Ancient Philosophy · Part 8 · The first philosophers · B1–B2
Anaxagoras: Mind and the Burning Sun
Part 8 of Ancient Philosophy: Anaxagoras brought philosophy to Athens. He said that the sun is not a god but a red-hot stone, bigger than the whole Peloponnese, and he was put on trial for it. Comparing sizes and quantities (bigger than, the size of, as big as, far bigger than), with Philo, Sophia, Marcos and Demetria.
Tonight, the man who brought philosophy to Athens, and was thrown out for it: Anaxagoras.
He looked at the sun and said: that is a burning stone.
It is not a stone, but it is not a god either. He was closer than his judges.
Anaxagoras was born in Clazomenae, an Ionian city near Smyrna, around 500 BCE. He moved to Athens and lived there for about thirty years, the first philosopher to settle in the city. He was a friend of the statesman Pericles, and later writers say that the playwright Euripides was his pupil.
He wrote one book. Socrates, in Plato’s account, says that anyone could buy it in the market for a drachma. About twenty fragments survive, many of them quoted by Simplicius. Anaxagoras taught that Mind (Nous) set the whole universe spinning and so separated everything from an original mixture.
He explained eclipses and said that the sun and stars are burning stones. In the 430s BCE he was accused of impiety, perhaps partly to attack his friend Pericles. He left Athens and died in exile in Lampsacus, where the people honoured him.
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