CANADIAN IOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

Supplementary Volume II(1976)

Anaximanders Argument
MICHAEL C. STOKES, University of Durham
This topic was first put on a proper scholarly footing by the late
Werner Jaegerand by Charles H. Kahn; earlier scholars tended either
to refrain from speculating on the relation to Anaximander of
Aristotles Physicsarguments on the infinite, or to deduce the Milesian
provenance of one of them simply from its inclusion of a mention of
Anaximanders name2. It way my original intention in this paper to
execute a tidying-up operation after the two well-planned attacks on
Anaximanders argument by JaegerandKahn. I said some time ago in a
footnote that I hoped to strengthen Professor Kahns case for the unity
of the argument concerning the infinite at Physics 203b4-153. If the
following remarks achieve anything, it will be the half-fulfilment of
that half-promise: instead of strengthening Kahns reasoning for the
unity of Aristotles argument, what follows will tend to weaken it. But
without the materials and the example of Jaegerand Kahn this present
operation could never have been mounted, and disagreement with
their strategy or tactics indicates no ingratitude and no narrowly
polemical intent ion.
The texts concerned will be familiar to scholars, and most of them
specially familiar to readers of Jaeger and Kahn. They are appended

1 Jaeger, Jheologyofthe Early Creek Philosopherspp. 24ff. with notes,and Kahn,

Anaximander and the Arguments concerning the AnElPON a t Physics 203b415, Festschrift rnst Kapp (Hamburg 1958) pp. 19-29.

2 See bibliography at Kahn, opcit. p. x) n.2.

3 One and Many in Presocratic Philosophy (Washington, D.C./Cambridge, Mass.

1971) p.29 and n.28 (on p.276). I should like to emphasize that I still find Kahns
paper illuminating. I still think also that H.B. Gottschalks firm negative, cited in
that note of mine, outruns the evidence.

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Michael C. Stokes

below for reference only, with translation of the more directly

relevant portions (namely, the whole of passages (a), (b)and (cii) and
the underlined parts of the rest).

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Anaximanders Argument

(a)

Again, all (who accept the infinite) have good reason to

regard it as a principle. For it cannot exist in vain, and cannot
have any other function than that of a principle: for
everything is either a principle or derived from a principle,
but of the infinite there i s no beginning (principle): for that
would be a limit of it. And what i s more, it i s both
ungenerated and indestructible, as befits a principle: for
what has come to be must attain completion, and there is a
final end to every destruction. For this reason, aswe say, there
is no beginning (principle) of the infinite, but it is thought to
be the beginning (principle) of the other things, and to
surround everything and steer everything: so say all who
refrain from placing other causes beside the infinite, such as
Mind or Love. Further, this is the divine,for it is immortal and
indestructible, as Anaximander says (and most of the
physicists).

(b)

Since, then, it did not come to be, it isand wasand always will
be and has no beginning or end, but is infinite. For if it had
come to be, it would have a beginning (for i t would have
begun coming to be a t some time) and an end (for it would
have finished coming to be at some time). But since it neither
began nor ended, it always was and always will be and has no
beginning or end: for a thing cannot possibly always be
unless it all is.

(c)

A beginning is ungenerated: for necessarily everything

which comes to be comes to be from a beginning, but the
beginning does not come to be from anything whatever: for
if a beginning were to come to be from something it would
no longer be a beginning. But since it is ungenerated i t is
necessarily also indestructible. For, the beginning once
destroyed, i t will never itself come to be from anything nor
will anything else come to be from it, if indeed everything
must come from a beginning.

(d)

(i) And again, from the (suggestion that) thus alone would
generation and destruction not fail, if there were an infinite
from which what comes to be i s taken.
(ii) For it is not, in order that generation may not fail,
necessary for there to be a perceptible body infinite in
actuality: it i s possible for the destruction of one thing to
be the generation of another, while the whole remains
finite.

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Michael C. Stokes

(iii) At least he says it i s infinite, in order that the

generation which subsists may not fail in any respect.
(iv) He was the first to suggest an infinite, in order to be
able to use it without restriction for the generation (of
things).

We may adopt for a start Kahns handy division of the Aristotle

passage (a) into Argument A and Argument B, the break occurring at
203b7 with the mention of rripcrs, limit. In Kahns account the
division is for convenience only, and he argues strongly for the
continuity of the whole. It i s worth discussing first his account of the
relation between the two halves: Argument B serves to confirm the
conclusion of Argument A. It does not prove that the Unlimited i s an
Qlpx6, but that it has attributes which an &.pxri should have: it is
ungenerated and imperishable, and therefore d i ~ i n e Kahn
.~
writes
also, somewhat later in his paper, Platos proof that an & p x < is
ungenerated and imperishable furnishes us with the unexpressed
P O V is
premiss for Aristotles Argument B (which infers that the 6 r L ~
an J i p x n precisely because it is free from generation and corruption).5 It will be noticed that this interpretation, in so far as it concerns
Aristotle, assumes that the words &s 6 ~ x 6T L S 0 6 0 a ,as befits a
principle, refer to a conclusion of Argument B, and not to one of its
premisses. Recall ...Argument B (which infers that the a n a i p o v is
n & P X <
This interpretation introduces a slight inconcinnity
here. The previous argument concluded, without ending in a
,tatement to that effect, that the infinite was an 8 ~ x 6When
.
we find
that conclusion stated next in a Os-plus-participle phrase, one very
natural reaction is to suppose it a (or the) premiss of the next stage in a
consecutive argument. If we are to take it instead as a (or the)
conclusion, i t i s most likely to be as a result of reading Aristotles later
statement that this is the reason for the infinite being an &px6 .We
may leave the question whether this way of taking the passage i s right,
dnd accept i t for the whole main body of this paper. Aristotle no
doubt, as Kahn says, gives a condensed and hurried rendering of the
drgument as a whole.6
...I.

