Question

1.       Explain and evaluate the views of Anaximander regarding the nature ofsubstance.

Answer 1

Anaximander wanted to find the principal substance of reality, and he came to the conclusion of it being air. Air is needed by all for continued existence, but Anaximander says objects are composed of air. Air is abundant, ever-flowing and profuse, so that is why life hasn’t stopped. If there was no air, the earth would be dead along with everyone on it.

For Anaximander, the principle of things, the ingredient of all substances, is nothing determined and not an element such as water in Thales' view. Neither is it something halfway between air and water, or between air and fire, thicker than air and fire, or more subtle than water and earth. Anaximander argues that water cannot embrace all of the opposites found in nature — for example, water can only be wet, never dry — and therefore cannot be the one primary substance; nor could any of the other candidates. He postulated the apeiron as a substance that, although not directly perceptible to us, could explain the opposites he saw around him.

Anaximander explains how the four elements of ancient physics (air, earth, water and fire) are formed, and how Earth and terrestrial beings are formed through their interactions. Unlike other Pre-Socratics, he never defines this principle precisely, and it has generally been understood (e.g., by Aristotle and by Saint Augustine) as a sort of primal chaos. According to him, the Universe originates in the partition of opposites in the elemental matter. It embraces the opposites of hot and cold, wet and dry, and directs the movement of things; an entire host of shapes and differences then grow that are found in "all the worlds" (for he believed there were many).

Anaximander maintains that all dying things are returning to the element from which they came (apeiron). The one surviving fragment of Anaximander's writing deals with this matter. Simplicius transmitted it as a quotation, which describes the balanced and mutual changes of the elements and is as under:

Whence things have their origin,
Thence also their destruction happens,
According to necessity;
For they give to each other justice and reward
For their injustice
In agreement with the ordinance of Time.