Table Of Content1
Aryeh Finkelberg
THE MILESIAN IDEAS OF GOD, SOUL, AND THE WORLD
The commonly acknowledged feature of the Milesian, as indeed all other
Presocratic, doctrines is a description of reality in terms of physical bodies, their
alterations, interactions, and mixtures; for the sake of convenience I shall call this feature
of the Presocratic teachings "physicalism." Presocratic physicalism is usually interpreted
as an expression of a naturalistic outlook and the Presocratic theories are often referred
to as "natural explanations." Thus, though they dispute almost every single piece of
Peripatetic evidence relating to the Presocratics, modern scholars actually accept the
Peripatetic perception of the Presocratics as physikoi, philosophers of nature, or, if the
Peripatetic attribution of material monism to the early Presocratics is rejected, natural
scientists and cosmologists.
Crediting the Milesians with a new, naturalistic outlook, scholars fail to supply a
definite reason for the intellectual development they postulate: no explanation worth of
the name has been suggested for why such a radical departure from the traditional ways
of thinking had to take place in Greece, rather than, say, in Mesopotamia, in the sixth,
rather than in the seventh or fifth, century BC. Scholars often cite "scientific"
achievements attributed to the Milesians, such as the drawing of a map of the world,
invention of gnomon, and the like, as an indication of the nascent scientific outlook.
These achievements, however, were mostly borrowings (even if they may have involved
certain improvements) from the neighbouring civilizations,1 and since they did not result
1 Thus, gnomon had been known in Babylonia for centures, and
Anaximander's map of the world conspicuously resembled the Babylonian, on which see
Kahn, Anaximander and the Origins of Greek Cosmology, 83-84.
2
in the emergence of the scientific outlook there, they cannot be taken as a sufficient
explanation of the alleged emergence of such an outlook in Greece.
The view of the Presocratics as preoccupied with natural explanations results in a
conspicuous discontinuity in the Peripatetic (and so also modern) account of the
development of Greek philosophy. Socrates' philosophy appears to have been a new
beginning unrelated to (and even an avowed rejection of) the cosmological speculations
of the Presocratics, and it was only much later, in Plato's Timaeus, but to full extent only
in Aristotle, that the Presocratic philosophical tradition was incorporated in the new one
which begins with Socrates.
It is of course a seriously inadequate procedure to determine the nature of the
Milesian teachings on the basis of just one common feature, while disregarding or
downplaying others. It is therefore hardly surprising that when the common features of
the Milesians' doctrines are considered in their entirety, the meaning of their teachings
proves different from that attached to them by the Peripatetics and their modern
followers.
The most obvious and the most traditional feature of the Milesian teachings was
the explanation of the present state of the universe, i.e. the world as we know it, as
having evolved from a certain primitive source. What was entirely new with this
explanation was the idea of the primitive source as a single body, and of the cosmic
evolution as a series of its qualitative changes which, in the traditional manner again,
were conceived of by analogy with biological generation.
Anaximander imagined the world as having developed out of the gonimon
secreted by the primary body in the manner similar to the development of the living
creatures. The newly created world was enclosed in the fiery sphere as if in a bark
(floio/ß); the first animals, too, were enclosed in a bark; the "bark" of the world was
broken with the advance of its drying up, the bark of the animals, with their moving from
water to a dry environment.2
A similar biological analogy in Anaximenes is implied in the report that "[T]he
primary body is immense air (aje/ra a¡peiron), out of which things that exist, existed and
will exist, and gods and things divine, are born, whereas the rest of things comes from its
offsprings (ta» de« loipa» e˙k tw◊n tou/tou aÓpogo/nwn).”3 The solemn ta» gino/mena kai« ta»
2 Ps.-Plut. Strom. 2; Aet. v 19.4 (DK 12 A10, A 30).
3 Hippol. Ref. i 7.1 (DK 13 A 7).
3
gegono/ta kai« ta» e˙so/mena, modelled after the epic language,4 evidently reflects
Anaximenes’ locution, and there is little doubt that aÓpo/gonoi which normally refers to
progeny also comes from him.
Aristotle5 reports that "Thales... says that it [sc. the principle] is water (for which
reason he also asserted that the earth abides upon water), perhaps taking this idea from
the observation that the nourishments of all things is moist, and heat itself is produced
from the moist and lives by it... and from the fact that the seeds of all things have a moist
nature," etc. The reasons suggested by Aristotle are all biological, which probably
indicates Thales' way of thinking as known to Aristotle. Furthermore, Aristotle stated that
Thales believed that the earth abides upon water because water is the principle. Unless we
are prepared to saddle Aristotle with a patent non sequitur, we should admit that he had
in mind the way in which Thales explained the creation of the earth from water, a way
which made it emerge on the water surface. If this be so, the biological pattern most
readily suggests itself: probably Thales imagined the earth as having grown from water in
a plant-like manner.
