitable nature for
changing into each.' This passage has been considered of little account because the
conception of the infinite as an intermediate has been thought to be Aristotle's rather
than Anaximander's own (as is powerfully argued for example by Kirk, 327-34). But the
reason given may reflect an authentic feature of Anaximander's cosmology, even though
the consequence drawn from it is wrong.
3' Cf. Kerferd, 34.
18
retain the traditional attribution of the reservoir argument to Anaximander
without supposing that he was so illogical as to adopt as well the very theory
of cyclical change which Aristotle rightly opposes to the reservoir
argument.
III. The justice of perishing
If both genesis out of and perishing into the infinite were for Anaximander
ongoing processes, and not the one purely primordial, the other purely
eschatological, under what circumstances did he think they took place? The
fragment with the clause preceding it in Simplicius tells us that perishing
follows on 'injustice'; and we saw it was reasonable to construe injustice as
the change of the elements into one another. The evaporation of the dew is
an appropriation by the dry of what belongs to the wet, for which justice
requires that the dry should be punished.
Vlastos, in his seminal article 'Equality and Justice in Early Greek
Cosmologies', pointed to the conclusions of his 'Solonian Justice' as show-
ing that Solon had a concept of justice whereby it was unjust to encroach
upon the possessions of another whether these were equal or unequal to
one's own. He went on to contrast this attitude with that of the first Greek
scientific thinkers, by whom 'Cosmic equality was conceived as the guaran-
ty of cosmic justice: the order of nature is maintained because it is an order
of equals.' Anaximander, Vlastos suggested, must have been the first to
represent the main constituents of the physical world as being in equilib-
rium. During the cosmogonic process, the opposites must have issued from
the infinite in balanced proportions, and this original equality is sub-
sequently preserved by the payment of a reparation following on any
encroachment that takes place. Heat and cold's alternating domination
over each other in the seasonal cycle is an instance of the 'principle of
successive supremacy' characteristic of Greek democracy, whereby office
rotated among members of a community holding equal civic rights. Though
at a given moment X has more power than Y, Y has an equal chance of
holding the same power that X now holds in the future.
Vlastos' explanation of cosmic justice in Anaximander was so attractive
that the hypothesis of the equality of the main physical constituents of the
world became a settled presumption of Anaximandrian studies. Writing in
1986, Freudenthal described it as an assumption universally accepted. But
does it accord with what we know of Anaximander's cosmogony, geog-
raphy and meteorology? We learn from pseudo-Plutarch about the propor-
tions of heat and cold at the beginning of our world:
19
He says that that which is productive from the eternal of heat and cold was
separated off at the genesis of this kosmos, and that a kind of sphere of flame from it
was formed around the air about the earth, like bark around a tree. When this was
broken off and shut off into some circles, the sun and moon and stars were formed.i35
What happened next, and what is to happen in the future development of
our world, we learn from the Meteorologica:
For first of all the whole area round the earth is moist, but it is dried by the sun and
what is evaporated produces winds and turnings of the sun and moon, while what is
left is sea; therefore they think that it is becoming less as it is dried, and finally a time
will come when it will all be dry.'
The Meteorologica describes this view without identifying those who held
it; but Alexander in his commentary tells us: 'Of this opinion were Anaxi-
mander and Diogenes, as Theophrastus relates.'37
Now if Anaximander represented the proportion between hot and cold at
the time when these opposites issued from the infinite as that obtaining
between the bark and the trunk of a tree, then he must have envisaged heat
as being tiny in quantity initially in comparison to cold. And if heat is finally
to succeed in drying up the whole of the sea, its stock or domain is
eventually to be much greater than cold's. Applying Aristotle's distinction
between equality in volume and equality in power,38 we may state not only
that heat is unequal in quantity to cold at all times except in mid-career, but
also that the reversal in the mutual proportions of heat and cold over time,
together with the deleterious effect of heat on wetness, indicates that in
Anaximander's thinking heat is praepotent. The relation between heat and
coldness, wetness, etc. should not be compared to the egalitarian relation
between citizens in a democracy. Heat more properly resembles the nobil-
ity in an Archaic polis, who, though fewer in number, had powers which
enabled them to acquire more and more property, while others lost even
what they initially possessed
-
a process best documented at Athens, by the
poems of Solon.
