Secondary Literature on Anaximander

Abstract

Studying any question in the Presocratics presents serious difficulties, the major one of which is that we have so little trustworthy or easily attainable information on them. Only fragments of their treatises (in some cases no more than a single sentence) are extant as direct quotations in such subsequent authors as Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, Sextus Empiricus, Clement of Alexandria, Hippolytus, Diogenes Laertius, John Stobaeus, and Simplicius. Other data comes to us from expositions given by later Greek philosophers — Plato and Aristotle again, as well as Theophrastus (who is himself greatly dependent on Aristotle) and the “doxographers.” These last record the opinions (doxai) of previous thinkers (which they derive almost entirely from Theophrastus), and among them are Aetius, Sotion of Alexandria, Irenaeus, Apollodorus of Alexandria, Hippolytus, the author of Pseudo-Plutarchean Stromateis, Diogenes Laertius.1 In using such expositions one must always contend with the possibility or, even, likelihood that Aristotle or whoever the expositor might be is interpreting and modifying rather than merely reporting the Presocratic doctrine at issue. If so, what one ends up with is not (say) Anaximander himself but Anaximander-as-viewed-by-Aristotle.2 One safeguard is, of course, to check the exposition with the Presocratic’s own text, but this, as we have already mentioned, is frequently no longer extant to any degree.