HISTORY OF WISDOM
BOOK ONE
Ancient Greek Philosophy
By Franz J. T. Lee
PANDEMONIUM BOOKS & PUBLICATIONS.
Merida, Venezuela, 2002.
© 2002 Franz J. T. Lee All
Rights Reserved.
CHAPTER IX
THE ATOMISTS:
Leucippus of Miletus
Democritus of Abdera
(460-371 B.C.)
IN MATTER:
ATOMIC SUBJECT WITHOUT
LIBERIUM ARBITRIUM (FREE WILL)
Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas.
(Happy is (s)he
who has been able to understand the causes of things.)
Vergil.
I would give the crown of the King of Persia for a scientific discovery
of causation.
Democritus.
He (Democritus) seems to have thought about everything, and in a clear,
methodological manner.
Aristotle.
Nothing happens by chance, all things occur for a reason, and out of
necessity.
Leucippus.
Thinking much,
not Knowing much, one should cultivate.
Democritus.
History of Miletus II
To understand this chapter, kindly
read and study the previous ones carefully.
Let's recollect the historical description of Miletus in a previous chapter
and spice it with more delicious, patrian elegance.
Miletus was the first Greek polis which had introduced money
- mainly gold coins. Milesian citizens came to be honoured, not only for
aristocratic birth and pedigree, but also, because „money makes the man“.
A 6th Century B.C. Milesian poet expressed this new „capitalist“ development
very poignantly: „Get your living - and then think
of getting virtue“. Another Ionian poet, Pythermus,
even exclaimed: „There’s nothing else that matters - only money.“
(See: Novack, The Origins ..., p. 57) Consequently, Miletus was
not only the birthplace of philosophy and materialism, but also of primitive
capitalism in embryo. Very clearly these
poets reflected the birth of the perverse relation between patrian
philosophy and capitalist economy; also that human
"virtues", like "human nature", "human being", "human
rights" and "humanism", are directly related to "get your living",
to "get your money".
In Miletus itself, the centre of commercial
activities was the polis’ great north-eastern harbour, guarded by
two gigantic lion-statues, reminding the multifarious sailors and traders
of the colossus of Apollo, which escorted them into the harbour of Rhodes.
On all Mediterranean markets, Milesian traders were most welcome. Milesian
woollens, woven and dyed fabrics, decorated garments and carpets, and embroidered
cloaks, all these, and many more, were highly prized across the length and
breadth of Hellas in floribus.
In its environs, from the Black Sea to
Italy, Milesian pottery and olive oil were highly desired household goods.
All over Miletus, a flair and flamboyance of the Ionian flower-de-luce could be perceived, especially
at extravagant airy-fairy banquets and festivals. In later years, the „crown
of Athens“, Pericles, could not help it, but to search among the Ionian models
of refinement and culture, to encounter the marvellous Aspasia, the „Jewel
of Miletus“; probably, clad in purple, and dolcemente shedding her fragrant perfume of subtle
ointments, with an elegance worthy of a royal courtesan, the vraisemblance
of an earthly goddess - the „better half“ of a „wise man“.
In Miletus, the richest and most cultured
city-state of Ionia, the shrine of the Delphinian Apollo protected marine
and maritime economic activities, including the heroic, valiant emigrants
and seamen from afar. The Temple of Apollo at Didyma was not only an important
place of pagan worship, it was also the City Bank, which minted gold-coins,
held deposits and organized colonizing expeditions, including barbarous slave-hunting.
The Egyptian King Necho, after having defeated Josiah of Juda, sent as VIP-offering,
his complete battle accustrement to Apollo at Didyma. Even Croesus, the
legendary wealthy King of Lydia, not only sent fantastic presents to Delphi,
but, occasionally, he visited Miletus, to honour its millionaires, by collecting
fantasque funds for his luxurious royal dolce vita.
Artisans, artists, politicians, magicians,
craftsmen, seamen, sophistaí, hetairaí, refugees, émigrés,
hordes of slaves, armies of ruined peasants -- a mobile, mercurial human
mass walked the streets and pavilions of Miletus, occupied the temples, palaces,
wharves and porticoes of the ancient city-state. Periodically, social frictions
occurred, - reflections of the omnipresent gradually stewing objective real
social contradictions -- but they were gallantly stamped out, leaving behind
burning, human life-torches on the squares of Mammon, acting as eternal
premonitions and admonitions of things to come. Furthermore, the huge
merchant navy was permanently protected by an omnipotent war fleet. At the
battle of Lade, Miletus proudly brought 80 ships into action, and heroically
involved her courageous soldiers in the war between Chalcis and Eretria.
