In this chapter on the Milesians, I am going to take them out of chronological order and deal with Anaximander first. This is because with Anaximander it is slightly easier and clearer to set up key issues. I will start by setting out the case that Anaximander’s view of the world is an entirely naturalist one. One important issue here will be his explanation of meteorological phenomena, which I will argue is not only natural, but specifically targets non-natural explanations of these phenomena in Hesiod. I will also argue that the extant fragment of Anaximander indicates a lawlike world and that he has an interesting, empirically backed account of the origins of life. The case against Anaximander is that he is alleged to have used the term ‘divine’ to describe the apeiron, the unlimited. Whether that matters is another issue and I will argue that Anaximander’s position is a type of pantheism. The discussions of Thales, Anaximenes and the later Anaximenes-influenced Diogenes of Apollonia will take largely the same format, a case for the view that they explained the world in an entirely natural way and a case against.
Anaximander: meteorology
A key piece of evidence that Anaximander rejected non-natural explanations in favour of natural explanations is that:
Concerning thunder, lightning, thunderbolts, hurricanes and typhoons. Anaximander states that all these come about because of wind. Whenever it is enclosed in a thick cloud and then forcibly breaks out, due to its fineness and lightness, then the bursting makes the noise, and the rent against the blackness of the cloud is the lightning flash.1
We find something similar in Seneca:
Anaximander explained everything in terms of wind. Thunder, he said, was the sound of smitten cloud. Why is there inequality? Because the blows themselves are unequal. Why is there thunder in a cloudless sky? Because even then air jumps through the thick and cut atmosphere. Why sometimes is there lightning but not thunder? Because the air is weak, not strong enough to support flame, but strong enough to support sound. What is the actual lightning flash? Disturbance generated by air dissipating and rushing together again, producing weak air which cannot escape. What is a lightning bolt? The rapid motion of more active, denser air.2
And so too in Hippolytus:
Winds happen when the lightest vapours of the air are separated off and gathering together are set in motion. Rain is due to the vapour which comes up from things under the sun. Lightning happens when wind escapes by breaching clouds.3
Pseudo-Plutarch also tells us that:
Anaximander believed wind to be flowing air, the finest and moistest parts of it being set in motion and melted by the sun.4
What is often said about the lead passage here is that thunder (brontê), lightning (astrapê), thunderbolts (keraunos), hurricanes (prêstêr) and typhoons (tuphos) are all phenomena which the Greeks of the time considered to be caused by the intervention of the gods. Vlastos comments that:
Lightning, thunder, a storm, an earthquake were ‘signs from Zeus’ that could stop a meeting of the Law Courts or of the Assembly; 5 religious feeling for an eclipse could overrule military intelligence to cause the greatest disaster ever suffered by Athenian arms.6
It has also been said that it is significant that Anaximander, and those who follow him, gave a natural explanation for classes of phenomena (all instances of thunder) where Homer and Hesiod focused on single instances of these phenomena.7 Thunder, lightning and thunderbolts are all quite straightforward. The difference between lightning and thunderbolt is roughly that between the modern terms ‘sheet lightning’ or ‘cloud to cloud’ lightning and ‘cloud to ground’ lightning. I have translated prêstêr as ‘hurricane’ but it can also mean ‘waterspout attended with lightning’ according to LSJ. In some contexts this latter sense is evident in that the prêstêr is said to have emerged from the sea. Tuphos is usually translated typhoon though it can mean whirlwind as well. As we shall see in a moment, winds are associated with the god Tuphos in Hesiod. I will refer to these five meteorological phenomena as the ‘Anaximander phenomena’ as their natural explanation will be a recurrent theme among the presocratics. By rejecting such explanations for these phenomena in terms of the gods and providing natural explanations instead we see a general rejection of non-natural explanation in favour of natural explanation.
A more sceptical view here is that while this may be an interesting fragment about meteorology, can we really take this as conclusive evidence of a conscious, intentional rejection of the non-natural in favour of the natural?8 It is possible to highlight fragments like these which appear to favour natural explanation, but either for Anaximander individually or the presocratics collectively if we feed in other fragments the idea of natural explanation looks much less clear or collapses completely. Taken on its own this fragment may seem to give natural explanations but they may be accidental and it is after all one fragment and very far from the whole picture.
In reply to this, I want to begin an argument which will run through this book. This is that we find a comprehensive, consistent and targeted rejection of non-natural explanations. Comprehensive in that we find a great number of natural explanations of phenomena that had previously been explained in term of non-natural intervention. Consistent in that there are basic principles within each thinker used to explain the phenomena rather than ad hoc explanations. They were targeted in three senses. Targeted on what was commonly attributed to intervention by the gods. Targeted on most important cases and hardest cases to demonstrate natural explanation. Targeted in particular on Homer and Hesiod, both in terms of their general views and in terms of famous passages. In particular the targeting thesis here, if it can be substantiated, entails that there was a conscious and systematic rejection of non-natural explanation in favour of natural explanation.9 This also gives us what Lloyd has termed a ‘context of polemic’.10 The presocratics do not give their natural explanations in vacuo, but as part of a polemic.11 If the targeting thesis is correct though, the presocratics do not target non-natural beliefs as part of some other polemic, the attack on non-natural beliefs is the polemic.
Here I argue that Anaximander is targeting Homer and in particular Hesiod in his rejection of non-natural explanation for meteorological phenomena. Later in this chapter I will argue that Anaximander is comprehensive, consistent and deals with important cases of other phenomena which were commonly attributed to the intervention of the gods, such as the origins of the cosmos, life, eclipses and earthquakes and provides a general picture for understanding the orderly behaviour of the cosmos. I think we can say something much more positive than ‘these are the sorts of phenomena attributed to interventionist gods’. These are precisely the phenomena which Homer and Hesiod attribute to the intervention of the gods and to Zeus in particular. In Homer, there is a common association of the thunder and thunderbolt of Zeus,12 as well as the thunder and lightning of Zeus.13 In the Odyssey there is a recurring motif of a ship being hit by the thunderbolt of Zeus.14 Early on in Hesiod’s Theogony we find that:
She bore the proud-hearted Cyclops, Thunderer, Lightninger and Vivid Lightninger, who gave Zeus his thunder and forged his thunderbolt.15
When Zeus enters the battle against the Titans:
From heaven and Olympus he came with lightning and thunderbolts flew from his hand amid thunder and lightning, trailing sacred (hierên) flame.16
There are many similar passages in the theogony where Zeus is associated with thunder, lightning and the thunderbolt.17 If we want a passage with all five of the terms that Anaximander mentions, then we need look no further than the tale of Zeus against the Titans in the Theogony. In lines 845 and 846 we get thunder, lightning, hurricane and thunderbolt. Zeus then uses his weapons of thunder, lightning and thunderbolt to defeat Typhoeus, who produces strong winds and wet winds.18 It is notable that the same creature is described as lawless (anomon) earlier on,19 and that as Zeus descends he is trailing a sacred (hierên) flame.20 hieros will also be used to describe the sacred disease of epilepsy in the Hippocratic corpus. This passage is significant in that this looks like a targeting not just of the general views of Homer and Hesiod but of a specific passage and what would have been a famous and well-known passage to the presocratic Greeks. We should also note in relation to the Hippolytus passage we looked at which gave natural explanations for wind and rain, that Zeus as the cloud-gatherer is a standard epithet in Hesiod and in the Iliad and Odyssey,21 Zeus also produces rain22 and generates storms.23 That winds are caused by the gods is again standard in Homer and Hesiod. 24
Anaximander or later source?
