{"_index":"sire","_id":"749","_score":null,"_source":{"id":749,"authors_free":[{"id":1114,"entry_id":749,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":113,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Finkelberg, Aryeh","free_first_name":"Aryeh","free_last_name":"Finkelberg","norm_person":{"id":113,"first_name":"Aryeh","last_name":"Finkelberg","full_name":"Finkelberg, Aryeh","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1124815007","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Anaximander's Conception of the \"Apeiron\"","main_title":{"title":"Anaximander's Conception of the \"Apeiron\""},"abstract":"Anaximander's Apeiron is perhaps the most obscure notion in Greek philosophy. Aristotle was puzzled by it, suggesting various and greatly differing interpretations of the concept. But while Aristotle's construals were, in a sense, predominantly ad hoc and exempli gratia, Theophrastus committed himself, at least in the expository sections of his Physical Opinions, to a concise presentation\u2014with attention to their authentic setting and idiom\u2014of the teachings of the earlier thinkers. Theophrastus' statement concerning the Apeiron has come down to us in the following three versions:\r\n\r\n Simpl. Phys. 24, 13 (DK 12 A 9): Anaximander... said that the arche and the element of existing things was the Apeiron... and he says that it is neither water nor any other of the so-called elements, but some other infinite nature...\r\n Diog. ii 1 (DK 12 A 1): Anaximander... said that the arche and the element is the Apeiron, not determining whether it is air or water or something else.\r\n Aet. 1 3, 3 (DK 12 A 14): Anaximander... says that the arche of existing things is the Apeiron... but he errs in that he does not say what the Apeiron is, whether it is air, or water, or earth, or some other body.\r\n\r\nThe question of whether Simplicius or Diogenes and Aetius are true to Theophrastus' genuine wording is not of purely philological interest. As Barnes notes, \"the view that Anaximander's principle was qualitatively indeterminate loses in plausibility if he did not positively distinguish it from the elements.\" Kahn adds, \"here again the words of Simplicius must closely reflect the text of Theophrastus. The parallels [in Aetius and Diogenes] prove this, even if they are not precise enough to establish the original wording.\" However, Barnes also admits that \"we cannot tell whether Simplicius or Diogenes better represents Theophrastus' judgment.\"\r\n\r\nA decisive answer, however, has already been provided by H\u00f6lscher, who assessed Simplicius' words as \"clearly a distortion; the correct phrase is in Diogenes, ob \u1f40\u03c1\u03b8\u1ff6\u03c2,\" and this not merely because Simplicius is in a minority, but for the simple reason that \"otherwise there could have been no discussion about it [i.e., the Apeiron] at all.\" Thus, what Theophrastus actually said is that Anaximander did not determine his arche and element in respect of qualities.\r\n\r\nIt is one thing to say that Anaximander did not determine his arche qualitatively and quite another to say that he posited a qualitatively indeterminate body as the arche; concluding from the former to the latter is not an inference that logicians would approve.\r\n\r\nThat being said, it is not to imply that Anaximander provided his arche with no qualification at all\u2014he called it to Apeiron. The Greek word may mean \"boundless, infinite, countless\" or \"endless\" in the sense of \"circular\" (see LSJ, s.v.). However, the third meaning\u2014\"without outlet\"\u2014is surely irrelevant to Anaximander. Gottschalk correctly pointed out that the widely accepted idea that under to Apeiron Anaximander meant \"that which is without internal boundaries or distinctions,\" effectively \"qualitatively indeterminate,\" has no linguistic justification.\r\n\r\nIn calling his principle to Apeiron, Anaximander may have meant to specify it as spatially infinite (or, more plausibly historically, indefinitely large), temporally infinite (i.e., eternal), or most probably both; he may even have intended to denote it as spherical. However, qualitative indefiniteness was certainly not what he intended to express by this term.\r\n\r\nThe scholarly belief that Anaximander posited a qualitatively indefinite body as the principle is thus, at best, a speculative conjecture and, at worst, a confusion which has neither doxographical nor linguistic support and, moreover, strictly speaking, goes against our evidence. [introduction p. 229-231]","btype":3,"date":"1993","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/KFH07EnbKOSrtwC","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":113,"full_name":"Finkelberg, Aryeh","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":749,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Phronesis","volume":"38","issue":"3","pages":"229-256"}},"sort":["Anaximander's Conception of the \"Apeiron\""]}