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Western Philosophy Pre-Socratic philosophy
Detail of Raphael's painting The School of Athens, 1510–1511. This could be a representation of Anaximander leaning towards Pythagoras on his left.[1]
Name:	Anaximander (Ἀναξίμανδρος)
Birth:	c. 610
Death:	c. 546
School/tradition:	Ionian Philosophy, Milesian school, Naturalism
Main interests:	Metaphysics, astronomy, geometry, geography
Notable ideas:	The apeiron is the first principle
Influences:	Thales of Miletus
Influenced:	Anaximenes, Pythagoras

Anaximander (Ancient Greek: Ἀναξίμανδρος) (c.610 BC – c. 546 BC) was a pre-Socratic philosopher who lived in Miletus, a city of Ionia. He joined the Milesian school where he received the teachings of its master Thales. He succeeded him and became the second master of that school where he counted Anaximenes and Pythagoras amongst his pupils.

Little of his life and work is known today. According to available historical documents, he is the first philosopher known to have written down his studies^{[verification needed]} although only one fragment of his work remains. Ancient testimonies collected here and there in documents posterior to him allow to assemble bit by bit a portrait of the man.

Anaximander was an early proponent of science and tried to observe and explain different aspects of the universe, with a particular interest for its origins. Like many thinkers of his time, his contributions to philosophy relate to many disciplines. In astronomy, he tried to describe the mechanics of celestial bodies in relation with the Earth. In physics, he postulated that the infinite (or apeiron) was the source of all things. His knowledge of geometry allowed him to introduce the gnomon in Greece. He created a map of the world that contributed greatly in the advancement of geography. He also got involved in the politics of Miletus as he was sent as a leader to one of its colonies.

The Anaximander crater on the Moon was named in his honour.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Theories 2.1 Apeiron 2.2 Cosmology 2.3 Multiple worlds 2.4 Meteorological phenomena 2.5 Origin of humankind 3 Other accomplishments 3.1 Cartography 3.2 Gnomon 3.3 Prediction of an earthquake 4 Interpretations 5 Works 6 See also 7 Footnotes 8 References 8.1 Primary sources 8.2 Secondary sources 9 External links

Anaximander, son of Praxiades, was born in Miletus during the third year of the 42^nd Olympiad (610 BC).^[2] According to Apollodorus, Greek grammarian of the 2^nd century BC, he was sixty-four years old during the second year of the 58^th Olympiad (547-546 BC), and died shortly afterwards.^[3]

Very few documents can provide details on his life. Fragments that refer to him concern his work, except for the very short description provided by the Greek biographer Diogenes Laertius. Anaximander was a pupil of Thales, founder of the Milesian School of philosophy. He succeeded him as master of the School where his work influenced Anaximenes and Pythagoras. According to the Suda, it would appear that Thales was also a relative, probably his cousin or uncle,^[4] but no other text can provide any information about Anaximander's family life.

Establishing a timeline of his work is now impossible, since no document provides chronological references. Anaximander would have reached the pinnacle of his career around the time of Polycrates, tyrant of Samos. Themistius, a 4^th century Byzantine rhethorician, mentions that Anaximander was the "first of the known Greeks to publish a written document on nature" and by this very fact, his texts would be amongst the earliest written in prose, at least in the Western world. By the time of Plato, his philosophy was almost forgotten, and Aristotle, his successor Theophrastus and a few doxographers provided us with the little information that remains.

The 3^rd century Roman rhetorician Aelian depicts him as leader of the Milesian colony to Apollonia on the Black Sea coast, and hence some have inferred that he was a prominent citizen. Indeed, Various History (III, 17) explains that philosophers sometimes left the contentment of their thoughts to deal with political matters. It is very likely that leaders of Miletus sent him there as a legislator to bring forth a constitution or simply maintain the colony’s allegiance.

In Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (II, 2), Diogenes Laertius reports an amusing anecdote regarding his personality: learning that children were mocking him when he was singing, Anaximander replied that he should learn to sing better for the children.

