Origin of everything[edit]
The apeiron is central to the cosmological theory created by Anaximander, a 6th-century BC pre-Socratic Greek philosopher whose work is mostly lost. From the few existing fragments, we learn that he believed the beginning or ultimate reality (arche) is eternal and infinite, or boundless (apeiron), subject to neither old age nor decay, which perpetually yields fresh materials from which everything we can perceive is derived.[5] Apeiron generated the opposites (hot–cold, wet–dry, etc.) which acted on the creation of the world (cf. Heraclitus). Everything is generated from apeiron and then it is destroyed by going back to apeiron, according to necessity.[6] He believed that infinite worlds are generated from apeiron and then they are destroyed there again.[7]
His ideas were influenced by the Greek mythical tradition and by his teacher Thales (7th to 6th century BC). Searching for some universal principle, Anaximander retained the traditional religious assumption that there was a cosmic order and tried to explain it rationally, using the old mythical language which ascribed divine control on various spheres of reality. This language was more suitable for a society which could see gods everywhere; therefore the first glimmerings of laws of nature were themselves derived from divine laws.[8] The Greeks believed that the universal principles could also be applied to human societies. The word nomos (law) may originally have meant natural law and used later to mean man-made law.[9]
Greek philosophy entered a high level of abstraction. It adopted apeiron as the origin of all things, because it is completely indefinite. This is a further transition from the previous existing mythical way of thought to the newer rational way of thought which is the main characteristic of the archaic period (8th to 6th century BC). This shift in thought is correlated with the new political conditions in the Greek city states during the 6th century BC.[10]
Creation of the world[edit]
The apeiron has generally been understood as a sort of primal chaos. It acts as the substratum supporting opposites such as hot and cold, wet and dry, and directed the movement of things, by which there grew up all of the host of shapes and differences which are found in the world.[26] Out of the vague and limitless body there sprang a central mass—Earth—cylindrical in shape. A sphere of fire surrounded the air around the Earth and had originally clung to it like the bark round a tree. When it broke, it created the Sun, the Moon and the stars.[27] The first animals were generated in the water.[28] When they came to Earth they were transmuted by the effect of sunlight. The human being sprung from some other animal, which originally was similar to a fish.[29] The blazing orbs, which have drawn off from the cold earth and water, are the temporary gods of the world clustering around the Earth, which to the ancient thinker is the central figure.
Influence on Greek and Western thought[edit]
We may assume that the contradiction in the different interpretations is because Anaximander combined two different ways of thought. The first one dealing with apeiron is metaphysical (and can lead to monism), while the second one dealing with mutual changes and the balance of the opposites as central to reality is physical.[42] The same paradox existed in the Greek way of thought. The Greeks believed that each individual had unlimitable potentialities both in brain and in heart, an outlook which called a man to live at the top of his powers. But that there was a limit to his most violent ambitions, that arrogance-injustice (hubris or adikia) could disturb the harmony and balance. In that case justice (dike) would destroy him to reestablish the order.[43] These ideas are obvious in later Greek philosophers.[44] Philolaus (5th century BC) mentions that nature constituted and is organized with the world from unlimitable (Ancient Greek: ἄπειρα apeira, plural of apeiron) and limitable. Everything which exists in the world contains the unlimited (apeiron) and the limited.[45] Something similar is mentioned by Plato: Nothing can exist if it does not contain continually and simultaneously the limited and the unlimited, the definite and the indefinite.[46]
Some doctrines existing in Western thought still transmit some of the original ideas: "God ordained that all men shall die", "Death is a common debt". The Greek word adikia (injustice) transmits the notion that someone has operated outside of his own sphere, without respecting the one of his neighbour. Therefore, he commits hubris. The relative English word arrogance (claim as one's own without justification; Latin: arrogare), is very close to the original meaning of the aphorism: "Nothing in excess."
Other pre-Socratic philosophies[edit]
Other pre-Socratic philosophers had different theories of the apeiron. For the Pythagoreans (in particular, Philolaus), the universe had begun as an apeiron, but at some point it inhaled the void from outside, filling the cosmos with vacuous bubbles that split the world into many different parts. For Anaxagoras, the initial apeiron had begun to rotate rapidly under the control of a godlike Nous (Mind), and the great speed of the rotation caused the universe to break up into many fragments. Since all individual things had originated from the same apeiron, all things must contain parts of all other things. This explains how one object can be transformed into another, since each thing already contains all other things in germ.