25. Anaxagoras, Mind as Mover, and the Common Ground of Change

Subscribe in Podcast App | Download Transcript

Lecture Notes

Main Topics #

Comparison: Anaxagoras’s Mind vs. Empedocles’s Love and Hate #

Which is the better separator?

• Empedocles: hate separates things
• Anaxagoras: mind separates things
• Mind is superior as a separator because it understands ratios and can divide systematically (logic, mathematics, definition)
• Hate is passive; mind is active and rational

Which is the better unifier?

• Empedocles: love unites things
• Anaxagoras: mind unites things in ratio and order
• The word ratio (Latin) connects to ratio meaning reason; Greek logos means both ratio and reason
• Mind knows ratios—the proper proportions for combining things
• Example: A Manhattan requires knowledge of the ratio (2:1), not love of Manhattans. This is mixology—literally the logos (reason/order) of mixing

Conclusion: Mind can accomplish what Empedocles attributes to two principles (love and hate) with one principle, demonstrating greater explanatory economy.

The Nature of Anaxagoras’s Greater Mind: Angelic vs. Divine #

Key distinction:

• Anaxagoras’s Greater Mind is not responsible for the existence of matter
• It moves matter through locomotion (change of place)
• Angels can do this: move matter without creating it
• Only God creates matter itself
• Therefore, Anaxagoras has arrived at something closer to an angelic mind than a divine mind
• Matter and mind are presented as two independent realities, not one deriving from the other
• This is similar to Plato’s Demiurge in the Timaeus, who orders pre-existing chaotic matter

The Marxist Division of All Thinkers: A Logical Problem #

Marx and Engels propose a binary division:

1. Materialists: Matter is the beginning of all things, even of mind (mind is the highest product of matter)
2. Idealists: Mind/thought is the beginning of all things, even of matter (e.g., Hegel’s logic preceding Nature; St. John’s Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word”)

The problem: This division excludes the middle position—dualism, where matter and mind are both independent realities.

Why this matters:

• Reason naturally begins with sensible matter as “the beginning”
• Humans cannot jump from “matter is first” directly to “mind is the beginning of matter” without the middle position
• The bridge is recognizing that mind itself (human reason, understanding) is immaterial and independent of matter
• Once we see immaterial mind in ourselves, we can conceive of immaterial mind independent of matter
• Only then can we conceive of a mind responsible for matter’s very existence
• Eliminating the middle position makes it “impossible for reason” to move from materialism to theism

Progression:

1. Recognize that human understanding grasps universals (immaterial knowledge)
2. Recognize that mind/reason is immaterial and independent of matter
3. Open the door to angels (immaterial beings that move matter but don’t create it)
4. Eventually arrive at God (mind that creates matter)

Thomas Aquinas: Easier to know the existence of angels than God; humans naturally progress through the intermediate step.

The Universal Principle: Change Occurs Through Contraries #

Aristotle’s discovery: Despite radical disagreement among pre-Socratic philosophers on what constitutes reality, all share a common principle: change occurs between contraries.

Examples of contrary pairs used by different philosophers:

• Thales and others: condensation/rarefaction (dense/rare)
• Empedocles: mixture/segregation
• Anaxagoras: mixture/segregation
• Democritus: mixture/segregation (atoms mix and separate)
• Parmenides: hot/cold
• Pythagoreans: odd/even
• Atomists: full/empty; position (before/behind, above/below); figure (straight/angular)

Universal scope:

• Greek philosophy: All natural philosophers employ contraries
• Chinese philosophy: The I Ching (Book of Changes) is based on yin and yang (contraries), represented by broken and unbroken lines
• Modern physics: Helmholtz explained everything through attraction and repulsion (contraries)

Key Arguments #

The Problem of Universal Disagreement Among Philosophers #

Aristotle’s logical analysis (Reading 2):

• Some say one underlying substance; others say many
• Some say it’s mobile; others immobile
• Those saying immobile divide: one said finite (Parmenides), other said infinite (Melissus)
• Those saying one but mobile: some said water, others air, others fire
• Those saying many: some said finite, others infinite
• Those saying infinite: some said all the same kind, others different kinds
• Result: No two thinkers hold the same position; complete disagreement

Two reactions:

1. Despair and skepticism: “If all disagree, the mind cannot know truth.” This contradicts the natural desire to know and leads people to either abandon intellectual life or treat ideas as “ping-pong balls” (Whitaker Chambers’s observation about Columbia thinkers).

