SCIENCE  AND  PHILOSOPHY

                         PANDEMONIUM  BOOKS & PUBLICATIONS.

       Merida, Venezuela, 1999.    COPYRIGHT: Franz J. T. Lee.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                   CHAPTER  THIRTY-ONE

A Friend in need, is a Friend indeed, in deed. Friends are very rare to find on Planet Earth; to find friendly pupils, friendly thinkers, the sine qua non is first to find the famous needle, not in the haystack, but in the profound waters of the Pacific Ocean. Nonetheless, in the philosophic element, in Ionian turbulent waters, Anaximander found an amigo, a maestro, Thales.

Another Milesian Sophos

Like his teacher, Anaximander was an educated "man", a master of all trades. He was an astrologist, astronomist, cosmogonist, cosmologist, meteorologist, geologist, geographer, seismologist, anthropologist, evolutionist, id genus omne. His famous writing, On Nature (Physis), is lost; only a very important fragment is preserved, with which we will deal later. By the way, it should be noted here that the Greek concept "physis" is not synonymous to the term "Nature" which is in current usage. Mutatis mutandis, it had the same connotation as the arché or hyle, as the original principle, as something which eternally gives birth, as a universal Mother.

Chaos as Arché

Now, "believe" it or not, here we have the first "Chaos" Philosopher, the Father of the Chaos Theory. The arché of Anaximander is the apeiron, is Chaos, is a mixture of ALL elements, of even the unknown ones. Also take note, in our Science  a n d  Philosophy, Chaos is a trialogical mension, a trimension, of Nothing  (Nihil) in the Postulate: Cosmos a n d  Einai AND  Nothing  (See: http://www.franzjutta.org ). Furthermore, also note, even the known elements do not appear in the Apeiron, in Chaos, in their known form, but in their archaic (pure) unknown form. Such "unknown" and "pure" elements we have named contraries, being distinct from opposites, affirmations or negations. Hence, this important identification a n d  differentiation was taken into account in our Logical Method.

Chaos -- The Yawning Vacuum

Chaos is a mythical concept; it is derived from chanein, which denotes a ghastful, gaping, yawning vacuum. (See: Hesiod's Theogony, 116, 700).
Later, by Ovid (43 B.C. - 18 A.D.), in his Metamorphoseis (I, 7), Chaos is described as a "raw mass". Anaximander conceptualized "Chaos" as a hylozoistic term, as a substantial essence, void of characteristics, conditions or limitations, as the Apeiron, the Infinite, the Timeless, the Shapeless. This is a stringent philosophical term, with no religious or theological tohu wa bohu, certainly, it is void of any Lutheran connotations of "wüst und leer" (desolate and empty). True to the panpsychic teachings of his tutor, Anaximander is explaining the cosmos, being, the world out-of-itself. He has only one universal postulate, a single Satz, but it is scientifically well-thought, it is identical, identifiable, can be identified, can identify with incisive, cognitive precision. Nothing holy, divine, sacred about it -- it is simply original, archaic, cosmic, natural. Unilogically we also postulate Cosmos, in this very precise hylozoistic manner.

The Cosmic Apeiron

Certainly, as indicated before, Anaximander is postulating a single, original principle; for him, only one world exists, and his  "historic" task was to find
its philosophic explanation. Ancient Becoming-Being, the slave-owning Patria, had to be affirmed, eternalized, not from the Olympus, but from Mediterranean, geocentric, commercial reality. Polis Man, the auto-productive business man, the coming Periclean sophos had to be internalized, "hegemonized". Hence, the blooming Apeiron, the blossoming Chaos, is an eternal perpetuum mobile, is limitless, is internally, intensively automated, is self-moving, is auto-dynamic. According to Anaximander, only in these terms, we can speak about the Apeiron as an archaic substance, as living matter. It did not come into existence, it cannot pass away -- it is timeless, and therewith limitless, spaceless, shapeless. It is the Father of Time, the Creator of Chronos, the Creator of Space, of Geo, of Chthon. Definitely, Kant (even Hegel) was "right", in stating that Space and Time are mere mental fabrications, archaic, ontic products of the human Verstand, of the human intellectus. What a tremendous, philosophic Postulate, what an Identification, what an Affirmation!

Normally, we can only "believe" in timeless, spaceless, spiritual beings, in gods, but, at least, Anaximander could think about something beyond the mental parameters of Space  and  Time. Definitely, not everything on Earth, and in the Universe, is determined by these Kantian categories of the Intellect. Surely, this is not usual, the ideologically infested, manipulated and indoctrinated brains of most  "human beings" have lost the natural  a n d
social capacity to relate beyond formal-logical temporal and spatial categories, beyond systematic, intra-systemic Motion-At-Rest.