The antipope Hippolytus of Rome (I, 5), and later 4^th-century Byzantine philosopher Simplicius of Cilicia, attribute to Anaximander the earliest use of the word apeírôn (ἀπείρων / infinite or limitless) to designate the original principle. He is the first philosopher to employ, in a philosophical context, the term arkhế (ἀρχή), which until then had meant beginning or origin. For Anaximander, it became no longer a mere point in time, but a source that could perpetually give birth to whatever will be.

Aristotle writes (Metaphysics, I III 3-4) that the Pre-Socratics were searching for the element that constitutes all things. While each pre-Socratic philosopher gave a different answer as to what this element was (water for Thales, air for Anaximenes, fire for Heraclitus), Anaximander understood the beginning or first principle to be an endless, unlimited primordial mass (apeiron), subject to neither old age nor decay, that perpetually yielded fresh materials from which everything we perceive is derived.^[5] Anaximander offered up the theory of the apeiron in direct response to the earlier theory of his teacher, Thales, who had claimed that the primary substance was water.

For Anaximander, the principle of things, the constituent of all substances, is nothing determined and not an element such as water in Thales' view. Neither is it something halfway between air and water, or between air and fire, thicker than air and fire, or more subtle than water and earth.^[6] Anaximander argues that water cannot embrace all of the opposites found in nature - for example, water can only be wet, never dry - and therefore cannot be the one primary substance; nor could any of the other candidates. Anaximander postulated the apeiron as a substance that, although not directly perceptible to us, could explain the opposites he saw around him.

Anaximander explains how the four elements of ancient physics (air, earth, water and fire) are formed, and how Earth and terrestrial beings are formed through their interactions. Unlike other Pre-Socratics, he never defines this principle precisely, and it has generally been understood (e.g., by Aristotle and by Saint Augustine, a Roman Catholic philosopher and theologian) as a sort of primal chaos. According to Anaximander, the Universe originates in the separation of opposites in the primordial matter. It embraces the opposites of hot and cold, wet and dry, and directs the movement of things; an entire host of shapes and differences then grow that are found in "all the worlds" (for he believed there were many).

Anaximander maintains that all dying things are returning to the element from which they came (apeiron). The one surviving fragment of Anaximander's writing deals with this matter. Simplicius transmitted it as a quote, which describes the balanced and mutual changes of the elements:^[7]

Whence things have their origin,
Thence also their destruction happens,
According to necessity;
For they give to each other justice and recompense
For their injustice
In conformity with the ordinance of Time.

Punctuation does not exist in Ancient Greek and quotes usually blend with surrounding text. Consequently, deciding where they start and where they end is often difficult. However, it is generally accepted that this quote is not Simplicius' own interpretation, but Anaximander's writing, in "somewhat poetic terms".

This concept of returning to the element of origin was often revisited afterwards, notably by Aristotle (Metaphysics, I, 3, 983 b 8-11; Physics, III, 5, 204 b 33-34) and by the Greek tragedian Euripides ("what comes from earth must return to earth", Supplices, v. 532). It is even echoed in the Judeo-Christian phrase, "For dust you are and to dust you will return".

Anaximander's bold use of non-mythological explanatory hypotheses considerably distinguishes him from previous cosmology writers such as Hesiod. It confirms that pre-Socratic philosophers were making an early effort to demythify the genealogical process. Anaximander's major contribution to history was writing the oldest prose document about the Universe and the origins of life; for this he is often called the "Father of Cosmology" and founder of astronomy. However, pseudo-Plutarch (name given to unknown authors whose works are attributed to the Greek biographer Plutarch) (I, 7) states that he still viewed celestial bodies as deities.

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 (II, 13). Its curious shape is that of a cylinder^[8] with a height one-third of its diameter. The flat top forms the inhabited world, which is surrounded by a circular oceanic mass.