However, in 510 B.C., because of economic and profit reasons, the destruction
of Sybaris, in Magna Graecia by Croton, had afflicted Miletus like a national
catastrophe.
After the conquest of Lydia in 546 B.C.
Miletus fell to the Persians. An Ionian revolt, led by Miletus, tried to
organize resistance, but in 494 B.C., finally, the cradle of science, philosophy
and materialism was destroyed by the Persians, and Miletus, thereafter,
never regained her former glory. Nonetheless, at the time of the Periclean
Age, the polis also was rejuvenated and reconstructed,
and Miletus was ready for Act-Two of Materialism: the Atomism of Leucippus.
Later, in 76 B.C., the „Ornament of Ionia“ became Roman, but never really
Roman Catholic. However, until today, it remains the ancient scientific capital
of the „civilized“ world of Antiquity. The 6th Century Materialist Triune -- Thales, Anaximander and
Anaximenes -- had changed Miletus into the rhododaktylos Eós (rosy-fingered Dawn) of Atomistic
Materialism. Of course, in the contemporary world, ideologically veiled by
modern metaphysics, idealism, ideology, newspeak, doublethink, positivism,
empiricism, vulgar and mechanical materialism, the illustrissimo of Oxford, Columbia, Harvard
or Moscow, inter
alia, uses Paris,
Rome, Athens or Babylon as familiar household words, but, for il penseroso, interested in emancipatory
sophía,
philosophía, epistéme, gnosis and praxis-theoría, until today, Valkyrie still is escorting
the revolutionary slain from all the materialist, "communist" and "terrorist"
battlefields to Miletus, to the ancient Valhalla of wise Science
a n d Philosophy.
Leucippus -- Milesian and Father
of Atomism
Although his biographical data are uncertain,
some even doubt that he ever had lived, yet it is definite that Leucippus of Miletus was older than
his reputed pupil, Democritus of Abdera (460 - 371 B.C.), younger than
Parmenides of Elea (born around 540 B.C.), and approximately a contemporary
of Anaxagoras of Clazomenae (499 - 427 B.C.). Thus, the „Father“ and „Son“
-- Leucippus and Democritus -- of ancient Greek Atomism, which should really
be called „Atom-To-Kenonism“, were social products of the Periclean
Age, and flourished in the heyday of that Golden Age of virulent, juvenile,
patrian creativity and productivity. The School of Atomism, co-created
by Leucippus and Democritus in that Victorian epoch, will stretch over seven centuries, until the 2nd Century
A. D., spreading and inspiring early materialist thought and praxis as a
world philosophy.
It is common knowledge, that Epicurus
(341 - 268 B.C.) who was born six years after Plato’s death -- another
famous ancient Greek atomist -- doubted that Leucippus really had lived.
In modern times, in 1880, writers like Erwin Rohde had resuscitated
this obsolete hypothesis; however, meanwhile, impeccable scholarship has
vindicated Leucippus’ tellurian existence with a scientific clarity which
cannot be claimed for the celestic-telestic Jesus Christ or for Socrates’
real telluric life, as expounded in Plato's works. In fact, this „proof“
did not necessitate superhuman or insuperable intellectual efforts, because
our most important historic witnesses are none less than the first two heads
of the Lyceum, Aristotle and Theophrastus
themselves. In fact, we have two genuine preserved fragments of Leucippus,
which concern his doctrines of a „Macrocosmos“, and of „Nous and Anánke“
(reason and necessity).
In his report Theophrastus stated: about
Leucippus’ doctrine of atomism,
„he assumed innumerable and ever-moving
elements, namely, the átomoI. And he made their forms infinite in number,
since there is no reason why they should be one kind rather than another,
and because he saw there was unceasing becoming and change in things. He
held, further, that What-Is is no more real than What-Is-Not, and both are alike causes
of the things that come-into-being: for he laid down that the substance of
the atoms was compact and full, and he called them What-Is, while they moved in to kenón (the void) which he called
What-Is-Not, but affirmed to be just as
real as What-ls“.
