Abstract
At first sight, Anaximander’s cosmology looks like an eccentric vision sprung from a bizarre mind. Anaximander imagined the celestial bodies as huge rings, or more precisely, chariot wheels, consisting of opaque air-like (ἀεϱοειδής) stuff. Inside such a wheel (within its felloe), and invisible to us, fire is burning. The wheels have holes, through which we see the fire inside, and this is what we call the sun, the moon, or a star (DK 12A11, DK 12A18, DK 12A21, DK12A22, and (Turba Philosophorum, ed. Ruska: 109, not in DK)). Illustrative for the astonishment evoked by these images is, for instance, the desperate commentary of a French scholar: “Les idées d’Anaximandre sont tellement bizarres qu’on hésite à les reproduire” (Boquet 1925: 35). In a handbook on the history of astronomy, a Dutch author writes: “What he said about sun, moon, and stars (…) is rather obscure” (Pannekoek 1961: 98–99). Even an authoritative scholar like Charles Kahn doubts whether here authentic Anaximandrian images are at stake, and he suggests that they look like the style of a Hellenistic popularizer (1994: 87). And Dicks, the author of a standard work on early Greek astronomy, speaks about Anaximander’s primitive astronomical ideas and peculiar notions (1959: 309, n. 1, see also 1970: 45–46).
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
For a critical exposition of Rescher’s pictures, see Couprie (1995: 162–164).
- 2.
As is explained in Chap. 10, there is a second movement of the celestial wheels: up and down the celestial axis. But also during this movement the distance from any point of the wheel to the earth is equal to that of any other point of the same wheel at any given time.
- 3.
This does not mean, however, that I agree with the cosmological consequences about the earth axis, which Hahn draws from this (see Couprie 2010).
- 4.
Dmitri Panchenko drew my attention to this problem.
- 5.
In DK 12A26(6) I read κεῖται instead of κινεῖται. See also Conche (1991: 203 n. 23).
- 6.
For an extensive discussion with Fehling, see Couprie (2004a).
- 7.
- 8.
Fowler has: “the homogeneous nature of the heavens on all sides,” and Tredennick: “the uniformity of the heavens.”
- 9.
See Fehling: “Das Symmetrie-Argument setzt logisch und psychologisch die Erdkugel voraus” (1994: 143). Why “psychologisch” I do not fully understand. Instead of “logisch und psychologisch” I would say “mathematisch.” Elsewhere Fehling also says that “Aristoteles’ Angabe die Himmelskugel voraussetzt” (1994: 146).
- 10.
Perhaps one could maintain that Simplicius, in In Aristotelis De caelo commentaria 374.32 tries to say that the sky is kept from falling downward by the force of the cosmic vortex and that in this text “downward” means “toward the central earth,” implying a centrifocal theory of falling. However, in In Aristotelis De caelo commentaria 375.25, not in DK, also commenting on Aristotle's On the Heavens 284a14 ff., Simplicius speaks of the downward tendency of the heavens and of the earth, which implies a noncentrifocal falling.
- 11.
Krafft, who points out this peculiar parallel with the German idiom: “Sonne, Mond und Sterne,” probably took it from the German edition of Burkert’s book (Krafft 1971a: 106).
- 12.
The Babylonians used the assumption π = 3, according to Dicks (1959: 307 n. 3). We may suppose that this still held for Anaximander as well. See also Needham: “Although there is evidence that the ancient Egyptians and Old Babylonians had values such as 3.1604 and 3.125, the commonest practice in ancient civilisations was to take the ratio simply as 3” (1959: 99).
- 13.
See http://transit.savage-garden.org/VenusCatalog.html for Venus, and http://transit.savage-garden.org/sspt.html?inferior=1&superior=3 for Mercury.
- 14.
The same misunderstanding already in Naddaf 2001: 12–13. My discussion of the angular diameter of the sun, which Naddaf brings forward as a proof that I let Anaximander take observational data into account, has nothing to do with the distances of the celestial bodies and Anaximander’s numbers.
- 15.
More examples in Hahn (2010: 84).
References
Aristotle. 1986. On the Heavens. William K.C. Guthrie, ed. and transl., Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, London: Heinemann Ltd.
Barnes, Jonathan. 1982. The Presocratic Philosophers, Vol. I: Thales to Zeno. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Bodnár, István. 1988. M., Anaximander’s Rings. Classical Quarterly 38: 49–51.
Bodnár, István. 1992. Anaximander on the Stability of the Earth. Phronesis 37: 336–342.
Boll, Franz. 1950. Kleine Schriften zur Sternkunde des Altertums. Leipzig: Köhler und Amelang.
Boquet, F. 1925. Histoire de l’astronomie. Paris: Payot.
Bousset, Wilhelm. 1960. Die Himmelsreise der Seele. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. (Reprint of 1901, Archiv für Religionswissenschaft 4: 136–169 and 229–273).
