Anaximander critical essays

Anaximander is considered one of the most important of Presocratic philosophers, all of whom are concerned with the principle governing change in the natural world. Some accounts name him as the first Western philosopher, as he was the first to have developed a comprehensive scientific approach to the origin and guiding principles of the world.

Anaximander claims that these cosmic forces are in continual conflict: any increase of water is an encroachment on dryness. Changes in the natural order therefore can be attributed to "justice," by which the "wrongdoing" of each force is counteracted by an equal and opposite force.

Thus, Anaximenes's system returns to a natural order controlled by divine forces that could initiate change. Anaximander rejects the idea that the natural world is governed by the highly arbitrary and personified influence of deities and instead seeks a universal law by which nature can be understood as a system.

Aristotle frequently refers to Anaximander in various extant works, and the Doxographers, who in the first century A.D. began studying Presocratic philosophy, also draw on Anaximander's work.