Anaximander’s Idea of ‘Apeiron’
Exploring the notion of the ‘infinite’ as the primordial substance
About
Anaximander was a disciple of Thales who lived during the 6th century BC in Miletus (modern-day Turkey). His thought and contributions spread across the fields of philosophy, cosmology, geography and biology. As with most early philosophers, very little of his original works have survived, and most of what we know is through secondary sources like the works of Plato, Aristotle, Theophrastus and Simplicius.
Understanding Apeiron
Most of the early Greek thinkers were concerned with a quest for uncovering the underlying principle, or the origin, of all things (which they called the arche). Anaximander was the first to call arche ‘apeiron’. It is a Greek word meaning ‘that which is boundless’. Apeiron is made of two words — ‘A’ meaning ‘without’ and ‘peri’ meaning ‘fence’. He believed that the first principle is not any of the elements, but has some other ‘nature’. The material elements are finite, but apeiron is infinite, which makes it indeterminate, and because of this it cannot be conceptualized — It is beyond definition. When he calls apeiron ‘infinite’, he is implying that it is spatially and temporally infinite (qualitative over quantitative implication).
Apeiron as the Unborn Origin
Apeiron is ‘eternal, ageless and surrounds all the worlds’. It itself does not have an arche, but it is the arche of the rest. It is deathless and indestructible. But Anaximander believed that the world itself was not eternal and that there is a cycle of destruction and creation for it.
“Everything has an origin or is an origin. The Boundless has no origin. For then it would have a limit. Moreover, it is both unborn and immortal, being a kind of origin. For that which has become has also, necessarily, an end, and there is a termination to every process of destruction” (Physics, Aristotle).
Death is simply a return back to apeiron (as it is withering away of characteristics) and birth is the development of characteristics from apeiron. The Aristotelian idea of ‘formless matter’ or ‘prime matter’ is derived from apeiron. Also, the idea of ‘singularity’ — a unique particularity or a singular event in history, arose from the concept of apeiron.
Apeiron as Limitless
The choice of apeiron as the arche can be explained through the following reasoning:
Premise 1: Characteristics are limiting conditions.
Premise 2: The apeiron is limitless. Because it has no characteristics, it can accommodate all characteristics.
Conclusion: The diversity of the world/universe can be explained through apeiron.
He did not choose any observable element because that would mean that the arche would have defining characteristics and would be unable to accommodate infinite diversity. Another reason for not choosing an element was that if one were to be more powerful than the other, it would have destroyed/engulfed them. But since all observable elements exist together, at the same time, in balance — there must be an underlying first principle that they come out of and that ensures that they remain in balance. That is the apeiron (governed by the principle of justice/balance/reason).
Play of Opposites
The apeiron is eternally in motion. It has within it all kinds of characteristics (but is, itself, indeterminate). It is its ‘play of opposites’ that is responsible for generating production. These opposites are hot and cold, wet and dry and so on which are able to get separated because of the perpetual motion. They formed concentric circles that constitute the heavenly bodies around the earth, which itself is a cylindrical shaped mass. He believed that the sun and the moon were hollow rings of fire, and that the transition of the moon in different phases occurred because of the changing of shape of the hole (what we now know to be waxing/waning).
We now know that his cosmology was wrong. But it is interesting how he came up with his theory with nothing but mere observation and imagination.
(This play of opposites can also be found in Hegel’s thesis, antithesis and synthesis idea.)
Apeiron and Equality
Anaximander pointed out the flaw in Thales’ argument by asking — what is the water resting on? (Problem of infinite regress)
He recognized the need for a different kind of element to avoid infinite regress, so he evoked a force instead — equality (dike/justice). For the Greeks, the concept of justice was very important, and this is why it was a central virtue in their thought. This was later adopted by Plato.
He believed that the earth stays at rest because of necessity and equality. Because the earth is at the center of the universe (the geocentric model was largely accepted at this time) and it is equidistant from everything — there is no sufficient reason for it to move. (He was the first to posit that there is nothing underneath the earth that is supporting it.)
It is important to recognize that even if their conclusions might have been wrong, they tried to understand the ‘given’ reality through their naturalist approach — all without invoking God. They have rational explanations instead of theological/mythological ones.
Endnote
Anaximander’s contributions are not limited to providing the apeiron as the arche. He was also one of the first evolutionary biologists. He wrote about the nature of life and gave, perhaps, the first theory of evolution. He understood the vitality of environment for survival and believed that our existence is a manifestation of ongoing change. His thought was ‘Darwinian’ more than two millennia before Darwin came into existence.
In addition, it is believed that he drew the first published map of the world. He also came up with the concept of an open universe instead of a closed one, thereby breaking the image of the universe as a celestial vault.
