Apeiron is a Greek word meaning unlimited, infinite or indefinite from the Greek a (without) and peiras (end or limit in Ionic dialect).

Contents 1 Apeiron as an origin 2 Roots 3 Creation of the world 4 Interpretations 5 Influence on Greek and Western thought 6 Other pre-Socratic philosophers' ideas about apeiron 7 See also 8 References 9 External links

[edit] Apeiron as an origin

The apeiron is central to the cosmological theory created by Anaximander in the 6th century BC. Anaximander's work is mostly lost. From the few existing fragments, we learn that he believed the beginning or first principle (arche) is an endless, indefinite mass (apeiron), subject to neither old age nor decay, which perpetually yields fresh materials from which everything which we can perceive is derived.^[1] Apeiron generated the opposites, hot-cold, wet-dry etc., which acted on the creation of the world. Everything is generated from apeiron and then it is destroyed there according to necessity.^[2] He believed that infinite worlds are generated from apeiron and then they are destroyed there again.^[3]

His ideas were influenced by the Greek mythical tradition and by his teacher Thales (7th-6th century BC). Anaximander willing to find some universal principle assumed like the traditional religion 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.^[4] The word nomos (law) may originally have meant natural law and then it was used for a man-made law,^[5] therefore the Greeks believed that the universal principles could also be applied to human societies.

Greek philosophy entered a high level of abstraction adopting apeiron as the origin of all things because this is something completely indefinite. This is a further transition from the previous existing mythical way of thought to the new rational way of thought which is the main characteristic of the archaic period (8th-6th century BC). This way of thought is a result of the new political conditions in the Greek city states during the 6th century BC.^[6]

[edit] Roots

The term apeiron as an origin of the world is connected with Chaos (the original Greek word means gaping void but later formless state and complete disorder) a term used by Hesiod (8th-7th century BC) as an origin in Greek mythical cosmogony. Then came Earth and Eros (Love). From Chaos came forth Erebus and Night. From union in love with Erebus she conceived and bare Aether (outer atmosphere) and Day.^[7] This gaping void is described thoroughly:^[8]

There are the sources and the ends of everything, of gloomy earth, misty Tartarus, unfruitful sea and starry heaven. It's a large gap and if someone could enter the gates he would not reach the bottom.

One can name it also abyss (having no bottom). Thales and Pherecydes of Syros (6th century BC) believed that the origin was water and the second named it also Ocean and Chaos^[9] considering it as a formless state which can be differentiated and make life. In his cosmogony Pherecydes tries to distinguish the main elements which constituted nature. From Chaos came Zeus who had also the duties of Eros and Earth.Then came Kronos (time) and from his sperm came forth air and fire.^[10]

In the Babylonian creation story Enuma Elish^[11] the universe was in a formless state and Tiamat is the sea, mother of everything,a story similar to the Pelasgian creation myth according which Eurynome – the mother of everything – is born from chaos and lives among the seas.^[12] It must be noticed that in the original text of the Bible the universe was also in a formless state:^[13]

In the beginning of God's creating the sky and the earth,when the earth has been shapeless and formless and dark was over the face of the deep (abyss).

Hesiod followed a different way making a remarkable abstract, because his original chaos is a void, something completely indefinite. In his opinion the origin should be indefinite and inderterminate.^[14] There is also an amazing fragment showing the transition from chaos to apeiron, from Xenophanes (6th century BC) who was the teacher of Parmenides (Eleatics):^[15]

Hear we see the end (peiras) of the earth near our feet by the air, but downwards earth reaches apeiron.

Greek philosophy entered a high level of abstraction making apeiron the principle of all things and some scholars saw a gap between the existing mythical and the new rational way of thought (rationalism). But if we follow the course, we will see that there is not such an abrupt break with the previous thought. The basic elements of nature, water, air, fire, earth, which the first Greek philosophers believed that composed the world, represent in fact the mythical primordial forces. The collision of these forces produced the cosmic harmony according to the Greek cosmogony (Hesiod).^[16] Anaximander noticed the mutual changes between these elements, therefore he chose something else which could generate the others without experienced any decay.^[17] The original chaos of Hesiod seemed to him more convenient. There is also a fragment attributed to his teacher Thales:^[18]

What is divine? What has no origin, nor end.

This probably lead his student to his final decision for apeiron although there is no evidence of any any supernatural basis in Anaximander's cosmological theory.

[edit] Creation of the world

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.^[19][20] Out of the vague and limitless body there sprang a central mass — this earth of ours — 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.^[21] The first animals were generated in the water.^[22] When they came to earth they were transmuted by the effect of the sun. The human being sprung from some other animal, which originally was similar to a fish.^[23] 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.

