Sunday 28 November 2010

Anaxagoras - the mind causes all things

In the Phaedo, Socrates says ....
  • “Then one day I heard a man reading from a book, as he said, by Anaxagoras, [97c] that it is the mind that arranges and causes all things. I was pleased with this theory of cause, and it seemed to me to be somehow right that the mind should be the cause of all things, and I thought, 'If this is so, the mind in arranging things arranges everything and establishes each thing as it is best for it to be'. 
  • So if anyone wishes to find the cause of the generation or destruction or existence of a particular thing, he must find out what sort of existence, or passive state of any kind, or activity is best for it."
  • As I considered these things I was delighted to think that I had found in Anaxagoras a teacher of the cause of things
  • [98b] So I thought when he assigned the cause of each thing and of all things in common he would go on and explain what is best for each and what is good for all in common.
in: Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 1 translated by Harold North Fowler; Introduction by W.R.M. Lamb. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1966. 1925

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