Notes on the Atomists

(Originally written September 7, 2006 in Book 10)

The Classical Mind 2nd Ed.
W.T. Jones

Chapter 3 - Atomism

The Later Pluralists

The Final development of the pluralists were the philosophers known as "Atomists".

Four major philosophers came to represent the Atomists:
1) Leucippus
2) Democritus
3) Epicurus
4) Lucretius

• Leucippus, if he was real, lived in the 5th century BC and was a contemporary of Anaxagoras.
• Lucretius was a contemporary of Cicero and Julius Caesar, living in the first half of the 1st century BC. 
• Lucretius' poem "On the nature of things" is the most complete atomist text.

Democritus:

• Democritus believed that man's mind was capable of understanding the universe.
• He agreed that the Sophists were correct in saying that the senses provided private opinions, but held that an objective public world was discoverable by reason.

Attempt to avoid difficulties of earlier pluralists:

Atoms were tiny eternal, indestructible, uncreated and indivisible entities. Each atom was a Parmenidean one. Each was an impenetrable plenum.

Each atom is a tiny solid bit of matter.

They believed that there was empty space for two reasons:
1) So there could be motion and thus, conglomeration of atoms
2) It debunked Parmenides' idea of everything being one and indivisible

They said the Parmenidean 'nothing' did not apply to empty space because empty space was something.

Lucretius' version of Atomistic physics:

Democritus hoped to avoid the difficulties of Empedocles and Anaxagoras by asserting reality was made of:
1) Solid, indivisible and qualitatively indistinguishable bodies
2) these bodies moved
3) These bodies moved in empty space

Nothing is created:

• Lucretius held that there is no creation out of nothing.
• He held that the gods did not create anything. 
• He believed that the idea of god caused men undue stress.
• He held that if the gods could be excluded from the world, man would be free. He aimed to do this by showing the uniformity of nature. But, he did not show nature was uniform.
• The uniformity of nature was to be the basis for all of Lucretius' philosophy. Otherwise the gods could simply alter the world at will.
• He was not an atheist though. He believed that there were gods, but that they did not meddle in human affairs.
• The gods, like everything else were made out of atoms.

Nothing is destroyed:

• Like Parmenides, Lucretius believed nothing was created and nothing was destroyed.
• Lucretius believed that if destruction occurred eventually there would be nothing. But, since there is no creation matter must've always existed. If matter has always existed it extends infinitely into the past and if destruction did take place all of matter would've been destroyed by now. Thus, there is no destruction.

The is empty space:

• He ignored Zeno's paradox and simply stated that since motion occurs there is necessarily empty space.
• He concluded this because a pile of hay as large of a pile of led is much lighter.

Space is infinite:

• He held that the void or empty space must be infinite because if it were finite something must exist to bind it. But, what can bind it?

The nature of Atoms:

• Atoms are indistinguishable by qualities. They differ in shape and size only.
• There must be an infinite number of atoms, otherwise the chances of atoms colliding in an infinite space is really low.
• Atoms, though differing in size, are all very small
• Atoms were not infinitely divisible
• "All nature is built of these two things: for there are bodies and the void" (Jones, 84)
• Atoms are knowable by the intellect or reason, but not by sensory perception.
• Lucretius called body that which can be touched and the void that what cannot be touched. But he failed to see the difference betwixt the bodies of ordinary experience and his specially defined body. He confused the two and this led to many problems, one of which was in his account of motion.

The Motion of Atoms:

