SOURCE: William K. C. Guthrie, "Anaximander," in A History of Greek Philosophy, Vol. I, Cambridge at the University Press, 1962, pp. 72-145.

In the excerpt that follows, Guthrie provides a historical framework for Anaximander's cosmology and cosmogony, contending that Anaximander made original and significant contributions to scientific thought.

(1) Gi; (1) date, Writings, Interests =~ Sdate, Writings, Interests

Anaximander was a younger friend and fellow-citizen of Thales…. Apollodorus says with unusual precision that he was sixty-four in the year 547/6 ([Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers; hereafter D.L.] II, 2).¹ Following the tradition that Thales wrote nothing, Themistius described him as 'the first of the Greeks, to our knowledge, who was bold enough to publish a treatise on nature'. Certain it is that he wrote a book, which seems to have come into the hands of Apollodorus the chronologist, and we may feel some confidence that it was in the library of the...