2. Cartesian boldness: “If they cannot agree, they must not have found truth. I will do it myself.” This approach, though motivated by the desire to know, lacks proper humility and fear of being wrong. It risks merely adding another opinion to an already endless list.

The balanced response: One needs both hope (of overcoming difficulties and knowing truth) and fear (of making mistakes). Socrates in the Phaedo exemplifies this: he encourages students out of despair, then moderates their boldness through refutation.

Empedocles’s Insight: Gathering Scattered Truths #

The principle:

• Men see only a part of truth but boast of seeing the whole
• Out of pride, each thinker mistakes their partial insight for the complete truth
• Solution: Gather the points of truth scattered among disagreeing thinkers

Method of discovery:

• Comparison and collision of opposing views will cause the weaker points to fall away, leaving only the stronger
• Analogy: When Greek and Trojan armies clash, the weak soldiers (opposite great warriors like Hector or Achilles) die. Gathering the survivors creates an invincible army
• Similarly, gathering the strongest insights from all philosophers creates a comprehensive truth

Heraclitus’s Insight: The Common Ground #

Fragment: “We should not act and speak like those asleep”

• Those asleep are cut off from their senses
• For the waking, there is one world and it is common
• When asleep, each person “retires into his own private world”
• Principle: The true is one and common; the false is many and private

Examples:

• 2 + 2 = 4 (common to all who know the truth)
• Private answers (5, 6, 7, 8) are merely imagined and false

Application to philosophical disputes:

• “It is wise listening not to me, but to reason, to agree that all things are one”
• What is “reason”? Not individual reasons, but what is common to all reason
• “Wisdom is to speak the truth and to act in accord with nature, giving ear thereto”
• Nature = what is common; to listen to nature = to follow what is common

Life in the city analogy:

• A city cannot function without common law
• Example: driving rule (right side of street) is common; otherwise chaos
• Similarly, the life of the mind requires a common ground
• If teacher and student disagree, they cannot resolve it by appealing to their disagreement
• They must appeal to something both share in common

Methodological principle:

• When two scientists have different hypotheses, they design an experiment both can perform, whose different outcomes would decide between the hypotheses
• When a teacher instructs a student, the teacher uses things the student already knows (the common ground) to lead the student to new knowledge
• This is impossible without shared knowledge

Why the Common Must Come First #

The natural order of knowing:

• The common is more known to us than the particular
• Reason naturally proceeds from what is more known to what is less known
• A particular insight seen by one thinker but not others is less obvious and less known
• Therefore: Seek the common first, then gather particular truths

Important Definitions #

Contraries (ἐναντία / contraria) #

• Pairs of opposites that cannot coexist in the same thing at the same time in the same respect
• Essential to all accounts of change in pre-Socratic philosophy
• Change necessarily involves transition from one contrary to another

The Greater Mind (Νοῦς / Nous) in Anaxagoras #

• An immaterial principle that orders matter through locomotion
• Not responsible for matter’s existence, only its arrangement and movement
• More properly understood as an angelic rather than divine principle
• Acts according to logos (reason, ratio, order)

Mixture (μῖξις) and Segregation (διακρίνεσθαι) #

• Common principle found in both Empedocles and Anaxagoras
• Empedocles: cyclical process of mixture (by love) and segregation (by hate)
• Anaxagoras: initial mixture with progressive segregation (by mind) in a linear direction
• Both account for change through these contrary processes

Condensation (πύκνωσις / densatio) and Rarefaction (μάνωσις / rarefactio) #

• The mechanism by which a single material substance (e.g., water) generates apparent multiplicity
• Dense form: liquid water
• Rarefied form: steam
• Same matter in different states explains change without positing multiple substances