• The theory of motion, as ethics, were very varied among the atomists. The physical theory was very much widely accepted among all atomists.
• All atomists believed that the world was formed by the "jostling" of atoms. They collided, bounced apart and joined, forming new groupings. 
• They disagreed on how the 'jostling' got going.
• Democritus probably believed that the atoms were always jostling. While he side-stepped the origin problem he was left with every unattractive theory of irreducible diversity of motion.
• Epicurus believed that all motions came from a single, simple motion. He now focused on finding what looked like the simplest motion.
• Rest seems simpler than motion; more natural, but Epicurus could not accept that.
• Epicurus concluded that falling through empty space was the simplest motion. Falling was eternal.
• As an atom fell it would hit another atom and thus, varying motions occur
• Epicurus ran into a couple of conflicts with his theory.
• Falling denotes up and down, but in an infinite space up and down are meaningless
• If atoms move only in a straight pat (to avoid the up/down problem) through space why would they collide with one another?
• Speed would have to vary, but why would atoms vary in speed? For convenience sake.
• Speed would have to be caused to vary by weight. In air and water this is true, but in empty space, weight matters not.
• Epicurus explained this with the theory of "swerve" Atoms would have to swerve a little bit to collide with one another.
• But the swerve would have to be spontaneously caused. In other words, it would have to be created out of nothing, which atomism denied

The Sensory World

• Once atoms collide they take on varying motions.
• But if atoms only possess weight, size, shape and motion how do they form the sensible world? The atomists disagreed on this point.
• Epicurus' view
• Individual atoms are without color, taste, etc., but a group of atoms formed by jostling, have color, tastes, etc.
• The way the atoms are positioned in a grouping coupled with each individual atom's motion gives us sensory data
• The property, such as color in a given collection is dictated by the arrangement of atoms, but the specific color it gives to our senses (red, blue, green, etc) is an accident. Accidents are temporary, properties are not.
• The properties belong to the atoms, what we sense are our own
• The major problem with Epicurus' view is that he holds only that atoms and the void exists. Properties are neither atoms nor the void. So what are they? They have to be subjective then and Epicurus denies this.
• Democritus' view:
• Democritus holds sensory perceptions to be certain atoms flung off from the group that reach our sense organs
• Our sense organs are merely collections of atoms; thus when the atoms flung off combine with the atoms forming our sense organs we "sense" a color, taste, smell, sound, etc.
• Democritus' view is full of paradoxes. In spite of this it is still held by some today.
• Since "we" are nothing more than various configurations of atoms does it make any sense that one configuration of atoms would experience another configuration of atoms as red, solid, or extended?

Classics of Philosophy

Louis Pojman

Pre-Socratic Testimonies

Leucippus & Democritus

Atoms and the Void

1. Leucippus A6

Leucippus and Democritus believe the elements are "the full" and "the empty", the "what is" and "what is not". They held that the differences of the atoms are what makes the world look like it does. The atoms are the cause of all things. The atoms differ in shape, order, and position or contour, contact and rotation. "A differs from N in shape, AN from NA in order and Z from N in position" (Pojman, 19) -Aristotle.

2. Democritus A37

The void is nothing and boundless. Each atom is what-is. Each atom is tiny enough not to be sensed, but have varying shapes and sizes. -Aristotle, from Simplicius

3. "[B156] Thing [dem] is no more than nothing [mêden]" (Pojman, 19). What is (atoms_ is no more than what is not (the void).

4. [B11] There are two kinds of understanding: legitimate and bastard. Sensory perception gives us the bastard kind; any understanding derived elsewhere is legitimate. 

5. [B9] There senses give us opinions, but in reality nothing exists but atoms and the void. -Sextus Empiricus

Formulation of Compounds

6. [A37] Atoms collide with one another and become entangled. They stick together, and became entangled. They stick together because they vary in shape. They still remain single entities, never forming one single thing, but appear to be so.

The Origin of the Cosmos

7. [Leucippus] After breaking off from the boundless, many atoms of differing shapes and sizes enter a great void. This produces a vortex and spins wildly. The spinning causes the heavy atoms to cohere together in the middle. This is how earth was born out of the vortex. It is like a membrane and captures every atom it touches. The vortex spins the atoms joined together and dries them out. These become stars.

