"is unmixed (fr. 12), and does not... contain a portion of everything. This would hardly be worth saying of an immaterial mind... The result of its being unmixed is that it "has power over" everything... [i.e.,] it causes things to move. Herakleitos had said as much of Fire, and Empedokles of Strife. Further, it is the "thinnest" of all things, so that it can penetrate everywhere... Nous also "knows all things"... [P]robably... Anaxagoras substituted Nous for the Love and Strife of Empedokles... to retain the old Ionic doctrine of a substance that "knows" all things, and... identify this with the new... substance that "moves" all things. Perhaps... his increased interest in physiological as distinguished from purely cosmological matters... led him to... Mind rather than Soul. ...[T]he originality of Anaxagoras lies ...more in the theory of matter than ...of Nous."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Authors from GreecePhilosophers from GreeceMathematicians from GreecePhysicists from GreecePresocratic philosophers
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Anaxagoras
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Anaxagoras
griechischer Philosoph und Schulleiter
47 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Anaxagoras →
Related Quotes
"In mathematics... the Greek attitude differed sharply from that of the earlier potamic cultures. The contrast was cle…"
"Wrongly do the Greeks suppose that aught begins or ceases to be; for nothing comes into being or is destroyed; but al…"
"All things were together, infinite both in number and in smallness; for the small too was infinite."
"And since these things are so, we must suppose that there are contained many things and of all sorts in the things th…"
"Mind is infinite and self-ruled, and is mixed with nothing, but is alone itself by itself."
"Thought is something limitless and independent, and has been mixed with no thing but is alone by itself. ... What was…"
"The Greeks follow a wrong usage in speaking of coming into being and passing away; for nothing comes into being or pa…"
"The sun provides the moon with its brightness."
"If one examines the reasons for the persecution of the best minds of different nations, and compares the reasons for …"
"The big bang and the steady state debate in some ways echoed that between the ideas of Anaximander and Anaxagoras fro…"