Op rit p 22

5 O p rit p 23
6 Op rit p 2 2

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Anaximanders Argument

Kahns statements need some further clarification. One should

distinguish here between Aristotles own purposes and those of his
source(s), if any. For a non-Peripatetic originator of the argument, the
infinite would have been shown by the end of Argument A to be a
beginning, an & p x 6 . For the author of such an argument as A it is
evident that a beginning must be ungenerated. But for an early author,
the other conclu,sions of Argument B would not help to show that the
infinite was an a p x i , since they would not tend to show that it was a
beginning. There would not have been, for an early author, anything
about the word & p x 6 demanding immediately that acandidate for its
application be also imperishable and divine. It might be later shown to
be imperishable and divine, but that is something to be concluded,
and not something obvious. Such ar, author would have no reason to
say that the infinite was imperishable as befits an &px6, in the sense of
before proving the fittingness of these
and that makes it an 6~x6,
attributes himself.
But Aristotle? In his context there were already ancient objections
(as Kahn reminds us) to Argument A, doubts about its relevance to
Physics I I I . As Simplicius records thym, the objectors argued that
Aristotle is entitled to assume that an a p x 6 would limit the unlimited
only if by & p x 6 i s meant a beginning, not if what i s meant is an
U p x r i in the more developed Peripatetic sense of principle (on
which see Metaphysics A l ) . But in Physics I I I Aristotle clearly has in
mind for most of the time some!hing Tore akin to a cause than to a
mere beginning: something a L T 1 ~ 6 ,~as sSimplicius has it.n The
same point can be put in a different way. In showing that the infinite
must be a beginning, the argument did not prove it to bea Peripatetic
principle, in the sense required in the Physics. For Aristotle, then, the
conclusion of Argument A, that the infinite i s a beginning, is not in this
ContFxt enough. He has to strengthen its claim to be a Peripatetic
a p x r i . This he does by providing an argument to show that the
beginning of Argument A possesses further attributes. It would
certainly help a candidate for Peripatetic & p x 6 to be eternal, to
contain all things and above all to steer all things - to say nothing of
being divine. This need of Aristotles indeed explains something
previously left unexplained: Aristotles continuance of the argument
beyond the end of Argument A. What is more, this approach goes far
to absolve him from the charge of paralogism, without committing the
contortions of Simplicius on the subject. It would mean that Aristotle
was to some degree aware of the difference between the earlier use of

Simplicius In Physica p 463 f f .

In Physica e g p 463 8.

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Michael C. Stokes

and his own when he wrote this passage. To find

the word 6 ~ x 6
Aristotle guilty of totally ignoring the difference is not only difficult
but also uncharitable, in that it accuses a great philosopher praeter
necessitatem of blind paralogism.9
Argument B, then, confirms the conclusion of Argument A only for
Aristotle, and not for any earlier originator of the argument. Further,
the description of Argument B as inferring that the infinite is an &ox<
precisely because it i s free from generation and corruption is also true
(if a t all) only for Aristotle in his context, and not for an earlier
originator of the argument. If Argument B had an earlier original, it
was not for that original that the Platonic proof that an & p x i is

This is not an attack on others but a mea culpa. At One and Many p.30 (ci. p.63
first para. fin.) I was rash enough to write concerning the present passage as
follows:- 'Aristotle has evidently assimilated Anaximander's &px( to his
own kind of & + p x i , and does not notice the difference between them, or a t
least does not think it worth while to point out thedifference to hisaudienceor
readers'. Much of this I am now obliged to recant, but I am wholly unrepentant
of the main conclusions reached in my chapter on the Milesians. In Physics
203b4-15 Aristotle did indeed distinguish in his own mind Anaximander's type of
&px( and his own, but his manner of writing leaves the matter unclear to his
readers; whence his commentators' criticisms, and the difficulty (visible in my
translation's parentheses) in choosing between 'beginning' and 'principle' as
renderings of 6 ~ x 6a t certain places in ,his argument. In this connection
Aristotle's expression hs
TL
o a is of some interest. The
addition of T 1 s is not to be ignored a s a pieceof carelesswriting: T 1 S here
means 'a sort of', and the phrasing is notably cautious. indeed i t looks
suspiciously like fudging. The differences between the two kinds of
are
more concealed than emphasized by it, despite i t s formal correctness. It looks as
though Aristotle is not perfectly clear in his own mind. and this leaves open the
, The
possibility of his having been misled elsewhere over the word 6 ~ x 6
distinctions in MefaphyAics A 1 are by no means an insuperable bar: it is
perfectly possible for even a thinker of distinction to be cloudy in one place over
what is clear in another. especially if he is not philosophizing expressly on his
own account. as Aristotle i s not in this part of the Physics. Though it can no
longer be urged that Aristotle makes a definite error over
here, the
possibility of error elsewhere is left open: but 1 have to admit i t s
weakening.
It still seems to me that if Aristotle were to bring the Milesian
into his own scheme of four causes i t could hardly have been as
anything but the material cause in thecase of Thales'water and Anaximenes'air,
and Anaximander's 'infinite' was tooeasily assimilable to these. Clearly Aristotle
rejected the notion of putting one or more of them under the head of ejficient
or moving cause. despite Plato's phrase in the Phaedrus a p x q T Q S
M L V T ~ I J E U ~and
despite
Aristotle's own phrase xa? n&v.ra
M U ( ~ E P V ~: Vthis perhaps because o f a reluctance to allow for self-motion
ds a belief of thinkers before Plato. Hylozoism is conspicuously not an
was all the
Aristotelian word. If not an efficient cause. the Milesian
more liable to representation as a material cause.
The general hlstorisal
reasons for supposing Aristotle mistaken about the Milesian apx,q ,
expounded in the relevant chapter of my book, remain, in my opinion.
unshaken.

6~x6

6~x6

6~x6

6~x6

6~x6

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Anaximanders Argument

ungenerated and imperishable supplies an unexpressed premiss.