Does not this twofold inequality between the physical constituents of the
world suggest an altogether different conception of cosmic justice in Anaxi-
mander? The injustice for which an opposite must pay is not petty acts of
encroachment upon another opposite, which are recompensed subsequent-
ly by enforced retrenchment in a cyclical give-and-take, but excessive
"
Strom. 2.
3
Meteor.
Bi, 353b6.
3
Alex. in Meteor. 67.11.
38
Ar. GC 331a19-34.
20
domination (such as that of heat over cold and wetness) which is not so
recompensed. And the punishment which it must suffer is that of 'perishing
into the infinite'. Aristotle uses the verb &aXir'wOai for this process in his
objection to the view that the source is an infinite body apart from the
elements (see above). Admittedly, he does not mention Anaximander by
name; but he almost certainly had him in mind. Perishing as 'resolution'
would appear a suitable counterpart to genesis as 'separation-off of oppo-
sites'. When one opposite had increased too greatly over a period of time, it
forfeited some of its gains by the resolution of these back into the infinite.
Injustice, on this view, would be purely injustice, and not at the same time
an act of retaliation which would qualify it to be called justice. This
interpretation of cosmic justice rests upon two bases: that perishing into the
infinite is an authentically Anaximandrian concept, and that it is an ongoing
process rather than an cataclysmic occurrence -
positions argued for in the
first and second parts of this paper respectively.
We may illustrate how cosmic justice might operate by an example drawn
from Anaximander himself.39 We learn from the Meteorologica passage just
quoted that winds are produced from the evaporation of the sun by the sea.
Hippolytus gives a slightly more detailed description of this process.'
Winds occur when the finest parts of the air are separated off and come
together, while rain is produced from the evaporations which rise from the
things beneath the sun. If the sea is being gradually dried up, there is a
shortfall: of the evaporated sea-water, not all comes down as rain. Is this
perhaps a candidate for resolution into the infinite, an example of cosmic
justice in operation? Some of the evaporated sea changes back into
water,
some does not. The measure which has not changed back, within a certain
time ('according to the assessment of time', as the fragment puts it), would
constitute the injustice. The exaction of this by the infinite might be one
way in which the infinite 'steers all4'
-
an Anaximandrian description of the
relation of the infinite to the world to which it is almost impossible to assign
any real sense on the cyclical view. The forfeit would not of course put the
drying-up trend into reverse. For since genesis out of as well as perishing
into the infinite is a continual process, the absorption of the surplus dry air
would be balanced by a separation-off of the opposites from the infinite,
which would include hot and dry as well as cold and wet.
Thus it should not be assumed, as it often too confidently is, that Anaxi-
mander excluded the possibility of one-directional change among the ele-
3 I owe this example to Miss Emelia Akompong.
40
Hipp. Ref. 1.6.7, with Cedrenus' reading.
41 Ar. Phys. r4, 203bl1-12.
21
ments. If he had done so, he could not have used an argument which is
recorded by Aristotle and attributed by Simplicius to Anaximander:
For there are some who make this [something apart from the elements] the infinite,
and not air or water, so that the rest may not be destroyed by the infinity of them;
for they possess opposition to each other, for example air is cold, water wet, fire
hot; and if one of them had been infinite, the rest would already have been
destroyed.42
This argument could not get off the ground if one-directional change among
the elements were excluded. If fire could always change into water, and
water could always change into fire, there would be no reason why both of
them must be finite in order for the one not to be destroyed by the other. It
is only if there were times at which it happened that one changed into the
other and stayed as such, that it would be necessary to posit something
relatively undifferentiated as their common basis in order for continuance
of both to be secured.