The Classical Mind

W.T. Jones

Chapter 3 - The Atomists (continued)

Atomism's reply to Sophism

• They fought against the skepticism of the Sophists and the subjectiveness of Protagoras
• Epicurus attempted to combat the subjective nature of the Sophist teaching by claiming that properties belonged to atoms not the senses. Unfortunately, his analysis of sensory perception was wrong and his theory must be rejected.
• Democritus conceded that it is subjective knowledge we have of colors and various properties, but it was all illusionary anyway, since only the void and atoms, which are qualitatively neutral, exist.
• Democritus admitted subjectivism, but that it had a physical explanation of atom combinations, which was objective
• Since the subjective experience is based on objective atoms there can be right and wrong, which is contrasting to the Sophists who held all was purely subjective and thus impossible of error
• Sophists' skepticism did not just reject sense perception. It rejected knowledge of objective truth via reason, objective values and objective ethics.

Psychology

• The mind is material. It is a physical organ. It is merely an aggregate of atoms.
• The only difference between humans and inanimate objects is the particular way the atoms in the mind are grouped

Nature of Thought

• Thought is a motion of atoms composing mind.
• Sensation is motion of the mind.
• The thought motion is truer than the sensation motion because it is more direct.
• The difference between reality and appearances is the difference in atoms moving.
• If this theory is correct, and every thought is merely a movement of atoms and atoms are infinite in number, how is it so that in an infinite amount of time it took so long for this combination of atoms to reveal the way thoughts occur?
• If every thought is merely a motion of atoms, premises, arguments, conclusions and evidence are meaningless. They are merely atomic motions and one need not precede the other.

The Problem of Free Will

• Free will has to be illusionary in the atomist theory.
• The jostling of atoms in your mind would dictate every decision.
• Whenever you believe you are choosing to do something really atoms are reacting to their hosting in a determined fashion.
• Democritus accepted this inevitable account of Free Will, but Epicurus could not.
• Epicurus utilized his "swerve" theory to explain free will. Some times atoms swerve to the volition of the mind atoms.
• The swerve however, does not prove free-will. It proves complete and utter indeterminism. Everything happens by random chance of such and such a swerve.

Further difficulties in the Atomist's account of thought

• When you focus on a particular thing, according to the atomists, it is because thing X's atoms are jostling with your mind atoms. But it seems implausible that thing X's atoms just happen to jostle your mind atoms and cease exactly when you stop thinking about them.
• Lucretius attempted to explain this problem away with the swerve theory, but that reintroduced the problem of randomness
• How can the atomists account for abstract thought? What is sending out atoms to cause mind-atoms to think on justice? They would say that your mind atoms are being jostled by some physical object's atoms that is justice, but during their journey to your mind atoms they have been jostled in a way to remove the concrete element of thought.

Ethics

• The atomists disagreed sharply in Ethics.
• Democritus focused on physics theory, but his ethics seem to have been noble and exalted.
• The goods of the soul were higher than the goods of the body/
• Upright behavior and complete understanding were the way to happiness.
• "Not from fear but from a sense of duty refrain from your sins. He who does wrong is more unhappy than he who suffers wrong" (Jones, 101).
• Strength of character was noble.
• Moderation was the means to the chief end: Tranquility.
• Contentment was valued
• Things that upset the soul were not good.
• Tranquility was a state in which the soul was calm and strong, free of fear, superstition or any strong emotion
• Democritus' interest in ethics was practical, not theoretical
• He disagreed with the Sophist notion of subjective values, maintaining values were objective.
• As in his physical theory, things were neither fully subjective nor fully objective in his ethics.
• But ethics are really meaningless since judgements, pain, happiness and all emotions were illusionary because only atoms and the void were real.
• "What is objective is the Atomists' theory of value is not valuable, and what is valuable is not objective" (Jones, 103).

Evaluation of Atomism

• While there are many objections to Atomism,a s a whole it is a vastly superior achievement to any theory preceding it.
• It is very straightforward and clear. While it breaks down, it is clear enough to be reformulated in a way that it might not break down.
• Their physical theory is a very good sketch of the way modern physics views the world.
• The Atomists revived the Greek's faith in science against the skepticism of the Sophists. They did not have an answer for the ethical and religious skeptical Sophism.
• "According to the Atomists, man is no more than a collection of atoms suffering from some extremely odd illusions" (Jones, 106).
• Atomism is unsatisfactory to people who hold ethics, religion and politics as important. Anyone who sees meaning in life will reject atomism.