Rather, as we shall see, the argument in Plato may be in some limited
respects parallel to Argument A plus Argument B plus an argument
attributed elsewhere to Anaximander. But that is an anticipation of a
conclusion still to be established.
Kahn pointed out that the last explicit step in A, that a beginning
would be a limit, must be supplied to draw Bs conclusion, and that B
requires also a statement parallel toTo 62 & x ~ i p o uO ~ EHO T L V
&OX$, namely, T O 68 & T I E ~ ~ O 0U6 , EUT1 TEX EUT^ .Thisis
one of the key links, but not the strongest, in the chain of logic leading
to the postulation of the unity of the whole passage. This unity,
however, could stem more from Aristotle than from his source(s).Just
because Aristotle produces for our inspection an argument with some
steps missing which can be supplied without trouble from Aristotles
context, it does not follow that Aristotle was drawing throughout on a
single argument. Aristotle could have observed, in the course of
joining together two originally separate arguments, that they had
enough in common to be condensed in thiswaywhen put together. It
would really be no more surprising for Aristotle to extract a condensed
and elliptical argument from two sources than from one. B need not
originally have been so condensed, and need not have been directly
associated with A. The organic whole Kahn describes could be
Arisotles own creation.
Kahn makes another plank in his platform out of the sameness of
6s conclusion with the doctrine expressly attributed by Aristotle here
to Anaximander. Obviously if the conclusion of B were at variance
with the doctrine of Anaximander they would not appear here in the
same passage in the way they do. But to deduce from this that the
argument belongs to Anaximander is a little rash unless we have
eliminated other possible authors or other possible arguments for the
same conclusion. it is not yet to be assumed that Aristotle i s not
producing patchwork here. The possibility that Melissus i s in the main
responsible for the shape of Argument B might well repay more
serious attention; and there is at least one other argument available
and leading to the same conclusion as Aristotles.
Now, to take the Melissan argument first, Kahn roundly declares it
to be scarcely possible that Aristotle would have used Melissus in a
passage of the Physics explaining why it is reasonable ( EUAOYW ) t o
believe in the infinite as &pxd .loThis on the grounds that whenever
he mentions the argument of Melissus in his B2it isalways tocensure
the flaw in the reasoning. Yet this does not seem a very cogent reason
against the supposition that Aristotle should have made use of a tidied-

10 0p.cit. p.23.

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Michael C. Stokes

up version of the argument in a passage such as this. indeed it i s in any

case highly probable that Aristotle was aware that that is what he was
doing in effect. For having Melissus 82 so constantly in his head as he
appears to, he can hardly have been unaware of the close resemblance
between it and the argument of this passage. Simplicius indeed offers
an interpretation (or rather an expanded paraphrase)of the argument
which i s even closer to Melissus in wording.11 And if Aristoile knew
anyway of his arguments resemblance to Melissus and was still
prepared to use it, then the objection to Melissus being the source
falls to the ground. The psychological assumptions behind Kahns
reasoning here are in any case dubious; if Aristotlewas likely to refrain
from using an arguments substance because he had occasion to find
fault with its form then he was somewhat petty. So he may have been;
but it i s unwise to assume it.
Kahn offers other arguments against Melissan authorship, but
these are not relevant to the central part of Argument B. The argument
that the infinite i s uncreated and indestructible has no mention of its
being an & p x < T W v G X A w v ; so the absence of an &ox(
TOU 6AAwv
from Eleaticism i s not relevant to it, unlessoneaccepts in the first place
Kahns arguments for the pre-Aristotelian unity of the whole of A and
B together. Further, unless one accepts such a pre-Aristotelian unity,
one should not feel obliged to accept the suggestion that in the
original the reasoning in 6 ran from an &px( to an & ~ v ~ T o vin: B as
i t stands (on Kahnsapparent understanding of hs & P X < T LS; o6aa),
the reasoning runs from an &yvn?ow and 6 c p B a p ~ o vto an & p x < ,
and the predicates & ~ V ~ T Oand
V 6~9ap~o
are
v proved from the
concept of an infinite. We may suppose quite readily that Aristotle
borrowed part of Argument B from Melissus and sharpened i t to a
point where he could say it i s argued ~6hoyws.Aristotle is suspect
elsewhere of sharpening his predecessors knives without necessarily
grinding their axes. A notable example is in his accounts of the
derivation of Atomism in the De Ceneratione et Corruptione.

It remains to look at that other argument (mentioned above) for

the same conclusions as B, and examine i t s claim to be regarded as
Anaximanders. It duly appears in Platos Phaedrus, in the course of
Platos argument for the indestructibility of the & P X ~ I , meaning for
him the immortality of the s0u1.l~ Plato begins by stating that a
beginning does not come to be. He gives in support of this an
argument closely resembling, as Kahn says, the dilemma propounded

11 in Physica p.464. 30ff

12 Phaedrus 245d ff. (see above p. 2 (c) )

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Anaximanders Argument

by Aristotle in our Physics passage. Everything that comes to be comes

from a beginning, but a beginning does not come from anything,for i f
it did it would cease to be a beginning. It does not take much
inspection to see the equivalence of this to the dilemma either a
beginning or from a beginning. Plato has now proved according to
his lights that a beginning i s ungenerated; he proceeds next to build
on this foundation a beautifully consecutive argument. Since, hesays,
i t is ungenerated, it must necessarily be indestructible. Why so? The
answer i s equivalent to another dilemma. If it i s destroyed, then if
coming to be is not to cease altogether (an absurdity for Plato,
recognised as such later in his paragraph), either the beginning will
have to come to be from something (which has already been shown
impossible) or something else must come from it (which is impossible,
since ex hypothesi having been destroyed it i s not there). I in turn have
sharpened the form of Platos argument here, but believe myself
faithful to i t s substance. The premiss of the whole, as Plato insists, is
that whatever comes to be must come from a beginning. It i s this
premiss which explains why the beginning cannot come to be from
something, and Plato i s right to emphasize thus the link between the
first section of the argument and the second.
Platos argument here has accordingly a clear unity which i s in
strong contrast to the superficial unity of Aristotles reasoning in the
Physics passage. Where Aristotle links together two arguments for the
same conclusion (the same, that is, verbally and from his point of
view), Plato has a single, consecutive argument. Without the proof that
the beginning must be ungenerated, the suggestion that the
beginning will not come from anything would not stand,and without
the statement that everything generated comes from a beginning the
point that nothing can come from a destroyed beginning would have
little force. it is true that there is a slight awkwardness here too, in that
Plato does not reject explicitly another alternative, namely, that
something should come to be from something other than the
beginning, and puts the reminder that it cannot do so into a condition
here rather than a conclusion. The original (if there was one) may have
lacked that awkwardness, which may be explained in that for Plato the
self-moved i s the beginning; after the beginnings hypothetical
destruction, if generation of anything other than the beginning were
anything to take place, it could only be self-moving generation; but
the self-mover is ex hypothesi destroyed, so that this possibility can be
neglected. This slight awkwardness apart, Platos line of argument is
magnificently continuous (as Ross described Aristotle in the
Physics3), even if not wholly convincing without further assumptions.