Bronowski, Jacob. 1973. The Ascent of Man. Bodton: Little, Brown and Company.
Brumbaugh, Robert S. 1981. The Philosophers of Greece. SUNY: Albany.
Burkert, Walter. 1963. Iranisches bei Anaximander. Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 106: 97.
Burkert, Walter. 1972. Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Burkert, Walter. 1999. Diels’ Vorsokratiker. Rückschau und Ausblick. In W.M. Calder III et al., eds., Hermann Diels (1848–1922) et la science de l’antiquité, 169–197. Genève: Fondation Hardt.
Burnet, John. 1930. Early Greek Philosophy. New York: World Publishing Company. (1st impr. 1892. London: A. & C. Black).
Classen, Carl J. 1986. Ansätze. Beiträge zum Verständnis der frühgriechischen Philosophie. Würzburg/Amsterdam: Königshausen & Neumann/Rodopi.
Conche, Marcel. 1991. Anaximandre. Fragments et Témoignages. Paris: PUF.
Cornford, Francis M. 1934. Innumerable Worlds in Presocratic Philosophy. The Classical Quarterly 28: 1–16.
Couprie, Dirk L. 1995. The Visualization of Anaximander’s Astronomy. Apeiron 28: 159–181.
Couprie, Dirk L. 2001a. Anaximander’s Discovery of Space. In Anthony Preus, ed. Before Plato. Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy VI, 23–48. SUNY: Albany.
Couprie, Dirk L. 2003. The Discovery of Space: Anaximander’s Astronomy. In Dirk L. Couprie, Robert Hahn, and Gerard Naddaf, eds. Anaximander in Context, 164–254. SUNY: Albany.
Couprie, Dirk L. 2004a. Anaximander und die Geschichte des Griechische Weltmodells. Eine Auseinandersetzung mit Detlev. Prima Philosophia 17: 127–143.
Couprie, Dirk L. 2010. Review of Robert Hahn, Archaeology and the Origins of Philosophy. Aestimatio, http://www.
Dicks, D.R. 1959. Thales. The Classical Quarterly 9: 294–309.
Dicks, D.R. 1966. Solstices, Equinoxes, and the Presocratics. Journal of Hellenic Studies 86: 26–42.
Dicks, D.R. 1970. Early Greek Astronomy to Aristotle. Ithaca, NY: Thames and Hudson.
Diels, Hermann. 1879. Doxographi Graeci. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co.
Diels, Hermann. 1897. Über Anaximander’s Kosmos. Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 10: 228–237.
Dreyer, John L.E. 1953. A History of Astronomy from Thales to Kepler. New York: Dover Publications, Inc. (Facs. reprint of: History of the Planetary Systems from Thales to Kepler. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1905).
Duchesne-Guillemin, Jacques. 1966. D’Anaximandre à Empédocle: contacts Gréco-Iraniens. In A. Pagliano, ed., Atti del convegno sul tema: la Persia a il mondo Greco-Romano (Roma, 11–14 aprile 1965), 423–431. Roma: Accademia Nazionale di Lincei.
Dumont, Jean-Paul. 1988. Les Présocratiques. Paris: Gallimard.
Ebeling, Erich. 1931. Tod und Leben nach der Vorstellung der Babylonier. I. Teil, Texte. Berlin/Leipzig: Walter de Gruyter & Co.
Eisler, Robert. 1910. Weltenmantel und Himmelszelt. München: Beck.
Fehling, Detlev. 1985b. Das Problem der Geschichte des griechischen Weltmodells vor Aristoteles. Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 128: 195–231.
Fehling, Detlev. 1994. Materie und Weltbau in der Zeit der frühen Vorsokratiker. Innsbruck: Verlag des Instituts für Sprachwissenschaft der Universität Innsbruck.
Flammarion, Camille. 1888. L’Atmosphère: météorologie populaire. Paris: Librairie Hachette et Cie.
Furley, David J. 1987. The Greek Cosmologists, Vol. I: The Formation of the Atomic Theory and Its Earliest Critics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Graham, Daniel W. 2006. Explaining the Cosmos. The Ionian Tradition of Scientific Philosophy. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.
Guthrie, William K.C. 1962. A History of Greek Philosophy, I. The Early Presocratics and the Pythagoreans. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Guthrie, William K.C. 1965. A History of Greek Philosophy, II. The Presocratic Tradition from Parmenides to Democritus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hahn, Robert. 2001. Anaximander and the Architects. The Contributions of Egyptian and Greek Architectural Technologies on the Origins of Greek Philosophy. SUNY: Albany.
Hahn, Robert. 2010. Archaeology and the Origins of Philosophy. SUNY: Albany.
Heath, Thomas. 1913. Aristarchus of Samos. The Ancient Copernicus. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Heidegger, Martin. 1957. Der Satz vom Grund. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag.