Vlastos gives two reasons why the main constituents of the physical world
must be in equilibrium when they issue from the infinite.43 The first is what
he calls an 'aesthetic presumption':
Anaximander's own cosmology is designed with just such a sense of aesthetic
symmetry, with equality as the main motif: the intervals between each of the infinite
worlds are equal; the intervals between earth, fixed stars, moon and sun are also
equal; earth and sun are equal; the two land-masses of the earth - Asia and Europe
-
are equal, and the two great rivers in each are equal and divide the regions through
which they flow into equal parts. To cap all this with the equality of the opposites
which constitute this world would be in fine harmony with the whole design.
This formidable-seeming list loses some of its effect upon scrutiny. The
geographical equalities cannot definitely be attributed to Anaximander.
They are referred to in Herodotus as 'the geography of the Ionians',
although, as Vlastos says, it is quite likely that they did come via Hecataeus
from Anaximander. With regard to the equality of interval between the
earth, sun, moon and stars, Hippolytus tells us that the sun-circle is twenty-
seven times the size of the earth, the moon-circle eighteen times; it is
plausibly assumed that the circle of the fixed stars, which is the lowest, is
nine times the size of the earth." These figures do not yield equal distances.
The equality of interval between each of the infinite worlds is found only in
Aetius and would be mistrusted by the large body of opinion which denies
infinite worlds in Anaximander. There remains the equality of the earth's
42
Ar. Phys. r5, 204b24-29.
43 Vlastos, 'Equality and Justice', 75-76.
4"Hipp. Ref. 1.6.5.
22
diameter to that of the hole in the sun-circle. But even if, in addition to this,
the equality of distance between the infinite worlds and the geographical
equalities were correctly attributed to Anaximander, they are all spatial
equalities and not equalities of quantity. We cannot extrapolate from them
to the equality in quantity of the opposites.
Vlastos' second reason is the argument, cited above, for the conclusion
that the infinite itself cannot be one of the elements. But this argument rests
on the continued existence of the elements, not on their continued exist-
ence in equal quantities. Thus neither of Vlastos' arguments for the original
equality of the elements is compelling; and, as we have seen, there is
positive evidence (the trunk and bark simile) that Anaximander did not
posit such an equality.
About Anaximander's political sympathies, nothing is known. The fact
that he led a colony to Apollonia4s does not reveal anything definitely as to
this. But the strength of aristocratic feeling in Heraclitus some fifty years
later' is indicative of the need for caution in supposing Anaximander to
have been in the vanguard of radical opinion. If Apollodorus was approxi-
mately right in saying that Anaximander was sixty-four years old in 547/6
B.C. ,4 then he would have been born at around the time when Thrasybulus
overthrew the Milesian aristocracy. During his lifetime, he would have seen
tyranny replacing aristocracy in several of the Ionian states, as well as the
steps towards democracy evidenced for example by the Chian decree.' We
may reasonably assume that the tendency of aristocratic government to-
wards the accumulation of property in the hands of the few was a major
theme in political discussion and agitation during this period. This is the
model which I take to have influenced Anaximander in his account of
elemental interaction and mutual injustice.
Contemporary moral values made a distinction between the accordance
of equal civic rights, and a redistribution of property whereby the assets of
the nobles were brought down to the level of those of the demos. As Vlastos
pointed out, we can see this distinction operating very clearly at Athens
during the first half of the sixth century B.C.49 Solon's conception of the
justice of wealth, unlike his conception of political justice, does not at all
involve equality. Moira establishes a disparate share of honour and privi-
45 Ael. V.H. III.17.
4 Cf. Heraclit. B49, 121. Vlastos' portrayal ('Equality and Justice', 70-73) of Heraclitus
as a moderate democrat is scarcely convincing.
47
D.L. II.2.
48
Tod, No. 1.
4 'Solonian Justice', esp. 78-81.
23
lege for the 'noble' and the 'mean'; and justice consists in according to
everyone his proper place in the order. It is excess and hybris to encroach
upon a person's pre-allotted share, as the rich did when they planted
ward-posts upon the lands of the demos, and as the demos would do if they
pressed their demand for a redistribution of land. Justice requires the
removal of the ward-posts and the refusal of the demand, thereby preserv-
ing the old inequalities.