It is worth looking a little more closely at the nature of the passage we began this chapter with, on thunder, lightning, thunderbolts, hurricanes and typhoons. This passage can be found in two ancient sources, Stobaeus and Pseudo-Plutarch, both of whom are generally thought to be summarising an earlier and longer source, Aetius. There are some minor differences in wording between Stobaeus and Pseudo-Plutarch but nothing to suggest they had independent sources.25 It is important to recognise here that the first sentence in our passage is in fact a section heading in both Stobaeus and Pseudo-Plutarch. So ‘Concerning thunder, lightning, thunderbolts, hurricanes and typhoons’ stands away from the rest of the text and then Stobaeus and Pseudo-Plutarch give first the views of Anaximander then the views of many other thinkers. The passage is sometimes presented with the heading incorporated into the passage, which can give a stronger impression that the meteorological phenomena referred to are Anaximander’s own category. Is this a doxographer’s category or is it Anaximander’s? Did a previous doxographer, then followed by Pseudo-Plutarch and Stobaeus, generate the category of ‘on thunder, lightning, thunderbolts, hurricanes and typhoons’ and then gather together the scattered remarks of the philosophers on this issue and place them in this category? Or did Anaximander generate this as a specific topic which later thinkers also treated as a specific topic? If the latter that is important as it sets an agenda and it may not be only Anaximander who targets the passages in Homer and Hesiod in this respect.
In favour of the latter view is that this is an odd collection of phenomena for a doxographer to bring together in one heading, especially as typical headings in Pseudo-Plutarch and Stobaeus are quite simple and brief. How likely is it that precisely those five phenomena were grouped together by a doxographer in relation to Anaximander grouping them together because they are part of a famous passage in Hesiod? It is notable that Anaximander is named first, as Pseudo-Plutarch and Stobaeus are by no means strictly chronological in arranging their doxography. It is also important that Anaximander believes all these phenomena are explained by air so that this group clearly has a coherence for Anaximander. Anaximander may target Homer and Theognis as well, so that this is not an isolated example. Both Aristotle and Hippolytus report that Anaximander’s apeiron was ‘immortal and unaging’.26 This is a formula which Homer uses to describe the gods.27 So the attributes of the gods are passed to Anaximander’s apeiron. Such a formula would be easily recognised in a culture of oral transmission and Anaximander’s use of it in very different circumstances would have been evident.
Stobaeus, who is the fuller source, mentions Metrodorus, Archelaus, Xenophanes, Diogenes, Empedocles, Leucippus as having views on some of these phenomena. He has Anaximenes, and Anaxagoras as having views on all five, along with Aristotle, Chrysippus and Strato. Democritus is reported on four of these pheneomena, but not on typhoons and Heraclitus on three, again lacking typhoons and slightly oddly thunderbolts as we know that Heraclitus did mention them.28 Both Democritus and Heraclitus deal with winds though and as the passage in Hesiod has Typhoeus a god of winds that may be enough for all five. It is also worth noting in relation to the chronology here that Epicurus deals with these four phenomena plus winds in a close sequence,29 as does Lucretius who opens book six of On the Nature of Things with a set of natural explanations of meteorological phenomena.
There is a further consideration here though which is that Aristotle in his Meteorology also groups together thunder, lightning, thunderbolts, hurricanes and typhoons.30 The first paragraph of chapter two book nine is:
Let us speak of lightning and thunder, and then typhoons, hurricanes and thunderbolts. The same basic principle applies to all of them.31
In book one chapter one of the Meteorology Aristotle says that the phenomena he will look at all occur according to nature (kata phusin) and he groups together thunderbolts, typhoons and hurricanes as something he wishes to pay attention to. Aristotle actually deals with thunder and lightning in Meteorology II/9 and with thunderbolts, typhoons and hurricanes in Meteorology III/1. As Pseudo-Plutarch and Stobaeus, following Aetius, all use this section heading and use other section headings from the Meteorology, could it be that Aristotle initiates this category and the later doxographers then include assorted views of the presocratics in it? This would seem an odd category for Aristotle to come up with though and again this is significantly longer and more diverse than other section headings for the Meteorologica. These five phenomena do not make up some natural kind for Aristotle nor are they exhaustive of a particular type of meteorological phenomenon or a particular type of explanation for him. While ‘The same principle applies to all of them’, Aristotle uses his theory of wet and dry exhalations to explain many other phenomena. It is at least equally likely that Anaximander originated this category and it was passed through the presocratic philosophers down to Aristotle. It is also notable that neither Pseudo-Plutarch nor Stobaeus treat the view of Aristotle any differently to other philosophers here. There is no sense that Aristotle originated this category and his views are simply reported in chronological sequence, after those of the presocratics and before those of Chrysippus and Strato.
We cannot rule out the possibility that the category of ‘Concerning thunder, lightning, thunderbolts, hurricanes and typhoons’ was a later construction and then doxographers fitted some disconnected view of Anaximander into that category. On the balance of the evidence though I believe that Anaximander originated this category and that he did so in direct criticism of the passage in Hesiod we have looked at. If that is so, it has an important consequence. We have a good deal of material from the doxographers attributing natural explanations to presocratic thinkers. Lloyd has questioned the extent to which that reflects the interests of the doxographers or the interests of the presocratics.32 This example would suggest that at least some of that material emanates form the interests of the presocratics.33
The Anaximander fragment
Let us now consider Anaximander at a more philosophical level. Simplicius tells us that:
Anaximander, son of Praxiades of Miletus, was a follower and student of Thales. He said that the arche and element of existing things was the unlimited, being the first to give this name to the archê. He says this is not water, nor any of the other so-called elements, but some other unlimited nature, from which are generated all the heavens and the cosmos in them. The source of generation for extant things is that into which destruction occurs.34
I don’t propose to go into this in any philosophical detail, I want just to point out that all that exists for Anaximander comes out of the apeiron and will ultimately be destroyed back into the apeiron. If we take this as exhaustive of what there is, and there is no indication that we should not, then there is nothing non-natural for Anaximander. In particular, in relation to the idea of extended world I mentioned in the introductory chapter, Anaximander does not see himself living in an extended reality with anything non-natural to participate in. Simplicius gives us Theophrastus’ summary of Anaximander’s views:
Of those who say it is one, in motion and unlimited (apeiron),35 Anaximander, son of Praxiades of Miletus, was a follower and student of Thales. He said that the arche and element of existing things was the unlimited, being the first to give this name to the archê. He says this is not water, nor any of the other so-called elements, but some other unlimited nature, from which are generated all the heavens and the cosmos in them. The source of generation for extant things is that into which destruction occurs, according to necessity. They pay penalty and retribution to each other for injustices according to the order of time, as he says in a poetic fashion.36
The words in bold here are generally accepted as Anaximander’s own.37 This confirms that the apeiron and what comes from the apeiron is exhaustive of what is, if the apeiron is unlimited. The exact nature of what Anaximander meant ‘in a poetic fashion’ has been the matter of considerable debate. What has not been in debate is that it asserts lawlike, invariant behaviour. This passage too may be significant in relation to the poets. Theognis, a sixth century bce poet, wrote:
They seize property by violence; kosmos has perished
Equitable distribution no longer obtains.38
Against this decline in moral standards, we might see Anaximander asserting that there can be no such decline in the behaviour of the cosmos. The word in the fragment which is usually translated as ‘necessity’, chreôn, also has a sense of what is right or proper, and what ought to be done.39 This gives a stronger moral sense to the regularities of the cosmos for Anaximander.
