A thorough examination of Anaximander’s philosophical thought. Apeiron and Secret Fire. The doctrine of opposites and world machine. Philosophy and ancient Wisdom.
Was really this limitless, as it is commonly translated by the ancient greek word àpeiron, a principle pertinent to cosmology, and thus nowadays to religion, or rather to physics? Might the other meanings of this word, that’s to say “indeterminate” and “timeless”, be instead worth not to be neglected in favor of “limitless”?
What did Anaximander really mean by “opposites” and, what’s more, where were they intended to be pertinent to metaphysics or physics? And might philology give an answer to all those questions?
The work “The Infinite: a Millenarian Misunderstanding” (1) by Giovanni Semerano (1913-2005), aims to reinterpret the culture and especially the philosophy of classical Greece, with the assumption of a derivation of all languages from a common Akkadian-Sumerian matrix. This allows this author to a radical reinterpretation of the archaic and classical Greece whole story, no longer seen as a miraculous island of rationality, but as an integral part of a single community, which included Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and Egypt.
In fact, despite his taking a great part in the so-called “Greek Miracle” by which existing mythical tales were elaborated rationally into a new logical way of thought, Anaximander’s theories were commonly acknowledged as influenced by the Greek mythical tradition, and by some ideas of his master Thales, as well as by observations made by older civilizations in the East, especially by the Babylonian astrologists.
If we believe in the theory of taking Alchemy as the foundation of all ancient arts and sciences, we can understand the great import of Semerano’s studies to my theory on Alchemy having possibly been of inspiration to Anaximander’s conclusions. In other words, some alchemical teachings from the greatest antiquity might be survived in this sixth century b.C. greek thinker. To be honest Heidegger’s empathy had already brought the german philosopher to give a very less conventional interpretation of the famed Anaximander’s unique fragment, as we will see. Apart from Semerano and Heidegger most modern philosophers seem not so willing to investigate above and beyond the too much familiar abstract and metaphysical “First Principle” so similar to that of monotheistic religions, and tend to ignore that, like many thinkers of his time, Anaximander’s contributions to philosophy largely relate to physics.
In fact, he was alleged to be the father of cartography and devices measuring time, studied geometry, and introduced the gnomon as well as the concepts of solstices and equinoxes. Anaximander became master of Thales school where Pythagoras was argued to be a pupil, but very likely that was just a conjecture.
As I said, only one fragment has arrived to us of the Anaximander’s attributed treatise “On Nature”. Not so much to put together an entire philosophical system, so Information about his philosophy comes from summaries of it by other writers, especially Aristotle and Theophrastus. You can find exhaustive historical notes on Anaximander elsewhere, in this article we will try to determine how his philosophical views on the first principle and opposites might be applied to the alchemical Secret Fire and its working, that’s to say a very ancient physics. In coming posts, we will also see how Anaximander’s thought affected alchemical symbolism, at least as far as wheels (2), columns, fishes and flutes are concerned.
The greek writing for àpeiron is ἄπειρον, which etymology is nowadays a little obscure, and certainly was a new word created by the same Anaximander. The most accepted translation does the greek term bringing back to ἀ- a-, “without”, and πεῖραρ peirar, “end, limit”, the Ionic Greek form of πέρας péras, “end, limit, boundary. But also finite and definite. So the whole word does seem to mean unlimited, but also infinite, or indefinite. It is clear enough that if we desire to give the word àpeiron a cosmological address, the attribute “indefinite” does clash with our modern idea of a God creator and supervisor. At least from a metaphysical point of view, which seems to be barricaded around sir Isaac Newton’s conception of the Universe, but the same Einstein would have refused the idea of an undetermined “ First Principle”: “ God can not play dices” he used to say.
