The Unlimited and generation of the opposites

I now return to the generation of the opposites, as the mechanisms and laws by which they are generated and they generate would be highly interesting for our current project. Please note that while I earlier have raised objections towards the reliance on the opposites and their internal balance for Anaximander’s theories to be viewed as explanations of (more or less) coherence, I do not by this exclude from Anaximander the notion of something in nature that may be labelled ‘opposites’. By an ‘opposite’ in this context I mean ‘something that

contravenes the specific and essential powers that an object, substance, or property possesses’.

In fact I am positively claiming that Anaximander did argue such powers in nature, but I also maintain that he believed “existing things” to rely on these opposites in some way, and that he did not argue for an independent existence of ‘the hot’ and ‘the cold’. His apparatus of

concepts and notions had not evolved into that stage where one separates properties from substances into abstract concepts.

Let us then look at the doxographical evidence for generation of the opposites:

“But the others say that the opposites are separated out from the One, being present in it, as Anaximander says and all who say there are one and many, like Empedocles and Anaxagoras; for these, too, separate out the rest from the mixture”. (Aristotle, Physics I.4, 187a20 = KRS 118)

“It is clear that he [Anaximander], seeing the changing of the four elements into each other, thought it right to make none of these the substratum, but something else beside these; and he produces coming-to-be not through the alteration of the element, but by the separation off of the opposites through the eternal motion”. (Simplicius, Physics, 24, 21 = KRS 119)

“He says that that which is productive from the eternal of hot and cold was separated off at the coming-to-be of this world, and that a kind of sphere of flame from this was formed around the air surrounding the earth, like bark around a tree. When this was broken off and shut off in certain circles, the sun and the moon and the stars were formed”. (Pseudo-Plutarch, Stromateis 2 = KRS 121)

If Anaximander indeed specified how the opposites are generated, that information is lost to us. If the interpretations claiming that Anaximander argued some ‘eternal motion’ for the creation of opposites (or multiple worlds) are correct, how, exactly does the Unlimited

through the ‘eternal motion’ create them? It seems the eternal motion contributes to the entire theory of the Unlimited as creator greater explanatory strength, in so far as it suggests some change, or some powers (kinesis) that could be natural to pursue in connection with creation.

It has, however, been shown in this essay that the idea of causes having some kinesis or being somehow empowered with creative efficiency is a ‘modern’ concept of causes, one influenced by the Stoics’ notion of cause. There is then simply not fitting to attribute to Anaximander any generative power or constant changing life-force as a cause.

Nevertheless, the questions concerning analysis of causation as such have to do with whether the generation of the opposites happens with some sort of necessity or not. Does the Unlimited have to generate opposites? Under what conditions will this generation occur?

Given that the Unlimited is deathless and ageless¹¹⁹, in modern terms ‘eternal’, necessitation

119 cf. DK12 B2; B3 in the context of DK12 A11; A15

in that generation could mean that opposites are generated ceaselessly, and, therefore, if the opposites create worlds, new worlds ceaselessly would be created.

I would find this a very strong argument in favour of Anaximander postulating multiple, successive worlds. But does Anaximander postulate necessity in generation of opposites? Or is this generation of the opposites from the Unlimited an isolated incident, something that occurred once in the history of the Unlimited? I do not find the latter idea very appealing, given how Anaximander describes the Unlimited according to the doxographical sources. It appears to me described as an eternal entity, which produces the opposites

cyclically and predictably, mirroring the reproduction cycles in biological entities. Should the generation of the opposites be an isolated incident, we surely could expect Anaximander to explain why this freak incident occurred. For if there is no further explanation as to why the Unlimited generated opposites at one point in time, it could do so again, an unlimited number of times, just as well as it would never do so again. This explanation of the present, actual world would therefore be a failed explanation, for it fails to explain the existence of this world. It is a regressive move that merely pushes the explanatory gap one step further down our inference. The world is explained by the opposites, but these again are not explained, merely described by reference to some unspecified creation by the Unlimited.

It might well be that we should not expect some coherent notion of causation in Anaximander, but we could expect some coherent (notion of) explanation from him, or so I think. I think it is clear that Anaximander did assume that all things had causes, and if they did not there required some special explanation for that unique being (e.g. the Unlimited being uncaused).

According to Hankinson (1998), it is not necessary for Anaximander to explain the opposites: “Anaximander does not tell us how the great cosmic cycle is powered (beyond adverting to the ‘eternal motion’). But this is not necessarily an explanatory deficiency:

admitting that some things are beyond explanation may rather be straightforward realism”

(1998:17). The reasoning has to stop somewhere, the argument goes, or else one finds oneself in explanatory eternal regress. Consequently Anaximander applies explanatory

foundationalism or realism, as Hankinson would have it. Now, if he by this indicates that what causes the Unlimited to generate cyclically is and must remain unexplained, I halfway agree, there are special rules and circumstances for the Unlimited, explained by the

Unlimited’s special status. If he by this indicates that the opposites need no explanation, then I think him mistaken; I maintain that Anaximander argues all physical objects to have causes.