Part 1: An Internalization of Anaximander's Ancient Greek Philosophy -- Into Man's Psyche!

October 26th, 2010...



I have reached a point in my self studies in philosophy where I have at least a pretty solid basic overall knowledge of most of the history and evolution of Western philosophy...


And one thing, one point, keeps coming back to me over and over again...


The second oldest recognized philosopher in Western history -- one Mr. (or shall I give him the post-humous respect that he deserves and say 'Dr.') Anaxamander who philosophized in the late 500 BC years -- in my opinion is still not given his rightful due respect as one of the greatest philosophers in Western history....comparable to Lao Tse or Confucous in Eastern Philosophy, and even though his work is very sparse, vague, and fragmented, what remains of it, if interpreted in the right light -- and of course I have 'the right light' -- is in essence a philosophical masterpiece, both a precursor of, and the philosophical equivalent for such an early age, of Hegel's much, much more fully recognized and honoured 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' (1804).


In short, Anaxamander's philosophy was a 500 BC 'roughly construed' template or archetype of 'The Phenomemology of Spirit' some 2300 years plus before the 'real Hegelian thing' came into published existence in 1804.


In fact, it is quite possible that Anaxamander invented the word 'arche' (see....http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/Bios/Anaximander.html) which means basically 'first principle' as in the word 'archetype' which would become an indispensible word in Jungian Psychology some 2400 years plus... (more on the connection between Anaxamander and Jungian Psychology below...)

Anaxamander has been connected to 'evolutionary theory' and has been called the first 'evolutionist' because he believed that men evolved from fish. Not bad for someone thinking some 2550 years ago!

Here is how Anaxamander was smarter than all the other Pre-Socratic philosophers, most of whome were looking for the 'ultimate primordial archetype substance of life'...

Thales said 'water' was the first primal 'cause' of life...

Anaxamenes said 'air' was the first primal 'cause' of life...

Heraclitus said 'fire' was the first primal 'cause' of life....


But Anaxamander -- who fit in there historically right after Thales -- was sharper than all the other Pre-Socratics when he argued that each one of these so-called (in my words, not theirs) 'primordial, archetypal life substances' was in essence 'restricted by its particular molecular structure and boundaries' (again, my 21st century words, not in Anaxamander's 500 BC vocabulary ) that precluded the evolutionary existence and/or development of all the others...thus, none of these particular substances in themselves ('water', 'air', or 'fire') could be the 'primordial, archetypal life substance' that they were all looking for...

There had to be some larger, over-riding principle and/or 'structure' that contained them all, and in particular, 'contained all of the opposites' that Anaxamander saw around him in life...

Anaxamander conceptualized and named this 'over-riding, infinite storage structure' of all of 'life's (and death's) chaotic, unorganized, undifferentiated opposite structural and dynamic pieces' -- 'The Apeiron'...

Now I will argue right here and now -- and I will argue in front of any other philosopher -- that 'The Apeiron' -- as archaic as the concept may appear to us at first glance now -- was, and is, the most important concept that was ever invented in the history and evolution of Western Philosophy. More important than any concept that Socrates or Plato or Aristotle created...We will come back to Lao Tse, Heraclitus, and Spinoza because they had some important conceptual insights into this same 'life mystery' that Anaxamander was shining his philosophical light on...


What Anaxamander had his conceptual finger on was an idea that was superior to Darwin's theory of evolution and far superior to his own idea that 'man evolved from fishes'....

I will give Anaxamander's philosophical and cosmological theory a 21st century name and call it 'binary evolution theory' or 'multi-dialectic theory'.

Anaxamander, in essence, was the 'Hegel' of Pre-Socratic times...Hegel some 2300 years plus before the real Hegel published 'The Phenomenology of Spirit'...and Heraclitus, like Lao Tse in The East, added one more essential piece to Anaxamander's 'binary theory of evolution' that was indispensible to Anaxamander's 'binary evolution theory' that he didn't get to -- and that was/is the theory of 'homeostasis' or 'homeostatic balance' or 'equilibrium'...which Walter Bradford Cannon would 'formalize' some 2500 years later in modern medicine in his classic book called 'The Wisdom of The Body' (1932)...


We could almost say that Heraclitus' philosophical relationship to his (indirect?) teacher, Anaxamander, was similar to Marx's philosophical relationship to his main (indirect) teacher -- Hegel. Except the relationships were essentially different. Marx turned Hegel's idealistic dialectic philosophy upside down and made it both 'materialistic' and 'one-sided towards the political left' whereas Heraclitus both learned from Anaxamander, indeed, added an essential component to Anaxamander's theory of binary evolution (homeostasis or equilibrium) but Heraclitus was not as 'visionary' a philosopher as Anaxamander was. Anaxamander had a 'better overall philosophical world picture' of how everything in life and death came together -- and blew apart -- Anaxamander saw the 'competition of opposites' and their 'will to defeat each other' whereas Heraclitus saw the 'attraction of opposites', how they needed each other to survive and evolve which is the one part of Anaxamander's binary evolution theory that he missed -- i.e., the 'attraction and need of opposites for each other'...


