Philosophy
c. 460 to 370 BC, Abdera
Atoms and the void: the first thoroughgoing materialism.
Start learning Democritus →Democritus’ revolutionary theory that all of reality is built from countless tiny, indestructible, indivisible bodies - atoms - moving through empty space, and that everything we see is just atoms in different arrangeme…
Democritus’ epochal distinction between the qualities things really have (the shapes and motions of atoms) and the qualities they only seem to have (colour, taste, warmth) - which exist not in the world but in us, &lsqu…
Democritus’ uncompromising claim that nothing happens at random but everything by necessity - that the whole world, gods aside, is a vast mechanism of atoms colliding, with no purpose, no design, and no providence guidi…
Democritus’ thoroughgoing materialism of the mind: the soul itself is made of fine, swift, spherical atoms, and we perceive the world because thin films of atoms ( eidôla ) stream off objects and strike our senses.
Democritus’ ethics of euthymia - ‘good spirits,’ cheerfulness, a calm and steady contentment of soul - won not by chasing pleasure or wealth but by moderation, inner balance, and being content with what one…
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