Aither 13/2015:70-95 | DOI: 10.5507/aither.2015.007

Aristotle on Anaximander's Concept of Generation

Radim Kočandrle

Fakulta filozofická Západočeské univerzity v Plzni

Aristotle describes Anaximander's interpretation of generation as 'separation out of opposites', while implying that to apeiron should be understood as a mixture. Simplicius, on the other hand, emphasises a 'separation of opposites' that was supposed to take place due to the eternal motion. While this represents a tendentious peripatetic interpretation, it may have been a response to a conception proposed by Anaximander. While the opposites probably referred to the various particular components of the world, the process of separation was likely grounded in the biological background of cosmogony. To wit, the origin of the world can be described in terms of ejection of a fertile seed which grows and becomes more differentiated. In this context, separation does not mean any sort of detachment from the original mixture but rather just separation of one part or component from another. Moreover, separation is evidenced in other stages of the generation of the world, where it jointly with the state of surrounding represents the original description of constitution of particular phenomena. Further, the eternal movement understood as the working of spontaneity of the boundless nature, which underlies generation, may have been linked to the issue of the infinite worlds.

Published: March 30, 2015  Show citation