Anaxagora Quotes

“Matter is nonexistent except as something we see and experience as matter by our senses. Matter is only a manifestation of a Universal Mind. The primary quality of matter and all existence is not accessible directly or indirectly except by pure thought (intuition). All qualities, described by some major philosophers as primary and secondary qualities, I understand only as different modes of existence and relationships between the sensed or perceptible and different modes of perceptibility or perceptions (and senses) of the beings possessing these abilities. These qualities represent different levels (manifestations) of matter (existence and life) and do not disclose the actual nature either of matter or true primary quality, the underlying reality of all, which to me is only something I chose to call a Universal Mind. This Universal Mind, in some ways, may correspond to Plato’s (or Kant’s) noumenon, to Aristotle’s aether in a way, to Parmenides' Mind (Oneness), to Anaxagoras' nous (except that there were no things mixed up together before the mind or nous arranged them; instead the “things” are only potential or the transformed mind, manifestation of a mind), and to Plotinus’ ideas of a mind of this kind. Heidegger states that philosophy, since Plato, has neglected the idea and the Being itself and forgot to ask what it is.”
― Dejan Stojanovic, ABSOLUTE

“For Milesian philosophers Thales (c. 626/623—c. 548/545 BC), Anaximander (c. 610—c. 546 BC), and Anaximenes (c. 586/585—c. 526/525 BC) there was an ultimate principle they called arche. For Thales, this ultimate principle from which everything originated was water; for Anaximenes, it was air; and for Anaximander, it was Apeiron (limitless), whereas, for the Pythagoreans, the number was the ultimate principle.

For Heraclitus (c. 540—c. 480), arche was fire from which everything originated, but Logos was the ultimate principle uniting everything and connecting opposites.

For Anaxagora (c. 500—c. 428 BC), a hundred years after the Milesians, the ultimate principle was the mind (nous), which is limitless because it is not material.”
― Dejan Stojanovic