Anaxamander saw only how opposites tried to conquer and destroy each other like 'Sparta' and 'Athens' continually tried to conquer and destroy each other. Anaxamander didn't see how Sparta and Athens 'needed each other' to fend of 'outside threats'...like 'the Persian Army'.

Which brings us to another important Western philosophical, psychological, and political concept that has taken thousands of years to develop -- another essential part of DGB Multi-Dialectic Philosophy-Psychology-Politics...just like the concept of 'binary or dialectic evolution' -- and that is the concept of 'binary or dialectic negotiation, integration -- and unity'. A totally Hegelian concept (with the name being added here within the confines of 'Hegel's Hotel').


So Anaxamander saw the 'competition of opposites' whereas Heraclitus saw the 'co-operation of opposites' -- both essential ideas in 'the geneological conceptual tree' that branches from Anaxamander (the main 'tree trunk'), to Heraclitus, to Spinoza, to Kant, to Fichte, to Schelling, to Hegel, to Nietzsche (The Birth of Tragedy) to Freud, to Jung, to Perls, to Foucault, to Derrida, ...and all the way up to 21st century philosophy -- and DGB 'Multi-Dialectic or Binary Evolution and Homeostatic Theory'...

Schelling is basically a 'dialectic' version of Spinoza. I love them both for what they accomplished philosophically -- and spiritually. Spinoza was a 'philosophical bridge' between religion and science -- but nobody, even in 'the philosophically liberal' country of Holland at the time, could see Spinoza's integrative brilliance. All they could 'smell' in Spinoza's spiritual brand of 'wholistic philosophy and religious-scientific pantheism' was a 'sneaky form of atheism'. And Spinoza is lucky that that 'particular Church judged perspective' of his philosophy at the time didn't get him killed. It did get him 'ex-communicated' from both the Judist Church and his community. Spinoza was not the first or the last philosophical genius to be rejected by his community.


Creative brilliance is the birth child of three things:


1. An unusual -- and sometimes shocking -- organization of The 'Apeiron-Chaotic-Shadow Self';

2. An unusual integration of the ideas of others before you who you have learned from;


3. 'Thinking outside the box' in both the above respects...


Either some people have it and some people don't, and/or we all potentially 'have it' except some people are more 'suppressed' and 'repressed' by 'the philosophy of the herd'...


What was Spinoza's religious crime?


I partly cry for the man who had the courage in the 1600s to say...'God is in everything'...(and everyone)...God is both our Creator and our Creation...The two are mutually indispensible parts of each other...Spinoza was Heraclitus partly reincarnated except Spinoza was a far gentler man than Heraclitus was and Heraclitus was a 'dialectic philosopher' whereas Spinoza wasn't...They were both 'pantheists' in that they both 'saw God in everything'...all of life's Creations...)


Wow! What a brilliant concept! But how do we bring this concept back to Anaxamander?


By means of the psychological concepts of 'introjection' and 'projection'...


Man is the Ultimate Projector...He (and she) projects him and herself into EVERYTHING!!

Into 'God'...into other 'people'...into 'structures' and 'statues'...into 'animals'...into 'art'...into 'philosophy' and 'psychology' and 'politics' and 'architecture' and 'culture' and 'religion'...Wherever man goes, whatever he sees, he 'projects him/herself into his outer environment'....

In this regard, man also is 'the Ultimate Narcissist' -- man is the legend of Narcissus -- he looks into the pond and sees his reflection, he looks into everything and everyone and sees a reflection of him or herself...he or she just doesn't always know that they are doing this -- about 80 or 90 percent of the time (unless you teach yourself how to 'catch your projections' -- this 'cognitive process' is carried out almost entirely un(sub)consciously...

Now, how can all of this -- Spinoza, Schelling, pantheism, projection and introjection, archetypes, Hegel, Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, Perls, Foucault, Derrida... -- be tied and integrated back to Anaxamander?

You've got to think outside the box...or perhaps, rather, 'inside the box' where all others are 'thinking outside the box'...

The 'Apeiron' can be defined as 'Primordial, Archetypal Undifferentiated Binary Chaos'...in the process of becoming differentiated -- and then 'shot into the world'...


And this 'Primordial, Archetypal, Undifferentiated Binary Chaos differentiating into binary opposition'...Is Not Only Outside of Us...It Is Also Inside of Us!!!
Freud called 'it' -- i.e., our 'Internal Apeiron' -- 'The Id'...

