Leucippus or Leukippos (Greek: Λεύκιππος, first half of 5th century BC) was the first Greek to develop the theory of atomism — the idea that everything is composed entirely of various imperishable, indivisible elements called atoms — which was elaborated in far greater detail by his pupil and successor, Democritus.
He was most probably born in Miletus [1] rather than Abdera. (It is highly unlikely that he was born in Elea (Italy), as attributed by Diogenes Laertius (Vitae philosophorumIX, 30 ss,) and Simplicius of Cilicia (Physica, 28, 4).[2]
Overview
Leucippus was a shadowy figure, as his dates are not recorded and he is often mentioned in conjunction with his more well-known pupil Democritus, who replaced indeterminism with determinism as the ontological cause of atomic movement. It is therefore difficult to determine which contributions come from Democritus and which come from Leucippus.
In his Corpus Democriteum,[3] Thrasyllus of Alexandria, an astrologer and writer living under the emperor Tiberius (14-37 CE) compiled a list of writings traditionally attributed to Democritus to the exclusion of Leucippus.
Leucippus was an Ionic Greek (came from Eastern Greece, at present Turkey) as Anaxagoras, contemporary of Zeno of Elea and Empedocles (both of Western Greece, at present Italy). Belonging to the Ionian school of naturalistic philosophy Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, he was interested in reality and not ideality as the Italic Eleatics were. The legend about the influence of Zeno is totally false, as modern studies established, also because the ontological conception of being of the Eleatics is static, monistic and deterministic, while Leucippus' is dynamic, pluralistic and indeterministic.
Around 440 B.C. or 430 B.C. Leucippus founded a school at Abdera, which his pupil, Democritus, was closely associated with.[4] His fame was so completely overshadowed by that of Democritus, who systematized his views on atoms, that Epicurus doubted his very existence, according to Diogenes Laertius x. 7.
However, Aristotle and Theophrastus explicitly credit Leucippus with the invention of Atomism. Leucippus agreed with the Eleatic argument that true being does not admit of vacuum, and there can be no movement in the absence of vacuum. Leucippus contended that since movement exists, there has to be vacuum. However, he concludes that vacuum is identified with non-being, since it cannot really be. Leucippus differed from the Eleatics in not being encumbered by the conceptual intermingling of being and non-being. Plato made the necessary distinction between grades of being and types of negation.[4]
The most famous among Leucippus' lost works were titled Megas Diakosmos (The Great Order of the Universe or The great world-system[5]) and Peri Nou (On mind).
Quotes
Hermann Diels - Walter Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (Berlin 1931), A 67 24}}
Notes and references
- ^ Th.Gomperz, Griechische Denker, Berlin, Eichborn 1931.
- ^ The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy, pg. xxiii. Note that Democritus was a resident of Abdera. Some said Leucippus from Elea, perhaps since he was unsuitably associated with the Eleatic philosophers.
- ^ Jonathan Barnes, Early Greek Philosophy, 1987
- ^ a b Leucippus in The Presocratics, Philip Wheelwright ed., The Odyssey Press, 1966, pg. 177.
- ^ Ibid., pg. xxiii.
- A.A. Long (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy (pgs. xxiii, 185)
- Diels-Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker [I] 67A
- Diogenes Laertius, Diogenes Lartius: Lives of Eminent Philosophers, IX.30-33
Connected arguments
External links
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