From an ethical point of view, the word àpeiron is also intolerable to us, because of the involved misfortune of living and expiating the guilt of being. We tend to refuse the tragic resonance of the existence of evil, which can not consist of more than the pain of living death and dying life. Additionally, when reading the unique Anaximander’s fragment, fr. B 12 1 from Simplicius of Cilea ( Byzantium, sixth century A.D. ), we can not help to be puzzled by the role of Time in it: “ Ἀναξίμανδρος. . . . ἀρχὴν . . . εἴρηκε τῶν ὄντων τὸ ἄπειρον . . . ἐξ ὧν δὲ ἡ γένεσίς ἐστι τοῖς οὖσι, καὶ τὴν φθορὰν εἰς ταῦτα γίνεσθαι κατὰ τὸ χρεών: διδόναι γὰρ αὐτὰ δίκην καὶ τίσιν ἀλλήλοις τῆς ἀδικίας κατὰ τὴν τοῦ χρόνου τάξιν”. Sadly I have to content myself with translations by others, so: “Anaximander … said … that principle of beings is the infinite (ἄπειρον, àpeiron) … where in fact beings have their origin, and also the destruction as necessary: because they pay each other punishment and atonement of injustice according to the order of time“.
Martin Heidegger’s commentary on this fragment was outstandingly out of the pack. In fact, he supposed Anaximander to develop the concept of justice through the logic of “being for death”. The origin of all things is from àpeiron separation and is part of an “eternal” cycle that has been active ever since. Everything is contained in the essential character of death, but it is not charged with a negative meaning, in fact, it leads to the very nature of things. I don’t know if Heidegger knew that this idea of death as necessary “ nature of things” is very alchemical since before a new alchemical body is born there is always a death of the old body.
This anti-idealistic concept is even more developed in Giovanni Semerano’s commentary. We have seen above that his assumption of a derivation of all languages from a common Akkadian-Sumerian matrix makes Greece less of an “island” separated from other ancient cultures. The thesis of Semerano’s book is based on a new interpretation of the term àpeiron, which is usually considered to consist of a-privative (“without”) and péras (“determination”, “time”) and therefore translated as “indeterminate” or “infinity.” According to Semerano, however, since the word péras has a short “e”, while àpeiron has a diphthong “ei”, which is read like an “e” closed and long, the diphthong can not have been produced by the short “e” of péras. Semerano instead does the term bringing back to the Semitic ‘apar, corresponding to the biblical’ Afar and Akkadian eperu, all terms that mean “earth”. The well-known fragment of Anaximander, which says that all things come from and return to ‘àpeiron, therefore, does not refer to a philosophical conception of infinity, but to a concept of “belonging to the earth” that can be found throughout an earlier sapiential tradition of Asian origin and which is also present in the biblical text: “dust you are and dust you shall return.”
Based on this interpretation, Semerano then reads the entire development of the philosophy before the sophistry in anti-idealist and anti-metaphysical keys, redrawing the boundaries between differences and similarities between the ancient thinkers, and making the most to derive within a corpuscular physics, which connects, among the others, Anaximander, Thales, and Democritus.
Some researchers confuse this reconstruction, saying that Semerano seems to ignore an essential fact: in the Ionic dialect, unlike in the attic one and in many other Greek dialects, the alternation between “e” and “ei” between short vowel and diphthong, is often present and arises from well-known linguistic dynamics. Synonymous with the term used by the philosopher is in fact in Homer, where he speaks of pontos apèiritos, which according to Semerano’s thesis should be translated not as an “infinite sea”, but as “earthy sea”. I can not remember in what verse Homer used this phrase word, but it is amazingly appropriate to our alchemical doctrines. In fact, not only our mercurial sea, from which everything comes, is enclosed in the earth ( because picking it up from the air gives very poor results), but in the eternal game of Solve et Coagula (3) lies the whole of operations of our art.
Secret Fire runs along a constant density scale from “solute” to “fixed” and vice versa. In fact, we’ll see how the harmony of opposites mentioned by modern philosophers is, according to Anaximander, just an alternation of hot and cold. We have already seen in previous articles that this is, for alchemists, the alternation of the sky, or dissolved matter, and earth, or fixed matter. Movement and stasis. It is said that is the alchemist’s task to transform everything that is not yet embodied in a body. Secret Fire, or Mercurius, is also called the great sea, perhaps because it is hugely available, indeterminate, and indefinite. This sea matter is our Spirit of Life not yet defined as the soul. Furtherly it is a sea because it tends to move like a snake, it flows.
