Anaximander

Arche

• The arche is the apeiron 

• Apeiron - unlimited, boundless, indefinite, infinite 

  • Eternal 

  • Ageless 

  • Deathless

  • Indestructible 

  • Divine 

  • Surrounding all things 

  • Steering all things 

• There are no opposites to the aperion like thales arche which is water. 

• The earth rest on air, covering it like a lid due to its flatness and the earth rests at the center 

Cosmogony

• Something productive of hot and cold was separated off from the apeiron 

Nature

• Lawlike forces operating in nature 

• The opposites hot and cold act on one another, generating things in an orderly way 

• He stressed that changes in the world are not capricious but are ordered; with the mention of justice and retribution he affirms that there are lawlike forces gaurarenetting the ordly processes of change between opposites 

Proto-darwinian 

• Argues that life originated from the moisture that covered the earth before it was dried up by the sun 

• Based upon the life of the caddisfly 

• His zoogony is neither myth nor arbitrary speculation but based on empirical, observational knowledge 

overview

• introduced the sun dial to Greece

• created the first world map