Anaxagoras

Born around 500 BC in Clazomenae under Persian rule, Anaxagoras made his way to Athens and planted the seeds of materialist thought in the city's intellectual soil. Responding to Parmenides' denial of change, he proposed Nous — Cosmic Mind — as the force ordering all things. He worked out a correct mechanism for eclipses, floated the idea that life might exist throughout the universe (panspermia), and suggested the sun could be just another star. His claim that the sun was a fiery mass larger than the Peloponnese landed him in court on charges of impiety. He left Athens and spent his final yea…