Anaxagoras (500 BC - 428 BC)

Lifespan: 500 BC - 428 BC
Primary Base of Operations: Greek cities of Lampsacus and Athens
Schools of Thought: Ionian
Other Occupations: Scientist
Teacher: ?

- All things have existed from the beginning. But originally they existed in infinitesimally small fragments of themselves, endless in number and inextricably combined. All things existed in this mass, but in a confused and indistinguishable form. There were the seeds (spermata) or miniatures of corn and flesh and gold in the primitive mixture; but these parts, of like nature with their wholes, had to be eliminated from the complex mass before they could receive a definite name and character. Mind arranged the segregation of like from unlike.
- Mind (Nous) as the initiating and governing principle of the cosmos.
- he contended that the sun was a fiery rock, this led to charges of impiety, and he was sentenced to death by the Athenian court. He avoided this penalty by leaving Athens, and he spent his remaining years in exile.
- thought everything contains a portion of everything else. His observation of how nutrition works in animals led him to conclude that in order for the food an animal eats to turn into bone, hair, flesh, and so forth, it must already contain all of those constituents within it.