Practice question · Match the pairs
Match each thinker or idea to what it anticipates in later thought.
- Empedocles on random limbs and survival
- Empedocles on compounds as ratios
- Anaxagoras on nous
- Anaxagoras on infinite divisibility
- Matter with no smallest part
- Variation with differential survival
- An ordering intelligence distinct from matter
- Chemical composition by proportion
Hints
- Two anticipations are strikingly modern in structure though wrong in detail.
- One anticipates the opposite of atomism.
Show the answer
- Empedocles on random limbs and survival → Variation with differential survival
- Empedocles on compounds as ratios → Chemical composition by proportion
- Anaxagoras on nous → An ordering intelligence distinct from matter
- Anaxagoras on infinite divisibility → Matter with no smallest part
Why
The anticipations are structural rather than substantive. Empedocles has the shape of natural selection without the mechanism, and Anaxagoras’ infinite divisibility is precisely the position atomism was formulated against.
Practise The Pluralists: Empedocles and Anaxagoras
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