Anaximander

Reviews / Votes

Andrew Gregory's Anaximander: A Re-assessment is well-argued book that gives us a systematic Anaximander with a network of connecting views on the well-ordered nature of things, including zoogony, meteorology, cosmology, and astronomy. Gregory's careful analysis of ancient texts and modern interpretations is a boon for students and for anyone interested in the beginnings of Greek philosophy and science. -- Patricia Curd, Professor of Philosophy, Purdue University, USA Gregory's Anaximander describes how the first great Greek cosmologist looks back to his poetic predecessors and how later thinkers, particularly Plato, look back to him. By emphasizing the stability, symmetry, and order of Anaximander's system and its integration of natural philosophical and theological principles, Gregory provides a stimulating and welcome contribution to the study of early Greek philosophy. -- John Palmer, Professor of Philosophy University of Florida, USA This book offers a persuasive attempt to show Anaximander as a systematic thinker whose coherent and far-reaching views on cosmology, astronomy, meteorology, and zoogony are based on observation and folk-knowledge. It gives thoughtful attention to those fragments of Anaximander which are frequently overlooked, while also showing the fruitfulness of making explicit the Homeric and Hesiodic background against which Anaximander writes. More generally, this book provides a careful discussion of the particular way in which a Presocratic thinker can be scientifically-minded and yet allow divinity an important place in his account of the world. * Barbara Sattler, Lecturer in Philosophy, University of St Andrews, UK *