Anaxagore

Anaxagore de Clazomènes · 5th-century BC Greek philosopher · 500–428 BC

Appears in 9 videos · 9 passages, 4 of them in depth.

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Summary

Dominique Pagani mainly returns to Anaxagoras through an episode reported by Plato in the Phaedo1: Anaxagoras places nous, intelligence, at the origin of everything, as what orders the cosmos2, then disappoints Socrates by explaining the detail of things through air, weight, water or fire3. He takes up this point in various contexts: a reflection on philosophy in times of crisis, Greek mythology, a session devoted to Madame de Staël, and music in Plato, Rousseau and Hegel. The elements he cites vary from one session to another (air and weight; water, air and fire; hot and cold). He sums this up as a thinker who is "a finalist turned mechanist"4. Elsewhere, he notes that Anaxagoras is a Presocratic known through fragments, whose problems are still debated5 6, and that he is among the predecessors surveyed by Aristotle7.

Summary produced automatically from 9 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.

Who is this?

Anaxagoras (; Ancient Greek: Ἀναξαγόρας, Anaxagóras; c. 500 BC – c. 428 BC) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher. Born in Clazomenae at a time when Asia Minor was under the control of the Persian Empire, Anaxagoras came to Athens. In later life he was charged with impiety and went into exile in Lampsacus. […]

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Text: Wikipédia, CC BY-SA 4.0, excerpt · Portrait: Public domain

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