Leucippus
Leucippus (in ancient Greek / is a philosopher Presocratic Greek (c. 460 - 370 BC. ), inventor of philosophical atomism. Active around 440 BC. BC, master of Democritus (active around 433 BC.).
Summary |
Biography
Little is known of his life. According to tradition, Leucippus was born in Miletus about 460 BC. AD (as Democritus also perhaps). According to other sources ( Diogenes Laertius , IX, 30), Elea , and finally it sometime citizen of Abdera. He was a contemporary of Empedocles and Anaxagoras , and student Zeno of Elea or even Parmenides. For some (including Erich Frank, 1923), Leucippus was under Pythagorean influence.
As we have only few fragments relating to the philosopher, Leucippus could be considered both as a man than a woman, as proposed by Jean-Paul Dumont.
Doctrine
Physics: atoms and vacuum
Leucippus was probably the founder of atomism , although the name Mochos, a Phoenician which we know nothing and we know the only hint of Sextus Empiricus, who lends the invention of the atom, a physical position to which can probably associate, under the principle in the following transcript of Leucippus to Lucretius through Epicurus , an ethical hedonist. We do not own any of his works, strictly speaking, they are included with those of Democritus , and it is virtually impossible to distinguish their respective ideas. The very existence of Leucippus is questionable: according to Diogenes Laertius, Epicurus doubted his existence. Aristotle and Theophrastus explicitly cite him as the source of the atomic theory. He is credited with a treatise on the intellect, although according to some historians Physics: simulacra The arrangement of atoms in Leucippus, as everything in the universe and produces simulacra. These are actually small particles suspended in the void that will be entering the human being to make information. Simulacra and stimulate the five human senses. The truth is therefore only in the phenomena . According to tradition this philosophical idea of simulacra is linked to the contemplation of the philosopher of a ray of light showing the airborne dust. This leads logically physical materialist ethic, as did at that time many philosophers. Thus, the gods can not exist in material form, they can not deal with humans, and try to send all sorts of sufferings and disasters. That puts the man in front of himself, under his own decision and not under that of a deity. As interpreted by Michel Onfray , "The gods slowly fade and give way to men: the materialism of Leucippus prepares eviction of the divine and makes possible the consecration of the human". One could argue that this leads to a physical ethical hedonist, ie on a morality of joy: "And, indeed, the peripatetic Lykos said, as Leucime, that true joy is the purpose of the soul is the joy that provide beautiful things. "( Clement of Alexandria , Stromata, II, 129) Leucime could be Leucippus. For Jean-Paul Dumont, who scored the fragment with other fragments reported to the philosopher, it is indeed Leucippus. Difficult to draw something this thin fragment. We can still say that the word joy is equal to the pleasure. Bailey tells us that the Greek word charis and hedonistic overlap most of the time and have the same meaning for example in Sophocles (Gorgias), Plato (Sophist) and Plutarch. Homer (The Iliad), Xenophon and Plato confirms this thesis in the sensual and sexual acceptance. It is thus unclear whether this is a hedonistic philosophy or eudemonism. Moreover, the beauty seen in this article refers surely excellence, virtue, nobility and all that is ideal for this time as the famous kagathos kalos - good and beautiful assembled. Leucippus says that joy is genuine, but what a joy it would be inauthentic? What is a theory of beauty before Plato and his theory of Ideas? Difficult to discover in the absence of other elements and historical context. Ethics
Sources
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