He completely discarded the ocean that Thales said supports the earth. Anaximander said there is nothing underneath the earth supporting it. He asserted that the earth floats in the center of infinity, held in position because it is an equal distance from all the other parts of the universe.
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How do Anaximander viewed Earth in his model?
Anaximander was the first to conceive a mechanical model of the world. In his model, the Earth floats very still in the centre of the infinite, not supported by anything. It remains “in the same place because of its indifference”, a point of view that Aristotle considered ingenious, but false, in On the Heavens.
What was Anaximander theory?
Anaximander postulated eternal motion, along with the apeiron, as the originating cause of the world. This (probably rotary) motion caused opposites, such as hot and cold, to be separated from one another as the world came into being.
How does Anaximander conclude that the earth is floating in a void?
The strangeness disappears, however, when we realize that Anaximander thought that the earth was flat and circular, as suggested by the horizon. For one who thinks, as Anaximander did, that the earth floats unsupported in the center of the universe, the cylinder-shape lies at hand.
What is the concept of apeiron by Anaximander?
Anaximander introduced the apeiron (the boundless) as the beginning of everything (the first principle). According to his theory, the apeiron is undefined and ever moving. It gives birth to the contradictory terms of warm and cold, and of moist and dry, and their perpetual strife.
What did Anaximander say about the Earth?
Anaximander described the Earth as rounded and circular with two plane surfaces (not necessarily a flat disk, more like a cylinder or ‘stone pillar’), which was suspended freely in space. It stays where it is because it is equidistant from everything else in the Universe.
What is Anaximander’s conclusion?
When considering the underlying foundation of the universe, Anaximander came to the conclusion that this world has the capacity for infinite plurality; meaning that the things within our universe are unique.
What question is Anaximander trying to answer?
The three first philosophers from Miletus were Thales, Anaximander and Anaximines, all of whom attempted to answer the question “What is the common stuff from which everything is composed?”
What is the first principle of Anaximander?
Anaximander was a pupil of Thales – Anaximander, son of Praxiades, a Milesian. He said that a certain infinite nature is first principle of the things that exist. From it come the heavens and the worlds in them. It is eternal and ageless, and it contains all the worlds.
What was Anaximander’s objection to making a common element such as water as Thales had proposed the Archê?
His objection to water cannot have been that there was only a finite amount of it. Rather, it was that water is a determinate kind of stuff, essentially cold and wet. If originally there was only water, we are left with no account of how there could be any hot, or dry, or fire. See KRS 109-110.