Anaximander and zoogony
Anaximander gives the first extant natural theory of the origins of life. Clearly this is both important for a comprehensive natural explanation of the world and also a hard case in that this might be thought difficult to explain in natural terms. It may also target previous theories where the intervention of the gods was thought to be necessary for the generation of life. Pseudo-Plutarch gives the following account of Anaximander’s zoogony:
Anaximander said that the first animals were generated in moisture and enclosing themselves in spine like barks, as they advanced in age they moved onto the drier and shedding their bark for a short time they survived in a different form.40
I have argued elsewhere that this is a very good description of the life cycle of the Caddis fly.41 There were many species of Caddis Fly living in Greece in Anaximander’s time and they are widespread throughout Europe today. They begin their life as eggs in freshwater, before becoming larvae. The larvae construct for themselves a case out of many different materials depending on species and what is to hand. Often used are small twigs, bark, vegetation, mollusc shell, gravel or sand. The cases are typically 25mm long and 5mm in diameter, and are held together with a secretion made by the larvae. The cases can be fairly smooth or quite rough in texture, they can be tubular, spiral or square and they can be straight of curved along their length. They are commonly but not always closed at one end and they can serve as camouflage and physical protection. The next stage is for the larvae to pupate, often attaching the case to the underside of a stone, and sealing up both ends. The pupae then break out of the cases, swim to the surface, shed their skin and fly off. They typically live for several months in the water, and typically live for between one and two weeks as flies.
Caddis fly larvae do not generate spontaneously from moisture, though it is quite possible Anaximander believed that they did. Aristotle believed that the larvae of many flying insects were produced spontaneously.42 Possibilities for observing supposed spontaneous generation were widespread in the ancient world, the instances most usually cited being the proliferation of flies arising from the drying mud of the Nile or the Tigris/Euphrates after the recession of floodwaters. The young larvae do enclose themselves in cases, and in fact may do this several times, shedding their cases as they grow too large and constructing new ones.
Why might Anaximander have chosen the Caddis fly? Here are some possible advantages of this theory. He gets the initial (and ongoing) generation of living things from moisture. He might have chosen other flies but here is something indigenous to ancient Greece which comes from streams rather than any human generated water source and does not depend on any other animal for its generation. With this metamorphosis he gets an example of an apparently simple life form (the Caddis grub) transforming into an apparently much more complex life form (the Caddis fly), and doing so relatively swiftly.
If this theory is correct, then Anaximander’s zoogony is rather more than the ‘genial fantasy’ Barnes describes it as.43 It is a serious attempt to explain the origins of life by natural means, in a non-arbitrary manner, with observational support. As with Anaximander’s cosmogony, his zoogony eschews ad hoc explanations in favour of law like ongoing processes. I would entirely disagree with Barnes who says that:
There is no suggestion that this mode of reproduction occurred more than once.44
One important aspect of Milesian cosmogony was that the underlying processes which generate the cosmos are ongoing, unlike mythical or theogonical accounts.45 The separating out and interchange of elements does not cease once the cosmos has been formed in Anaximander, nor does the condensation and rarefaction of elements in Anaximenes. There is of course progress in that the cosmos has been formed, but the basic processes remain in action. Even if we adopt the older view of this passage, which attributes the genesis of life in Anaximander to some form of primitive sea animals, we still have him addressing the key issue of the origin of life citing only natural entities.
Anaximander and the divine
The case against Anaximander giving entirely natural explanations for phenomena is based on the following passage from Aristotle:
The unlimited has no archê … However, this seems to be the archê of all other things, and it surrounds and steers all, as with all those who do not suppose other explanations, such as mind or love, beyond the unlimited. This is divine, for it is immortal and unaging, as Anaximander and most of the physiologoi say.46
Anaximander is then supposed to have believed in something divine and therefore something non-natural. Let us look a little more closely at the passage though. Does Aristotle say that Anaximander believed this to be divine, or that it is divine because it is immortal and unaging?47 It would be no great surprise if Aristotle moved from ‘immortal and unaging’ to saying ‘divine’ even if Anaximander did not himself say so. Aristotle thinks of the heavens in his own philosophy as divine, even though they only do what is entirely natural for them to do. Aristotle’s god does only what is entirely natural to it, while not actively affecting any other part of nature. Aristotle discusses what occurs according to nature (kata phusin) and what occurs contrary to nature (para phusin).48 Aristotle has something very specific in mind here though. What occurs contrary to nature is a matter of chance. The idea that there is something outside of nature or that the non-natural can override the natural is entirely alien to Aristotle’s thought.49 So if this is Aristotle’s attribution of the divine to Anaximander, there is nothing to be concerned about here.
Another aspect of this passage is that Aristotle says most of the physiologoi say that their archê is immortal and unaging. Did Anaximander start a tradition here based in a targeted reference to Homer that the basic material principles for the physiologoi are immortal and unaging? There are two senses here, the weaker being that Anaximander started a tradition and other physiologoi had immortal and unaging material principles, the stronger being that they actually used the ‘immortal and unaging’ phrase to describe them, even if that is now lost from the fragments.
Should we be worried if Anaximander did indeed consider the apeiron to be divine?50 Returning to our discussion of the nature of the non-natural in the discussion, we can consider something non-natural if it is outside or beyond nature, or if it is not bound by natural laws. The first alternative here is easily dealt with as clearly the apeiron is not outside of nature. That the Milesians advocated some form of pantheism though is now widely accepted.51 As for the second alternative, I emphasised in the last section that for Anaximander everything occurs according to natural law. It matters little then if Anaximander did describe the apeiron as divine. It is part of nature and obeys natural laws so there is nothing non-natural about it.
The unlimited would seem to have some power to steer. This is a translation of kubernan, which means simply to steer, as in to steer a boat, or more metaphorically, to guide or govern.52 Furley has suggested that the steering may occur once and once only, setting the cosmos on a course which it then follows.53 Although that is a possibility, I see no evidence to support it. In the Aristotle passage, the unlimited presumably surrounds the cosmos at all time rather than just at an initial moment, but no distinction is drawn between surrounding and steering in this respect. Nor do any of the other passages concerning steering suggest that this is a one-off, rather than a persistent factor in the cosmos. Plato famously criticised Anaxagoras for postulating a cosmic intelligence which withdraws after initially ordering the cosmos. Had any of the Milesians had a similar theory, we might expect to see similar criticism of it somewhere in Plato. It is interesting that Plato does ask:
Should we say that the whole universe is ruled by unreason, irregularity and chance, or on the contrary, as some of those who came before us said, say that nous and a marvellous organising intelligence steer (diakubernan) it.54
This is interesting not only for the attribution of a steering principle, but also in that Plato perceives a sharp bifurcation of explanation by ‘unreason, irregularity and chance’ and explanation in terms of a steering principle. Slightly later in the Philebus, he says that:
This supports those of old who believed that nous always rules the universe.55
This is significant in that it cannot be Anaxagoras that Plato is referring to here. Plato is critical of Anaxagoras for allowing nous to withdraw from the cosmos, while these men of old have nous always ruling the cosmos.
