Démocrite - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

Biography

Démocrite, third wire of Hégésistrate, Athénacrite or Damasippe, was born with Abdère, or perhaps with Milet, in the 80e Olympiade (460-457) or, according to others, in the 77e (in 470 - 469). He would have died at the 103 years age (between 366 and 356)

According to Diogène Laërce, he was educated by magi of the king Xerxès I {{er}}, which taught him the Théologie and the Astronomie. He became the companion of Leucippe, which was 40 years its elder. According to Antisthène of Rhodos (Diogène Laërce, IX, 34), Démocrite learned the Géométrie near the priests from Egypt, and the Astrologie in Perse. He would have also travelled in India, where he would have met the Gymnosophiste S, in Ethiopia and Babylonia. He thus seems much to have travelled, perhaps after having inherited a great amount of money of his father. He would have even gone to Athens, meeting Socrate without being known of him, because it did not wish to be made known by contempt for glory. Diogène Laërce says to us thus that the unknown character of the Rivaux (dialog apocryphal book of Plato) who discusses Philosophie with Socrate was perhaps Démocrite. But this passage to Athens was already regarded as doubtful in the Antiquité.

According to Démétrios (Diogène Laërce, IX, 36), Démocrite, impassioned knowledge, was locked up in a house to study. He knew the Physique, the ethical , the Mathématiques, the Art S, and had a vast general culture. He seems to have been a partisan of the pythagoricians, and he admired Pythagore (one of the works that one allots to him has for title Pythagore, or of the state of wisdom ). Perhaps even was it in connection with Philolaos of Crotona.

The knowledge of Démocrite was thus immense:

“Of all my contemporaries I traversed most of the ground, by studying the largest subjects. I saw the most climates and country. I heard the majority of the learned men, and nobody still exceeded me in art to combine the lines and to show of them the properties, not same the land-surveyors of Egypt, with which I spent five years out of foreign ground. ”
(City by, I, 15,69)

This polymathy made it call science (sophia).

Of return of its voyages, having wasted its fortune, he lived in poverty, and was maintained by Damaste, his brother. But, after a public reading of the Great order of the world (by him or one of his/her parents), it was rewarded for 500 talents.

In addition, Pline (in Natural history ) lends to him (the same anecdote is allotted to Thalès, in slightly different terms) to have proven with its fellow-citizens who “disparaged the studies to which it was delivered” that it was able to grow rich, but that did not interest it. It did it in the following way: on astrological considerations, he predicts the rise of the course of oil, bought the majority of stocks. When the course went up, the notable ones could only note its intelligence and its contempt of the profit, when it returned the goods without asking for the fruit of its speculation.

Its gifts of observations astonished its contemporaries, and several anecdotes are reported on this subject:

“It is said that an young girl accompanied Hippocrates, and that the first Démocrite day says to him “hello, virgin”, and the following day “hello, woman”. And indeed, the young girl had lost her virginity during the night. ”

Its merry character became legendary and one opposed it to the irritable character Héraclite:

“Any meeting with the men provided to Démocrite matter with laughing. ”
(Juvénal, Satires , X, V, towards 47)

“(…) Démocrite is voluntarily private light of the eyes, because it estimated that while meditating on the natural causes, its thoughts and its reflections would have more strength and of accuracy if it delivered them obstacles brought by the tempting charms of the sight. ”
(, X, 17)

But this point is denied by Plutarque ( curiosity , 12,521).

He died towards the 103 years age, and was buried with the expenses of the State. He seems to be himself let die (cf Lucrèce, III, v. 1039), while eating less and less, to leave the old age which weakened its memory, and died of exhaustion.

Its fame was immense and caused the jealousy. Tiller of Phlionte, very critical with regard to almost all the philosophers, celebrates it as follows:

“O very wise Démocrite, Master of the speech,
Speaker warned, among the best than I read. ”

Tiller also says him:

“What a wise, this Démocrite, Pasteur of the words!
I read above all others his talks full with spirit.”

Chemistry

Principles of nature

For Démocrite, as for Leucippe, nature is made up as a whole of two principles: the Atome S (what is full) and the Vide (or Néant). The existence of the atoms can be deduced from this principle: “Nothing comes from nothing, and nothing, after being destroyed, goes back there. ” There is thus always the full one, i.e of the to be, and the non-being is the vacuum.

