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Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2018

Anaxagoras and the Stoics on infinite mixtures

Arnaud Macé

Résumé

I would like, with a little help from the Stoics, to take a fresh look at the vexing first lines of fr. 6 where Anaxagoras makes a puzzling connection between an equality of parts of great and small and the idea that everything participates in everything. To prove that the Stoics made the same connection, one needs to read Alexander of Aphrodisias' description of Chrysippus' theory of mixture (μίξις) as threefold (παραθέσις, συγχύσις, and proper κρᾶσις: juxtaposition, fusion or blend, De Mixt 216.18 – 217.13 = SVF II 473). A blend is a mixture of things « ἀντιπαρεκτεινομένα », a verb better used to describe how two armies can be spread out along each other on the battle ground, lines facing each other. Such a disposition will allow them to undergo a complete interpenetration, such that “all part” of any of them will “take part” in all parts of the other – a part of each facing a part of the other. The Anaxagorean echo of the formula can be taken further if we add that the stoic blends only work as a law of universe if all bodies can be divided in an infinity of parts, so that none is greater than the other (see Plutarch De communibus...1079.A.8-B.4). If the Stoics thus follow Anaxagoras on the equality of infinites (see Anaxag. fr. 3), they might show us how to simply read the first lines of fr. 6 as the principle of a theory of infinite mixtures where everything is able to spread all of its parts along all the parts of any other body, just as a glass of wine can mix with the whole ocean according to the Stoics. This would also provide us with a way of settling old debates on the nature of Anaxagoras' mixture and its composition, since the stoic blend entails that all ingredients keep their own substance and properties intact.
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hal-03395848 , version 1 (22-10-2021)

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Arnaud Macé. Anaxagoras and the Stoics on infinite mixtures. Sixth Biennial Conference of the International Association for Presocratics Studies, R. McKirahan, Jun 2018, Delphes, Greece. ⟨hal-03395848⟩

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