The primary body (or rather its reminder), water in Thales and aêr in Anaximenes,
formed one of the constituents of the developed world. If Anaximander's primary body,
the apeiron, was, as scholars believe, qualitatively indeterminate, it could not be part of
the world and therefore its unchanged portion must have been located outside the world,
- as our sources actually say, "encompass" it.
Theophrastus' report on Anaximander's idea of the apeiron has come down to us
in the following three versions:
Aët. 1 3.3 (12 A 14): Anaximander... says that the principle of existing
things is to\ a¡peiron... but he errs in that he does not say what to\ a¡peiron is,
whether it is air, or water, or some other body.
D.L. ii 1 (12 A 1): Anaximander... said that the principle and the element is
to\ a¡peiron, not determining whether it is air or water or something else.
Simpl. Phys. 24.13 (12 A 9): Anaximander... said that the principle and the
element of existing things was to\ a¡peiron.. and he says that it is neither water
nor any other of the so-called elements, but some other infinite nature, etc.
4 Cf. Hesiod. Theog. 32: ta¿ t’ e˙sso/mena pro/ t’ e˙o/nta; ibid. 38: ta¿ t’ e˙o/nta
ta¿ t’ e˙sso/mena pro/ t’ e˙o/nta; Heraclitus B 30: h™n aÓei« kai« e¶stin kai« e¶stai.
5 Met. 983b20.
4
The difference between Aëtius' and Diogenes' formulation, on the one hand, and
that of Simplicius, on the other, is fundamental. As Jonathan Barnes pointed out, "the view
that Anaximander's principle was qualitatively indeterminate loses in plausibility if he did
not positively distinguish it from the elements."6 Barnes believes that "[W]e cannot tell
whether Simplicius or Diogenes better represent Theophrastus' judgement";7 yet, as Uvo
Hölscher saw, "The formulation in Simplicius... 'he says it is neither... nor...' is clearly a
distortion; the correct phrase is in Diogenes, ouj diori/zwn. Otherwise there could have
been no discussion about it [sc. the apeiron] at all."8 Consequently, the idea that the
apeiron was a qualitatively indeterminate body is but a speculative conjecture about a
possible reason of Anaximander's omission to define the physical nature of his primary
body.9
The only positive characterization of Anaximander's primary body in our sources is
to\ qeivon;10 other descriptions - to\ a¡peiron, to\ aji/dion,11 ajqa/naton, ajnw/leqron,12 aji/dion,
ajgh/rw13 – are all negative,14 denying the primary body any spatial and temporal
limitation. Regarded from this perspective, to\ a¡peiron proves not so much a quantitative
definition (as the Peripatetics understood it), as one of the descriptions of the awe-
inspiring grandeur of to\ qeivon. As this idea is conveyed by an accumulation of privative
epithets, a positive physical definition would be quite out of line with this rhetorical
strategy. This does not entail that Anaximander had no clear idea of the physical nature
of his primary body.
According to our reports, the apeiron perie÷cein a‚panta or pa¿ntaß tou\ß
ko/smouß.15 Aristotle’s "[I]t is absurd to make it [sc. the apeiron] encompass rather than be
6 The Presocratic Philosophers, 32.
7 Cf. C. Kahn, Anaximander, 33.
8 "Anaximander and the Beginnings of Greek Philosophy," 304 n 54; cf.
Zeller, Die Philosophie der Griechen, i 291.
9 Cf. D. W. Graham, Explaining the Cosmos, 30.
10 Arist. Phys. 203b13 (12 A 15).
11 [Plut.] Strom. 2 (12 A 10).
12 Arist. Phys. 203b13 (12 A 15).
13 Hippol. Ref. i 6.1 (12 A 11).
14 The coupling of aji/dioß with the epithets all of which have the privative a
suggests that Anaximander took the initial a in aji/dioß as privative.
15 Arist. Phys. 203b11; Hippol. Ref. i 6.1; cf. Simpl. Phys. 24.13 (DK 12 A 15,
A 11, A 9).
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encompassed”16 suggests that the description of the apeiron as that which perie÷cein is
Anaximander's. In the doxographic sources the substantivized to\ perie÷con is a regular
term for the (outer) heaven;17 in Anaximenes, however, the verb applies to aêr: "...o¢lon
to\n ko/smon pneuvma kai« aÓh\r perie÷cei."18 The description of the atmospheric constituent
of the world as "encompassing" is not peculiar to Anaximenes.