Heidel, William Arthur. 1937. The Frame of the Ancient Greek Maps. With a Discussion of the Discovery of the Sphericity of the Earth. New York: American Geographical Society.
Kahn, Charles H. 1994. Anaximander and the Origins of Greek Cosmology, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. (repr. of revised 2d ed.1985, Philadelphia PA: Centrum Philadelphia; first ed. 1960, New York: Columbia University Press).
Krafft, Fritz. 1971a. Geschichte der Naturwissenschaft I. Die Begründung einer Geschichte der Wissenschaft von der Natur durch die Griechen. Freiburg: Verlag Rombach.
Lambert, Wilfred G. 1975. The Cosmology of Sumer and Babylon. In Carmen Blacker and Michael Loewe, eds., Ancient Cosmologies, 42–65. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd.
Mansfeld, Jaap. 1971. The Pseudo-Hippocratic Tract Περὶ ἑβδομάδων ch. 1-11 and Greek Philosophy. Assen: Van Gorcum.
Naddaf, Gerard. 1998. On the Origin of Anaximander’s Cosmological Model. Journal of the History of Ideas 59: 1–28.
Naddaf, Gerard. 2001. ‘Anaximander’s Measurements Revisited’. In Anthony Preus, ed. Before Plato. Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy VI, 5–21. SUNY: Albany.
Naddaf, Gerard. 2005. The Greek Concept of Nature. SUNY: Albany.
Needham Joseph. 1959. Science and Civilisation in China, Vol. 3: Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the Earth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Neugebauer, Otto. 1952. The Exact Sciences in Antiquity. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Neuhaeuser, Iosephus. 1883. Dissertatio de Anaximandri Milesius sive vetustissima quaedam rerum universitatis conceptio restituta. Bonnae: Max Cohen et Filius.
Panchenko, Dmitri. 1994b. ῞Ομοιος and ὁμοιότης in Thales and Anaximander. Hyperboreus 1: 28–55.
Panchenko, Dmitri. 2008. Parmenides, the Nile, and the Circumnavigation of Africa by the Phoenicians. In J.M. Caudan Morón, F.J. González Ponce, A.L. Chávez Reino, eds., Realidad e literatura en la visión grecorromano de África. Homenaje al Prof. Jehan Desanges, 189–193. Sevilla.
Pannekoek, Anton. 1961. A History of Astronomy. New York: Dover Publications.
Rescher, Nicholas. 1958. Cosmic Evolution in Anaximander. Studium Generale 11: 718–731. [Reprinted (with small modifications) in 1982, Essays in Philosophical Analysis, 3–32. Washington, DC: University Press of America (repr. of 1969. Pittsburgh: The University of Pittsburg Press)].
Robinson, James M. 1971. Anaximander and the Problem of the Earth’s Immobility. In John Anton and George L. Kustas, eds., Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy, 111–118. SUNY: Albany.
Rochberg-Halton, Francesca. 1983. Stellar Distances in Early Babylonian Astronomy: A New Perspective on the Hilprecht Text (HS 229). Journal of Near Eastern Studies 42: 209–217.
Röper, Gottlieb. 1852. Emendationsversuche zu Hippolyti philosophumena (2). Philologus 7: 606–637.
Rovelli, Carlo. 2009a. Anaximander’s Legacy. Collapse. Philosophical Research and Development 5: 50–71.
Rovelli, Carlo. 2009b. Sospesa sul nulla. Cos’è la scienza? La grande eredità di Anassimandro di Mileto e il dibattito contemporaneo tra pensiero scientifico e religione, http://www.cpt.univ-mrs.fr%7Erovelli/anassimandro14.pdf.
Schmitz, Hermann. 1988. Anaximander und die Anfänge der griechischen Philosophie. Bonn: Bouvier.
Sticker, Bernard, ed. and transl., 1967. Bau und Bildung des Weltalls, Kosmologische Vorstellungen in Dokumenten aus zwei Jahrtausenden. Freiburg/Basel/Wien: Verlag Herder.
Upgren, Arthur. 2002. The Turtle and the Stars. Observations of an Earthbound Astronomer. New York: Owl Books.
Van der Waerden, Bartel L. 1974. Science Awakening II: The Birth of Astronomy. Leyden: Noordhoff International Publishing/New York: Oxford University Press.
Von Fritz, Kurt. 1971. Grundprobleme der Geschichte der antiken Wissenschaft. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter.
West, Martin L. 1971. Early Greek Philosophy and the Orient. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Couprie, D.L. (2011). The Discovery of Space: Anaximander’s Cosmology. In: Heaven and Earth in Ancient Greek Cosmology. Astrophysics and Space Science Library, vol 374. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-8116-5_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-8116-5_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-8115-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-4419-8116-5
eBook Packages: Physics and AstronomyPhysics and Astronomy (R0)