(See: Novack, op. cit., pp. 136-139).
Well, here
we have the universal postulate, the unilogical principle,
"What-Is", "Whatness", our Cosmos,
to ti en einai, ti estí, essentia, quidditas,
Washeit. Also, here Not-Cosmos or better even Non-Cosmos --
of course, not Einai -- is defined as
the void (as Space), as to kenón..
Later Democritus will emphasize that „Not-Being
(to kenón) exists just like Being (átomos)„ (Frag. 156. Diels, p. 107). Aristotle (de gen.
et corr. A 8. 325a 23ff.) reported about Leucippus’ atomistic teachings;
inter alia, he stated:
„Leucippus came
to intellectual conclusions, which, because they correspond to things of
sense-experience, do not contradict, neither coming-into-existence, nor
movement and variety of things“.
Other parts of this
report indicate, that, originally, Leucippus was either a pupil of Zenon
of Elea, or at least he was very much occupied with refutations of the aporiaí of Eleatism. Like Anaxagoras,
he attempted to give materialist, hylozoistic retorts to Eleatic Being-At-Rest,
which, as we know, negated all motion and variety of things. Aristotle
continued to elucidate Leucippus' concept of Manifold-Being; which
realizes the conditions of manifold being as Being-In-Itself. Later, Democritus
would discard this strict concept of Being, and he simply gave the different
átomoi different concrete forms. Unfortunately,
only a fragmentary fragment of Leucippus' doctrine about the Macrocosmos
is preserved, in which he denied that „the
stars are living beings“ (Diels, Frag,
1. p. 96).
In the second fragment, concerning nous and anánke, Leucippus stated: „Nothing happens without a reason, all things occur for
a reason, and of necessity“ (Frag 2).
This pinpoints a strict mechanical determinism, giving tyché (chance) no chance. Obviously,
as a contemporary of Anaxagoras, Leucippus was, at least, acquainted with
his conception of nous (intellect, mind, reason), which had negated
anánke, perhaps, this is why Leucippus,
in his atomism, with such strict fervour, had revindicated the Heracleitean
conception of cosmic justice, of anánke - which later on was developed more rigorously
by Democritus.
Democritus -- A Philosopher with Enkyklios Paideia
Democritus of Abdera in Thrace (460 - 371 B.C.), another
Ionian, had stated that he was young when Anaxagoras was old; also that he
had been writing his „Microcosmos“ „730 years after the fall of Troy“
(Diels, Frag. 5, p. 100). Both Aristotle
and Theophrastus had confirmed that he was the pupil of Leucippus.
Scientific studies and research work enticed him to make numerous voyages
within and outside Hellas; he visited Athens, Egypt and the Orient, and,
most certainly, Persia (Frags. 116, 299). In
Graeco-Roman antiquity, as counterpart of Heracleitus, „The Crying Philosopher“, he received the epitheton
„The Laughing Philosopher“. This was
certainly not related to his philosophic credibility; probably, it referred
to his cheerful, mirthful weltanschauung, as reflected in Fragment 230: „a life without
festive celebrations is like a never-ending road without taverns“.
Really, well said! And, as a wandering, wondering philosopher in praxi, he certainly meant what
he said, and said what he meant. After all, Democritus, a socio-historical
product of the Periclean Age, probably a contemporary of Socrates, was also
enjoying the chthonic beauties and goodies of that flourishing economy. (See:
C. Bailey, The Greek Atomists and Epicurus, Oxford Press, 1928.)
Furthermore, in Fragment 200, he exclaimed:
„Only fools live without enjoying life“; and, „Wisdom, which
does not allow itself to be fooled, is worth everything“ (Frag. 216). In this tradition, we are
enjoying life, because we are not allowing ourselves permanently to be fooled
by CNN and White House global, fascist lies. Ushered in by his dum spiro spero at the eve of the 20th Century
A.D., Trotsky's "Life is beautiful, enjoy it to the fullest" encouragingly
still rings in our emancipatory ears at the eve of the Third Millennium.