The atoms are solid and indivisible corpuscles, separated by empty intervals, and whose size makes that they escape our directions. Described like smooth or hard, hooked, bent or round (they are infinite by their form, appears and size), they cannot be affected or modified because of their hardness.

The atoms move in a swirling way in all the Univers, and are at the origin of all the compounds (of the Sun to the heart), which also includes/understands all the elements (fire, water, air and ground). The atoms are driven eternally in the infinite vacuum. They enter sometimes in collision and rebound randomly or join according to their forms, but never merge. The generation is then a meeting of atom, and the destruction, a separation, the atoms being maintained together until a stronger force comes to disperse them of outside. It is under the action of the atoms and of the vacuum that the things increase or disaggregate: these movements constitute the modifications of the sensitive things. These agglomerations and these tangles of atoms thus constitute to become it. The being is thus not one, but is composed of corpuscles.

The vacuum is the non-being in which the atoms are driven: there is vacuum not only in the world (interval between the atoms), but apart from him. Thus, the being and the non-being are as much Réel S.

The things formed by the atoms present three kinds of differences which constitute them:

the type > form
the mutual contact > order
direction > position

Physics

Cosmology

The world S exist in the vacuum and are of number infinite, of various sizes and laid out of various manners in the space: they are more or less brought closer, and, in certain places, there are more or less worlds. Some of these Univers are entirely identical. These universes are generated and perishable: some are in phases of increase, others disappear, or even they enter in collision the ones with the others and are destroyed. The worlds are thus controlled by blind creative forces, and there is no providence.

In some of these universes, one finds living beings (animal, Plante S), others are private and are private of Eau (of moisture).

According to Démocrite, in some of these universes, there is neither Sun nor the Moon, and in those which have some, they are different sizes.

The universe as a whole develops until it can nothing any more include.

Psychology

The Gods

Biology

It exposed an assumption of spontaneous Generation of the alive species.

It inspired Lucrèce for its work Of nature .

Theory of knowledge

Perception

Since there are in nature only atoms and vacuum, significant qualities are conventions. The visible things, all that is perceptible by the directions, consists of corpuscles.

Knowledge

Démocrite distinguishes two forms from Connaissance: knowledge by the direction, which he criticizes and calls bastard and obscure, and knowledge by the intellect, which he calls legitimate and true. It is the reason which is the criterion of legitimate knowledge

All our feelings are conventions, i.e things determined by our opinions and our affections. Are thus true and understandable the only elements of which is made up all nature, the atoms and the vacuum, i.e something which is not sensitive. The position, the form and the order are not whereas accidents.

But it is necessary to add several considerations on our capacities to know by means of the directions:

we are not informed of all our feelings: a great number remains unperceived.
the significant impressions vary according to the animals, of an individual with another, and even for only one individual. But, in this case, it is impossible to know which impressions are true; all are also true: the truth and appearance are identical: all that appears with an individual and who seems to him to exist is true.
Démocrite also concludes from it that either the truth does not exist, or it is hidden to us.

“We do not know actually anything of some, but only what changes according to the provision of our body, and according to what penetrates in him or what resists to him. It was shown that actually we do not know what each thing is or is not. It is impossible to know the real nature of each thing. ” (Quoted by Sextus Empiricus, Against the professors , VII, 135)

“Actually, we do not know anything, because the truth is at the bottom of the well. ”

Language

Ethical

Art

Works

Ethics

Pythagore, or of the state of wisdom
Of the Hells
Tritogénie
Of Courage
Of the Virtue
Of the Horn of plenty
Of Happiness
Comments of morals
Good mood

Mathematics

Music

Of the Rates/rhythms and the Harmony
Of Poetry
Of the epic Beauty
Of the Consonance and Dissonance
Of the letters of Homère or the accuracy of the worms and the terms
Of the Song
Of Diction
Dictionary

Art

Of the medical Forecast
Of the Mode of life or Dietetics, or of Medicine
Causes of the things which are of season and those which are out of season
Of Painting
Tactique or of the use of the weapons

Others

Of the Agriculture or Géorgique which was allotted to him as of the antiquity but whose author is Bolos de Mendès

Sources

, IX.

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