Such a model allowed the concept that celestial bodies could pass under it. It leads further than Thales’ claim of a world floating on water, for which Thales faced the problem of explaining what would contain this ocean, while Anaximander solved it by introducing his concept of infinite (apeiron).

At the origin, after the separation of hot and cold, a ball of flame appeared that surrounded Earth like bark on a tree. This ball broke apart to form the rest of the Universe. It resembled a system of hollow concentric wheels, filled with fire, with the rims pierced by holes like those of a flute. Consequently, the Sun was the fire that one could see through a hole the same size as the Earth on the farthest wheel, and an eclipse corresponded with the occlusion of that hole. The diameter of the solar wheel was twenty-seven times that of the Earth (or twenty-eight, depending on the sources^[9]) and the lunar wheel, whose fire was less intense, eighteen (or nineteen) times. Its hole could change shape, thus explaining lunar phases. The stars and the planets, located closer,^[10] followed the same model.^[11]

Anaximander was the first astronomer to consider the Sun as a huge mass, and consequently, to realize how far from Earth it might be, and the first to present a system where the celestial bodies turned at different distances. Furthermore, according to Diogenes Laertius (II, 2), Anaximander built a celestial sphere. This invention undoubtedly made him the first to realize the obliquity of the Zodiac as the Roman philosopher Pliny the Elder reports in Natural History (II, 8). It is a little early to use the term ecliptic, but Anaximander's knowledge and work on astronomy confirm that he must have observed the inclination of the celestial sphere in relation with the plane of the Earth to explain the seasons. The doxographer and theologian Aetius attributes to Pythagoras the exact measurement of the obliquity.

According to Simplicius, Anaximander already speculated on the plurality of worlds, similar to atomists Leucippus and Democritus, and later philosopher Epicurus. These thinkers supposed that worlds appeared and disappeared for a while, and that some were born when others perished. They claimed that this movement was eternal, "for without movement, there can be no generation, no destruction".^[12]

In addition to Simplicius, Hippolytus (Refutation I, 6) reports Anaximander's claim that from the infinite comes the principle of beings, which themselves come from the heavens and the worlds (several doxographers use the plural when this philosopher is referring to the worlds within,^[13] which are often infinite in quantity). Cicero writes that Anaximander attributes different gods to the countless worlds.^[14]

This theory places Anaximander close to the Atomists and the Epicureans who, more than a century later, also claimed that an infinity of worlds appeared and disappeared. In the timeline of the Greek history of thought, some thinkers conceptualized a single world (Plato, Aristotle, Anaxagoras and Archelaus), while others instead speculated on the existence of a series of worlds, continuous or non-continuous (Anaximenes, Heraclitus, Empedocles and Diogenes). It is impossible to draw conclusions from Anaximander's thought process, about which we know very little; nevertheless there seems to be a logical relationship between his apeiron, indefinite in time, and the infinity of worlds.^{[verification needed]}

Anaximander explained some phenomena, such as thunder and lightning, as the intervention of elements, rather than divine causes.^[15] In his system, thunder results from the shock of clouds hitting each other; the loudness of the sound is proportionate with that of the shock. If it thunders without any lightning, it is because the wind is too weak to emit any flame, but strong enough to produce a sound. In the other hand, a flash of lightning would be a jolt of the air that disperses and falls, allowing a less active fire to break free, and a thunderbolt, the result of a thicker and more violent air flow.^[16]

Anaximander saw the sea as a remnant of the original humidity.^[17] According to him, a mass of humidity once surrounded Earth. A part of that mass evaporated under the sun's action thus causing the winds and even the rotation of the celestial bodies, as if the sea vapours and exhalations encouraged their movement, trying to follow the places where water is more abundant.^[18] For Anaximander, the Earth was slowly drying up and water only remained in the deepest regions, which someday would go dry as well. According to Aristotle's Meteorology (II, 3), Democritus also shared this opinion. Anaximander explained the rain as a product of the humidity pumped up from Earth by the Sun.^[2]

