Anaxagoras

Anaxagoras

Anaxagoras
Reading Level

	edHelper's suggested reading level:	grades 6 to 8
	Flesch-Kincaid grade level:	7.62

Vocabulary

	challenging words:		affluent, latter, hailed, red-hot, hence, astronomy, socrates, extremely, fond, philosopher, chaos, religion, philosophy, theory, uncomfortable, ancient
	content words:		Ancient Greece, Golden Age

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Anaxagoras
By Vickie Chao

¹     Ancient Greece had many famous philosophers. Socrates, Aristotle, and Plato were three such men that we are most familiar with. But before the trio had even made a name for themselves, there was another philosopher who played an important role in shaping up the Golden Age of Athens (or the Age of Pericles, circa 461 B.C. - 429 B.C.). That philosopher was Anaxagoras.

²     Anaxagoras was born in the city of Clazomenae (present-day Kilizman, Turkey) around 500 B.C. To the best of our knowledge, he probably came from a rather affluent family. Yet in his pursuit of knowledge, he gave up all his properties and moved to Athens in his twenties. He stayed there for nearly four decades.

³     During his time in Athens, Anaxagoras focused on two topics in particular. One was philosophy. The other was science. He often combined the two, trying to use the latter to explain the former. He believed that "Mind" (Nous) was the source of motion. He described it as "the thinnest of all things" and "unmixed." What he meant to say was that everything else was infinitely divisible. Even the smallest particle (such as a speck of dust) contained a portion of all other particles. He called those miniature elements "seeds of all things." Now since Nous was the only exception to the rule, it set the unarranged matter into rotating motion. It created order out of chaos.

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