Aristotle (de An. 411a8): Certain thinkers say that soul is intermingled in
the whole universe, and it is perhaps for that reason that Thales came to the
opinion that all things are full of gods. This presents some difficulties: why does
the soul when it resides in air or fire not form an animal..? One might add the
question, why the soul in air is maintained to be higher and more immortal than
that in animals.) ...[I]t is beyond paradox to say that fire or air is an animal…
[T]he partisans of this view are bound to say that the soul too is homogeneous
with its parts, if animals become animate by drawing into themselves a bit of the
encompassing (ti touv perie/contoß). But if the inbreathed air is homogeneous,
etc.19
The last sentence of the quoted passage makes it clear that the drawing of "a bit
of the encompassing" is meant to be through breathing.20 Fire is not a convenient
example of a breathable substance and yet Aristotle repeatedly mentions it along with air.
He, then, has in mind particular thinker(s) who believed that soul resided in fire, that this
soul was better and more immortal than in animals, that it formed the breathable
"encompassing," and that inbreathed portions of it constituted the souls of individual
animals.
That these particular thinkers include or comprise Heraclitus follows from Sextus'
report21 according to which Heraclitus posited the intelligent "encompassing" an
inbreathed portion of which is "hosted in our bodies" and with which we remain
16 Phys. 207b36 (DK 12 A 14).
17 Aët. ii 7.1, ii 7.7; D.L. ix 9, 19 (DK 28 A 37, 44 A 16, 22 A 1, 21 A 1).
18 Aët. ii 22 (DK 13 B 2).
19 J.A. Smith's translation with minor changes.
20 A similar view, namely, that soul, borne upon winds, enters us from the
whole with breathing, was in the Orphic poems (Arist. de An. 410b28).
21 M. vii 127-134 (DK 22 A 16).
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continuously connected through breathing. Remarkably, Sextus' description of the
inbreathed portion of the encompassing as aÓpo\ touv perie÷contoß moi√ra resembles
Aristotle’s description of an inbreathed portion of the encompassing which animates the
animals as ti touv perie÷contoß.22
If, then, in Anaximenes and Heraclitus perie/cw and to\ perie/con described the
atmospheric component of the world, Anaximander's portrayal of the apeiron as that
which "encompasses" all things not only does not imply its transcendence, as some
commentators believe, but rather suggests that Anaximander associated the apeiron with
the atmospheric component of the world.23 This deduction finds support in the report on
the initial stage of Anaximander’s cosmogony:
[Plut.] Strom. 2 (12 A 10): He [sc. Anaximander] says that the gonimon,
which came from the eternal, of hot and cold separated off at the coming-to be
of this world, and from it a sphere of flame grew round the air which is round the
earth, like bark round a tree.
Thus, the gonimon of hot and cold produced the fiery sphere which encloses air
which, in turn, surrounds the earth. If the fiery sphere and the earth correspond to the hot
and the cold substances, respectively, the question is where air comes from.
According to the current explanation, “Anaximander put fire on one side as the
hot and dry, and all the rest on the other as the cold, which is also moist."24 This
explanation presumes that aêr is here a cold and moist substance. If this be true,
Anaximander's idea of aêr was fundamentally different from that of his fellow-citizen and
younger contemporary Anaximenes.
22 This observation supports Diels' assessment (Doxographi Graeci, 210) that
to\ perie/con in Sextus' report is a Heraclitean term.
23 Cf. Philolaus B 21 (spurious, see Huffman, Philolaus of Croton, 343-44):
ta◊ß to\ o¢lon periecou/saß yuca◊ß. As Jaeger (The Theology of the Early Greek
Philosophers, 30 n 39) remarks, "This is of course an imitation of the genuine pre-
Socratic philosophy."
24 Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, 65; similarly Cornford, Principium
Sapientiae, 163-64; Kahn, Anaximander and the Origins of Greek Cosmology, 87;
Seligman, The Apeiron of Anaximander, 17; Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy, i, 92;
M. Stokes, “Hesiodic and Milesian Cosmogonies-ii,” 9-11; Algra, "The Beginnings of
Cosmology," 47-48; M. Schofield, "The Presocratics," 57.