However, the materialist philosophy of atomism did not quite agree with
Athenian democracy, namely with Periclean class rule: „I went to Athens, and no one knew me“ (Frag. 116). Surely, Democritus was not the only philosopher
that had this "even, uneven and combined"problem; even Plato, Aristotle and
Hegel had to wait hundreds of years to be understood or rather to be misunderstood
completely by most laureated, erudite, official professors. Even in the "Holy
Scriptures", prophets were not especially adored, adorned with laurels in their homeland;
even Jesus Christ himself was adorned with a crown of thorns. Generally,
in many ways, all real, true thinkers transhistorically surpass their age;
in the patria, they simply arrive too "early", too "late" or never ever.
However, no matter the age, transhistorically "great minds think alike",
id est, they contradict each other
fervently; thus, Plato as ancient idealist, in Kristallnacht
fever, already hated the very sound of Democritean materialism;
on the other hand, the Aristotelian Left simply hailed his philosophic thought.
According to Diogenes Laertius, Plato is reputed to have wished
all Democritus’ works burnt. In other words, the forefather of idealism who
later inspired the „Great Fathers“ of the Inquisition, had wished to place
the titles of the works of Democritus on the Athenian index librorum prohibitorum. However, lucky for us, this
authoritarianism and crypto-fascism were „nipped in the bud“, because the
Pythagoreans, Kleinias and Amyclas, had advised him to refrain
from such intellectual ánoia (stupidity). However, true to ancient
dialectics, everything in Platonism is not completely „fascistic“ or „idealist“.
Nevertheless, some idealist writers, like J. Burnet (Early
Greek Philosophy, 1920), claim that Plato was completely ignorant of
the earthly existence of his contemporary, patrian, internal, materialist
negation. A typical case of "CNN" reports in academic philosophy. Another
Ionian, Aristotle, knew him very well, and from Athens had
highly praised Democritus’ philosophic accomplishments. Another serious,
patrian historian of philosophy, Eduard Zeller (Grundriss
der Geschichte der griechischen Philosophie, Leipzig, 1928) considered
Democritus to have been „superior“ to all ancient and contemporary philosophers,
as far as his „wealth of knowledge“,
his encyclopaedic education and his „logical correctness
of thinking“ were concerned.
At the same time, as already indicated,
his materialist cosmovision, certainly, did not have that ice-cold,
inhuman and inhumane air or airiness, which is so typical of many renowned
contemporary scholars, but it was vivid, realistic and chthonic, in a few
words, it was a dialectical, hylozoistic world outlook, in spite of its strong
mechanical determinism. Below, we will cite some fragments to demonstrate
the above; also to elucidate Democritus’ permanent struggle against patrian
obscurantism, immorality, spiritualism, supernaturalism, idealism and primitive
capitalism:
(This was an early materialist attack against crude, empiricistic,
positivistic "facts", against "seeing is believing".)
„Tritogeneia (Athena, the ‘Trinity-Born’) means sophía. But wisdom is threefold: To think perfectly, to speak precisely, and to do one’s task with the greatest perfection.“ (Frag. 2)
(Here we can still hear the emancipatory,
transhistoric ringing of ancient, feminine, mythological bells
of threefold wisdom, of the Tritogeneia, of Athena, of the
"Trinity-Born":
of Essence a n d Existence AND Transcendence,
of Cosmos a n d Einai AND Nothing. )
„Neither the body, nor money, brings happiness, this is achieved only by straightforwardness and many-sidedness.“ (Frag. 40)
(Surely, this is wisdom, "many-sidedness",
worth remembering in the "Information Age".)
„He, who listens ardently to my gnomes, will be able to perform many deeds, worthy of a straightforward man, and he will evade many an evil act.“ (Frag. 35)
(Across the ages, very few people were listening. Hence,
Praxis a n d
Theory deteriorated into Practice
and Ideology.)
„To-Be-Good is not yet Not-Evil-Doing; far more important, is the desire of not even wanting to do evil but once.“ (Frag. 62)
(Against Humanity, the diverse ruling classes
permanently did "absolute evil"
a zillionfold.)
„Who performs a shameful act, should at first shame him(her)self before him(her)self..... Beastliness, even when one is alone, one should neither utter nor do it; rather one should learn much more, than just to be ashamed of oneself in front of others.“ (Frag. 84, 244)
(Shame -- an obsolete word in modern times,
especially in the White House.)
