Democritus

Metaphysics

Biography
Democritus was a Greek Philosopher, born in Thrace (northern
Greece) around 460 BCE, and died around 370 BCE. After the death
of his wealthy father, Democritus travelled the world on his inheritance,
going to Persia, Babylon, Asia, Ethiopia and Egypt, and meeting
philosophers such as Hippocrates, Socrates, and Anaxagoras. He
lectured about natural philosophy upon returning to Greece, and
founded Atomism with Leucippus. His work survives through second
hand reports, courtesy of Aristotle, as he was Atomisms greatest critic.
Democritus also studied mathematics and geometry, biology, and the
universe. He was the first to hypothesise that the Milky Way is made
up of many stars, and that there may be other worlds within our
universe, some of which inhabited. In his later years, he was known as
the Laughing Philosopher, as well as a prophet because of his
knowledge of natural phenomena.

Work
Question: The question Democritus must have asked himself was What is the nature of reality? or more
specifically, What is the world made up of? which may sound like a simple question of science
nowadays, but back then, would have been a very popular question at the time because, like most things
philosophical, there was no way of completely proving the resulting theories. In particular, his theory was
a response to a theory of Parmenides, that change was impossible without something coming from
nothing.

Method: He reduced reality to matter, and matter to atoms. His main rationale behind the atom was that
there becomes a point where something is too small to be divided (and, conveniently, to be seen). He
named these building blocks atomos, or uncuttable, and their counterpart was the void. Both can be
neither created nor destroyed, as we know modern atoms to be, but the atoms existed within the void.
These atomic particles rearranged themselves with the void to form reality and every object in the
universe. This theory expelled the concept of deities, but not the human soul, which was made up of a
spherical atom in constant motion.

Reception: Aristotle was, though impressed with his Atomic theory, an opposer of it. He believed that the
elements fire, air, earth, and water were not made of atoms, rather were continuous. Therefore, the
existence of a void, as it was the counterpart to atoms, violated physical principles. Other philosophers,
such as Epicurus, questioned how atoms and the void played into natural phenomena like weather and
astronomy. One could imagine that, in such a religious time, that these views were rejected by the
general public in favour of ones similar to Aristotle. A theory that disproved deities was no good to a
polytheistic society.

Questions
Though What is the universe made of? was the question behind his atomic theory, it is no longer a
philosophical question, just a quantum physical one. Other questions studied by Democritus that my
classmates could also study include What is the nature of reality?, Why is there something rather than
nothing?, and Do we have souls? all of which having metaphysical applications.