The Cosmogony of Anaxagoras

Abstract

M { UCH has been written during The last thirty years or so on the subject of the basic ingredients of Anaxagoras' universe,' but comparatively little attention has been paid to the cosmogonical process by which Anaxagoras believed the universe to have developed out of those ingredients into its present state. That process is my subject, but before dealing with any part of Anaxagoras' physical theories it always behoves a writer to explain how he hiimself understands Anaxagoras' first priniciples. There is, we are told, a constant, infinite, and infinitely divisible amount of matter in the universe (Frags. 1-7, Diels-Kranz). Since all things are infinitely divisible, they cannot be composed of a finite number of Empedoclean type elements, for any such theory entails a limit to divisibility (cf. Arist. de Caelo 305 a I). It would seem to follow that if there is an infinite number of substances in the phenomenal world there must be an infinite number of primary substances. Parmenides had already shown that the Real must be unchanging; but an infinite number of homogeneous, unchanging, entities (such as Melissus hinted at, DK 3o B 8) could only explain an unchanging universe. Consequently Anaxagoras' entities are not homogeneous. As he reiterates, e 7rocVTL tvTo (0pop svearLV. Frag. 4 and the phrase 67MaMCEp pte of the universe. It is over the precise meaning of ncxv-d and 7caNxT0 that scholars especially disagree. I agree, following the ancient commentators, with Bailey, Cherniss, Raven, and Mathewson, that Tannery, Burnet, and Cornford were wrong in thinking that the 'portions' that are in everything are just the traditional 'opposites' or opposite 'quality-things.' I, too, take the view that Anaxagoras meant to include anything that his predecessors had thought of as primary, including the Hot and the Cold (Frag. 8), the Wet and the Dry (cf. Anaximander), the Bright and the