clinamen
(Latin, inclination) In the atomism of Epicurus, the ‘swerve’ of atoms responsible for introducing indeterminacy into an otherwise deterministic system.
|
Results for clinamen
|
On this page:
|
(Latin, inclination) In the atomism of Epicurus, the ‘swerve’ of atoms responsible for introducing indeterminacy into an otherwise deterministic system.
Clinamen is the name Lucretius gave to the spontaneous microscopic swerving of atoms from a vertical path as they fall (2.216-293). According to Lucretius, there would be no contact between atoms without the clinamen, and so, "No collision would take place and no impact of atom upon atom would be created. Thus nature would never have created anything." (2.220-225) This was first described in Epicurean physics.
The clinamen has been taken up in discussions of determinism as a possible explanation for an incompatibilist free will.
The term has also been taken up by Harold Bloom to describe the inclinations of writers to "swerve" from the influence of their predecessors; it is the first of his "Ratios of Revision" as described in The Anxiety of Influence.
In Difference and Repetition, Gilles Deleuze employs the term in his description of multiplicities, pointing to the observation at the heart of the theory of clinamen that "it is indeed essential that atoms be related to other atoms."(184) Though atoms affected by clinamen engage each other in a relationship of reciprocal supposition, Deleuze rejects this version of multiplicity, both because the atoms are too independent and because the multiplicity is spatio-temporal instead of internal.
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
Join the WikiAnswers Q&A community. Post a question or answer questions about "clinamen" at WikiAnswers.
Copyrights:
![]() | Philosophy Dictionary. The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. Copyright © 1994, 1996, 2005 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Read more | |
![]() | Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Clinamen". Read more |