Let’s see for confirmation of what was said and how opposites are generated by separating from the original unlimited principle and, what’s more, what Anaximander meant by “opposite”, in subsequent ancient thinkers’ writings.
SIMPLIC. phys. 24,13 (from THEOPHR. phys. opin. fr. 2; Dox. 476): “Among those who say that (the principle) is one, infinite and in movement, Anaximander, son of Prassiade, Milesian, successor, and disciple of Thales, said that principle and element of beings are the infinite, having first introduced this name of principle. And he says that the principle is neither water nor any other of the so-called elements, but another infinite nature, from which come all the heavens and the worlds that are in there … and, have expressed that with rather poetic words. It ”s clear that having observed the mutual change of the four elements, he thought not to posit anyone of them as substrate, but something other than these. According to him, therefore, the birth of things is not due to alteration of the element, but to the separation of opposites [from infinite] because of the eternal movement.”
SIMPLIC. phys. 150, 24: “Opposites are hot and cold, dry and wet, and so on……” See Aristot. phys. A 4. 187 to 20.
HIPPOL. ref. I 6, 1-7 p. 10 sg. [Dox. 559]: “ He said that the beginning of things was some kind of infinity, from which are produced the heavens and the ordering that there is in them. It is eternal and insenescent [B 2] and encompasses all the worlds. And he defines as time what determines generation, existence, and destruction. (3) He says that the principle and element of things are the infinite, having first given the name to the principle, and further that the movement is also eternal and it consequently formed the heavens… (6) Living things come from humid evaporated by the sun.”
HERM. irris. 10 [Dox. 653]: “ Anaximander, a citizen of Thales, said that the eternal movement is a principle older than the humid and that it will produce certain things and others are destroyed…
AËT. I 3, 3 [Dox. 277]: “ Anaximander, son of Prassiade, Milesian, says that the principle of what exists is the infinite, which is where all things come from and by this are all destroyed. Thus infinite worlds are formed and then get destroyed in which form they come. It says it is unlimited because the generation never stops. But he is wrong because he does not say what is infinite, if air or water or earth, or some other body. He is wrong because he admits the matter but suppresses the efficient cause. In fact, the infinite is nothing but matter, and matter can not be acting if there is no efficient cause.”
ARISTOT. Phys. 4. 203 b 3 sgg: “… it is divine because it is immortal and indestructible, as required by Anaximander and the majority of physics.”
ALEX. metaph. 60, 8: “ Aristotle adds in his research also the opinion of Anaximander, who argued as a principle an intermediate between air and fire or between air and water.”
ARISTOT. Phys. A 4. 187 a 12: “ Some, stating the being as one body that acts as a substrate, and which is either one of the three elements or another denser than fire and thinner than air, produce everything by condensation and rarefaction …
ARISTOT. Phys. A 4. 187 to 20: “… The others, however, argue that from one division does split the opposition inherent in it, like Anaximander.”
SIMPLIC. de cael. 615, 13: “ Anaximander, neighbor, and friend of Thales … first assumed the infinite, so that it could be used without saving in the production of things, he also assumed infinite worlds, each of which, it seems, comes from such an infinite primordial element.”
AËT. I 7, 12 [Dox. 302]: “ Anaximander argued that the infinite heavens are gods.”
AËT. II 1, 3 [Dox. 327]: “Anaximander, Anaximenes, Archelaus, Xenophanes, Diogenes, Leucippus, Democritus, Epicurus admitted that infinite worlds are produced and destroyed in the infinity in each rotation.”
CICER. de nat. d. I 10, 25: “ Is Anaximander’s opinion that gods have been given birthing, that they born and die at certain ling intervals, and that they are the countless worlds.”
AËT. II 11, 5 [Dox. 340]: “Anaximander (says that the sky is derived) from the mixture of hot and cold.”