Anaximander speculated on the dawn of life and the origin of animal life. Taking into account the existence of fossils, he claimed that long ago, animals sprang out of the sea. He said that the first animals were born trapped in a spiny bark, but as they got older, the bark would dry up and break.^[19] As the early humidity evaporated, dry land emerged and in time, humankind had to adapt. The 3^rd century Roman writer Censorinus reports:

"Anaximander of Miletus considered that from warmed up water and earth emerged either fish or entirely fishlike animals. Inside these animals, men took form and embryos were held prisoners until puberty; only then, after these animals burst open, could men and women come out, now able to feed themselves." (De Die Natali, IV, 7)

He put forward the idea that humans had to spend part of this transition inside the mouths of big fish to protect themselves from climate until they could come out in open air and lose their scales.^[20] For, he thought, man with his extended infancy could not have survived, originally, in the manner he does presently.

Even though Anaximander had no theory of natural selection, some people consider him as evolution's most ancient proponent. The theory of an aquatic descent of man was re-conceived centuries later as the aquatic ape hypothesis. These pre-Darwinian concepts may seem strange considering modern knowledge and scientific methods, for they present very complete systems of explanation of the universe with the use of bold and hard to demonstrate hypotheses. But they illustrate the beginning of a phenomenon sometimes called the "Greek miracle": men try to explain the nature of the world, not with the aid of myths or religion, but with material principles. One could say that this is the very principle of scientific thought, even if research methods have considerably improved since then.

Both Strabo and Agathemerus, Greek geographers whose work postdates Anaximander, claim at the very start of their work on geography that, according to the geographer Eratosthenes, Anaximander was the first to publish a map of the world. The map probably inspired the Greek historian Hecataeus to draw a more accurate one. Strabo viewed Anaximander and Hecataeus as the first geographers after Homer.

Of course, in ancient times, local maps had already appeared, notably in Egypt, in Lydia, in the Middle East and in Babylon. They indicated roads, towns, borders and geological features. Anaximander's innovation was to represent the entire inhabited land known to Ancient Greeks.

Such an accomplishment is more significant than it at first appears. Anaximander most likely drew this map for three reasons.^[21]

• For navigation and trade; Miletus owned several colonies and was trading with other colonies than its own, as well around the Mediterranean Sea as around the Black Sea.
• For political matters; had he disposed of such a tool, Thales would probably have found it easier to convince the Ionian city-states to join in a federation in order to push the Median threat away.
• For philosophical interest; his map was probably the most accurate of that time (if not the first) and the idea of having a global representation of the world simply for the sake of knowledge was reason enough to design one.

Anaximander, surely aware of the sea's convexity, may have designed his map on a slightly rounded metal surface. The centre or “navel” of the world (ὀμφαλός γῆς / omphalós gẽs) could have been Delphi, or at least it was at one point. However, in Anaximander's time, it is very likely that it was located near Miletus. Anyhow, the Aegean Sea was near that centre, enclosed by three continents, themselves located in the middle of the ocean and isolated, such as islands, by sea and rivers. Europe was bordered south by the Mediterranean Sea and separated from Asia by the Pontus Euxinus (the Black Sea), by the Lake Maeotis, and further east, either by the Phasis River, now called the Rioni, or the Tanais, that both could flow in the ocean. The Nile flowed south into the ocean, separating Libya (which was the name for the part of the African continent known then) from Asia.

The Suda relates that Anaximander explained some basic notions of geometry. It also mentions his interest for the measurement of time and associates him with the introduction in Greece of the gnomon. In Lacedaemon, he participated in the construction, or at least in the adjustment, of sundials to indicate solstices and equinoxes.

These accomplishments are often attributed to him, notably by Diogenes Laertius (II, 1) and by the Roman historian Eusebius of Caesarea, Preparation for the Gospel (X, 14, 11). The mere fact that Anaximander went to another town to establish sundials infers that they were already there, or that people simply heard of them. The first option remains possible, since even though people had already built sundials, these require adjustments from a place to another because of the difference in latitude.

