Abdère, Thrace, v. 460 av. J. - C. -? , v. 370 av. J. - C.
Greek philosopher.
In Dêmokritos Greek. Raise of Leucippe, Démocrite developed the atomism, of which it made a coherent and detailed vision of the world. Its Leucippe Master, Démocrite inherits the boldest ontology which thought ancient Greece: the universe is made up only of atoms and vacuum, and all the bodies are formed by combinations of atoms. A clever comparison with the letters of the alphabet made more plausible this astonishing cosmology: the 24 letters of the alphabet allow, combined in various ways, to write all the history of the men. The atoms, like the letters, differ either by the figure (as has and NR), or by the order (like YEAR and NA), or finally by the position like L and H.
Multiplicity of the atoms Announcing the “razor of Occam”, Démocrite affirms that this theory is necessarily truest, because it is simplest. The atoms consist of only one indivisible block, form and dimension variables; eternal, they exist of infinite number. The combinations of these atoms, also infinite, constitute the bodies and are due to the fittings of the atoms between them, following shocks, according to their mass and their form. Démocrite dared to affirm that our universe was only one of the possible universes, so much this multiplicity of combinations was fertile.
But especially, it clearly states the philosophical great principle which one finds at the base of any cosmology materialist: the movement is inseparable from the matter; of any eternity, the “atoms (...) are driven in the universe by wandering that and there”. It is thus useless to call upon an external creative principle to explain the birth of these worlds, fruits of the chance and need. The gods are only human dreams.
Theory of knowledge
Significant qualities are illusory, relating to the reports of our bodies to the atoms which affect them, the reason alone enables us to know reality. As for the heart, material like the body, it is made more mobile, round and polished atoms, whose subtle movement is called the thought. But how to explain that the reason could emerge from the distorted images of the directions and find the truth? Démocrite absolutely does not refuse any testimony of the directions: thus certain larger atoms are visible in our eyes, such of the grains of dust in a sun ray. But its last answer is that the human heart can know nature because it is resulting from it.
“The most perfect Expression perhaps of the materialism”, according to Bergson, surprisingly prophetic, the philosophy of Démocrite reconciled the “being one” of the éléates (philosophical of the school of Elée) with it “to become” ceaseless of Héraclite. The atom is this single principle by what all becomes.
It is partly to fight these doctrines that the great spiritualistic designs of Plato and Aristote were worked out.