Anaxagoras and the Size of the Sun

Plutarch and others report that Anaxagoras compared the size of the sun with the Peloponnesus. It is the aim of this paper to show that this was a fair estimate, from his point of view, which is that of a flat earth. More precisely, I will show that, with the instruments and the geometrical knowledge available, Anaxagoras must have been able to use the procedures and perform the calculations needed to reach approximately his result

Heaven and Earth in Ancient Greek Cosmology: From Thales to Heraclides Ponticus

In Miletus, about 550 B.C., together with our world-picture cosmology was born. This book tells the story. In Part One the reader is introduced in the archaic world-picture of a flat earth with the cupola of the celestial vault onto which the celestial bodies are attached. One of the subjects treated in that context is the riddle of the tilted celestial axis. This part also contains an extensive chapter on archaic astronomical instruments. Part Two shows how Anaximander (610-547 B.C.) blew up this archaic world-picture and replaced it by a new one that is essentially still ours. He taught that the celestial bodies orbit at different distances and that the earth floats unsupported in space. This makes him the founding father of cosmology. Part Three discusses topics that completed the new picture described by Anaximander. Special attention is paid to the confrontation between Anaxagoras and Aristotle on the question whether the earth is flat or spherical, and on the battle between Aristotle and Heraclides Ponticus on the question whether the universe is finite or infinite. “In this book, Dirk L. Couprie presents his efforts at clarifying the views of the pioneers of theoretical cosmology. It covers the crucial period from about the middle of the sixth until the middle of the fourth century B.C., with its focus on the magnificent figure of Anaximander. The book by Dirk Couprie constitutes an important and in several respects indispensable contribution to this field.” Dmitri Panchenko St. Petersburg State Universit

Heaven and Earth in Ancient Greek Cosmology

In Miletus, about 550 B.C., together with our world-picture cosmology was born. This book tells the story. In Part One the reader is introduced in the archaic world-picture of a flat earth with the cupola of the celestial vault onto which the celestial bodies are attached. One of the subjects treated in that context is the riddle of the tilted celestial axis. This part also contains an extensive chapter on archaic astronomical instruments. Part Two shows how Anaximander (610-547 B.C.) blew up this archaic world-picture and replaced it by a new one that is essentially still ours. He taught that the celestial bodies orbit at different distances and that the earth floats unsupported in space. This makes him the founding father of cosmology. Part Three discusses topics that completed the new picture described by Anaximander. Special attention is paid to the confrontation between Anaxagoras and Aristotle on the question whether the earth is flat or spherical, and on the battle between Aristotle and Heraclides Ponticus on the question whether the universe is finite or infinite. “In this book, Dirk L. Couprie presents his efforts at clarifying the views of the pioneers of theoretical cosmology. It covers the crucial period from about the middle of the sixth until the middle of the fourth century B.C., with its focus on the magnificent figure of Anaximander. The book by Dirk Couprie constitutes an important and in several respects indispensable contribution to this field.” Dmitri Panchenko St. Petersburg State Universit

Anaxagoras on the Milky Way and Lunar Eclipses

Anaxagoras is commonly known as the discoverer of the true explanation of eclipses of the moon as caused by the earth’s shadow. Anaxagoras is also said to have explained the phenomenon of the Milky Way as caused by the earth’s shadow. In this paper, the two theories are described, it is shown that and why they are incompatible, and it is argued which of the two most likely can be ascribed to Anaxagoras. This is first studied by exploring which of the two theories is best documented. After that, it is examined which of the two fi ts best with Anaxagoras’ other astronomical ideas. It is argued that both procedures point to the theory of the Anaxagoras on the Milky Way and Lunar Eclipses 207 Milky Way as Anaxagoras’ actual conception of the role of the earth’s shadow. Consequently, the earth’s shadow has nothing to do with lunar eclipses, and Anaxagoras is mistakenly honored as the discoverer of the true theory of lunar eclipses. It is also argued that invisible heavenly objects that move before the moon, which are mentioned in the doxography on Anaxagoras as an additional explanation, must have been his one and only explanation of lunar eclipses, and it is tried to explain how this theory has come to be called additional. Finally, the unanswered question of Anaxagoras’ conception of the moon’s light and phases points forward to a sequel of this paper

When the Earth was flat: studies in ancient Greek and Chinese cosmology

This book is a sequel to Heaven and Earth in Ancient Greek Cosmology (Springer 2011). With the help of many pictures, the reader is introduced into the way of thinking of ancient believers in a flat earth. The first part offers new interpretations of several Presocratic cosmologists and a critical discussion of Aristotle’s proofs that the earth is spherical. The second part explains and discusses the ancient Chinese system called gai tian. The last chapter shows that, inadvertently, ancient arguments and ideas return in the curious modern flat earth cosmologies

Anaximander’s ‘Boundless Nature’

The usual interpretation has it that Anaximander made ‘the Boundless’ (τὸ ἄπειρον) the source and principle of everything. However, in the works of Aristotle, the nearest witness, no direct connection can be found between Anaximander and ‘the Boundless’. On the contrary, Aristotle says that all the physicists made something else the subject of which ἄπειρος is a predicate (Phys. 203 a 4). When we take this remark seriously, it must include Anaximander as well. This means that Anaximander did not make τὸ ἄπειρον the source or principle of everything, but rather called something else ἄπειρος. The question is, then, what was the subject that he adorned with this predicate. The hypothesis defended in this article is that it must have been ϕύσις, not in its Aristotelian technical sense, but in the pregnant sense of natura creatrix: the power that brings everything into existence and makes it grow and move. This ‘nature’ is boundless. It rules everything and in this sense it can be called ‘divine’. Being boundless, the mechanisms of nature, in which the opposites play an important role, are multifarious. The things created by boundless nature are not boundless, but finite, as they are destined to the destruction they impose onto each other, as Anaximander’s fragment says

Anaxagoras on the Light and Phases of the Moon

This paper is a sequel of “Anaxagoras on the Milky Way and Lunar Eclipses” (Couprie 2017). Doxographic reports state that, according to Anaxagoras, the moon receives its light from the sun. Most authors understand it as meaning “the moon reflects the light of the sun”. This conflicts, however, with several testimonies that say clearly that the moon is a fiery stone, using essentially the same words as they do for the sun. O’Brien (1968) has already pointed out that the expression “the moon receives its light from the sun” is ambiguous. I argue that, within the general context of Anaxagoras’ astronomy, it is more probable that “the moon receives its light from the sun” means that the moon’s light is ignited by the sun. Unfortunately, we do not possess information on Anaxagoras’ explanation of the moon’s phases. I suggest two options. In one, the moon is ignited by the sun when, during new moon, the two luminaries are close together. After that, the fire spreads and extinguishes during the monthly cycle of phases. In the other, the moon’s phases are due to an invisible body, just like during a lunar eclipse. My conclusion from both papers is that Anaxagoras was not the great discoverer of the real cause of lunar eclipses and the moon light as he is depicted in recent publications. Anaxagoras inventively defended a coherent set of ideas that were already outdated: the flat earth, the Milky Way caused by the earth’s shadow, the moon a fiery stone, and lunar eclipses caused by invisible heavenly bodies. As regards his general understanding of the heavenly phenomena, he is best escribed as a tragic figure