Anaximander: And the Nature of Science

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.

He is using a conceptual reasoning that has a precise historical origin, Anaximander’s apeiron.

This immense turning point took place in Greek thought of the sixth century BCE, and it is consistently attributed to Anaximander in all of the ancient texts.

Anaximander’s greatness lies in the fact that on the basis of so little, in order to better account for his observations, he redesigns the universe.

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.