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  4. Anaximander’s ἄπειρον: from the Life-world to the Cosmic Event Horizon
 
Zitierlink DOI
10.26092/elib/196
Verlagslink DOI
10.5840/ancientphil20193911

Anaximander’s ἄπειρον: from the Life-world to the Cosmic Event Horizon

Veröffentlichungsdatum
2019
Autoren
Sieroka, Norman  
Zusammenfassung
Scholars have claimed repeatedly that Anaximander’s notion of the ἄπειρον marks the first metaphysical concept, or even the first theoretical entity, in Western thought. The present paper scrutinizes this claim. Characterizing natural phenomena as ἄπειρος—that is, as being inexhaustible or untraversable by standard human means—was common in daily practice, especially when referring to landmasses and seas but also when referring to vast numbers of countable objects. I will deny the assumption that Anaximander’s notion started off as being a theoretical answer to a specific philosophical question. That said, the aforementioned everyday notion of ἄπειρος could still lead to the development of theoretical concepts. Based on the observations Anaximander did with seasonal sundials, the inexhaustible landmasses and seas just mentioned became depicted on his world map by means of concentric circles. These circles then marked the bounds of experience and, by being fixed and finite, suggested the possibility of traversing beyond what is directly experienced. Evaluating claims from recent Anaximander scholarship, the paper ends with a brief comparison with concepts from modern physics which play an analogous role of demarcating the bounds of experience.
Schlagwörter
Antike Philosophie
Institution
Universität Bremen  
Fachbereich
Fachbereich 09: Kulturwissenschaften (FB 09)  
Dokumenttyp
Artikel/Aufsatz
Zeitschrift/Sammelwerk
Ancient Philosophy  
Zweitveröffentlichung
Nein
Lizenz
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/de/
Sprache
Englisch
Dateien
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Sieroka_AnaximanderApeiron_AncientPhil2019_postprint.pdf

Size

159.33 KB

Format

Adobe PDF

Checksum

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