Anaximander is not alone in supposing some form of steering principle. Heraclitus,56 Parmenides,57 the Hippocratics58 and Diogenes of Apollonia59 all make use of a steering function,60 and below I will argue that Anaximenes does as well, in addition to Thales. It is unclear on the available evidence what the precise nature of the steering function is or what it steers for. A reasonable supposition though would be that it steers the separation process so that a cosmos rather than a chaos is formed out of the unlimited.
To return to a question I asked in the introduction. Did Greek philosophers, using their own conception of god and their own criteria for natural/non-natural, to their own satisfaction show that there could be a belief in god without a belief in the non-natural? There I said that the answer to that, in many cases, is yes. I would certainly say that is the case for Anaximander. So I would disagree with West when he says that:
Anaximander for his part was no vigorous rationalist.61
Nor do I agree that ‘it is more meaningful to classify as “theological” language such as “They pay penalty and retribution to each other for injustices according to the assessment of time”’ which Anaximander uses in describing change.62 There is also the famous comment by Jaeger that:
What happens in Anaximander’s argument (and that of his successors in line) is that the predicate God, or rather the Divine, is transformed from the traditional deities to the first principle of Being (at which they arrived by rational investigations), on the ground that the predicates usually attributed to the gods of Homer and Hesiod are inherent in that principle to a higher degree or can be assigned to it with greater certainty.63
The predicates that Jaeger refers to are ungenerated, incorruptible, undying, indestructible.
There are several different forms of pantheism. Some differ in the nature of the identity relation between god and nature. Most common is the view that god and nature are identical and exhaust what is, which would seem to be Anaximander’s view.64 The identity is usually material (the matter of the world is also god) but may be ideal (nature is a manifestation of god) and Anaximander would be in the former group here.65 I would also note that Anaximander’s pantheism, as far as we have evidence, seems to come from argument rather than religious experience. There is a distinction in modern pantheism between theistic and atheistic pantheism, depending on what emphasis is given to god and nature. So to say that God is nature would be to come down on the theistic side of this distinction, to say that nature is divine would be to come down on the atheistic side. While recognising that as a modern rather than an ancient distinction, it would seem that from Aristotle’s evidence that Anaximander would come down on the atheist side of this divide (the apeiron is immortal and unaging and so is divine). I make these points for the sake of clarity, not to argue a line on secularism. As we will see in the chapters on the Hippocratics, I believe the presocratic pantheists have an important critique of atheism.
There is a question which I will introduce here but postpone a deeper discussion of until later. This involves Anaximander’s use of number in his description of the proportions of the cosmos. Hippolytus tells us that for Anaximander:
The circle of the sun is 27 times that of the earth and moon 18 times.66
Why these numbers? As many commentators have pointed out, this is not something that Anaximander could have arrived at by observation or experiment. Various explanations have been offered without anything really convincing standing out. Kahn has suggested comparisons with the three steps of Vishnu in Indian thought, where 3 has a symbolism, not least of beginning, middle and end and is also important for the unity of the world.67 Anaximander then has three as the common denominator for his proportions. Kahn though stresses that it is more appropriate to speak of:
A rational element in Vedic thought than of a mythic element in Milesian cosmology.68
Hahn has suggested links to architecture and some types of geometrical calculation used there.69 West has suggested that Anaximander is here drawing on some mythic or poetic materials from outside the Greek tradition.70 I will state a view here which I will defend in more detail in the chapter on the Pythagoreans and numerology. There were many forms of numerology and many of those did not entail any non-natural belief. Between the modern conception of how mathematics relates to the world and early number superstition, there were many interesting forms of numerology. So even if we take Anaximander to be employing some form of numerology here, we cannot infer that he had any non-natural belief without a great deal more argument and evidence.
Anaximander and the Spartan earthquake
Two important issues for natural explanation are earthquakes and divination. Thales and Anaximenes have natural explanations of earthquakes and divination is an important topic for Aristotle and some presocratics. It is interesting then that Cicero tell us:
Many things are foreseen by doctors, steersmen, and so too by farmers, but I do not call these divination, not even, in fact, when Anaximander, the natural philosopher (physico), warned the Spartans to leave their city and to sleep in the fields with their arms, because an earthquake was near. The entire city fell down and the mountain edge of Mount Taygetus was ripped away like the stern part of a ship when in a storm.71
So Anaximander the natural philosopher’s prediction of the earthquake was not an act of divination. We do not know how Anaximander predicted the earthquake, though it is possible he had some folk knowledge about the behaviour of animals prior to earthquakes. How reliable this passage is and what its precise import is are both debatable, though we do have independent evidence that Anaximander went to Sparta.72 The primary reading though would seem to be that Anaximander could predict earthquakes naturally and did not practise divination.
Anaximander and eclipses
Eclipses were seen as portents by the early Greeks as is evidenced by the famous occasion when the departure of an army was delayed due to an eclipse. Thucydides says that:
The preparations were made and they were on the point of sailing, when the moon, being just then at the full, was eclipsed. The mass of the army was greatly moved, and called upon the generals to remain. Nicias himself, who was too much under the influence of divination and such like, refused even to discuss the question of their removal until they had remained thrice nine days, as the soothsayers prescribed.73
Herodotus also gives us an interesting passage:
When it had just set forth, the Sun left his place in the heaven and was invisible, though there was no gathering of clouds and the sky was perfectly clear; and instead of day it became night. When Xerxes saw and perceived this, it became a matter of concern to him; and he asked the Magians what the appearance meant to portend. These declared that the god was foreshowing to the Hellenes a leaving of their cities, saying that the Sun was the foreshower of events for the Hellenes, but the Moon for the Persians. Having been thus informed, Xerxes proceeded on the march with very great joy.74
The belief in eclipses as portents was then widespread, but it is also interesting, as Vlastos has pointed out, that here the sun ‘left his place in the heaven’.75 Here natural regularities are breached. It is not the case that some other body has come between the earth and the sun, but the sun has left the heavens and in doing so has breached the regularities of nature. One can point to similar passages in Pindar where the eclipse of the sun is seen as arbitrary with a sense that once this has happened, all manner of catastrophes may follow.76
According to Anaximander though, eclipses are entirely natural phenomena. His account of the heavens may look a little odd, but is entirely natural. Anaximander believes there to be wheels which enclose fire. These wheels have small apertures in them and we see the enclosed fire. These are what we see as the heavenly bodies. The apertures periodically become occluded, which is his explanation of why eclipses occur. So Pseudo-Plutarch tells us that:
Concerning what the moon is.
Anaximander, it is a circle nineteen times that of the earth, like that of the sun, filled with fire. Eclipses occur with the turning of the wheel. This is like a hollow rim full of fire, having a single mouth.77
Concerning eclipses of the moon.
