clazomenaean

Updated: May 1, 2025

The latter statement would not bear too close an examination, yet it is true that no extensive prose compositions of an earlier day than this have been preserved, though numerous others are known by their fragments. Herodotus, "the father of prose," was a slightly younger contemporary of the Clazomenaean philosopher; not unlikely the two men may have met at Athens.

Edward Huntington Williams - A History of Science — Volume 1

It is no reproach, therefore, to the Clazomenaean philosopher that he should have held to the old idea that the earth is flat, or at most a convex disk the latter being the Babylonian conception which probably dominated that Milesian school to which Anaxagoras harked back.

Edward Huntington Williams - A History of Science — Volume 1

Do you think of accusing Anaxagoras, Miletas, and have you so low an opinion of these men, and think them so unskilled in laws, as not to know that the books of Anaxagoras the Clazomenaean are full of these doctrines.

Edward Huntington Williams - A History of Science — Volume 1

That idea contains the germ of the Clazomenaean philosopher's conception of the nature of matter. Indeed, it is not unlikely that this theory of matter grew out of his observation of the changing forms of water.

Edward Huntington Williams - A History of Science — Volume 1

But there is one other astronomical speculation for which the Clazomenaean philosopher has received full credit.

Edward Huntington Williams - A History of Science — Volume 1

The Milky Way, which doubtless had puzzled astronomers from the beginnings of history and which was to continue to puzzle them for many centuries after the day of Anaxagoras, was explained by the Clazomenaean philosopher on a theory obviously suggested by the theory of the moon's phases.

Edward Huntington Williams - A History of Science — Volume 1