I argue that a common interpretation of DA 3.4, which sees Aristotle as there rejecting Anaxagoras’s account of mind, is mistaken. Instead, I claim that, in providing his solution to the main puzzles of this chapter, Aristotle takes special care to preserve the essential features that he thinks Anaxagoras ascribes to mind, namely, its ability to know all things, its being unmixed, and its inability to be affected by mixed objects.

In this article, both Anaxagoras' theory of multiple worlds and the principles of his theory of matter are examined. It is argued that the five principles, which are set out explicitly in the extant fragments, (No Becoming, Indefinite Types, Universal Mixture, Predominance, and Infinite Divisibility) form a consistent set. Further, it is argued that the principle of Homoeomereity, which Anaxagoras attributes to Anaxagoras, is consistent with Anaxagoras' other principles and is likely to be a genuine principle of Anaxagoras' physics.

Are there atoms in the constitution of things? Or is everything made of atomless ‘gunk’ whose proper parts have proper parts? Anaxagoras is the first gunk lover in the history of metaphysics. For him gunk is not only a theoretical possibility that cannot be ruled out in principle. Rather, it is a view that follows cogently from his metaphysical analysis of the physical world of our experience. What is distinctive about Anaxagoras’s take on gunk is not only what motives the (...) view, but also the particular type of gunk that he develops. It is qualitative gunk, rather than material gunk. Anaxagoras’s ontology was developed before matter was ‘invented’. It includes quality tropes only; they are gunky. The resulting metaphysical view – a world of qualitative gunk – is new, in the sense of being hitherto unexplored; and yet, it is derived from Anaxagoras’s writings. Drawing on Anaxagoras’s insights, this paper offers a sketch of what qualitative gunk ontology l.. (shrink)

In this article, both Anaxagoras’ theory of multiple worlds and the principles of his theory of matter are examined. It is argued that the five principles, which are set out explicitly in the extant fragments, (No Becoming, Indefinite Types, Universal Mixture, Predominance, and Infinite Divisibility) form a consistent set. Further, it is argued that the principle of Homoeomereity, which Anaxagoras attributes to Anaxagoras, is consistent with Anaxagoras’ other principles and is likely to be a genuine principle of Anaxagoras’ physics.

¿Cuál es el origen de todas las cosas? A pesar de su gran diversidad, ¿tienen una raíz común? ¿Tuvo el mundo un comienzo? ¿Cómo surgió la vida en la tierra? Tales preguntas, que aún provocan a los científicos, fueron formuladas por vez primera por los primeros pensadores griegos. Anaxágoras responde a ellas poniendo al inicio del tiempo una confusa mezcla de todas las cosas sobre la cual obró un ser llamado Intelecto, quien dio lugar al orden del mundo que hoy (...) contemplamos. Con ello, este autor presocrático comienza a plantear algunas cuestiones filosóficas que perdurarán hasta nuestros días: la constitución de la materia, la naturaleza del conocimiento sensorial e intelectual, la intervención de Dios en el mundo… Este libro pretende analizar cuidadosamente la filosofía de Anaxágoras prestando atención a los dos aspectos principales de su doctrina: la mezcla e Intelecto. Su comprensión de la realidad física como una mezcla tiene consecuencias filosóficas de gran interés y constituye quizá la más sugestiva entre las primeras concepciones de la materia. Por otro lado, Intelecto es, según Anaxágoras, quien provoca la variedad de los seres a través del movimiento. Así, nuestro filósofo distingue del sustrato material la causa de sus cambios, la cual se hallaría, además, dotada de inteligencia. Tales rasgos de la filosofía de Anaxágoras atrajeron la atención de los grandes filósofos clásicos, particularmente de Aristóteles. El segundo gran objetivo de este libro es, pues, recorrer el camino por el cual discurrieron las enseñanzas de Anaxágoras, desde que fueron expuestas por él en Atenas, justo durante el siglo que definió la preponderancia intelectual de dicha polis durante siglos, hasta que llegaron a oídos de Aristóteles, el testigo más determinante para comprender a Anaxágoras. (shrink)

Anaxagoras of Clazomenae (a major Greek city of Ionian Asia Minor), a Greek philosopher of the 5th century B.C.E. (born ca. 500–480), was the first of the Presocratic philosophers to live in Athens. He propounded a physical theory of “everything-in-everything,” and claimed that nous (intellect or mind) was the motive cause of the cosmos. He was the first to give a correct explanation of eclipses, and was both famous and notorious for his scientific theories, including the claims that the sun (...) is a mass of red-hot metal, that the moon is earthy, and that the stars are fiery stones. Anaxagoras maintained that the original state of the cosmos was a mixture of all its ingredients (the basic realities of his system). The ingredients are thoroughly mixed, so that no individual ingredient as such is evident, but the mixture is not entirely uniform or homogeneous. (shrink)