Anaximander, when the aperture on the wheel is obstructed.78
Thus we see no portents, no sense of the regularities of nature being breached, no sense of impending catastrophe.
Anaximander, Homer and Hesiod
One might raise the following objection to contrasting Anaximander with Homer and Hesiod. Homer and Hesiod have gods who have wills. Anaximander has a god which steers all things. What is the difference between those views? Why can we really speak of the naturalism of Anaximander and contrast that with Homer and Hesiod?
To return to our discussion in the introduction of this book, the key issue is invariance. There is a distinction between the capricious, unpredictable nature of the gods of Homer and Hesiod and the regular manner in which the apeiron steers for Anaximander. There is a distinction between the way in which the gods of Homer and Hesiod can intervene in nature, breaching regularities, and the way in which the apeiron effectively underpins the regularity of nature for Anaximander.
Martin has quite rightly questioned whether the notion of intervention in nature is a modern one and is inappropriate for the ancient Greeks.79 Certainly it is inappropriate for ancient Greek pantheism as god is not separate from nature and so can hardly intervene in it in the modern sense. I think there is a reasonable way though in which the gods of Homer and Hesiod can be said to intervene in nature. They are capable of breaching the regularities of nature where other entities are not. Explanation in terms of the gods in Homer and Hesiod is not just a question of ‘there is lightning and we explain that as due to Zeus’. The gods, from their own caprice, actively create phenomena. So Zeus generates lightning to blast ships for his own purposes and the plague at the beginning of the Iliad is due to Agamemnon offending Zeus. In this sense they are capable of intervening in nature. A related point which I will develop in a later chapter is that while Greek prayer often called upon the gods to intervene, some presocratics developed prayers which focused on achieving a better mental state instead.
There is a tricky question of whether some presocratics believed there was a category of the non-natural. I would phrase things like this. I can imagine what it might be for something to be supernatural, but I do not think that there is anything which is supernatural. Some presocratics could imagine what it might be for something to be non-natural (the gods of Homer and Hesiod) but could believe those things do not exist.
Why did Anaximander reject the non-natural? Again, Martin has quite rightly raised this question for the Greeks in general as it is easy to assume that the Greeks rejected the non-natural for the same reasons we reject the supernatural.80 Martin’s view is that the Greeks did not reject the supernatural (they had no concept of it) and had no reason to reject the supernatural.81 In my view, Anaximander rejects the non-natural because he adopts parsimony and invariance. Once he does that, as discussed in the introduction to this book, then considerations of parsimony will militate against supposing there is something more than nature while considerations of invariance will rule out anything that does not behave in a regular manner.82 Parsimony considerations here do not exclude the idea that the apeiron is divine and that it steers, as long as those aspects of the apeiron have an aetiological function. We will see some more of the aetiologial function of pantheism with the Hippocratics.
Theory quality in Anaximander
There will be a running question for this book which is the quality of the theories put forward by the presocratics. Lloyd has commented, specifically for the Hippocratics but also for ‘Presocratic natural philosophers’83 more generally, that:
It was a mere act of faith – we might even say bluff – to claim to be able to explain, let alone control, the phenomena in question.84
One might reply that the new natural theories are at least the right type of theories and that better explanations will follow. Lloyd’s reply is that the way ahead for natural explanation was by no means clear and was hotly contested, both in terms of content and methodology.85 I want to argue that there is more than an act of faith involved here and that presocratic natural theories had significant epistemological merit.86
The motivation for the rejection of the non-natural, I suggest comes from deeper philosophical concerns. If one is committed to parsimony one would only want to hypothesise a non-natural explanation, with an ontological commitment to something beyond the natural, when all possible natural explanations had been exhausted and rejected. If one is committed to invariance one simply does not hypothesise the non-natural in the sense of non-invariant. In Anaximander we have a commitment to invariance from the extant fragment. One can argue that we have a commitment to parsimony either in terms of the nature of the apeiron, or in that Anaximander explains five meteorological phenomena in terms of wind alone. This then is an act of reason rather than faith. The focus may be as much on the rejection of non-natural ideas as non-viable as on what specific natural explanations could do. While Lloyd is correct to point out that the way ahead was unclear and contested, that is only so if we consider the presocratics as a group rather than as individuals.87 To individuals, the way may have seemed clear.
What of the epistemological merits of Anaximander’s theories?88 As noted earlier, there is a certain coherence to Anaximander’s views on meteorology. All of these phenomena are to be explained in terms of wind. This is a general theory of considerable scope. Is it a theory which leads to new predictions and explanations? Yes it is, we have concrete evidence for that in Anaximenes’ extension of the theory. One could hardly expect a meteorological theory at this stage to be based on experimental evidence. Is Anaximander’s theory based on observation? In the sense that it is compatible with ordinary observations, yes. There are two places where the quality of Anaximander’s theorising is under appreciated, his cosmogony and his zoogony. Anaximander makes the assumption that the processes which are fundamental to cosmogony and zoogony are still going on today. That is by no means a bad assumption and has been debated in various fields since the eighteenth century and gradualist/catastrophist debate in geology. It means that Anaximander has observational support for his cosmogony and zoogony. He sees the processes in cosmology and the processes in Greek rivers for Caddis flies. He models the origins of the cosmos and of life on these. Could we expect a great deal more in terms of theory quality and observation at this stage?89
One important issue in relation to this matter can be put simply like this. By whose criteria ought we to consider Anaximander’s theories to have been poor? Another question would be; at the outset of attempting to explain citing only natural entities, how good do you expect the explanations to be? A third and final query; relative to whose theories are those of Anaximander poor?