In those days, the gnomon was simply a vertical pillar or rod mounted on a horizontal plane upon which it casts its shadow. Primarily, the shadow informs of the time of day. By its apparent course in the sky, the sun draws a curve with the tip of the projected shadow, which is the shortest at noon, when pointing due south. The variation in the tip’s position at noon indicates the solar time and the seasons, the solstices being the days when the shadow is the longest (in winter) or the shortest (in summer).

That being said, its invention cannot be attributed to Anaximander since its use, as well as the division of days into twelve parts, came from the Babylonians. It is they, according to the famous Greek historian Herodotus in the Histories (II, 109), who gave the Greeks the art of time measurement. It would be surprising that they could not determine solstices before Anaximander, because no calculation is necessary. On the other hand, equinoxes do not simply correspond to the middle point between the positions during solstices, as the Babylonians thought. As the Suda seems to suggest, it is very likely that Anaximander, with his knowledge of geometry, became the first Greek to figure them out.

In his philosophical work De Divinatione (I, 50, 112), Cicero states that Anaximander convinced the inhabitants of Lacedaemon to abandon their city and to spend the night in the country with their weapons because an earthquake was near. The city collapsed when the top of the Taygetus split like the stern of a ship. Pliny the Elder also mentions this anecdote (II, 81), suggesting that it came from an "admirable inspiration", as opposed to Cicero who did not associate the prediction with divination.

Bertrand Russell in the History of Western Philosophy interprets the above quote as an assertion of the necessity of an appropriate balance between earth, fire, and water elements, all of which may be independently seeking to aggrandize their proportions relative to the others. Anaximander seems to express his belief that a natural order ensures balance between these elements, that where there was fire, ashes (earth) now exist. Anaximander's Greek peers echoed this sentiment with their belief in natural boundaries that not even their Gods could operate beyond.

Nietzsche, in his Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, claimed that Anaximander was a pessimist. Anaximander asserted that the primal being of the world was a state of indefiniteness. In accordance with this, anything definite has to eventually pass back into indefiniteness. In other words, Anaximander viewed "...all coming-to-be as though it were an illegitimate emancipation from eternal being, a wrong for which destruction is the only penance." (Ibid., § 4) The world of individual objects, in this way of thinking, has no worth and should perish.

Martin Heidegger was known to have lectured extensively on Anaximander (along with Parmenides and Heraclitus) and wrote a section in Off the Beaten Track called "Anaximander's Saying" in which he examines the ontological difference and the oblivion of Being or Dasein in the pre-Platonics.

According to the Suda:^[22]

• On Nature (Περὶ φύσεως / Perì phúseôs)
• Around the Earth (Γῆς περίοδον / Gễs períodon)
• On Fixed Bodies (Περὶ τῶν ἀπλανῶν / Perì tỗn aplanỗn)
• The Sphere (Σφαῖραν / Sphaĩran)

• Milesian school
• Evolutionism

1. ^ This character is traditionally associated with Boethius, however his face offering similarities with a bust of Anaximander, it could be a representation of the philosopher.See http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/SchoolAthens2.htm for a description of the characters in this painting.
2. ^ ^{a b} Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies (I, 5)
3. ^ In his Chronicles, as reported by Diogenes Laertius, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (II, 2).
4. ^ The use of the word {{Polytonic|συγγενὴς]] in the Suda may refer to relatives, but in Ancient Greek, it can refer to men of the same race. Thales was about fifteen years older that Anaximander. Even though technically they could be brothers, the Suda attributes them different fathers. So it is most likely that Thales was either his uncle or his cousin.
5. ^ Opinion refuted by Pseudo-Plutarch, The Doctrines of the Philosophers (I, 3).
6. ^ Aristotle, On Generation and Corruption (II, 5)
7. ^ Simplicius, Comments on Aristotle's Physics (24, 13):

