The First Scientist: Anaximander and His Legacy Book

Introduction xi

One The Sixth Century 1

Knowledge and Astronomy 4

The Gods 15

Miletus 18

2 Anaximander's Contributions 29

3 Atmospheric Phenomena 37

Cosmological and Biological Naturalism 42

4 Earth Floats in Space, Suspended in the Void 45

5 Invisible Entities and Natural Laws 61

Thales: Water 62

Anaximenes: Compressing and Rarefying 64

Anaximander: Apeiron 65

The Idea of Natural Law: Anaximander, Pythagoras, and Plato 10

6 Rebellion Becomes Virtue 75

7 Writing, Democracy, and Cultural Crossbreeding 83

The Greek Alphabet 87

Science and Democracy 93

Cultural Crossbreeding 91

8 What Is Science? 103

The Crumbling of Nineteenth-Century Illusions 104

Science Cannot be Reduced to Verifiable Predictions 107

Exploring Forms of Thought About the World 111

The Evolving Worldview 114

The Rules of the Game and Commensurability 120

Why is Science Reliable? 123

In Praise of Uncertainty 125

9 Between Cultural Relativism and Absolute Thought 131

10 Can We Understand the World Without Gods? 143

The Conflict 147

11 Prescientific Thought 157

The Nature of Mythical-Religious Thought 159

The Different Functions of the Divine 170

Conclusion 119

Notes 183

Bibliography 191

Index 199

Illustration Credits 210

Acknowledgments 211