Very similar is the concept of justice which Anaximander seems to have
held. Essentially, it consists in the resistance of encroachment and the
attempt to preserve the status quo, which, as Anaximander pictured the
evolution of the physical world, was doomed to failure just as it had been in
the real world of the Archaic city-state. Equality of wealth does not enter
into Anaximander's conception of justice.S And this is quite natural when
we consider that democracy in his lifetime was just in its beginnings, and
that the new concepts of justice associated with it were concerned with
political and not economic equality. With regard to distribution of proper-
ty, the old prohibitions on encroachment upon what belonged to another
survived the transition to democracy relatively intact, and it was on these
that Anaximander drew as he described the checks which the infinite
imposes on the encroachment of one element upon another. In spite of the
growth of democracy in Ionia during his lifetime, the economic and social
conditions fostered by aristocratic government were still the major model
which Greek experience supplied to Anaximander when he created his
metaphor."'
University of Ghana
5 Passages from the Hippocratic corpus are often cited in illustration of the allegedly
Anaximandrian doctrine of the equilibrium of the main physical constituents of the world
(cf. Kahn, 132-33, 180-82; Freudenthal). Since most of these texts are not earlier than the
last decades of the fifth century, there is danger of anachronism in this practice. In the
doctrine of the equality of the elements, Empedocles was such a dominant influence on
the medical writers that it is barely possible to penetrate back beyond him to so much
earlier a potential influence as Anaximander.
5 A draft of this paper was read to the conference of the Northern Association of
Ancient Philosophy at Nottingham University on March 28th-29th, 1990. l am grateful to
the participants for their comments, and have been helped particularly by those of Prof.
G.B. Kerferd, who read through the paper in typescript.
24
List of Works Cited
(In the text and notes, the Furley-Allen pagination is used for all items there reprinted.)
J. Barnes, The Presocratic Philosophers (London and New York, 19822)
H. Cherniss, Aristotle's Criticism of Presocratic Philosophy (Baltimore, 1935)
H. Diels, Doxographi Graeci (Berlin, 1879)
-, 'Anaximandros von Milet', Neue Jahrbucher fur das klassische Altertum 1923, 65-75
G. Freudenthal, 'The Theory of the Opposites and an Ordered Universe. Physics and
Metaphysics in Anaximander', Phron. XXXI (1986), 197-228
D.J. Furley and R.E. Allen, Studies in Presocratic Philosophy Vol. 1 (London, 1970)
H.B. Gottschalk, 'Anaximander's Apeiron', Phron. X (1965), 37-53
U. Holscher, 'Anaximander and the Beginnings of Greek Philosophy', Hermes 81
(1953), 255-77; Furley-Allen, 281-322
C.H. Kahn, Anaximander and the Origins of Greek Cosmology (New York, 1960)
G.B. Kerferd, Review of C.H. Kahn: Anaximander and the Origins of Greek Cosmol-
ogy, CR XII (1962), 34-5
G.S. Kirk, 'Some Problems in Anaximander', CQ V (1955), 21-38; Furley-Allen, 323-49
-, J.E. Raven and M. Schofield, The Presocratic Philosophers (Cambridge, 1983)
W.Kraus, 'Das Wesen des Unendlichen des Anaximandros', RhM LXXXXIII (1950)
364-79
J.B. McDiarmid, 'Theophrastus on the Presocratic Causes', HSCP 61 (1953), 85-156;
Furley-Allen, 178-238
H. Schwabl, 'Anaximander- zu den Quellen und seiner Einordnung um vorsokratischen
Philosophie', ABG IX (1964), 59-72
E. Schwyzer, Griechische Grammatik (Munich, 1934)
M.N. Tod, Greek Historical Inscriptions (Oxford, 1933)
G. Vlastos, 'Solonian Justice', CP XLI (1946), 65-83
,'Equality and Justice in Early Greek Cosmogenies', CP XLII (1947), 156-78; Furley-
Allen, 56-91
25

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