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[According to Anaximenes] aêr is a thing of this kind: when it is most even, it
is unapparent to sight, but it becomes apparent by the cold and the hot and the
damp and by movement... For through becoming denser or more rare it assumes
different appearances: when it is dissolved into a more rarefied state it becomes
fire, while winds, on the other hand, are ajh/r that is being condensed, and by
felting from ajh/r cloud is produced; still more water, still more condensed, it is
earth, and in its most condensed state it is stones.25
In undergoing condensation and rarefaction, through which it turns into the rest of
the world’s constituents and becomes "apparent," aêr becomes hot, cold and wet; the
opposite of wet, namely, dry, is not among the qualities that make aêr “apparent to sight”
and therefore belongs to it when it is “unapparent” and "most even," - the only state in
which it is aêr proper. Further, Plutarch26 discusses Anaximenes’ view that “matter which
is compressed and condensed is cold, while that which is rare and ‘loose’ (he uses this
very word) is hot.” Plutarch reports Anaximenes’ proof of this theory (for which, he tells
us, Aristotle criticized him): “the breath is chilled by being compressed and condensed
with the lips, but when the breath is exhaled with the relaxed mouth it becomes hot
because of its rareness.” Thus, when aêr is not condensed, it is rare and hot. Actually, the
dryness and hotness of aêr are implied in the order of its transformations: it directly turns
into fire, whereas to turn into water it must first become wind and then cloud.
To conclude, Anaximenes’ aêr is a transparent (“unapparent to sight”), dry and hot
atmospheric substance which he also called pneuma.27
Anaximander's idea of pneuma can be gathered from the following reports:
Aët. iii 3.1 (12 A 23): About thunders, lightnings, thunderbolts, hurricanes,
and whirlwinds. Anaximander: all that comes from pneuma. For whenever it is
enclosed in a thick cloud and bursts out forcibly because of the fineness of its
25 Hippol. Ref. i 7, 2-3 (DK 13 A 7).
26 De prim. frig. 7.947F (DK 13 B 1).
27 Aëtius i 3.4 (DK 13 B 2): le÷getai de« sunwnu/mwß aÓh\r kai« pneuvma. Cf.
pneuvma kai« aÓe÷ra in Plato's elaboration on Anaximenes at Tim. 49B-E, on which see
Graham, "A Testimony of Anaximenes in Plato."
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parts and lightness, the tearing of the cloud makes the noise, while the rift
against the darkness of the cloud makes the flash.28
Seneca, Nat. Qu. ii 18 (12 A 23): Anaximander ascribed all that to spiritus
[=pneuvma]. Thunder, he said, is the sound of a struck cloud… Why does it
sometimes thunder without lightning? Because weaker spiritus is not strong
enough to produce flame but suffices to make noise. What, then, is lightning
itself? The tossing of stretching and shrinking air exposing weak fire that has no
outlet. What is thunderbolt? A flow of a more fierce and denser spiritus.
Whether or not a fully satisfactory sense can be made of the details of these
accounts, the nature of Anaximander’s pneuma seems plain enough: it is a light
atmospheric substance which, like Anaximenes' aêr-pneuma, is finer than cloud and
easily turns into fire. Anaximander's pneuma is, then, roughly the same thing as
Anaximenes' aêr-pneuma and therefore the current explanation according to which air in
Anaximander formed part of the primitive cold moisture is untenable.29
The secretion of the gonimon means that at this stage of the cosmic evolution
there exist two bodies, the newly created gonimon and the reminder of the primary body;
with the differentiation of the gonimon there must be three bodies in existence, - the
fiery sphere, the earth, and the reminder of the primary body. Our report mentions
precisely three bodies, the fiery sphere, the earth, and aêr which, then, must correspond
to the reminder of the primary body. Anaximenes' description of his "encompassing" air
as a¡peiroß and Anaximander's portrayal of to\ a¡peiron as "encompassing" point to the
same direction.
Anaximander conceived of the primary body as divine; accordingly he believed
that it "governs" the created things, - pa/nta kubernavn.30 If Anaximander thought of the
cosmic evolution as analogous with biological generation and of the created world by
analogy with a living thing, he must have imagined the apeiron's governing the world by
analogy with the soul's governing the living being. Again, if Aëtius31 can be trusted,
28 Cf. Hippol. Ref. 1 6.7 (DK 12 A 11).
29 On Burnet's contention (Eearly Greek Philosophy, 65) that “[I]n the earlier
[than Empedocles] cosmogonists 'air' is always a form of vapour, and even darkness is a
form of 'air’” see my "Anaximander's Conception of the apeiron,” 232-36.
30 Arist. Phys. 203b11 (DK 12 A 15).
31 iv 3.2 (DK 12 A 29).
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Anaximander believed that soul was airy; consequently, if, as I have argued,
Anaximander's primary body was air, its reminder stood in the same relation to the world
as soul, a portion of the primary body, to the living being.
