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Anaxagoras

Pre-Socratic
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Anaxagoras came from Ionia to Athens and became the first philosopher to live and teach there. He proposed that an infinite number of seeds make up all things, and that Nous (Mind) set the cosmos in motion. He was a friend of Pericles. The Athenians put him on trial for impiety because he taught that the sun is a mass of burning metal, not a deity. He was convicted and exiled. He spent his last years in Lampsacus.

c. 480 BCE·Athens

Philosophy Comes to Athens

Arrived in Athens from Ionia and became the first philosopher to teach there. He was a close associate of Pericles.

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