[edit] Interpretations

In the commentary of Simplicius on Aristotle's Physics the following fragment is attributed direct to Anaximander:

Whence things have their origin, there their destruction happens as it is ordained (Greek: kata to chreon = according to the debt). For they give justice and compensation to one another for their injustice according to the ordering of time.

This fragment remains a mystery because it can be translated in different ways. Simplicius comments that Anaximander noticed the mutual changes between the four elements (earth, air, water, fire), therefore he did not choose one of them as an origin, but something else which generates the opposites without experiencing any decay. He mentions also that Anaximander said all these in poetic terms,^[24] meaning that he used the old mythical language.The Goddess Justice (Dike), appears to keep the order.^[25] The quotation is close to the original meanings of the relevant Greek words. The word dike (justice) was probably originally derived from the boundaries of a man's land and transmits metaphorically the notion that somebody must remain into his own sphere,respecting the one of his neighbour.^[26] The word adikia (injustice) means that someone has operated outside of his own sphere, something that could disturb "law and order" (eunomia).^[27] In Homer's Odyssey eunomia is contrasted with hybris (arrogance).^[28] Arrogance was considered very dangerous because it could break the balance and lead to political instability and finally to the destruction of a city-state.^[29]

Aetius (1st century BC) transmits a different quotation:

Everything is generated from apeiron and there its destruction happens. Infinite worlds are generated and they are destructed there again. And he says (Anaximander) why this is apeiron. Because only then genesis and decay will never stop.^[30]

Therefore it seems that Anaximander argued about apeiron and this is also noticed by Aristotle:^[31]

The belief that there is something apeiron stems from the idea that only then genesis and decay will never stop, when that from which is taken what is generated is apeiron.

Friedrich Nietzsche^[32] claimed that Anaximander was a pessimist and that he viewed all coming to be as an illegitimate emancipation from the eternal being, a wrong for which destruction is the only penance. In accordance to this the world of the individual definite objects should perish into the indefinite since anything definite has to eventually return to the indefinite. His ideas had a great influence on many scholars.

Other scholars, e.g. Bertrand Russell^[33] and Maurice Bowra,^[34] didn't deny that Anaximander was the first who used the term apeiron, but claimed that the mysterious fragment is dealing with the balance of opposite forces as central to reality being closer to the quotation transmitted by Simplicius.

There are also other interpretations which try to match both the previous aspects. Apeiron is an abstract, void, something that cannot be described according to the Greek pessimistic belief for death.Death indeed meant "nothingless". The dead live like shadows and there is no return to the real world. Everything generated from apeiron must return there according to the principle genesis-decay. There is a polar attraction between the opposites genesis-decay, arrogance-justice. The existence itself carries a guilt.^[35]

The idea that the fact of existence by itself carries along an incurable guilt is Greek (Theognis 327) and anybody claims that surpasses it, commits arrogance and therefore he becomes guilty. The first half of the 6th century is a period of great social instability in Miletus, the city state where Anaximander lives. Any attempt of excess leads to exaggerations and each exaggeration must be corrected. All these have to be paid according to the debt.The things give justice to one another with the process of time.

Justice has to destroy everything which is born. There is no external limit that can restrict the activities of men, except the destruction. Arrogance is an expression of the chaotic element of human existence and in a way a part of the rebounding mechanism of order, because pushing it to exertions causes destruction which is also a reestablishment.^[36]

[edit] Influence on Greek and Western thought

We may assume that the contradiction in the different interpretations is due to the fact that 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.^[37] 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 (hybris or adikia) could disturb the harmony and balance. In that case justice (dike) would destroy him to reestablish the order.^[38] These ideas are obvious in later Greek philosophers.^[39] Philolaus (5th century BC) mentions that nature constituted and is organized with the world from unlimitable (Greek: apeira, plural of apeiron) and limitable. Everything which exists in the world contains the unlimited (apeiron) and the limited.^[40] Something similar is mentioned by Plato: Nothing can exist if it doesn't contain continually and simultaneously the limited and the unlimited, the definite and the indefinite.^[41]

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 hybris. The relative English word arrogance (claim as one's own without justification - Latin verb: arrogare), is very close to the original meaning, "Nothing in excess."

[edit] Other pre-Socratic philosophers' ideas about apeiron

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. However, since all individual things had originated from the same apeiron, all things must contain parts of all other things—for instance, a tree must also contain tiny pieces of sharks, moons, and grains of sand. This alone explains how one object can be transformed into another, since each thing already contains all other things in germ.

[edit] See also

• Material monism
• achanes αχανές
• Plato's Philebus

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• "Presocratic Philosophy" at the Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy