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Democritus
Edited by Monte Johnson (University of California, San Diego)
About this topic
| Summary | Democritus of Abdera, a contemporary of Socrates, stands out among early Greek philosophers because he offered both a comprehensive physical account of the universe and a naturalistic account of human history and culture. Although none of his works has survived in its entirety, descriptions of his views and many direct quotations from his writings were preserved by later sources, beginning with the works of Aristotle and extending to the fifth-century AD Florigelium (Anthology) of Joannes Stobaeus. While Plato ignored Democritus’s work, largely because he disagreed with his teachings, Aristotle acknowledged Democritus as the most important physicist of his age, primarily for his exposition of the theory of atomism, which holds that everything in the universe, from objects to human souls, is a result of the interactions and rearrangements of the atoms in the void. Democritus is also known for his ethical theory, based on the thesis that wisdom is the greatest good for humans because it enables a stable and tranquil condition. His position was highly influential during the Hellenistic period, when it was further developed by Epicurus and his followers, who also built on Democritus’s physical theory and theory of knowledge. Although Democritus’s philosophy fell into obscurity during the Middle Ages because of its association with Epicurean hedonism and atheism, it became the focus of renewed interest during a revival of atomism in the Renaissance and early modern period, and today scientists cite the philosopher as an important early contributor to scientific thought. |
| Key works | The standard edition and enumeration of the fragments is Hermann Diels’s Die fragmente der Vorsokratiker (6th ed., 1951-52; The Fragments of the Presocratic Philosophers). The edition and Russian commentary of Salomo Luria (1970) greatly expanded the number and context of fragments beyond Diels’s edition, which was explicitly intended as a provisional collection. Recent translations of much of the extant evidence include the works of C. C. W. Taylor (1999) and, in Italian, Leszl (2009). The most recent edition and translation is the Loeb Classical Library (LCL 530) by André Laks and Glenn W. Most, Early Greek Philosophy: Later Ionian and Athenian Thinkers, Part 2: Atomists (Cambridge, Mass and London, 2016).Laks et al 2016 |
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- Acerca da autoria do livro Sobre as coisas no Hades.Gustavo Laet Gomes - 2024 - Filosofia, História e Poesia.
- La filosofia morale di Democrito.Luca Grecchi - 2024 - Milano: Mursia.
- A Defense of Aristotle's Interpretation of Democritus' Void (kenon) as a Kind of Place.Monte Ransome Johnson - 2024 - Antiquorum Philosophia 18:11-29.Aristotle’s interpretation of Democritus’ concept of the void as a kind of "place" has been called into question by modern historians of philosophy. The modest aim of the present essay is to argue that Aristotle’s description is reasonably charitable and accurate and affords the basis—the only possible basis—for a coherent reconstruction Democritus’ theory.
- Democritus, The Laughing Philosopher.Monte Ransome Johnson - 2024 - The Philosophy of Humor Yearbook 5 (1):1-28.I argue that a circa first century B.C./A.D. anonymous epistolary comic novel depicting a fictional interaction between Hippocrates of Cos and Democritus of Abdera contains an insightful imitation of Democritus that can cast light on the historical Democritus’s thought, including his thought on the touchy subject of appropriate and inappropriate laughter. The only thing certain about Democritus’s view of laughter is that he denounced laughter at human misfortune as inappropriate. The later legend of him as laughing at everything and everyone (...)
- El principio mitológico y el origen racional del concepto de “vacío” en la filosofía presocrática.Adrià Porta Caballé - 2024 - Anales Del Seminario de Historia de la Filosofía 41 (3):515-526.La explicación tradicional del concepto de "vacío" (τò κενóν) en la filosofía antigua lo sitúa como una invención del atomismo de Demócrito y Leucipo o, incluso, del eleático Meliso de Samos. De esta manera se ocultan las profundas razones que pudieron llevar a la necesidad y surgimiento de un tal concepto, y aparece como si hubiera sido creado ex nihilo. En este artículo se pretende descubrir tanto el principio mitológico como el origen racional del concepto de "vacío" en la filosofía (...)
- Democritus on Human Nature and Sociability.Jan Maximilian Robitzsch - 2024 - Ancient Philosophy 44 (1):1-15.This paper investigates the Democritean account of human nature and sociability. After briefly discussing what the claim that human beings are social animals means, the paper analyzes two culture stories, preserved in Diodorus of Sicily and John Tzetzes, that are typically taken to be Democritean, arguing that there are prima facie significant differences between the two accounts. The paper then concludes that human beings are not social animals by nature on the Democritean view, but rather that the Democritean account belongs (...)
- Ethics of atomism – Democritus, Vasubandhu, and the skepticism that wasn’t.Amber D. Carpenter - 2023 - British Journal for the History of Philosophy 32 (4):840-864.Democritus’ atomism aims to respond to threats of Parmenidean monism. In so doing, it deploys a familiar epistemological distinction between what is known by the senses and what is known by the mind. This turns out to be a risky strategy, however, leading to inadvertent skepticism with only diffuse and contrary ethical implications. Vasubandhu’s more explicitly metaphysical atomism, by contrast, relies on a different principle to get to its results, and aims to address different concerns. It leaves us with a (...)
- DA FÍSICA DOS ÁTOMOS À PERCEPÇÃO DOS SENSÍVEIS: OS MUNDOS, A HUMANIDADE E AS PERCEPÇÕES SENSÍVEIS EM DEMÓCRITO.Marcos Roberto Damásio da Silva - 2022 - Dissertation, Federal University of Minas Gerais
- Démocrite d'Abdère: aux origines de la pensée éthique.André Motte - 2022 - Bruxelles: Éditions Ousia. Edited by Democritus.
- (1 other version)Life and Lifeforms in Early Greek Atomism.Caterina Pellò & Michael Augustin - 2022 - Apeiron 55 (4):601-625.What is Leucippus and Democritus’ theory of the beginning of life? How, if at all, did Leucippus and Democritus distinguish different kinds of living things? These questions are challenging in part because these Atomists claim that all living beings – including plants – have a share of reason and understanding. We answer these questions by examining the extant evidence concerning their views on embryology, the soul and respiration, and sense perception, thereby giving an overview of life and lifeforms in early (...)
- Perdre des atomes: La vieillesse chez Démocrite.Isabelle Chouinard - 2021 - Archives de Philosophie 84 (2):39-54.In the ethical fragments, Democritus presents old age as an age when moderation develops more easily than in youth (68B294 DK). The fact that he also describes old age as “a general mutilation” (πήρωσις ὁλόκληρος) (68B296 DK) suggests that his atomic theory may have been used to account for the phenomenon. Understood as a loss of atoms in all parts of the body, the πήρωσις in turn causes leaks of psychic atoms which can have an impact on the temperament of (...)
- Between Eleatics and Atomists: Gorgias’ Argument against Motion.Roberta Ioli - 2021 - Archai: Revista de Estudos Sobre as Origens Do Pensamento Ocidental 31.The aim of my paper is to investigate Gorgias’ argument against motion, which is found in his Peri tou mē ontos and preserved only in MXG 980a1˗8. I tried to shed new light both on this specific reflection and on the reliability of Pseudo-Aristotle’s version. By exploring the so called “change argument” and the “argument from divisibility", I focused on the particular strategy used by the Sophist in his synthetikē apodeixis, which should be investigated in relation to the dispute between (...)
- An Introduction to Pre-Socratic Ethics: Heraclitus and Democritus on Human Nature and Conduct (Part I: On Motion and Change).Erman Kaplama - 2021 - Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy 17 (1):212-242.Both Heraclitus and Democritus, as the philosophers of historia peri phuseôs, consider nature and human character, habit, law and soul as interrelated emphasizing the links between phusis, kinesis, ethos, logos, kresis, nomos and daimon. On the one hand, Heraclitus’s principle of change (panta rhei) and his emphasis on the element of fire and cosmic motion ultimately dominate his ethics reinforcing his ideas of change, moderation, balance and justice, on the other, Democritus’s atomist description of phusis and motion underlies his principle (...)
- The Ethical Maxims of Democritus of Abdera.Monte Johnson - 2020 - In David Wolfsdorf (ed.), Early Greek Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 211-242.Democritus of Abdera, best known as a cosmologist and the founder of atomism, wrote more on ethics than anyone before Plato. His work Peri euthumiês (On Contentment) was extremely influential on the later development of teleological and intellectualist ethics, eudaimonism, hedonism, therapeutic ethics, and positive psychology. The loss of his works, however, and the transmission of his fragments in collections of maxims (gnomai), has obscured the extent his contribution to the history of systematic ethics and influence on later philosophy, especially (...)
- Meteorology.Monte Johnson - 2020 - In Liba Taub (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Greek and Roman Science. Cambridge University Press. pp. 160-184.Greco-Roman meteorology will be described in four overlapping developments. In the archaic period, astro-meteorological calendars were written down, and one appears in Hesiod’s Works and Days; such calendars or almanacs originated thousands of years earlier in Mesopotamia. In the second development, also in the archaic period, the pioneers of prose writing began writing speculative naturalistic explanations of meteorological phenomena: Anaximander, followed by Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, and others. When Aristotle in the fourth century BCE mentions the ‘inquiry that all our predecessors have (...)
- Philosophy and Dietetics in the Hippocratic On Regimen: A Delicate Balance of Health. By Hynek Bartos. [REVIEW]Monte Ransome Johnson - 2020 - Ancient Philosophy 40 (1):221-227.Hynek Bartos does the field of ancient philosophy a great service by detailing the influence of early Greek thinkers (such as Heraclitus, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Democritus, and Diogenes of Apollonia) on the Hippocratic work On Regimen, and by demonstrating that work’s innovative engagement with contemporary scientific and philosophical concepts as well as its direct influence on Plato and Aristotle. His study usefully counteracts the lamentable tendency among ancient philosophers to ignore or downplay the influence of medical literature on philosophy in general, (...)
- Epicureans, Earlier Atomists, and Cyrenaics.Stefano Maso - 2020 - In Kelly Arenson (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Hellenistic Philosophy. Routledge. pp. 58-70.The theory developed by Leucippus (5th cent. BCE), Democritus (470/460-380 BCE), and later Epicurus (341-271/270 BCE) and his school is commonly defined as atomistic materialism. According to this theory, matter is the fundamental principle of existent and ever-evolving reality, and it is constituted of atoms. But whereas for the first atomists atoms were not so much a substance (ousia) as an ideal form (idea) through which they could explain sensible bodies and their movement, with Epicurus atoms effectively turned into a (...)Remove from this listExport citation
Bookmark - The Concept of Motion in Ancient Greek Thought: Foundations in Logic, Method, and Mathematics.Barbara Sattler - 2020 - New York, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press.This book examines the birth of the scientific understanding of motion. It investigates which logical tools and methodological principles had to be in place to give a consistent account of motion, and which mathematical notions were introduced to gain control over conceptual problems of motion. It shows how the idea of motion raised two fundamental problems in the 5th and 4th century BCE: bringing together being and non-being, and bringing together time and space. The first problem leads to the exclusion (...)
- (1 other version)The elementary role of the so-called differences in the atomism of Leucippus and Democritus.Gustavo Laet Gomes - 2019 - Prometeus: Filosofia em Revista 11 (29).In the atomism of Leucippus and Democritus, as transmitted by Aristotle, elements are the atoms and everything else are atomic compounds. Still according to Aristotle, all of the physical features of sensible compounds must be traceable down to their elementary chemical constituents. He puts this same kind of demand to the atomic theory and considers that it falls short, because their impassive and immutable atoms cannot suffer the fundamental chemical processes that we witness in nature: generation and alteration. According to (...)
- On Democritean Rhysmos.Gustavo Laet Gomes - 2019 - Archai: Revista de Estudos Sobre as Origens Do Pensamento Ocidental 27:e02702.In Metaphysics A.4, Aristotle provides crucial information about fundamental aspects of the chemistry and microphysics of the atomic theory of Leucippus and Democritus of Abdera. Besides the plenum and the void, which he identifies as the elements of the atomic theory, he presents what he himself names as differences. These fundamental differences are named so because they ought to be responsible for the emergence of all other differences in the physical world, and especially the ones that hit our senses. Aristotle (...)
- (1 other version)The Elementary Role of the So-Called Differences in the Atomism of Leucippus and Democritus.Gustavo Laet Gomes - 2019 - Prometheus 29:295-311.
- Aristotle on Kosmos and Kosmoi.Monte Johnson - 2019 - In Phillip Sidney Horky (ed.), Cosmos in the Ancient World. New York: Cambridge University Press. pp. 74-107.The concept of kosmos did not play the leading role in Aristotle’s physics that it did in Pythagorean, Atomistic, Platonic, or Stoic physics. Although Aristotle greatly influenced the history of cosmology, he does not himself recognize a science of cosmology, a science taking the kosmos itself as the object of study with its own phenomena to be explained and its own principles that explain them. The term kosmos played an important role in two aspects of his predecessor’s accounts that Aristotle (...)
- When the Earth Was Flat: Studies in Ancient Greek and Chinese Cosmology.Dirk L. Couprie - 2018 - New York, USA: Springer Verlag.This book is a sequel to Heaven and Earth in Ancient Greek Cosmology. With the help of many pictures, the reader is introduced into the way of thinking of ancient believers in a flat earth. The first part offers new interpretations of several Presocratic cosmologists and a critical discussion of Aristotle’s proofs that the earth is spherical. The second part explains and discusses the ancient Chinese system called gai tian. The last chapter shows that, inadvertently, ancient arguments and ideas return (...)
- Democritus on Being and Ought: Some Remarks on the Existential Side of Early Greek Atomism.Björn Freter - 2018 - AKROPOLIS: Journal of Hellenic Studies 2:67-84.According to Democritus' anthropogeny is a microcosmic consequence within the process of cosmogony. However, the case of man is a peculiarity: man, this atom complex, is well aware of himself, yet is not aware of what he must do. Man does not naturally do that which promotes the harmonious ordering of his atoms. We must create a second nature. Now it becomes possible for us to be as we must be according to our first nature. Democritus is the is first (...)
- A química atomista de leucipo e demócrito no tratado sobre a geração e a corrupção de Aristóteles.Gustavo Laet Gomes - 2018 - Dissertation, Ufmg, Brazil
- Elementos no atomismo, segundo Aristóteles.Gustavo Laet Gomes - 2018 - Hypnos 41:146-165.In this paper, I discuss the use made by Aristotle of the term “element” when dealing with the atomist theory of Leucippus and Democritus. My goal is to verify which aspects of the atomist theory play the role of elements according to the definitions of Aristotle, who seems to have certain expectations regarding what can be designated as elements in the strict sense. One of them is the possibility of reciprocal transformation, the so-called “generation of elements”, which is the chemical (...)
- O atomismo segundo Aristóteles: pluralismo ou monismo?Gustavo Laet Gomes - 2017 - Phaine: Revista de Estudos Sobre a Antigüidade 3 (2):56-79.
- Atomismo ético de Leucipo e Demócrito.João Emanuel Diogo - 2016 - Boletim de Estudos Clássicos 61 (61):67-84.In this article, we start from the general thesis of theatomism – everything in the universe is composed by atoms – toassume an atomist reading of the ethical fragments of Democritus.If Leucippus and Democritus explain not only the beginning of the world, as well as the constitution of the soul and the body from therelation atom-emptiness (to be-not to be), this structure will also beapplied to the ethical maxims that we know. Despite this, the relationsoul-body is one of superiority (the (...)