Anaximenes and naturalism
The case that Anaximenes believed everything to be natural and explained phenomena citing only natural entities is similar to that for Anaximander and Thales. There is no extended world for Anaximenes. Anaximenes believed that everything came from and could be destroyed back into a single, natural substance. Anaximenes believed this to be air. Simplicius gives us Theophrastus’ summary of Anaximenes’ views:
Anaximenes son of Eurystratus, of Miletus, a companion of Anaximander, says like him that the underlying nature is one and unlimited, though unlike him it is not undefined, as he says it is air. It differs in its nature by being more rare or more dense. Becoming rarer, fire is generated, becoming denser wind, then cloud and denser still water, then earth, then stones, other things being generated from these. He makes motion eternal, and change is generated in this way.90
Change, and the cosmogonical process, was a matter of condensation and rarefaction of this air. Pseudo-Plutarch tells us that for Anaximenes:
All things are generated by a certain condensation of air, and again by its rarefaction. Motion has existed for all time. He says that when the air felts, firstly the earth is generated, entirely flat, and because of this, it rides on the air. So too sun, moon and the other stars have their origins in generation from earth. At any rate he declares the sun to be earth, as it acquires abundant heat by moving rapidly.91
We have some more information on the formation of the heavens as Hippolytus says that for Anaximenes:
The heavenly bodies were generated from earth through the moisture rising from it. When this is rarefied, fire is generated, and from fire raised to a height the heavenly bodies are constituted.92
There are more passages on condensation and rarefaction and on cosmology which confirm the initial impression that the world is an entirely natural place for Anaximenes.93
Anaximenes and meteorology
Stobaeus tells us something very interesting about Anaximenes in relation to Anaximander and his views on meteorological phenomena. In his section ‘Concerning thunder, lightning, thunderbolts, hurricanes and typhoons’ he tells us that:
Anaximenes said the same as Anaximander, adding what happens with the sea, which flashes when broken by oars.94
This follows directly on his comments on Anaximander. I have argued that Anaximander was very specific in which meteorological phenomena he chose to emphasise could be explained by natural means. These were precisely the sort of phenomena that we find explained by the actions of the gods in Homer and Hesiod. Anaximenes gives the same sort of analysis but adds an interesting analogy, that the sea flashes when it is broken by oars, presumably in a similar manner to the way in which we see a lightning flash when a cloud is broken by escaping air. A similar theory (the sea being struck by a stick at night) is criticised by Aristotle in his Meteorology.95 Aristotle also tells us that:
Anaximenes says that the earth is soaked and dries out and so breaks. It is shaken by the hills which break off and fall down. So earthquakes occur both in times of drought and severe rain. In droughts, as has been said, it dries and cracks, and being made too wet by water it falls apart.96
Previously the standard explanation of earthquakes was the intervention of Poseidon, who was standardly referred to as earth-shaker by both Homer and Hesiod.97 As we saw with Anaximander, Zeus is often referred to as the cloud-gatherer and various types of weather are attributed to the intervention of the gods in both Homer and Hesiod. Stobaeus tells us that:
Anaximenes believed that clouds are formed from air through being highly thickened, and rain is squeezed out when they are compressed more. Snow occurs when rain falls down and solidifies, hail when air is gathered together with water.98
Seneca also tells us that:
As Anaximenes says, air falling on clouds produces thunder and as it struggles to get through the obstructions tears them, it ignites as fire in its escape.99
So Anaximenes had an entirely natural account of the formation of clouds and of how various types of weather occur. He also has an account of thunder and lightning. In both Homer and Hesiod Iris is standardly the goddess of the rainbow and messenger of the gods. In Homer, Zeus uses the rainbow as a portent for humans.100 Pseudo-Plutarch tells us that:
Anaximenes believed the rainbow to be formed by the rays of the sun flashing on compacted, thick, black clouds and the rays being unable to cut through this mass.101
As with Anaximander, I argue that Anaximenes knew precisely what he was doing in rejecting certain types of explanations. Like Anaximander, his views are consistent, coherent and well targeted.
Against Anaximenes
Against the view that everything is natural for Anaximenes is evidence that he treated the cosmos as having a soul. Stobaeus tells us that:
Anaximenes declared air to be the archê of existing things. From it all things come to be and into it all things are dissolved. He says as our soul, being air, holds us in order (sungkratei), so wind and air envelop the whole cosmos.102
The words in bold here are often held to be Anaximenes’ own words, or at least to be a paraphrase of something that Anaximenes said though it is possible it continues the first sentence in reporting what the author believed were Anaximenes’ views. There are worries here that the passage is not in the Ionic dialect Anaximenes would have used and that the ‘He says’ formula in these situations does not always guarantee a direct quote. One might also be concerned about the use of the words cosmos and pneuma (for air) so early in presocratic thought, though there are parallels for both at this stage among medical writers and the Pythagoreans.103 Kirk, Raven and Schofield have argued that, sungkratei is not found until much later Koine Greek.104 According to them sungkratein ‘is really a compendium for sunechein kai kratein’,105 and that could only have come about much later. However, it may be close to a quotation and may well preserve the essential meaning of what Anaximenes had to say. There are two possibilities here. First, this is virtually a direct quotation, but it is rendered or paraphrased into a later dialect and where Anaximenes wrote sunechein kai kratein, Stobaeus writes sungkratein. Alternatively, this may be Stobaeus’ report on what he thought Anaximenes meant, and sungkratein expresses what the commentator thought he meant. Attested uses of sungkratein indicate that it means to keep troops together or to hold in, keep under control.106
This passage can be seen as advocating a steering principle similar to that of Anaximander.107 The evidence from Aristotle was that Anaximander’s apeiron:
Embraces everything and steers all, as those say who do not suppose other explanations, such as mind or love, beyond the unlimited. This is divine, for it is immortal and indestructible, as Anaximander and most of the physiologoi say.108
Anaximenes must be a prime candidate, among those who do not suppose explanations such as mind or love beyond the unlimited. He does suppose air to be unlimited.109 Diogenes of Apollonia, a follower of Anaximenes definitely held that air steers:110
That which has intelligence is called air by men, and all men are steered (kubernasthia) by this and it has a power (kratein) over all things. This seems to be a God to me and to have permeated everywhere, to arrange all things and to be in all things.111
Here we have the direct statement that air steers, and also that air is intelligent. Second, air has power over all things. As the verb here is kratein, if Anaximenes had written kratein in similar circumstances one can see how a later summariser might have written sungkratein.112 Finally, diatithenai means to arrange in proper place, or to manage well. This is significant as it links our steering principle to cosmogony, the process of arranging everything in the first place. It also links it to continuing to have it well arranged.
The objections to this being a fully natural account can be dealt with in much the same way as those with Anaximander. There is nothing here which is separate from nature. There is nothing here which acts in a variable manner. There may be a macrocosm/microcosm analogy between the body and the cosmos but there is no suggestion of causality between macrocosm and microcosm. There is a structural correspondence but no causality. The correspondence is of course no coincidence because that is the way that the universe has been steered, but it has been steered in an invariant manner.
Anaximenes and the divine
The second part of the case against Anaximenes is that he believed that air was in some way divine. Stobaeus tells us that:
Anaximenes says that air is god. It is necessary to understand with such accounts the powers which permeate the elements or the bodies.113
As for Anaximenes everything is air, then everything is god so it is hardly surprising that air/god permeates all elements and bodies. Augustine says of Anaximander and the gods that:
He did not believe that they made air, rather that they were made out of air.114
This may be a little garbled, but the essential point that gods are air is clear enough. The key points here are going to be like those for Anaximander. Anaximenes may call air divine or consider it to be a god, but he does not suppose there to be anything which is separate from nature nor does he suppose that there is anything which does not act in an invariant manner.
Diogenes of Apollonia
Diogenes of Apollonia, who wrote around 440–423 bce,115 was essentially a follower of Anaximenes so we can deal with him here. Diogenes also favours air as the key substance and Simplicius tells us that:
Diogenes of Apollonia, almost the youngest of those who were concerned with these matters, for the most part wrote eclectically, on some issues following Anaxagoras, on others Leucippus. He says that the nature of the universe is air, infinite and eternal, out of which the forms of all other things are generated by rarefaction, condensation and change of state.116
Air for Diogenes is intelligent and steers, as we have seen previously in relation to Anaximenes and the other Milesians. This intelligence is the basis of the world order, according to Diogenes:
It would not be possible, he says, without nous, for it (the underlying substance) to be so divided that it has a share of everything, winter, summer, night, day, rain, winds and good weather. Other things as well, if one wishes to think of them, will be found to be in the best possible disposition.117
As we have seen, Diogenes of Apollonia, certainly holds that air steers. 118 The same sort of comments are going to apply here as to Anaximenes. That air is considered to be a god, or to be intelligent is unproblematic. This god is not considered to be outside of nature and it acts in an invariant manner. Diogenes may not have been the most original of ancient thinkers, but he is a useful example for us and the way he links the steering terms together is significant.
