Anaxagoras
- a distinguished Greek philosopher of Clazomenae, teacher of Pericles and Euripides, Lucr. 1, 830; Cic. de Or. 3, 34; id. Brut. 11; id. Ac. 2 (Luc.), 31; 2, 37 al.; Quint. 12, 2, 22; Val. Max. 5, 10; Gell. 15, 20 al.
(Ἀναξαγόρας), a Greek philosopher, was born at Clazomenae in Ionia about the year B. C. 499. His father, Hegesibulus, left him in the possession of considerable property, but as he intended to devote his life to higher ends, he gave it up to his relatives as something which ought not to engage his attention. He is said to have gone to Athens at the age of twenty, during the contest of the Greeks with Persia, and to have lived and taught in that city for a period of thirty years. He became here the intimate friend and teacher of the most eminent men of the time, such as Euripides and Pericles; but while he thus gained the friendship and admiration of the most enlightened Athenians, the majority, uneasy at being disturbed in their hereditary superstitions, soon found reasons for complaint. The principal cause of hostility towards him must, however, be looked for in the following circumstance. As he was a friend of Pericles, the party which was dissatisfied with his administration seized upon the disposition of the people towards the philosopher as a favourable opportunity for striking a blow at the great statesman. Anaxagoras, therefore, was accused of impiety. His trial and its results are matters of the greatest uncertainty on account of the different statements of the ancients themselves. (D. L. 2.12, &c.; Plut. Per. 32, Nicias, 23.) It seems probable, however, that Anaxagoras was accused twice, once on the ground of impiety, and a second time on that of partiality to Persia. In the first case it was only owing to the influence and eloquence of Pericles that he was not put to death; but he was sentenced to pay a fine of five talents and to quit Athens. The philosopher now went to Lampsacus, and it seems to have been during his absence that the second charge of μηδισμὸς was brought against him, in consequence of which he was condemned to death. He is said to have received the intelligence of his sentence with a smile, and to have died at Lampsacus at the age of seventy-two. The inhabitants of this place honoured Anaxagoras not only during his lifetime, but after his death also. (D. L. 2.100.3; Dict. of Ant. s. v. Ἀναξαγόρεια.)
Diogenes Laertius, Cicero, and other writers, call Anaxagoras a disciple of Anaximenes; but this statement is not only connected with some chronological difficulties, but is not quite in accordance with the accounts of other writers. Thus much, however, is certain, that Anaxagoras struck into a new path, and was dissatisfied with the systems of his predecessors, the Ionic philosophers. It is he who laid the foundation of the Attic philosophy, and who stated the problem which his successors laboured to solve. The Ionic philosophers had endeavoured to explain nature and its various phenomena by regarding matter in its different forms and modifications as the cause of all things. Anaxagoras, on the other hand, conceived the necessity of seeking a higher cause, independent of matter, and this cause he considered to be νοῦς, that is, mind, thought, or intelligence. This νοῦς, however, is not the creator of the world, but merely that which originally arranged the world and gave motion to it; for, according to the axiom that out of nothing nothing can come, he supposed the existence of matter from all eternity, though, before the νοῦς was exercised upon it, it was in a chaotic confusion. In this original chaos there was an infinite number of homogeneous parts (ὁμοιομερῆ) as well as heterogeneous ones. The nou=s united the former and separated from them what was heterogeneous, and out of this process arose the things we see in this world. This union and separation, however, were made in such a manner, that each thing contains in itself parts of other things or heterogeneous elements, and is what it is, only on account of the preponderance of certain homogeneous parts which constitute its character. The νοῦς, which thus regulated and formed the material world, is itself also cognoscent, and consequently the principle of all cognition : it alone can see truth and the essence of things, while our senses are imperfect and often lead us into error. Works
Anaxagoras explained his dualistic system in a work which is now lost, and we know it only from such fragments as are quoted from it by later writers, as Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, Diogenes Laertius, Cicero, and others. Further Information
For a more detailed account see Ritter, Gesch. d. Ionisch. Philos. p. 203, &c.; Brandis, Rhein. Mus. i. p. 117, &c., Handb. der Gesch. der Philos. i. p. 232, &c.; J. T. Hemsen, Anaxagoras Clazomenius, sive de Vita eius atque Philosophia, Götting. 1821, 8vo. ; Breier, Die Philosophie des Anaxagoras von Klazomenä nach Aristoteles, Berlin, 1840. The fragments of Anaxagoras have been collected by Schaubach : Anaxagorae Fragmenta collegit, &c., Leipzig, 1827, 8vo., and much better by Schorn, Anaxagorae Fragmenta dispos. et illustr., Bonn, 1829, 8vo. [L.S]
(Ἀναξαγόρας), of Aegina, a sculptor, flourished about B. C. 480, and executed the statue of Jupiter in bronze set up at Olympia by the states which had united in repelling the invasion of Xerxes. (Paus. 5.23.2.) He is supposed to be the same person as the sculptor mentioned in an epigram by Anacreon (Anthol. Graec. i. p. 55, No. 6, Jacobs), but not the same as the writer on scene-painting mentioned by Vitruvius. [Agatharchus.] [P.S]
(Ἀναξαγόρας). A Greek philosopher, of Clazomenae in Asia Minor, born about B.C. 500. Sprung from a noble family, but wishing to devote himself entirely to science, he gave up his property to his kinsmen, and removed to Athens, where he lived in intimacy with the most distinguished men—above all with Pericles. Shortly before the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War he was charged by the political opponents of Pericles with impiety, i.e. with denying the gods recognized by the State; and, though acquitted through his friend's influence, he felt compelled to emigrate to Lampsacus, where he died soon after, aged seventy-two. He not only had the honour of giving philosophy a home at Athens, where it went on flourishing for quite a thousand years, but he was the first philosopher who, by the side of the material principle, introduced a spiritual, which gives the other life and form. He laid down his doctrine in a work “On Nature” in the Ionic dialect, of which only fragments are preserved. Like Parmenides, he denied the existence of birth or death; the two processes were rather to be described as a mingling and unmingling. The ultimate elements of combination are indivisible, imperishable primordia of infinite number, and differing in shape, colour, and taste, called by himself “seeds of things,” and by later writers (from an expression of Aristotle) ὁμοιομέρεια, i. e. particles of like kind with each other and with the whole that is made up of them. At first these lay mingled without order; but the divine spirit—νοῦς, pure, passionless reason—set the unarranged matter into motion, and thereby created out of chaos an orderly world. This movement, proceeding from the centre, works on forever, penetrating farther and farther the infinite mass. But the application of the spiritual principle was rather indicated than fully carried out by Anaxagoras: he himself commonly explains phenomena by physical causes, and only when he cannot find these, falls back on the action of divine reason. The fragments of his most important work were edited by Schaubach (1827), and by Schorn (1829). See also Beckel, Anaxagorae Doctrina de Rebus Animatis (Münster, 1868), and Ueberweg, Hist. of Philosophy, vol. i. pp. 63-67 (Eng. trans., N. Y. 1872). For criticism of Anaxagoras by Lucretius, see the De Rerum Natura, i. 830-920.
- sculptor: Paus. 5.23.3
- king of Argos: Paus. 2.18.4
- shares the kingdom with Melampus and Bias: Paus. 2.18.4
- father of Alector: Paus. 2.18.5