13 Aristotle, Physics, ... by W. D.Ross (Oxford 1936)p. v

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Michael C. Stokes

These assumptions repay a little analysis before we return to

Anaximander. Basic to the argument is what may be called the antiEleatic assumption that the world cannot ever come to a total
standstill, without hope of change or movement. It seems to me that
Platos argument, a t least in so far as it concerns the beginning, makes
another assumption worth mentioning. It seems to presuppose the
impossibility of a balanced world continuing to change and move
forever under its own steam, as it were, after the beginning has been
destroyed. Why should the beginning be needed to doanything more
than provide an initial impulse? In the section of the argument dealing
with the beginning under that description, Plato does not answer that
question at all. True, in the opening lines about self-movement he
states that a mover which i s not self-moved but other-moved does
eventually stop moving. But this i s indeed a bare statement and not a
proof of a proposition very far from self-evident. The lineof argument
A;istotle produces in de Caelo A12 may be lurking in the background
here, but is certainly not to be read into the text as it stands.14It is
assumed that no derived beginning will suffice, and that nothing can
come from nothing.
There i s another assumption which may be involved, or may lie
behind that part of Platos argument which i s concerned with a
beginning. That i s the singularity of the & p x i . In the last analysis of
Platos whole argument for the immortality of the soul that
assumption i s to some extent brought out into the open and justified.
But this i s not the case with the short passage concerning beginnings.
At 245e4-246a2 Platos Socrates suggests that a body whose source of
movement i s inside i t and from itself is E ~ + u x o w ,ensouled or
alive, since this nature issoul. Socrates adds that if this isso, if there is
nothing self-moving other than soul, then soul would be ungenerated
and immortal. In a way this brings out the assumption that there i s only
one kind of beginning, although i t notoriously leaves open the
singularity or plurality of soul. For Plato there i s explicitly only one
thing that can act as an & p x r i , and that i s soul. Granted his theory of
self-movement this is a respectable thesis, even i f not justified here by
much in the way of argument, and later (also notoriously) rejected by
Aristotle. But i t should be observed that that part of the argument
which concerns soul i s almost certainly of Socratic or Platonic origin,
and that if the argument concerning the beginning has earlier
ancestry, then it did not originally contain the reference tosoul and its
uniqueness as a self-mover. Whatever the logicof Platos total position

14 I refer to the argument that over infinite time any possibility will be
actualized. especially a t de Caelo 281b21fi.: for Plato any motion other than
self-rnotion could (logically could) cease.

10

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Anaximanders Argument

the section on the beginning appears to assume without warrant the

uniqueness of the beginning. For supposing there were more than
one Co-ordinate Apxfl, then the destruction of one of them would
leave open the possibility of the others keeping enough of the world
going. The argument could again be strengthened by an injection of
Aristotelian argument from de Caelo A12, but there i s again no sign
that Plato meant to do this. Without such a sign we may reasonably
suppose Plato to have failed to notice the relevant flaw in the
argument; and even if he saw it he apparently did not think it worth
repair.
We now turn, less abruptly than might appear, to an argument
twice attributed by name to Anaximander. The sources for the
attribution are Atius and Simplicius, and the argument resembles
closely one mentioned in Aristotle without attribution to anyones.
The argument has been much discussed by scholars in other contexts,
but has not, so far as I know, been connected with the other texts
under discussion here. Perhaps scholars are right to keep them
separate; but the experiment of connecting them up seems worth
making.
In Atius version the argument says that coming to be and passing
away will escape total cessation only if there i s something infinite. The
argument in Simplicius i s put somewhat less fully. Anaximander, he
says, first adopted the infinite in order to have i t to use unstintingly
( ~rcp$ovws) for comings-to-be. in each citation, in Simplicius even
more than in Atius, the argument resembles Aristotles third out of
five he supposes might be brought in favour of the existence of an
infinite. In Aristotle the thought i s that only on one condition will
coming to be and passing away not give out, namely i f there i s an
infinite from which what comes to be is taken16.
Kirk and Raven object to the assignment of the argument to
Anaximander in the form it takes in Aristotle. They object that an
infinite body i s not a necessary condition of eternal coming to be,
since the destruction of one thing can be the genesis of another.
Aristotle brings this objection against the argument, and, Kirk and
Raven add, the escape-route from it sketched by Aristotle was trodden
by Anaximander himself7. Anaximanders view of becoming and
perishing seems indeed to have been that the enlargement of one
thing was an encroachment on another.

15 See the texts cited above p. 2 (d)

16 Note the words z $ E V

&va 1 p E i T a

17 C.S. Kirk and J.E. Raven, The Presocraric Philosophers (Cambridge, England,
repr. 1973) pp. 113-115.

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Michael C. Stokes

Nevertheless we can be practically certain that Atius and

Simplicius drew attribution of the argument to Anaximander directly
or indirectly from Theophrastus. Theophrastus had some reason for
the attribution; he presumably did not make it up out of whole cloth.
Theophrastus presumably read either Anaximander or a substantial set
of extracts. There must have been something in those extracts
encouraging him to suppose Anaximander to have argued i q this way.
We should look closely, since Theophrastus does occasionally correct
Aristotles wording, at the exact implications of the way the argument
is stated by the two doxographical sources. In them there i s nothing
conclusively showing Theophrastus to have been under the impression that it was as a source of matter that the infinite had to be infinite
in matter or spatial extent. There is another possible interpretation of
the argument as it appears especially in Atius.
The word infinite i n Presocratic Greek can of course mean
temporally infinite, and in the argument a t the beginning of both our
Aristotle passage and our Plato passage the argument is clearly to the
effect that the 9 ~ x 6is infinite and/or the infinite an & p x n in this
sense. if we suppose that the original statement in Theophrastus used
the word infinite in this sense, or derived from such a useof the word,
some very interesting points emerge. The first i s that such an
interpretation would not conflict with what Atius and Simplicius say.
Atius has simply the necessity for an infinite if coming to be i s not to
fail, and Simplicius has Anaximander adopt the infinitein order to use
it plentifully for comings to be. This is sufficiently vague to square with
Aristotles version, and could have been inspired by the memory of it;
but it does not actually imply that the infinite i s a store of material
spatially boundless. What Theophrastus said and meant i s doubtful;
but if we give Anaximander the benefit of the doubt, certain
consequences follow which are worth investigation.
The investigation should not disguise my belief that the word
c Y n c ~ p o u could and did for Anaximander mean on occasion
spatially infinite. I have argued elsewhere, and continue to believe,
that the idea of spatial infinity does indeed go back beyond
Atomism8; i t s most likely originator i s Anaximander. But that does not