Yet Semerano goes on: Thales believes the stars are earthy (AËT II, 13, 1 = Dox. 341 = 11 A 17a DK) and so that the sun has an earthy appearance (Ibid., 20, 9 = Dox 349 = 11 A 17a DK), and even that the moon is earthy in nature. Anaximenes describes the air as a dynamic cosmogonic element and associates ἄπειρον as a structural element.
The first part of the word ἄπειρον is αέρα, which is given a different meaning from earthy. Aristotle means αέρα as air and calls it the principle of simple bodies (Aristot. metaph. I, 3, 984a 5 = 13 A 4 D-K). At this point it is necessary to bring us back to the original semantic values of αέρα we can see in Homer: “…the goddess Hera, who secretly arrived with her chariot in the plain of Troy, must remain hidden from the human eyes and so spread a great vapor around her (Hom, 5, 776)“. To grasp the original affinity that binds αέρα to ἄπειρον we find in Aristotle an Orphic reference in which some Pythagoreans say that the soul itself is like atmospheric dust (Aristot.dean.404a 18s.)
It is useful to recover the sense of the connections that at the origins bind “air” and ἄπειρον. Theophrastus (Phys. opin. fr. 2 = Dox. 476 = Simpl. phys. 24,26 =13 A 5 D-K) says that Anaximene affirms the unity of substance “which acts as a substratum: infinite, like ἄπειρον and not indeterminate, like that, but determined: it calls it to air. Air differs among substances by rarefaction and condensation ». This particular aspect of rarefaction and condensation had already been detected by Aristotle (Simpl. phys. 149, 32 = 13 A 5 D-K).
With the air, asἄπειρον, Anaximenes, in arguing around the reasons for creation, bears an explanatory reason intended to ensure the dynamics that animated the original element. He run to the aid of that principle which would seem destined to play a role without limits. The disciple of Anaximander seems to prevent the reserves of Aristotle and his followers and anticipates Democrito’s intuition that sees in the movement a structural property of the original principle itself, without the need for support. Anaximander must have already felt strengthened by the faith of Thales who felt the things animated by divinity, ( Plat. legg. X, 899 B (cfr. 11 A 22 D-K) but he did not think it appropriate now to disturb the gods. The Phoenician Taletes is struck by the same faith as Jacob, he can bend on the betilus, on the desert stone, to adore the same arcane spirit that moves the whole, like the one listening in the hollow of the shell the thousand echoes of abysmal oceans. Anaximander could have set a certainty in that faith, that “the soul is something capable of communicating motion” (Aristot. de an. I, 2 , 405a 19 = 11 A 1 D-K), that “the soul is a substance in motion, without self-propelled end” (Aet. IV, 2,1 = Dox. 386a 10 = 11 A 22a D-K).
It is enough and that’s Alchemy, in my opinion. Pay attention to the sentence “ from the mixture of hot and cold” (4). That is exactly how Secret Fire/ Mercurius works and operates, that’s the alchemical world machine. Observe how all things are born to be then destroyed, like in Alchemy, and be aware of Anaximander’s statement that the infinite heavens are gods. As far as rotations are involved, they are a hidden part of alchemical operations: it seems that Mercurius tends to rotate around another Mercurius. It is said that in so doing Secret Fire/ Mercurius gives life. It would be interesting to know what of the Osiris-Isis myth was acknowledged by those sixth century b.C. greek physics.
- L’infinito: un equivoco millenario. Le antiche civiltà del Vicino Oriente e le origini del pensiero greco. Giovanni Semerano. Editore Mondadori Bruno 2005;
- See also Cesare Ripa, Wheels Spindles and Celestial Pointers ;
- See also Basilius Valentinus & Solve et Coagula Tree , Philosophia Reformata, Father Sun and Mother Moon , Wenceslaw Lavinius and the Sky and Earth Properties and Stoll, the Lacinius Translator on Male and Female Elements ;
- See also Codex Marcianus Ouroboros , Cesare Ripa & the Hot Frozen Ouroboros World Machine and Dorneus & the Third Level;