Cosmic Retribution #338

Anaximander and Anaximenes

Dear friends and supporters of Daily Philosophy,

Last week’s article on Thales prompted one of our readers and supporters, an eminent ancient Greek philosophy expert, to write me a very critical email about the accuracy of the article. Primarily, he objected that I had relied too much on general (and outdated) opinion, while newer research had conclusively changed the received narrative and now represented the state of the art in Thales studies.

Well, these are the dangers of having professional researchers among one’s readers. Still, I want to give a brief reply to that, because I feel that I have a responsibility towards you, the readers of this newsletter, to provide you with good information and not with erroneous and outdated opinions.

In my opinion, we have to recognise that:

1. Daily Philosophy is not a research outlet. I am not reporting on the newest research findings, and it would be impossible for me to do so, given the breadth of topics we cover. If any of you, Daily Philosophy’s readers, are experts in an area where it would be important to report of new insights, you are welcome to send me your articles for publication so that we can set the record straight and get your results out to the public.

2. Daily Philosophy is written for a general audience, and general readers are served better by general, rather than too specialised knowledge. If a reader does not know anything about Thales, then they wouldn’t be served well by an article that contradicts the well-known narrative, even if it is, technically, correct. If they then used the information they gained from such an article in any everyday (non-research) context, they would immediately be seen as wrong by all the others who also know only the general, received narrative. With very well-known figures and stories, like those of the ancient Greeks, one cannot begin by reading the dissenting research opinion. One must first learn about the widespread, received opinion, even if this is inaccurate in places, and then, if still interested, proceed towards advanced scholarship. When I write an article for Daily Philosophy, I am basing it on a number of well-regarded introductory sources, mainly: Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy, Copleston’s History of Philosophy, the Stanford and Internet Encyclopedias of Philosophy, Diogenes Laertius’ Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, and occasionally additional primary or secondary sources. If all these more or less agree on a story, then I don’t think that I should be required to do more research.

All that said, the professor who wrote me also recommended a book that does a better job of presenting the state of art in Thales studies: Livio Rossetti’s Thales the Measurer. Click on the link to see it on Amazon, and if you are interested in a better and more accurate depiction of Thales’ works and relevance, then please feel free to read that book.

Still, I do value your opinions, and I’m always grateful to receive your feedback and also criticism. I was really happy to learn of that book and the new opinions on Thales, and I will certainly have a look at it. So, thanks!

On new videos, I have a small discussion here on how we can use inspiration from Aristotle’s ethics to judge whether a particular AI use is “cheating” or not:

And EveryDawn, our very decidedly not scholarly inspiration channel, has a new, short video on the Hindu stages of life and how we can see our own lives in this light:

A big thanks goes to all who visited and took my new online course, “Ancient Insights for a Happier Life”. It’s only USD 3.99, so it won’t break the bank. If you took it already, or you do in the future, please do send me some feedback on what you thought of it. I want to make more courses in the future, and it would be really good to know whether you thought that the treatment was appropriate, the production was good enough, and how you judge the value that you got out of it. Just reply to this email, and I will receive your reply! Thanks!

And the last, very short bit of news: The Daily Philosophy Essay Contest 2024 is now closed for submissions. We received 25 essays, which will be judged by three judges, me and two of my colleagues, whose names I will disclose later (they have not yet agreed to me putting their names out here). Expect to hear of the results towards the end of September or the beginning of October. I’m very happy that we got so many contestants to send us their works, and you will all read the winning entries here in the near future!

Back to our history of ancient Greek philosophy! After Thales, we come to two philosophers whose names are easy to confuse: Anaximander and Anaximenes (and not to mention that later on, we’ll also meet Anaxagoras!) If the Greeks had only had the sense to name their children Jones, Brown and Smith... (Did you get the literary reference? Tell me in the comments!)

Anaximander and Anaximenes

Ancient Greek philosophers often come in schools, which is no wonder, given the small city-states they lived in. How many independent philosophy traditions can you fit into a city of 20,000 (the estimated population of ancient Miletus)? So Anaximander (610-540 BCE) was a student of Thales, and Anaximenes (585-525 BCE) was a student of Anaximander. If you tend to confuse the two, they come in alphabetical order (but not Anaxagoras).

Of the two, Anaximander seems to be the more sophisticated one, and his theory has had a lot more influence later on.