18 Onr arid Many (above n.31 p.73 with nn. Conceivably the notton was derived
from Hesiods Theogonv: see M.L.Wests commentary on Theogonv 740. and
Stokes at Phroriesi 7 (1962) pp.25-33 and 8 (19631 p.23. Vvert rightly says that a
bottomless chasm contradicts Theogonv 814 unless chaos there and chasm at
740 are different; but i t remains far from clear how much or how little
contradiction one can attribute to Hesiod or how authentic are lines 807-819.
Wests arguments for the genuineness of 807-819 a t the expense of 734-743
are unconvincing: e.g. to find the jailers at 734-5 is not analogous to finding
lions and hunters in adjacent cages. but rather to finding both lions and

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Anaximanders Argument

make it necessary to believe that spatial infinity was the only, though it
may have been the primary, kind of infinity in Anaximanders mind
when he wrote of the S r s ~ p o v 1 9 .indeed, if it was, it would be
impossible to associate any major part of Aristotles argument with
Anaximander. Argument A has certainly a temporal reference, and
whether Plato or Aristotle i s closer to the original continuation, the
context is still temporal. Aristotle returns to the temporal extensionof
the S R E L P O V later in his paragraph, and Platos argument has no
mention of spatial extension whatever.
The first question to be investigated is how far a temporal
interpretation would in fact avoid the difficulty noted by Aristotle and
(as Kirk and Raven point out) so appropriate to Anaximander. An
analogous difficulty may well be felt immediately; why should there
be any necessity to have something eternal to sustain change if one
change gives the impulse for the next? For Anaximander, after all,
seems to have insisted in the fragment that each change by its injustice
gave rise to i t s own reversal. It i s far from clear that there is any need for
a sustaining eternal body in such a balanced universe. I n which case
Anaximander, if he did produce our version of the argument, was
being no less illogical than if he produced Aristotles version.
But there i s one consideration which may give us pause before we
dismiss the possibility that Anaximander was thus illogical. That i s the
apparent fact that Platos argument bears traces of precisely the same
illogicality. Platos argument also presupposes, as we saw, that the
world cannot keep going under i t s own steam after the initial impulse.
Plato, we also saw, recognised this presupposition but did little about
it, leaving it as an unproved premiss. And Plato, if the Phaedo be any
guide, believed, like Anaximander, in a universe changing between
opposites in an & v ~ c r n d d o csr .~Plato may have had other reasons at
various times of his life for not believing in the eternity of the material
world, but they do not come out in the Phaedrus, but are there
ignored. i f Plato could be thus cavalier about the implications of an

keepers in the same zoo. O n the Xriyai at 738 West speaks of this
metaphor redressing the balance after the inadequate root-metaphor of
728, but fails (in iny judgment) to consider closely enough what the metaphor
actually signifies. It need not signify the same as the root-metaphor. I would
add only that even i f (as I do not believe) the r q y a i are other than
cosmogonical, there would remain the possibility that the early philosophers
thought they were cosmogonical.
19 The primacy of the spatial use was argued by C.I. Classen, Hemes 90 (1962)
p.163 on linguistic grounds. As for infinity if one admits that Anaximander
believed in a true temporal infinite (as opposed to indefinite) then
objections to a true spatial infinite surely fall to the ground?

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Michael C. Stokes

argument, why not Anaximander? I n our present version of

Anaximander the similarity between them i s very close indeed.
This similarity i s matched by others. It is not simply that both Plato
and Anaximander argue the necessity of something eternal or infinite.
Both assume the absurdity of the eventual collapse of coming to be.
The structure of the argument would appear similar too. In Plato such
a collapse i s the conclusion, or one of the alternative conclusions, to a
reductio ad absurdum; in our version of Anaximander it is something
obviously to be avoided. Again, in Plato the assumption i s brought out
that the &px< is unique, by his insistence that nothing other than the
self-mover will do, even though he leaves open the question of the
number of soul. i n the present version of Anaximanders argument the
assumption is also made that the original function cannot be
performed by any other & p x < . If it could, then again the & p x < first
mentioned would not have to be eternal. Anaximander, even more
certainly than Plato, had in his head no Aristotelian thought about the
fulfilment of possibilities.
The similarity between the Platonic statement about the
& p x < and Aristotles initial dilemma on the infinitesstatus as & p x 6
has already been noted. Does this have anything to do with
Anaximander also? If i t does, then we have a further point to
strengthen the hypothesis that Platos second half i s derived from
Anaximander, namely, that the context would then be Anaximandrean. At this point it seems to me that Kahns arguments have real
force not invalidated by any suggestions offered in this paper20.
Granted that the first argument in Aristotle was certainly intended by
whoever first composed it to prove that the infinite i s an a p x i ;
granted that it is not likely that Aristotle was the author of this
argument for a proposition he does not believe, in a context
concerned with his predecessors; it is difficult, as Kahn saw, to
suppose the argument to go back to anyoneother than Anaximander.
Other thinkers before Aristotle believed in an infinite, but no-oneelse
thought it was & P X < V TE. m i U T O L X E L O TWV
V
~ W T W V . The
Phaedrus can scarcely be Aristotles source, since i t does not bring in
the key notion of the infinite a t all. By far the most likely source for
Aristotles first argument i s Anaximander, in which case Platos context
i s indeed also Anaximandrean.
Whether Plato or Aristotle reproduces the original form of the
relevant portion of the argument i s not something that can now be
determined. In view of Kahns wish to find Parmenides bald dilemma

20

Oprit. p.24. Thar Argument A was Anaximanders is argued on less

persuasive grounds by D. Babut, Revue des Etudes grecque, 85 (1972) pp. 1719.

