Greece & Rome · c. 500–428 BCE
Anaxagoras
First philosopher to settle in Athens; tried for impiety
Taught that everything contains a portion of everything, and that Mind (nous), unmixed and infinite, set the cosmos rotating. His claim that the sun is a fiery stone led to his prosecution.
Life and thought
Anaxagoras came from Clazomenae in Ionia and around 460 BCE settled in Athens, the first philosopher known to have lived there, and became a friend of Pericles. He taught that the sun is a red-hot stone and that the moon’s light comes from the sun. Ancient reports say he was prosecuted for impiety, perhaps partly as an attack on Pericles, and he withdrew to Lampsacus, where he died around 428.
Like Empedocles he accepted Parmenides’ ban on coming-to-be from nothing, but his solution was more radical: in everything there is a portion of everything. Bread can nourish hair, flesh and bone because those stuffs are already in it, too small to see; things are named after what predominates. What set this mixture moving is Nous, Mind, which alone is unmixed and knows all things. In Plato’s Phaedo, Socrates says he was thrilled by this idea, then disappointed that Anaxagoras never used Mind to explain why things are as it is best for them to be.