Thales
The positive case for Thales firstly lies in the reports of the relevant general philosophical principles, which give a framework for natural explanation. Aristotle tells us that:
Most of the first philosophers thought of matter as the only principle of all things. That from which all things are, that from which a thing first comes to be, and into which it is ultimately destroyed, the substance persisting but changing in its qualities. This they say is the element and principle of the things that are and because of this they say there is no absolute coming to be or destruction, but its nature is always preserved.119
After a brief excursus, Aristotle continues:
There must be some natural (phusin) substance, either one or many, which is preserved while other things come to be. On the number and form of this principle there is no agreement, but Thales, the originator of this sort of philosophy, said that it is water (and so declared the earth to be upon water). Taking his hypothesis from observing the nurture of all things to be moist, the warm itself coming to be from this and living by this (that from which they come to be being the principle of all things). He took the hypothesis from this and the fact that the seeds of all things have a moist nature, water being the natural principle of all things moist.120
There is then the general principle that everything can be explained as being generated from or being destroyed back into water. The second passage here emphasises that Aristotle, generally for the Milesians and specifically for Thales, sees a natural substance as key to this process. Whether Aristotle construes this entirely accurately does not alter the basic issues here. Aristotle is usually taken as saying that for Thales, everything is always water as water is the substance that underlies all changes. The alternative is that Thales believed that earth, air and fire are generated from water but are not actually water. Under either interpretation, it is clear that water is seen as entirely natural and so are all of the other things water can change into. As with Anaximander and Anaximenes, there is no extended world for Thales. It is also notable that there is evidence that:
Thales said necessity is strongest for it exercises power over everything.121
That would at least suggest that everything happens in a law-like manner for Thales.
The investigation of nature
Certainly the ancient Greeks seem to have considered Thales to be part of the investigation concerning nature. Simplicius tells us that:
Traditionally Thales is held to be the first to reveal the investigation of nature (peri phuseôs historian) to the Greeks. He had many predecessors, as Theophrastus too believed, but he so far excelled them as to obscure all those who came before.122
Aristotle also says that:
Others say the earth rests on water. This is the oldest account we have, given they say by Thales of Miletus, that it remains in place by floating like a piece of wood or something similar, (of these things none rest on air, but on water), as if the account concerning the earth did not apply to the water supporting the earth.123
It is also worth noting in relation to this that Thales explained earthquakes naturally. Seneca tells us that:
Thales said that the earth is held up by water and rides on it in the manner of a ship. When it is said to quake it is rocking due to the motion of the water.124
Similarly Pseudo-Plutarch says that:
Thales and Democritus attribute the cause of earthquakes to water.125
Prior to Thales we find Poseidon ‘the earth shaker’ as the cause of earthquakes in Homer. Thales also gave a natural explanation for floods of the Nile, that winds held back water in the Nile.126
Thales on cosmogony and cosmology
We have relatively little information about Thales’ cosmogony and cosmology. The only further information we have comes from Heraclitus Homericus:
The moist nature, since it is easily remodelled into each thing, is accustomed to undergoing many varied changes. That which is exhaled becomes air, and the finest part of this is kindled into aether, and when water collapses it changes into mud and land. Therefore of the four elements Thales declared water to be basic, and, is it were, the cause.127
It is generally reckoned though that as a parallel to Anaximander and Anaximenes, Thales believed the world to start as water and the cosmos to be developed out of that. Certainly Aristotle places Thales quite firmly among the first philosophers. If the other Milesians set a typical pattern (and differences in this would certainly be commented on by Aristotle and later commentators)128 then the processes of cosmogony are ongoing processes that we can see happening in the world around us. In contrast to theogony and myth where there are singular incidents, based on the arbitrary wills of super beings, Thales’ cosmogony does not need anything more than the ordinary cycle of the elements beginning from water.129
As with magic, contrast is important. Here are four accounts of creation which do use non-natural beings and/or processes and the contrast with Thales’ scheme is quite marked. This also applies to Anaximander and Anaximenes, and later presocratics. The main Babylonian account of creation is to be found in the epic Enuma Elish (When Above), which takes its name from its opening words. It is likely that this was composed during the first Babylonian dynasty (2057–1758 bce).130 Like the Egyptians with the Nile, the Babylonians had the flooding and receding of the Tigris and Euphrates, so again we have the first dry land emerging from water. These are the opening few lines of an epic that stretches over seven tablets, most of which are around 130 lines long.131
When above the heavens had not yet been named
And below the earth had not been called by a name
When only Apsu primeval, their begetter existed
And mother Ti’amat, who gave birth to them all
When their water still mixed together
And no dry land had been formed and not even a marsh could be seen
When none of the gods had yet been brought into being
When they had not yet been called by their names, and their destinies had not yet been fixed
Then were the Gods created in the midst of them.132
There are many other Babylonian creation tales, the most significant of which is the tale known as the Eridu Genesis. The tablet this is taken from has been dated to the sixth century bce, though of course the tale itself may be much older.133
As the Nile flooded and receded each year a central feature in Egyptian creation tales was the emergence of dry land from water. Nile mud was exceptionally fertile, and given the abundance of life forms which emerged from it, one can easily see how it might have been thought to have life-giving properties. This passage is from a dedication ritual in a royal pyramid, dating from around the twenty-fourth century bce.
O Atum-Kheprer, you were on high on the primeval hill. You arose as did the ben-bird of the ben-stone in the Ben-House in Heliopolis. You spat out what was Shu, and sputtered out what was Tefnut. You put your arms around them as the arms of ka, for your ka was in them. So also, O Atum, put your arms around King Nefer-ka-Re, as the arms of ka. For the ka of King Nefer-ka-Re is in it, enduring for the course of eternity … O Great Ennead which is in Heliopolis, Atum, Shu, Tefnut, Geb, Nut, Osiris, Isis, Seth and Nepthys whom Atum begot, spreading wide his heart in joy at his begetting you in your name of the Nine Bows.134
We can also contrast some Greek sources here. One Orphic account of creation is that:
Water was the origin of all things, according to Orpheus, and from water mud was deposited, and from these a life form was generated a snake with the head of a lion growing on it, and between these grew the face of a God, Heracles and Kronos by name. This Heracles generated an enormous egg, completely filled with the force of its creator, broke into two due to rubbing. The upper part became Ouranos, and the lower part became Ge, and a double bodied God came forth. Ouranos and Ge had intercourse and generated the females Cloetho, Lachesis and Atropos.135
So too we have Hesiod’s account at the beginning of the Theogony:
First a chasm was generated, then broad-breasted Gaia (earth), a safe seat for all forever,136 and misty Tartarus in a recess of the broad earth, and Eros, most beautiful of the immortal gods, relaxer of limbs, who subdues in their breasts the sense and intelligent counsel of all gods and all men. From the chasm, Erebos and black night were generated. From night, aether and day were generated, who she bore after sex with Erebos. Earth first generated something equal to herself, starry Ouranos, in order that she should be entirely covered, to be a safe seat for the blessed gods forever. Then she generated large mountains, happy haunts of the divine Nymphs who live in the wooded mountains. She also bore the unharvested sea, with its rolling swell, Pontos, but not in union of love. Then having had sex with Ouranos she bore deep-eddying Okeanos.137
Sources for Thales
There has been considerable debate about the sources and inspiration for Thales’ water cosmogony/cosmology. There have been those, both ancient and modern, who have given reasons why Thales chose water independent of any context. So Aristotle138 and Heraclitus Homericus139 did not believe that Thales borrowed from myth, and gave what he believed to be Thales’ reasons for choosing water. O’Grady has pointed out that water is a good choice for a theory of matter/change in that it can be readily seen to evaporate to form air, to silt to form earth, is critical to all life forms and might be thought to be critical to spontaneous generation as well.140
On the other hand, there is the immediate historical context of Egyptian and Babylonian creation tales as well as the Orphic account, all of which envisage the generation of the world out of water. It is easy to suppose that Thales was influenced by or took inspiration from these accounts. Such a view is one way of trying to minimise the differences between Thales’ views and those of his predecessors.
