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Anaxagoras
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As with the dates of his birth and death, the chronology of Anaxagoras’ exile and subsequent time in Lampsacus are a bit of a mystery. Some of the historical testimonies indicate that his trial occurred shortly before the Peloponnesian War, around 431 BCE. If this is the case, then Anaxagoras’ time in exile would have lasted no more than a few years. Other records indicate that his trial and exile occurred much earlier, and his time in Lampsacus enabled him to start an influential school where he taught for nearly twenty years. With regard to the persona of Anaxagoras, there are quite a few interesting anecdotes that paint a picture of an ivory tower scientist and philosopher who was extremely detached from the general concerns and practical matters of life. While the stories are possibly fanciful, the consistent image of Anaxagoras presented throughout antiquity is that of a person entirely consumed by the pursuit of knowledge.
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Anaxagoras, a man of science if ever there was one, was born at Clazomenae in the neighbourhood of Smyrna about 500 B.C. He neglected his possessions, which were considerable, in order to devote himself to science. Someone once asked him what was the object of being born, and he replied, "The investigation of sun, moon and heaven ". He took up his abode at Athens, where he enjoyed the friendship of Pericles. When Pericles became unpopular shortly before the outbreak of the Peloponnesian war, he was attacked through his friends, and Anaxagoras was accused of impiety for declaring that the sun was a red-hot stone and the moon made of earth. One account says that he was fined and banished ; another that he was imprisoned, and that it was intended to put him to death, but that Pericles obtained his release'; he retired to Lampsacus, where he died at the age of seventy-two.
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While there is some recent scholarly debate about this, Anaxagoras’ contention that all things have a portion of everything may have had its genesis in the phenomenon of nutrition. He observed among animals that the food that is used to nourish develops into flesh, hair, etc. For this to be the case, Anaxagoras believed that rice, for instance, must contain within it the substances hair and flesh. Again, this is in keeping with the notion that definite substances cannot arise from nothing: “For how can hair come to be from not hair or flesh from not flesh?” (frag. 10). Moreover, not only does a piece of rice contain hair and flesh, it in fact contains the entirety of all the infinite amount of stuffs (a portion of everything).
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Anaxagoras had an advanced view of matter as well, theorizing an infinite number of elements, or basic building blocks. Developing one of the earliest "Big Bang" type theories, he suggested that initially "all things were together" and matter was some homogeneous mixture. Combining science with a theory of "intelligent design," he stated that "nous" ("mind" or "reason") set up a vortex in this mixture which "began in the centre and then gradually spread, taking in wider and wider circles. The first effect was to separate two great masses, one consisting of the rare, hot, dry, called the 'aether,' the other of the opposite categories and called 'air.'
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Anaxagoras brought philosophy and the spirit of scientific inquiry from Ionia to Athens. His observations of the celestial bodies and the fall of meteorites led him to form new theories of the universal order. He attempted to give a scientific account of eclipses, meteors, rainbows and the sun, which he described as a mass of blazing metal, larger than the Peloponnese. The heavenly bodies, he asserted, were masses of stone torn from the earth and ignited by rapid rotation. However, these theories brought him into collision with the popular faith; Anaxagoras' views on such things as heavenly bodies were considered "dangerous."
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Anaxagoras (500-428 BC) introduced the concept of "Nous" (mind, reason) into Greek philosophy. Nous, the eternal mind, transforms chaos into order and through it the material world comes into being. The primordial One produces forms of multiplicity through dichotomisation. This process is originated and controlled by the power of mind, or Nous. According to Anaxagoras, mind is infinite and self-organizing. It is not intermixed with anything, but pure in its being.
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