   "Ἀναξίμανδρος [...] λέγει δ' αὐτὴν μήτε ὕδωρ μήτε ἄλλο τι τῶν καλουμένων εἶναι στοιχείων, ἀλλ' ἑτέραν τινὰ φύσιν ἄπειρον, ἐξ ἧς ἅπαντας γίνεσθαι τοὺς οὐρανοὺς καὶ τοὺς ἐν αὐτοῖς κόσμους· ἐξ ὧν δὲ ἡ γένεσίς ἐστι τοῖς οὖσι, καὶ τὴν φθορὰν εἰς ταῦτα γίνεσθαι κατὰ τὸ χρεών· διδόναι γὰρ αὐτὰ δίκην καὶ τίσιν ἀλλήλοις τῆς ἀδικίας κατὰ τὴν τοῦ χρόνου τάξιν, ποιητικωτέροις οὕτως ὀνόμασιν αὐτὰ λέγων. δῆλον δὲ ὅτι τὴν εἰς ἄλληλα μεταβολὴν τῶν τεττάρων στοιχείων οὗτος θεασάμενος οὐκ ἠξίωσεν ἕν τι τούτων ὑποκείμενον ποιῆσαι, ἀλλά τι ἄλλο παρὰ ταῦτα· οὗτος δὲ οὐκ ἀλλοιουμένου τοῦ στοιχείου τὴν γένεσιν ποιεῖ, ἀλλ' ἀποκρινομένων τῶν ἐναντίων διὰ τῆς αἰδίου κινήσεως."

8. ^ "A column of stone", Aetius reports in De Fide (III, 7, 1), or "similar to a pillar-shaped stone", pseudo-Plutarch (III, 10).
9. ^ In Refutation, Hippolytus reports that the circle of the Sun is twenty-seven times bigger than the Moon.
10. ^ Aetius, De Fide (II, 15, 6)
11. ^ Most of Anaximander's model of the Universe comes from pseudo-Plutarch (II, 20-28):

    "[The Sun] is a circle twenty-eight times as big as the Earth, with the outline similar to that of a fire-filled chariot wheel, on which appears a mouth in certain places and through which it exposes its fire, as through the hole on a flute. [...] the Sun is equal to the Earth, but the circle on which it breathes and on which it's born is twenty-seven times as big as the whole earth. [...] [The eclipse] is when the mouth from which comes the fire heat is closed. [...] [The Moon] is a circle nineteen times as big as the whole earth, all filled with fire, like that of the Sun".

12. ^ In Comments of Aristotle's Physics (1121, 5-9)
13. ^ Notably pseudo-Plutarch (III, 2) and Aetius, (I, 3, 3; I, 7, 12; II, 1, 3; II, 1, 8).
14. ^ On the Nature of the Gods (I, 10, 25):

    "Anaximandri autem opinio est nativos esse deos longis intervallis orientis occidentisque, eosque innumerabiles esse mundos."

    "For Anaximander, gods were born, but the time is long between their birth and their death; and the worlds are countless."

15. ^ Pseudo-Plutarch (III, 3):

    "Anaximander claims that all this is done by the wind, for when it happens to be enclosed in a thick cloud, then by its subtlety and lightness, the rupture produces the sound; and the scattering, because of the darkness of the cloud, creates the light."

16. ^ According to Seneca, Naturales quaestiones (II, 18).
17. ^ Pseudo-Plutarch (III, 16)
18. ^ It is then very likely that by observing the moon and the tides, Anaximander thought the latter were the cause, and not the effect of the satellite's movement.
19. ^ Pseudo-Plutarch (V, 19)
20. ^ Plutarch also mentions Anaximander's theory that humans were born inside fish, feeding like sharks, and that when they could defend themselves, they were thrown ashore to live on dry land.
21. ^ According to John Mansley Robinson, An Introduction to Early Greek Philosophy, Houghton and Mifflin, 1968.
22. ^ Themistius and Simplicius also mention some work "on nature". The list could refer to book titles or simply their topics. Again, no one can tell because there is no punctuation sign in Ancient Greek. Furthermore, this list is incomplete since the Suda ends it with ἄλλα τινά, thus implying "other works".