This relation of the primary body to the created world is expressly stated in
Anaximenes B 2: "As our soul, being air, holds us together, so does pneuma and aêr
encompass the whole world."32 Air is the substance which forms soul in the micro- and
macrocosm alike; the latter implies the divinity of air, which is actually reported in our
sources,33 and therefore its controlling the world.34 Again, the only thinker whom Aristotle
mentions by the name in connection with the idea of the divine soul residing in one of the
elements and intermingled in the whole universe is Thales. The report that, according to
Thales, "The world is besouled and is full of daimones" which recurs in a number of
sources35 probably derives from Theophrastus.36
Aristotle speaks of the divine soul in the early thinkers as the principle of life, - by
retaining a bit of it through breathing "the animals become animate"; elsewhere37 Aristotle
reports Thales' view that soul is a motive force in things. It is evident, however, that the
divine soul must be much more than the animating and motive force, - it must be also
the bearer of the divine mind, an idea implied in Anaximander's conception of the apeiron
as controlling all things.38 Among spectacular manifestations of the divine design there is
32 Aët. i 3.4 (DK 13 B 2).
33 Aët. i 7.13, Cicero, De nat. d. i 10.26 (after Philodem. De piet. C 3d Diels),
and Augustin. C.D. viii 2 (DK 13 A 10).
34 The divinity of the primary body is reported also for Hippasus and
Heraclitus (Clem. Protr. 5, 64.2; Aët. i 7.22=DK 18 A 8, 22 A 8); as regards the latter,
these reports are validated by B 30 (where the epithet of fire aÓei÷zwon is modelled after
the regular epic epithet of gods ai˙e«n e˙o/nteß), B 64, B 66, and the transmitted text of B
67.
35 D. L. i 27; Schol. in Plat. R. 600 A ; Aët. i 7.11 (DK 11 A 1, A 3, A 23).
36 It seems practically certain that Aristotle's knowledge of Thales' ideas
derives from secondary sources; from this it does not follow that Aristotle's reports
contain all the information he found in these sources and that these sources were
unavailable to Theophrastus.
37 De An. 405a19.
38 Arist. Phys. 203b7; Hippol. Ref. i 6.1 (DK 12 A 15, 11, B 1); cf. Arist. Phys.
330b10. A similar idea is conveyed in Heraclitus B 41 which employs the same verb
10
not only the mathematical symmetry of Anaximander's world,39 but also the temporal
regularity of its very creation and destruction. The latter idea is reported by Theophrastus
who supports his report by a quotation:40
Anaximander... said that the principle and the element of existing things
was to\ a¡peiron... from which all the worlds and the arrangements in them41
come into being; but from which [principles] the generation of existing things is,
into those their destruction also happens “according to what is right; for they pay
penalty and retribution to one another for their injustice according to the order
of time,” as he speaks of these things in rather poetical words.42
The cyclical character of the cosmic evolution in Anaximander is implied also in
the theory anonymously reported by Aristotle43 and ascribed by Alexander, on the
authority of Theophrastus, to Anaximander and Diogenes of Apollonia.44 According to this
theory "at first the whole region about the earth was moist"; this primal moisture has
been gradually drying up by the sun and its reminder is sea which is continually
kuberna¿w and speaks of the thought, evidently the thought of the divine fire, by which
"all things are governed through all things"; cf. Diogenes B 5.
39 Ps.-Plut. Strom. 2; Hippol. Ref. i 6.5; Aët. ii 20.1; 21.1; 21, 22; 25.1 (DK 12
A 10, 11, 21, 22).
40 Ap. Simpl. Phys. 24.13 (=Thphr. Phys. Opin. Fr. 2 Diels=12 A 9, B 1).
41 On the translation of tou\ß oujranou\ß kai\ tou\ß ejn aujtoivß ko/smouß see my
“On the History of the Greek KOSMOS,” 108-109.
42 Kirk (KRS, 121-22) contended that ajllh/loiß indicates that things pay the
penalty reciprocally, and this kind of interaction cannot result in their final destruction.
This is a fallacy: the word may mean not only “each other of the two in return” but also
“each other of a number in turn” (e.g. Od. xxii 384-389; Hdt. v 85.10; Xen. An. i 8.19.2).
Incidentally, even on the understanding of ajllh/loiß as reciprocal, the fragment need not
be inconsistent with the destruction of the world, see Freudenthal, "The Theory of the
Opposites and an Ordered Universe," esp. 212 and 216 n 65.
43 Meteor. 353b6 (12 A 27).
44 In Meteor. 67.3 (12 A 27).
Description:as an expression of a naturalistic outlook and the Presocratic theories are often The view of the Presocratics as preoccupied with natural explanations .. “each other of a number in turn” (e.g. Od. xxii 384-389; Hdt. v 85.10; Xen.