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Anaximanders Argument

,< 0 6 n

in form by Anaximanders r? apxri

the point is not without importancezl. Admittedly
Platos form of the argument comes to much the same thing as
Aristotles dilemma form of it; but that i s far from showing that the
dilemma form was used by Anaximander before Parmenides, or that
Parmenides was consciously going behind a dilemma of Anaximanders.
The possibility remains strong, whether the original was in the form
of a dilemma or not, that Platos whole argument, from the
introduction of the term apx6 to the mention of the cessation of
change, excepting only the point about self-motion, goes back to
Anaximander. But apart from the general uncertainty of the kind of
evidence we have been using, there is one question to be answered by
anyone wishing even to think of dismembering Aristotles argument
about the infinite. Why did Aristotle not give Anaximanders
argument straight, instead of himself dismembering it? There is a
possible answer to this question which ties in so well with other
suggestions that I cannot resist another conjecture. Suppose
Theophrastus, as transcribed by Atius, to be right in omitting all
reference to an infinite material store; suppose Aristotle to have been
misreading or misapplying Anaximander on this issue; then Aristotle
could not have put into the main argument what he believed to be
Anaximanders mistaken view that an infinite material store was
needed to keep things going. For he wished to produce a reasonable
~ i i x O y w sd i nai 6 ~ x aUrb
3 ~ T L B E ~ UnLd v T E s - and
argument
he himself refutes the material store argument later in the Physics. He
would then have had to interrupt Anaximanders argument with what
seemed to him a better one for the proposition that the infinite has
other properties he (Aristotle) deems appropriate for an 8 ~ x 6
Material lay ready to hand in an abundantly familiar argument of
Melissus.
Whatever the truth of this conjecture, Aristotles line of thought
has some further stretches we have not yet discussed. Whether we
suppose the portion of Argument B resembling Melissus to be
originally his or Anaximanders, the remark to the effect that the
infinite surrounds all things certainly does not belong to Melissus. Is it
Anaximanders? It is usually assumed to be, in view of thecontext, but
that does not necessarily settle the matter. It would be well tosee if the
idea of the infinite ties in with the surrounding of all things in such a
way as to make it credible that Aristotle i s citing Anaximander for this
point also. We have, after all, been given no particle of reason, up to
this point in the argument, for the doctrine that the infinitesurrounds
&TLV

~ U T L V
anticipated

i-i 66 crpxris,

21

0p.cii. p.25.

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Michael

C.Stokes

all things spatially. if surrounds is meant spatially here, then this

constitutes a major discontinuity in the argument. Fortunately there i s
no good reason that I can see for taking it spatially,and solid reason for
saving the arguments continuity by taking it temporally. If there is
only one beginning, as Anaximander seems to have assumed,and that
beginning is infinite in time, ungenerated and undestroyed, and if all
other things are either non-existent or generated and (presumably)
destroyed, then it follows that in thedimension of time itsurroundsall
things. Before they came to be it was, and unless they are eternal too,
after their extinction it will still be. The notion of surrounding all things
thus becomes relevant to the argument on either of two possible
hypotheses: either Anaximanader argues (consciously or unconsciously) from the temporally infinite to thespatially infinite or the
word I [ E ~ L < X E L V i s itself used notspatially buttemporaIly,a usage
for which a parallel i s to be found at Aristotle, Physics 221a28.
V
be excluded, but the
The temporal sense of ~ T E P L E X E Lcannot
alternative of a con~ciousor unconscious passage from temporal to
spatial deserves brief consideration, however speculative. Did
Anaximander, in the course of his argument, pass as easily from time to
space and/or the reverse as Melissus may have done at the end of his
B2 and as he appears to have done in his B3? I do not know the answer
to this question, but can at least answer the different question, Could
Anaximander have so passed? Quite apart from the parallel with
Melissus, the line of thought represented by our Argument A can be
very easily translated intospatial terms. Anaximander could, in parallel
with his conclusion that a beginning must be temporally infinite, have
argued that an edging, limiting or bounding body must itself be
spatially infinite. Everything is either an edge or edged: but of the
infinite there i s no edge. So the infinite (if there is one) must be an
edging entity. The dilemma of our Argument A assumes that there i s
indeed a beginning, that the universe does not go back in time for ever
without any beginning. The spatial dilemma just outlined assumes that
the universe does not go on out for ever in space. Neither assumption
i s a difficult one for Anaximanders contemporaries: the idea of a
spatially finite universe would have won ready acceptance in those
brought up on Homer and Hesiod, whose scale of the relevant
distances was on the whole small: and the notion that the world had a
beginning in time was expressed and/or inculcated by the
cosmogonic myths. If one compares Argument A with the spatial
argument for infinity plausibly attributed to Archytas (the arm
stretched out by a person on a hypothetical edge of the universe meets
either full or empty spacezz) he observes that Archytas avoids

22

See W.K.C. Cuthrie. History of Greek Philosophy I p.336.

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Anaximanders Argument

repeating Anaximander only by dint of his readiness to assume the

possibility of a universe itself infinite: otherwise his dilemma would
look much like a spatial version of Anaximanders. Which suggests,
though it is nowhere near proving, that Archytas may have read his
Anaximander - a suggestion not after all a priori unlikely; it i s not
clearly strengthened by Platos E L y a p e x T O U &pxrj Y ~ Y V O L T T ,
o i ) ~6v E T L &pxfl y i y v o L T O , whose spatial counterpart would
readily find a place in Archytas argument, but which need not be
Anaximandrean in i t s formulation.
The supposition that it is Aristotle who has broken the continuity of
the argument by turning to spatial considerations would gain in force
if one could demonstrate another such break, and indeed there i s no
obvious connection between the next phrase and the rest of the
Ka? X & V T ~n u B ~ p u & v , that the
argument up to this point.
infinite also steers all things, i s not an obvious consequence of the
argument as Aristotle hassofaroutlined it. But ifweread on,apossible
connection becomes apparent. After a parenthesis about the
authorship of the argument Aristotle resumes with the remark that
this moreover i s the divine; for it i s immortal and indestructible, as
Anaximander says.... Now probably for Anaximander nothing beside
the infinite was immortal and indestructible, and therefore nothing
else was divine, or divine in the same way and to the same degree as
the infinite23. Further, if the infinite alone was fully divine and all other
things were mortal or less divine, then it would be for a Greek, and
indeed for most believers in a single or a most divine being, a short and
easy step to the supposition that that divine being ruled all things24.
The steering of all things, clearly in part a metaphor for ruling by the

23

This begs several questions about the nativi dei of Cicero, De Natura Deorum I,
10, 25, and Aetius opinion (I, 7, 12) A. 6 X E c p 6 V a T O T O S 6.nEipou
o 6 p a v o s 9 ~ 0 9 sE ~ V ~I f LCicero
.
i s right in describing Anaximanders
nativos deos as orientis occideniisque, then clearly they were not immortal. For
scepticism about these doxographical passages see Babut opcit. (n.20)pp. 23-29.
O n the amount of Aristotles clause beginning cpquiu which belongs to
Anaximander, see Babut pp.3ff.; whether explicitly or implicitly, Anaxaminder
thought of the ~ X E L ~ Oas Vdivine if, as I believe, he described i t as
& ~ & V ~ T O xat
V
&ydpw(see Babut pp.f. and Classen op.cii. [n.19]p.161).