Jung called 'it' -- again, our 'Internal Apeiron' -- 'The Shadow'...


And the 'Id-Shadow-Primordial Binary Self' is an 'Internal Mass of Undifferentiated, Disorganized, Opposing, Social and/or Anti-Social, Loving and/or Hating, Kind and/or Evil Thoughts, Ideas, Impulses, Feelings, Talents, Skills, Potentials...Waiting to be differentiated, expressed, rise to the surface of the personality, and/or stay underneath and manipulate the personality from underneath...'Satan', 'Dionysus', 'Hell', 'Hades', all different concepts, ideas, Gods, myths, mythologies, symbols, projections...aimed at describing our darkest, inner primordial selves...and the clash between 'God' and 'Satan' -- our inner most beautiful and most evil selves...Satan evicted from God's Kingdom...and forever alienated, disavoved, always looking to strike back at the God, the man, the part of his Dialectical Binary Self that rejected him and kicked him out of 'Heaven'....which is the 'Spirit and The Soul of The Self in Dialectical Unity, Wholism, and Peace with him or herself...which is then 'projected' out into the 'community', or conversely, the 'disavowed and rejected internal Shadow of ourselves -- whether it be the metaphorical, symbolic, mythological 'Dionysus' or 'Satan' or whoever....'projects' his rejected, sad, mad, and/or blatantly evil Satanic Self back out into the World, The Heaven, that rejected him...
And this, my dear readers, is the essential 'geneological tree' that connects Anaxamander to me...through all the rest of the philosophers who I may or may not have mention along the way...


Regardless of whether my 'lofty, unorthodox vision' of man, life, and evolution is viewed as 'creatively brilliant' or 'outrageously stupid', I could not have developed this vision without all of the philosophers and psychologists who I have read and who I hold the greatest of respect for...


I love my parents and their 'Protestant religious beliefs' -- and how they apply them in their day to day lives...


But my interpretration of 'The Bible' changed in university -- decades ago, in the 1970s, if only in its initial percolating form -- the day I opened Erich Fromm's 'The Forgotten Language' (1951) and read how he interpreted The Bible 'metaphorically' and 'mythologically' rather than 'literally'.


It is the 'Fromm-Jung-Freud-Schelling-Spinoza-Heraclitus-Anaxamander' Connection that has just a few minutes ago resulted in my creation of perhaps one of the most  unorthodox, shocking interpretations of 'The Cross' that you may ever get...and it is not meant to offend anyone, regardless of your religious or non-religious mindset...


In this DGB 'Dialectical-Humanistic-Existential-Pantheist' interpretation of The Cross...


1. You have 'God' at the top of The Cross...symbolizing both the 'highest of man's rational, sane, humane, self and social ideals' as well as the 'highest of man's creative and humanistic-existential potentials'....paradoxically and ironically representative in this regard also of Nietzsche's (paraphrased) 'Will To Creative Self-Empowerment'...

2. You have 'Satan' at the bottom of The Cross...symbolizing both man's inherent potential for 'assertive, unorthodox opinions, perspectives, and lifestyles' (which may not necessarily be bad but still perceived as 'bad enough' to be 'disavowed, dissociated, alienatated from society') and for what Satan is usually most symbolized for -- mans' potential for Evil against both himself and/or others which is usually arrived at through some radical internal combination of 'trauma', 'rejection', 'abandonment', 'betrayal', 'alienation', 'disavowal', 'internal dissociation', 'righteousness', and 'narcisissm'...

3. On the 'right' side of The Cross, you have 'Apollo' symbolizing man's 'most Logical, Rational, Just and Fair, Equal Rights and Democracy Oriented, Enlightened Self'...

4. On the 'left' side of The Cross you have 'Dionysus' symbolizing man's most 'Sensual, Sexual, Romantic, Creative, Irrational, Unpredictable, Romantic Self'...

5. Finally, in the middle of The Cross, you have 'Jesus' who can represent either of two things: 1. 'the Integrative, Harmonious, Peaceful, Dialectically Unified Self'; and/or 2. 'The Crucified, Internal, Strife and Conflict-Ridden, Alienated, Disavowed Self', the Ultimate Symbol of Man's Internal and External Propensity for Fear, Anger, Rage, Violence, War...When The Personality Is Not Dialectically Connected and At Peace and Harmony With Itself...


The first symbolization of Jesus is probably closer to a 'Christian' symbolization of Jesus (introjected and integrated into the personality and the Self); the second symbolization is a symbolization of Jesus' victimization by his fellow man (and/or by Himself)' when He failed at His -- which is now 'our' -- task of integrating peacefully both within ourselves and within our community of others...


I will let you chew on this essay for a while...


-- dgb, Oct. 26th, 2010,


-- David Gordon Bain,


-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...

-- Are Still in Process...