Anaximander, << uh `nak` suh MAN duhr >> (611?-547? B.C.), was an early Greek philosopher. He was one of the first persons to describe the world as governed by systematic laws rather than by the actions of the gods. Only one fragment survives from a book he wrote on nature, but we know his views from other ancient authors.
Anaximander believed that the world originated from what he called the indefinite or unlimited. He probably imagined the indefinite as a substance of no definite character that was unlimited in extent. Opposites such as hot and cold and dry and wet emerged from the indefinite and came into conflict with one another, thus producing the world. None of the opposites gains the upper hand. This balancing of opposites in part explains such phenomena as the seasons. He anticipated aspects of the theory of evolution by stating that animals came from a moist environment and that human beings originally had fishlike forms. Anaximander was born in Miletus in Asia Minor (now part of Turkey).
See also Pre-Socratic philosophy .