24 Cf. C.S.Kirk Classical Quarterly 5 (1955) p. 35 n.1 and Babut op.cit. (n.20) p.12. It
needs to be added that d o n ~ constitutes
l
neither an acknowledgment of the
figurative and purely symbolic use of x u B a p v b u ( B a b u t p.13) nor (Classen p.
768) an expression of a personal conjecture of Aristotlesown, but must mean in
context is thought, sc. by the thinker(s) on whom Aristotle is drawing.
Otherwise 6 Ldis incorrect, since Aristotle offers reason only for the physicists
holding that the infinite i s an &pxr( etc.

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Michael C. Stokes

infinite, may after all be plausibly connected up with the main line of
the argument. i n the absence of proven discontinuity here, the
L V bears here a temporal sense, and i s also
possibility that XEPLFXE
linked closely with the main argument, should not be discounted.
What does all this have to do with the Eleatics, apart from making
use of a fragment from Melissus?The most important answer to this i s
already, in effect, in Kahns pape+. Anaximanders argument, in the
form it takes in Aristotles Argument A and in Platos remarks, needs
the assumption that nothing can come from nothing. If Platosfurther
argument i s also Anaximanders, then it is worth observing that that
too assumes the impossibility of generation ex nihilo; otherwise the
argument that the continued presence of the &px6 i s necessary for
becoming loses force. The doctrine of Parmenides, expounded at his
B8.9-10, that nothing can come from nothing26, is implicit in
Anaximander. Implicit only; and there i s no need to suppose
Parmenides consciously adopting or proving a Milesian premiss, here
or elsewhere. But it i s interesting that Parmenides asks in effect, when
denying generation from nothing, what would have started it off, if
there was nothing there?Which i s highly reminiscent of theargument
that with the destruction of the &pxd generation would cease. I do
not know if there was any contact between the two thinkers at this
point, but it would make sense to suppose so. One of the functions of
Anaximanders infinite is to steer, and Parmenidesgoddess-in-charge
steers, in the Way of Opinion-. But while it would be easy to erect
conjecture on this foundation, for once we may refrain.
There now falls to be considered the possibility that the phrase &s
& p x i T L s o ~ o a functions causally, that i t could be rendered in
English with a clause beginning since.... This interpretation would
lend an apparently greater continuity to Aristotles reasoning. But we
shall see reason to believe that this continuity is illusory. Aristotles
Argument B runs then:- (1) The infinite i s an &px< : hence (2) it is
uncreated and undestroyed. This hence i s obscure, and Aristotle
would seem to be attempting to unpack it in the following sentence.
What idhas been created and what is destroyed both have an end (in
what precise sense i s not clear, but Melissus 82, with i t s repeated
I I O T ~ , refers to some sort of temporal end2*), for since they are
associated with ends, what is/has been created and what is destroyed

25 0 p . c i t . p.25.

26 See One and Many (above n.3) pp.253-5.

27 Parmenides 812.3: Babut (above n.20) cites parallels at p.6, n.23.
28 See Cuthrie. History of Creek Philosophy I I p.107 n.2.

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Anaxirnanders Argument

cannot therefore be unlimited (Kahn points out the omission of this

parallel to the explicit what has a beginning cannot be infinite)?
thus the unlimited i s uncreated and undestroyed. This was theoriginal
demonstrand of Argument B. Now what needs observing here is that
this argument i s not in any way dependent on the supposed premise
that the G n ~ ~ p oisv an h p x 6 . It depends simply on the infinite
nature of the infinite. Because it i s infinite the infinite cannot have an
end and must be indestructible; it i s also because it cannot have an end
that it i s uncreated. The premiss that the infinite is an & p x d does not
enter the argument at any point. Further, there i s a point at which it
could enter the argument, and where it would make the argument
easier: if it i s an 8 p x i ,and therefore (by the dilemma of Argument A)
not c cipxris, then clearly the infinite does not come to be (unless of
course it can come t? be from nothing, which can be ruled out; 6
& p x { fi tc 8pxfjs n E X u r 1 6 ~ v O s i s conspicuously nor what
Argument A says). This seems a lot simpler than the Melissan type of
reasoning ~b T E yap yevbpcvov Clvciy~ri r E h o s ~ a ~ ~ L v , a n d
would certainly afford a greater continuity with the preceding
Argument A. It may be added that, if the premiss Ws h p x d T L o b a
had been necessary as such, Kahn would hardly have been tempted to
make i t into the conclusion.
We arrive at a situation where again Aristotles argument is
describable,as magnificently discontinuous. Those who take the view
that u s a p x d T L S o6oa is intended causally should be required
to show why Aristotle put it in. Two complementary explanations are
available. The first is Aristotles need to knit together what is not likely
to have been in this form an original unity. The second i s that the
author of the original of Argument 6, if he was indeed Melissus,
introduced into his argument the term Q p x 6 (see Melissus 62 ad
init.). The suggestion that Aristotle has here sewn together part of
Anaximander and part of Melissus has a certain internal coherence on
this interpretation of Aristotles Greek as on the other.
But does it square satisfactorily with the later statement of
deduction that the infinite i s an &pxr?? What of the word 6 ~ 6 ,
wherefore, followed by the assertion that this is the &pxd of things,
and has no beginning itself? I suggest the possibility that this 6 ~ 6
refers, not simply to Argument 6, but to the whole of A + B. In that
case A i s the reason for making the infinite the &pxd; after all, that
conclusion has not previously been drawn explicitly from A, and
needs to be drawn. The conclusion na? T [ Ei ~E ~ i Ev anaura i s to
be drawn from Argument B. Kat I I ~ V T ~H U B E ~ V O Wappears here
perhaps because, as many have thought, the whole phrase na?