- Conflicts of Atomisms. Some Major Differences between Democritus and Colotes.Enrico Piergiacomi - 2016 - Elenchos 37 (1-2):147-180.The paper compares the thought of Democritus and that of Colotes. It is argued that the two thinkers diverge at least in three noteworthy respects: 1) they disagree about the nature of knowledge, for Democritus identifies it with a process which goes from raw (and untrustworthy) sensation to intellectual understanding, whereas Colotes affirms the truth of every sensation and its fundamental role in the use of reason; 2) they have contrary opinions on the practice of “pleasing”, since the former totally (...)
- Weight in Greek Atomism.Michael J. Augustin - 2015 - Philosophia 45 (1):76-99.The testimonia concerning weight in early Greek atomism appear to contradict one another. Some reports assert that the atoms do have weight, while others outright deny weight as a property of the atoms. A common solution to this apparent contradiction divides the testimonia into two groups. The first group describes the atoms within a κόσμος, where they have weight; the second group describes the atoms outside of a κόσμος, where they are weightless. A key testimonium for proponents of this solution (...)
- Plutarch on the geometry of the elements.Jan2 Opsomer - 2015 - In Luc Van der Stockt & Michiel Meeusen (eds.), Aspects of Plutarch’s Natural Philosophy.Plutarch is committed to geometric atomism, the Platonic theory that derives the material elements from regular polyhedric shapes. An essential feature of this theory is that qualitative properties are not primitive, but supervene on more fundamental, quantitatively describable properties, such as the size, shape, mass or weight of the atoms, their solidity, position, arrangement and kinetic interactions. Plutarch recognises that the geometric account provides the causal explanation for phenomenal and other qualitative properties. He praises Plato and Democritus for their theoretical (...)
- Democritus: Empirical Rationalist.Chris Christensen - 2014 - Philosophy Now 104:10-12.Remove from this listExport citation Bookmark
- (1 other version)Changing Our Minds: Democritus on What is Up to Us.Monte Johnson - 2014 - In Pierre Destrée, R. Salles & Marco Antonio De Zingano (eds.), Up to Us: Studies on Causality and Responsibility in Ancient Philosophy. Academia Verlag. pp. 1-18.I develop a positive interpretation of Democritus' theory of agency and responsibility, building on previous studies that have already gone far in demonstrating his innovativeness and importance to the history and philosophy of these concepts. The interpretation will be defended by a synthesis of several familiar ethical fragments and maxims presented in the framework of an ancient problem that, unlike the problem of free will and determinism, Democritus almost certainly did confront: the problem of the causes of human goodness and (...)
- (1 other version)Changing our minds : Democritus on what is up to us.Monte Ransome Johnson - 2014 - In P. Destrée (ed.), What is Up to Us? Studies on Agency and Responsibility in ancient Philosophy. Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag.Remove from this listExport citation Bookmark
- Leucippus and Democritus on Like to Like and ou mallon.Gregory Andrew - 2013 - Apeiron 46 (4):1-23.Journal Name: Apeiron Issue: Ahead of print.
- Alan Chalmers. The Scientist's Atom and the Philosopher's Stone: How Science Succeeded and Philosophy Failed to Gain Knowledge of Atoms. xii + 288 pp., illus., bibl., index. New York: Springer, 2009. $139. [REVIEW]Victor Boantza - 2012 - Isis 103 (1):217-218.No categories
- Concepts of Fascination, from Democritus to Kant.Andreas Degen - 2012 - Journal of the History of Ideas 73 (3):371-393.
