Anaxagore (500 - 428 av. J. - C.), known as of Clazomènes in Ionie (close to Izmir, in Turkey), was a presocratic philosopher . One supposes that it gave courses to Athens during nearly about thirty years, during whom Socrate would have perhaps known it. He was the first philosopher to be established in Athens, where he had Périclès and Euripide as pupils (he raised Périclès).

Disciple of Anaximène, it was called the spirit because it supported that the spirit was the cause of the universe. Contrary to many Greek thinkers, it mistakes the political arena and clamp that only Cosmos imports. According to him, the stars which are there were not Gods as the people thought it then, but of the incandescent masses. It introduced the concept of the us (which is read “nousse”) and which is equivalent to the organizing and direct intelligence of the world. This last would be made of various substances which would have neither birth nor end but which would be arranged only by combinations and separations.

He was the first Greek to be spoken about the problem of the Quadrature of the circle.

Its voyages in Egypt enabled him to improve its knowledge.

He was condemned to died by his enemies who saw it like an atheist in consequence of his cosmic theory: where the theological glance saw gods in the stars, him regarded them only as incandescent masses. He considered inter alia the moon (made of ground) reflected the sunlight (which is a hot stone). He withdrew himself then with Lampsaque, a colony of Milet in minor Asia, where he died thereafter.

There are two principal theses to identify:

• the idea of the Us or Nouç, energy ordering the world, organizing the matter and the being. One can bring this force closer to the faculty of intelligence.
• the fact that to be and matter do not occur nor do not create, but changes . There is thus a refusal of the concepts of the “non-being” and its productions. It will be at the origin of the quotation: " Nothing is lost, nothing is not created, all transforme" , recovery later by Lavoisier.

The philosophy of Anaxagore is exposed in Peri Physeos (Of nature). However, there remains of this document only some fragments. According to the philosopher, all the matter is in the form of atoms, particles infinitely small. The eternal intelligence that us is the put an order in chaos eternal. All the bodies, which they are out of gold or iron, are thus composed of same material, in short, are simple aggregates of atoms. This theory led to the development of the atomic theory of Démocrite. The concept of the was also taken again to us by Aristote.

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