ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 7: ATOMISM
- Started by Leucippus, focus on Democritus
DEMOCRITUS:
- similar ideas as Parmenides on generation
- What is: atoms (what is) and void (what is not)
Void & Atoms:
- without void movement is impossible
- Zeno & Parmenides - no void, thus no movement
- every atom is like Parmenides’ Being
- atoms are infinite primary magnitutes, indivisible, eternal, imperishable
- Being is fulness in void, but isn’t One
- Atoms come together in the void (the void is an existent)
- non-being existing is not an ontological statement
- no properties in atoms, properties come about through the mixture of atoms
- qualities are relative, subjective, conventional
- the cosmos is complex, so atoms must differ
- via Shape (schema): A from N; Order (taxis): NA from AN; Position (thesis): N from Z
- void not only allows motion, but causes it, via attraction of like towards like
Knowledge:
- not of conventions (qualities, subjective attributes); perception is illusiory
- comes only from rational thought, intellect
Democritus’ Mechanism:
- no teleology, everything happens out of necessity
- the soul is made up of atoms too
- there could have been infinitely many other worlds, due to the infinite congregation of atoms