Examples & Illustrations #

The Manhattan Example #

• A bartender doesn’t need to love Manhattans to make them correctly
• He needs only to know the ratio (proportions): 2:1
• This is mixology—the logos (reason) of mixing
• Demonstrates that mind (through knowledge of ratios) is the cause of proper combination, not emotion (love)

Beer and Density #

• Foam = rarefied beer
• Settled liquid = dense beer
• Same substance in different states illustrates condensation and rarefaction
• Demonstrates how one principle (matter in different densities) can account for apparent multiplicity

Dry Cleaning #

• Hate might cause one to dislike dirt on clothes
• But mind is what figures out how to dry clean—the rational method of separation
• Shows that rational process (mind) accomplishes segregation better than mere emotion

Change Detection #

• Detective example: “At 10 o’clock, X is cold; at 11 o’clock, X is soft”
  • Ice cream is both cold and soft—no change evident
• “At 10 o’clock, X is hard; at 11 o’clock, X is soft”
  • Contraries cannot coexist—change is evident
• Contraries are necessary to recognize change

The I Ching (Book of Changes) #

• Ancient Chinese classic based on yin and yang (contraries)
• Broken line represents female; unbroken line represents male
• Independently developed principle of change through contraries
• Unknown to Aristotle, yet confirms the universal principle
• Confucius said he would spend ten years studying it if he had the time

Modern Physics Examples #

• Helmholtz: Explained all phenomena through attraction and repulsion (contraries)
• Nuclear forces: Protons repel (same charge); nuclear binding forces attract (opposite force)
• Matter and energy: Matter as condensed energy; energy as rarefied matter
• Atomic structure: Balance of contrary forces holds atoms together

Questions Addressed #

Is Anaxagoras’s Mind Divine or Angelic? #

Answer: Angelic, because it:

• Does not create matter, only arranges it
• Moves matter through locomotion (change of place)
• Is immaterial and independent of matter
• Is what angels can do; only God creates matter itself

Why is the Marxist binary division logically incomplete? #

Answer: It leaves out the middle position (dualism), which is the necessary bridge for reason to move from materialism to theism. Eliminating this middle “makes it impossible for reason” to traverse from one side to the other.

What single principle underlies all pre-Socratic natural philosophy despite their disagreements? #

Answer: All understand change as occurring through contraries—whether expressed as dense/rare, mixture/segregation, hot/cold, or other contrary pairs. This principle is forced upon the mind by truth itself, not freely imagined.

Why should philosophers seek what is common before gathering particular truths? #

Answer: The common is more known to us than the particular. Reason naturally proceeds from what is more known to what is less known. A universal principle shared by all thinkers is more obvious and accessible than particular insights scattered among individual philosophers.

How can teacher and student resolve disagreement without infinite regress? #

Answer: They must appeal to something both share in common—common knowledge, common reason, or common principles. The teacher uses this shared ground to lead the student from what he already knows to what he does not yet know. Without this common ground, meaningful instruction becomes impossible.

Notable Quotes #

“Is it hate that split the atom? No, it’s the mind that figures out how to separate things.” — Berquist (comparing Empedocles and Anaxagoras)

“The guy doesn’t have to love Manhattans to make them. All he needs to know is what the ratio is.” — Berquist (on why mind, not love, explains proper combination)

“For the waking, there is one world and it is common. But when they fall asleep, each one retires into his own private world.” — Heraclitus (on truth as one and common, falsehood as many and private)

“It is wise listening not to me, but to reason, to agree that all things are one.” — Heraclitus (on heeding what is common)

“Those who speak with understanding must be strong in what is common to all, as much as the city is strong in its law, and even more so, because the law of the city is fed by one divine law.” — Heraclitus (on the necessity of common ground)

“With the truth, all things harmonize.” — Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (on how particular truths cohere)

“They regard ideas as ping-pong balls.” — Whitaker Chambers (on Columbia thinkers who do not take truth seriously)