A different approach is to suggest that Thales deliberately targets these accounts. Here we have accounts which invoke the non-natural to explain how the world and life have come to be from water. Thales has an account which involves water but pointedly not the non-natural.
Evidence is sparse for all of these possibilities. Thales may have had purely philosophical reasons for choosing water or the evidence we have for this, such as it is, may be some post hoc rationalization from Aristotle. Certainly there were many water-based creation tales prior to Thales which may have influenced his view but we have no direct evidence he was influenced in this way. So too there is no direct evidence that Thales targeted water-based creation tales, though there does seem to be a pattern of targeting important cases among the presocratics and Thales would fit in well here.
Thales and gods?
The case against Thales is that he may well have believed in an active role for a god or even many gods. The evidence is sparse and unclear as to the nature and role of god but clear enough that Thales believed in some form of god. Aristotle tells us that:
Thales supposed the soul to be capable of generating motion, as he said that the magnet has soul because it moves iron.141
Diogenes Laertius confirms this:
Aristotle and Hippias say that Thales gave a portion of soul to soulless entities, citing the Magnesian stone and amber as proofs.142
Aristotle goes on to say:
Some believe soul pervades the whole cosmos, and perhaps this is the source of Thales’ view that everything is full of gods.143
Aetius tells us that for Thales:
The mind of the cosmos is God, that all things are ensouled and are full of demons, extending to the elemental moisture, there is a divine power capable of moving it.144
Stobaeus says that:
Thales asked what is oldest? God, for he is ungenerated.145
Cicero comments that:
Thales of Miletus, who was the first to investigate these questions, said that water was the principal substance, god being the mind which fashioned everything out of water.146
What ought we to make of these passages? Thales requires an explanation of self-motion, and supposes soul to be the source of this.147 It is possible that Thales’ view was of soul pervading the universe, and this was later corrupted, even by Plato and Aristotle’s time, to the idea that everything is full of gods. It is also possible that Thales meant there was a unitary cosmic intelligence but expressed this slightly loosely as ‘all things are full of gods’.148 The later doxography is problematic because of the tendency of some Stoic, Neoplatonist and Christian commentators to attribute a belief in god, and a god who generates the cosmos, wherever possible. The passages here from Stobaeus and Cicero still have some value however. Thales may well have believed in some form of cosmic soul or intelligence, which Aetius calls the mind of God, capable of giving things motion. The Cicero passage is interesting, for while we suppose the cosmos to have come from water for Thales, we do not know how the cosmos became organised. One possibility is that a cosmic intelligence inherent in water guided the processes which brought a cosmos into being out of primordial water. Cicero then interpreted that cosmic intelligence as a God. Here I disagree with KRS, who considers this passage to be ‘recognizably fictitious’.149 Certainly the passage is recognizably Stoic in its phraseology, but that does not rule out the idea that Thales believed in some form of cosmic intelligence which was then given a Stoic gloss by Cicero.
As we have seen with Anaximander, the idea that there is some form of cosmic steering or intelligence behind either motion or intelligent design is not problematic. Thales believed in nothing that was beyond nature and nothing that had variable behaviour. The final issue is whether Thales believed in a multiplicity of gods, that all things are full of gods. One part of the evidence here comes from Plato’s Laws:
Is there anyone who will hold this and maintain that all things are not full of gods?150
It is notable though that Plato is pushing the notion of invariance very strongly at this point in the Laws and is arguing that the heavenly bodies could not move in such a precise manner if they did not have souls. Whether Thales believed in many gods or one god there is no evidence then that Thales considered soul or god to be outside of nature or to be in any way invariant. The ‘generated out of and destroyed into’ formula looks invariant. Aristotle considers water to be a natural substance for Thales. It is notable that Aristotle here does not distinguish Thales from the other Milesians in this respect and that Plato has no critique of Thales in this respect either. It is not problematic that Thales or the other Milesians considered their principal substance to be divine. They clearly have in mind some form of pantheism/panpsychism, and one where the principal substance behaves in an invariant and predictable manner.151 So I would disagree with Betegh who comments that:
It was Zeus who rained, and the sea stormed because Poseidon was angry. Although we are not sure how exactly Thales meant it, his dictum that ‘everything is full of gods’ (DK 11 A22) seems a fair representation of the Greek experience.152
I agree that we cannot be exactly sure how Thales meant this phrase, but I would say the balance of evidence is that Thales would have opposed the traditional conception of the gods.
Conclusion
There was no belief in the non-natural among the Milesians. There is no extended world for them. There was a form of pantheism, perhaps best termed pansychism, whereby matter is steered into good order and held in good order. There is though nothing which exists outside of nature and nothing which behaves in an irregular manner.
Anaximander’s meteorology is extremely important here. It is very hard to believe that it is coincidental that the five meteorological phenomena that Anaximander gave natural explanations to are the same five phenomena in two lines of a famous passage in Hesiod, where they are given non-natural explanations. It is possible that a later thinker (Aristotle?) generated this category and then doxographers fitted otherwise disparate views of Anaximander into this category. I have argued though that there are good reasons to believe that this grouping of phenomena is original to Anaximander.
If so, that is important for three reasons, First, Anaximander has a conscious, direct rejection of Hesiod favouring natural explanations for these phenomena. Second, Anaximenes follows directly in Anaximander’s footsteps. Third, as we shall see, there is a tradition of talking about this group of five meteorological phenomena throughout the presocratics. That tradition is then not accidental, but based on Anaximander and his rejection of Hesiod.
This is important for two related themes of this book. First, that the presocratics targeted important, interesting and difficult phenomena for explanation and that they targeted famous passages in Homer and Hesiod where we find non-natural explanation. Second, that the instances where we find the presocratics rejecting non-natural explanations are not a loose grouping of disparate instances but are linked together as part of an agenda for at least some of the presocratic thinkers.
Anaximander’s theories, though of course woefully inadequate by modern standards, do have quite a lot going for them in context. Structurally, there is little wrong with them. There is more to them in empirical terms than is sometimes allowed. Anaximander’s theories in cosmogony and zoogony assume that the processes which led to the formation of the cosmos and life are still happening and that we can form theories by observing the world around us.
Next we move on to the Hippocratics, where we will see some interesting similarities to the Milesians, not least in more targeting of phenomena presumed to be non-natural and more views on pantheism and the cosmos being steered.