- Democritus' Ophthalmology.Kelli Rudolph - 2012 - Classical Quarterly 62 (2):496-501.The poiintt of Democritus' physiology of the eye is that vision occurs because the eye allows the image in, and its sponginess aids the transmission of the image to the reasoning faculty. Thus,, Democritus' ophthalmology plays an important, though neglected, part in his theory of vision.
- Il mistero Democrito.Giuseppe Solaro - 2012 - Roma: Aracne.
- Democritus (c. 460 - c. 370 BCE).Monte Johnson - 2011 - Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism 136:257-259.Encyclopedia article on Democritus. Includes a brief overview of his philosophical views, major works, and critical reception.
- The distinction between primary and secondary qualities in ancient Greek philosophy.Mi-Kyoung Lee - 2011 - In Lawrence Nolan (ed.), Primary and secondary qualities: the historical and ongoing debate. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. pp. 15.
- L’activité de l’'me démocritéenne.Miriam C. D. Peixoto - 2011 - Chôra 9:217-242.The thought of the ancient atomists about the activity of the soul in the body is an important chapter in the history of reflection on the soul in ancient philosophy. A review of testimonies and fragments attributed to Democritus of Abdera shows its singular conception of the soul as a complex network of transactions through which it exercises, inside compound bodies, its role in driving principle of beings animated. These texts show the tension and dynamism that characterize the activity of (...)
- Ancient Self-Refutation: The Logic and History of the Self-Refutation Argument From Democritus to Augustine.Luca Castagnoli - 2010 - New York: Cambridge University Press.A 'self-refutation argument' is any argument which aims at showing that a certain thesis is self-refuting. This study was the first book-length treatment of ancient self-refutation and provides a unified account of what is distinctive in the ancient approach to the self-refutation argument, on the basis of close philological, logical and historical analysis of a variety of sources. It examines the logic, force and prospects of this original style of argumentation within the context of ancient philosophical debates, dispelling various misconceptions (...)
- Mi-kyoung Lee's epistemology after protagoras: Responses to relativism in Plato, Aristotle, and democritus.Timothy Chappell - 2010 - Philosophical Books 51 (2):117-125.
- Rhusmos e movimento dos átomos na física de Demócrito.Miriam Campolina Diniz Peixoto - 2010 - Kriterion: Journal of Philosophy 51 (122):413-428.
- Democrito e l’Accademia. Studi sulla trasmissione dell’atomismo antico da Aristotele a Simplicio. [REVIEW]Lorenzo Perilli - 2010 - Ancient Philosophy 30 (2):412-415.
- Spontaneity, Democritean Causality and Freedom.Monte Ransome Johnson - 2009 - Elenchos 30 (1):5-52.Critics have alleged that Democritus’ ethical prescriptions (“gnomai”) are incompatible with his physics, since his atomism seems committed to necessity or chance (or an awkward combination of both) as a universal cause of everything, leaving no room for personal responsibility. I argue that Democritus’ critics, both ancient and contemporary, have misunderstood a fundamental concept of his causality: a cause called “spontaneity”, which Democritus evidently considered a necessary (not chance) cause, compatible with human freedom, of both atomic motion and human actions. (...)
- Democritus.Sylvia Berryman - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- Review of Aldo Brancacci, Pierre-Marie Morel (eds.), Democritus: Science, the Arts, and the Care of the Soul. [REVIEW]Patricia Curd - 2008 - Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2008 (12).
- Gnomica Democritea: Studien zur gnomologischen Überlieferung der Ethik Demokrits und zum Corpus Parisinum mit einer Edition der Democritea des Corpus Parisinum.Jens Gerlach - 2008 - Wiesbaden: L. Reichert. Edited by Democritus.English summary: The book "Gnomica Democritea" takes a panoramic view of the fate of Democritus' ethics by establishing a connection between the lost body of works on ethics and the "gnomological" tradition which is at the core of Diels' collection of fragments attributed to Democritus. The focus of the study is on the early and middle period of the Byzantine gnomological tradition which had not yet been analysed so far, and it leads to some modifications of the canon of texts (...)
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