29 Op.cit. p.22.

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Michael C. Stokes

n ~ p i E S x c i u anaura Hat xdura H U B E ~ U E U i s a verbal citation,

transferred to indirect speech, from Anaximander himself30. The
immortality and indestructibility, and hence divinity, of the last
sentence are deducible from Argument B and associable easily with
navra M U @ E ~ U ~OVn. this not too difficult reading of the passage as
an organic whole (to use Kahns well-chosen expression) the clause
HaSdnEp X E y o l ~ ~draws
u
together all the threads of the passage.
What would then be left of the conclusions drawn in the first half of
this paper? First, the disunity of Aristotles argument and the unity of
Platos continue t o plead for the reconstruction of Anaximander from
Plato rather than Aristotle. This continues to be supported by a
number of resemblances between Plato and what is certainly or
probably Anaximandrean. l l ~ Lp( X E L V i s still to be taken as temporal.
The implied principle nihil ex nihilo remains an inexplicit anticipation of Eleaticism.
I have left to last what seems to me to be Anaximanders principal
contribution not simply to Eleaticismbut to human thought in general.
What he seems to have done i s to take the art of argument about the
world at large, in Thales (so far as we can see) still rudimentary), and
develop it to a depth and intricacy that onewould hardly have thought
possible. If Parmenides produces an argument of impressive length
and continuity, let us recall that Anaximander probably did the same
before him. How much either owed to the mathematicians or the
mathematicians to either of them - is an obscure topic.
Much of this paper has been skating over ice far thinner than it was
originally intended to. But it does seem important that we should not
take for granted the continuity from Anaximander of the whole
argument at Physics 203b4-15, and that we should at least not dismiss
out of hand the possibility of reconstituting Anaximanders argument
from other sources as well. How that may be done is matter for
discussion; and Anaximanders apparent position as the first consecutive arguer about the world in Western thought may lend some
urgency to the debate33.

30 See Babut (above n.20) pp.5-10.

31 See One and Many (above n.3) pp.56-59.
32 Kahn, opcit. p.29 is much more positive than the evidence warrants. Whether
or not Thales geometry is in general adequately supported by the ancient
evidence, it is not demonstrable that he produced consecutive and clearly set
out proofs. But this is admittedly too large a question to be settled here.
33

I am much obliged to Dr. D. Bargrave-Weaver and M r . K.W. Mills for reading

and helpfully criticizing early drafts of this paper; my thanks are also due to

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Anaximanders Argument

APPENDIX
As a coda to this paper I wish to take advantage of this forum to
amplify a point made elsewhere. The suggestion that Anaximanders
argument turns upon the identification of 80x6 starting-point
with apas end-point, limit, i s erroneous34. Aristotles Argument B displays not theidentification of & p x 6 with r E p a g but merely
the presumption - natural enough - that an & p x d is a n f p a g ,
without any implication that a r r p a s is necessarily an & p x i . Kahns
derivation from Anaximander of various subsequent identifications of
beginning and end, and various associated ideas, is atcordingly
without solid foundation. True, Heraclitus says cvvbw a p x i Mat
rrCpas 6 x 1 H U I M A O U , identifying beginning and limit and presumably
thereby intending to identify beginning and end. But that identification i s a characteristic Herachean paradox, and need by no means go
back to Anaximander.
The only explicit reference to a cycle I can ,find in connection with
anccpdvaro 6 t T ~
Anaximander i s from Pseudo-Plutarch:
cp9ophv y L v E o 9 f f 1 Hat x o h b 7 T p O 7 E P O V 7qu y v a 1 v 65
&lIEipOU

ff i h 0 S

&VCiMUMhOUpVUV

lTcrV7UV

Cr6TGV.

In the corresponding passages, Cicero and Augustine have no

reference to circles in any form. The isolated vocabulary of PseudoPlutarch here constitutes poor evidence even for what Theophrastus,
let alone for what Anaximander set down. It looks as though someone
was guessing here on the basis of the undoubted fact that in
Anaximander things come to be and are destroyed into the same
thing(s). There i s no good reason for thinking that Anaximander saw
this in terms of the circle, or in terms of a total equivalence of the
words for beginning and end. In any case the notion of a cycle i s
independent of the thought that the divine being is without either
beginning or end; and interesting though Kahns associationsare, the
identification of beginning and end on a circle i s a distinct thought
from the observation that a circle has neither beginning nor end.
There i s nothing to show that Alcmaeons 82 must be derived from
Anaximander. What the relation is between Alcmaeon and other

my friendly critics at the Edmonton Workshop, and specially to Prof. Roger A.

Shiner, whose written and oral criticisms compelled the modification,
clarification and enlargement of the original paper. The revised version was
heard and usefully questioned by the group of ancient philosophers in the
Universities of Newcastle and Durham. M y gratitude to all leaves me
nevertheless with the whole responsibility for the papers faults.
34

Kahn, op.cit. pp.21 and 25: see my One and Many p.29 and n.29 (on p.276).

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Michael C. Stokes

extant doctors must remain unknown until the grave doubts

surrounding Alcmaeons chronology are cleared up. When Kahn says,
The idea of incessant recurrence in the eternal life of nature, as
opposed to the clearly defined &pxrj and ~ p c u of perishable
things, must (emphasis mine) be at the root of the Milesian eternal
motion and of the early concept of eternity in general he outruns
the evidence, and his doctrine should be received with reserve35.
But Kahns citation of de Caelo284a3-13 is illuminating6, and much
of the passage i s surely derived from Anaximander; but it too fails to
support the theory that Anaximanders view of the universe was
strictly cyclical. There i s no reason to suppose Anaximander to have
had in mind the highly specialised use of 6 i r ~ i p o vto mean
circular: and it i s not necessary to suppose that the heaven in
Aristotles de Caelo paraphrase represents the sphere or ring of the
fixed stars in Anaxirnanders cosmology. Hence no need arises to
connect the eternity of Anaximanders infinite with the revolution of
the heavenly bodies or with any other rotation.

35 See Kahn op.cit. p.27

36 0 p . c i i . p.27.

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