• Aelian: Various History (III, 17)

• Aëtius: De Fide (I-III; V)

• Agathemerus: A Sketch of Geography in Epitome (I, 1)

• Aristotle: Meteorology (II, 3) Translated by E. W. Webster
• Aristotle: On Generation and Corruption (II, 5) Translated by H. H. Joachim
• Aristotle: On the Heavens (II, 13) Translated by J. L. Stocks
• Aristotle: Physics (III, 5, 204 b 33-34)

• Censorinus: De Die Natali (IV, 7) See original text at LacusCurtius

• Cicero: On divination on Wikisource (I, 50, 112)
• Cicero: On the Nature of the Gods (I, 10, 25)

• Diogenes Laertius: Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (II, 1-2) Translated by C. D. Yonge

• Euripides: [The Suppliants (Euripides)|]] (532) Translated by E. P. Coleridge

• Eusebius of Caesarea: Preparation for the Gospel (X, 14, 11) Translated by E.H. Gifford

• Herodotus: Histories (II, 109) See original text in Perseus project

• Hippolytus: Refutation of All Heresies (I, 5) Translated by Roberts and Donaldson

• Pliny the Elder: Natural History (II, 8) See original text in Perseus project

• Pseudo-Plutarch: The Doctrines of the Philosophers (I, 3 ; I, 7 ; II, 20-28 ; III, 2-16 ; V, 19)

• Seneca the Younger: Natural Questions (II, 18)

• Simplicius: Comments on Aristotle's Physics (24, 13-25 ; 1121, 5-9)

• Strabo: Geography (I, 1) Books 1‑7, 15‑17 translated by H. L. Jones

• Themistius: Oratio (36, 317)

• The Suda Search for Anaximander online

• Conche, Marcel (1991). Anaximandre: Fragments et témoignages (in French). Paris: Presses universitaires de France. ISBN 2130437850. 
• Couprie, Dirk L.; Robert Hahn, Gerard Naddaf (2003). Anaximander in Context: New Studies in the Origins of Greek Philosophy. Albany N.Y.: State University of New York Press. ISBN 0791455386. 
• Furley, David J.; Reginald E. Allen (1970). Studies in Presocratic Philosophy, vol. 1. London: Routledge. OCLC 79496039. 
• Heidegger, Martin (2002). Off the Beaten Track. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521801141. 
• Kahn, Charles H. (1960). Anaximander and the Origins of Greek Cosmology. New York: Colombia University Press. 
• Nietzsche, Friedrich (1962). Philosophy in the tragic age of the Greeks. Chicago: Regnery. ISBN 0895269449. 
• Robinson, John Mansley (1968). An Introduction to Early Greek Philosophy. Houghton and Mifflin. ISBN 0395053161. 
• Russell, Bertrand (1984). A History of Western Philosophy. London: Unwin Paperbacks. ISBN 0041000455. 

• Philoctete - Anaximandre : Fragments (French) (English)
• The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Anaximandre
• Extensive bibliography by Dirk Couprie
• Anaximander select online resources
• Eric W. Weisstein, Anaximander of Miletus (610-ca. 546 BC) at ScienceWorld.

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

Pre-Socratic philosophers

Milesian School: Thales • Anaximander • Anaximenes of Miletus Pythagoreans: Pythagoras • Philolaus • Alcmaeon • Archytas • Timaeus Ephesian School: Heraclitus — Eleatic School: Xenophanes • Parmenides • Zeno of Elea • Melissus of Samos Pluralist School: Anaxagoras • Empedocles — Atomist School: Leucippus • Democritus Sophism: Protagoras • Gorgias • Prodicus • Hippias Diogenes of Apollonia • Pherecydes

Persondata
NAME	Anaximander
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Aniximander; Ἀναξίμανδρος
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Early Greek philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH	c.610 BC
PLACE OF BIRTH	Miletus
DATE OF DEATH	c. 546 BC
PLACE OF DEATH	Miletus