Philosophically, Anaximander affirmed contemporary Mickey Mouse in its universal Disney Land Iron Cage, running wild on its eternal, lonesome carousel at rest, that, out of sheer late capitalist boredom, permanently plays its "New War" Russian Roulette, Globalization; however, a priori, therewith Anaximander indirectly, transhistorically also confirmed the future reconciliatory, democratic policy of the "Information Age", of the heroic Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Nelson Mandela, who -- even as a victim of Apartheid, staunchly still believing in the British parliamentary system -- for a quarter of a century was held incommunicado in his small prison cell No. 5 on Robben Island, thus, doing his daily exercises, he always was "running on the same spot" towards a future, free, "rainbow coloured" South African nation. This is patrian progress, aristocratic development, tribal democracy at rest, at its very best; and Ancient Western Philosophy was already preparing and nurturing its superstructural chthon, its future, chaotic, ideological, racist breeding ground.

Automatism and Autodynamism

Evidently the above guarantees that "everything is possible", that everything within the system can possibly be changed, also that "what will be, certainly, will be", if not by itself, then the Inquisition, the gas chambers, the bombs on Kosovo, Baghdad or Kabul will help out a little bit; simply, because this closed uniform, unitary system necessarily has its own dynamo, dynamite, automation and autodynamism. Later, Aristotle will explain to us its dynamei on, its own In-Possibility-Being, and the Marxist, Ernst Bloch, will derive from it the "Principle of Hope" for Mankind, that would guide all of us to our "Home, Sweet Home", to our Heimat.  Of course, all these were not so radically contemplated in their specific space and time, and the highway to globalized hell was still paved with "good" intentions; nonetheless, what is explained above, ab ovo, logically was already spooking in the apeironic philosophy of Anaximander, residing in the flourishing, emergent, commercial city of Miletus.

Because of its autodynamism, the Apeiron, Chaos, like a universal chameleon, could take on all forms of appearances: slavery, tyranny, feudalism, democracy, world peace, human rights, racism, fascism, real socialism, nazism, apartheid. In fact, in essence, as we will see below, Anaximander was already explaining internal motion, contradiction, dialectics, the laws of motion of labour and capital.

Depending on their weight, nowadays we would say on their atomic weight, things are formed and emerge from the Apeiron. According to him, first emerges water, the element of his teacher, as a result of the contradiction "coldness - warmth", in other words, hydor is now the synthesis of the above thesis - antithesis. This simply means that Anaximander had deepened the arché of his teacher, he transformed it into "still waters run deep". In these profound waters, new contradictions arise, forming new substances, new creations; eventually, the sun, the stars, the animals, the plants, human beings came into existence. He gave his own version of the Theory of Evolution, hence he even paved the road for Charles Darwin and Social Darwinism, and cum grano salis therewith the social possibility of racism, fascism and apartheid.

Definitely, the Apeiron had a cosmic, creative character; within the realm of demythologization, it had nothing to do with the Olympus, or with future monotheistic Gods. It was a transhistoric fata morgana of the coming 17th and 18th century bourgeois Enlightenment, with capitalist materialism. Anaximander, like Thales, explained Being-Out-Of-Itself; the Apeiron lay a materialist, hylozoistic, panpsychic foundation; it points towards Hobbes, towards bourgeois mechanical materialism, towards the philosophic superstructure for the "Leviathan" and for Orwell's "Big Brother". Philosophically, Anaximander personified dominant Man Himself, his dawning self-consciousness, the archaic accumulation of bourgeois Reason, of creative, future, intellectual profiteering and mongering, of limitless exploitation, eternal domination and "infinite justice".
 

Apeiron: In A Nut-Shell

In nuce, internally, intensively, the Apeiron, Chaos, Matter is permanently fermenting, germinating and brewing, encompassing all productive processes of even, uneven and combined development; this will later be explained by one of the most radical systemic "negations", by Leon Trotsky in his Theory of Permanent Revolution. Anaximander himself stated that the Apeiron "encompasses all the worlds", thus forming one, single arché.

In his Physics ( III, 8 208a 8), Aristotle told us exactly why Anaximander  chose the Apeiron as arché: " in order that becoming must not pass away"; this is already a transhistoric deja vu of the panta rhei of Heracleitus. It is the affirmation of the labour system, of exploitation, domination, discrimination and alienation, "in order that they must not pass away" on Earth. Furthermore, In this way, the arché becomes logical, formal-logical, a hen kai pan, becomes cognitive, "abstract", becomes an "object of thought", a "Gedankending", a "thing of thought", a philosophic concept.

However, it is an ill wind that blows nobody "good", Anaximander taught us that "seeing is not necessarily believing", that sense perception could lead to cognition, but it may be dangerously deceptive, it can be an essential instrument for indoctrination, ideology, mind and thought control. Also, Anaximander did not only characterize the Apeiron as eternal, also Internal Motion, intensive Change, Systemic Development, is spaceless, is timeless. For the eternal existence of the Patria this ideological illusion is quintessential, also for future education, information, disinformation and infowarfare. Of course, trialogically we can only remark: Dream On!

           CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO :
            A  GLANCE AT THE PRESERVED FRAGMENT
            OF ANAXIMANDER

GEOCITIES USERS
CONTINUE HERE

PANDEMONIUM2 USERS GO BACK
FROM WHERE YOU CAME:  H E R E !!!