Anaximander: And the Birth of Science

We can say that the very notion of “nature” as a field of inquiry is the fundamental contribution of the Milesian school. The term used for this meaning of “nature,” φύσις (physis), probably originated in Miletus. On the other side, the very idea of studying nature is based on the recognition that nature does not reveal itself in its entirety to di

Philosophy school textbooks tell us that the first philosophical school was the Ionic school, which consisted of Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes.

The cities of Ionia were inhabited by Greeks. They had probably arrived from various parts of Greece long before, perhaps a century or two after the Trojan War, and mingled with the existing local populations. The cities of Ionia were independent but joined in a confederation, the Ionian League, mostly cultural and religious in nature.[12] The leag

Anaximander did something profoundly new. He immersed himself in Thales’s problems, and he embraced Thales’s finest insights, way of thinking, and intellectual conquests. But at the same time he undertook a frontal critique of the master’s assertions.

Even more important than these contributions, he set in motion the process of rethinking our worldview—a search for knowledge based on the rejection of any obvious-seeming “certainty,” which is one of the main roots of scientific thinking.

The first evidence we have of written language is, in fact, of two languages, Sumerian and Akkadian.

Henri Bergson wrote that religion was society’s defense against the caustic power of intelligence.

But the space of thinkable thoughts is infinite, and we have explored only an infinitesimal fraction so far. The world stands before us, waiting to be explored.

There are no “pure” facts, observations, or empirical data upon which to found theoretical constructions, because our perceptions are heavily structured by our brains, habits of thought, prejudices, and theories. Nor is there a purely rational procedure of thinking that can grant certainty, because we are never truly able to reset to zero the tangl