„Not out of fear, but out of duty, one should avoid erroneous actions.“ (Frag. 41)
(Here Democritus underlined "fear" of the gods and of god-men.)
„Universal love should not be enacted, with the anticipation of getting back something even greater in material value. ... Charity is not eagerly awaiting a recompense, but, essentially, a voluntary deep desire, from the bottom of one’s heart, to do good.“ (Frag 92, 96)
(Except wanting to "do good", Democritus warned about the
productive transformation of human values into material, pecuniary relations;
he also introduces our anticipatory transjective: Poliversal
Love.)
„It is of great
relevance to rebuke one’s own mistakes, rather than to bother about those
of strangers.“
"Those who permanently complain are not made to be friends.“ (Frag. 60, 109)
(This was a warning against seeing the "splinters" in the
eyes of "communists" and "terrorists", and avoiding to note the heavy
fascist, racist "blocks" in our own "Civilized", "Christian" and "Western"
eyes.)
„The father’s self-control is the greatest warning to children.“ (Frag. 61)
(In patrian "history", this patriarchal, paternal self-control
degenerated into modern Body, Mind and Thought Control.)
„Whose inner self is in order, also, his life is in order.“ (Frag. 61)
(In a healthy body, not consuming
transgenic rubbish, surely, we will always find a sane, transhistoric mind.)
„The hopes of
a correct thinking person can be fulfilled, but those of incomprehensible
people will never be realized.“ (Frag. 58)
(Democritus explaining
the "Hope Syndrome", linking "hope" not to pipe-dreams and wishful-thinking,
but to thinking, theory and philosophy.)
And,
finally, about the dialogical „blue
shadow“ of Praxis a n d Theory,
he stated:
„The Word is the Deed’s shadow.“ (Frag. 145)
Concerning his own social life, the above are just a few praxico-theoretical
rays from Democritus’ pantothenic, pantoscopic pansophy; unfortunately, concerning
these, we have very few surviving fragments. However, as far as his intellectual
and philosophic qualities and capabilities were concerned, he was on par
with Plato and Aristotle. But, in bourgeois "history of philosophy", he is
treated as a "third class" illegitimate step-son of the „Queen of Sciences“,
and the reason is not only because the lion’s share of his works are lost,
but in a world of Orwellian "education" and "socialization", because of his
revolutionary, explosive, "atheist" and "terrorist" ideas, he left no room
for contemporary crude conservatism, raw obscurantism, patrian ruling class
ideology and global fascist reaction.
In the field of natural sciences, Democritus was a learned mathematician.
In fact, Archimedes of Syracuse (born around
287 B.C.), the most prominent ancient Greek mathematician, physicist and
mechanician - the discoverer of P (pi) and many other eurekas - had praised Democritus,
for having been the first to formulate two significant theorems concerning
the properties of conic sections: that a pyramid
is a third of a prism with the same height and base; and, that a cone is
a third of a cylinder (See also: Frags. 11
- 15.)
Without the aid of a powerful telescope, immersed in the obscurantist,
geocentric world outlook, as a result of true, cognitive scientific
self-thinking, using a real scientific method, concepts and theories, based
in a self-developed, cosmo-materialist epistemology, in the field of astronomy, Democritus actually succeeded
to give adequate explanations of the nature of the Milky Way, and even stated
that the moon has mountains. He is an example kat’ exochen of the praxical faculties of a possible
emancipatory species, of novus homo, more precisely, of new creative creators,
and he was an excellent parádeigma to unravel the real walking encyclopaedic nature
of „scholarship“ of Nobel Peace Prize illustriousness. You don't need
to study for ages all "facts" in detail, mentally
lynched by academic terror, quoting like mad all kinds of eminent
experts, in order to know the real flowing, ever-flowing, over-flowing
truth about this universal earthly world of labour.
DIALECTICAL ANTECEDENTS OF ATOMISM
As mentioned before, eminent bourgeois mechanical materialists of the
post-Rennaisance epoch completely misinterpreted Democritus’ hylozoistic,
dialectical determinism; in fact, by changing Anaxagoras’ nous into God, they claimed to
share Democritus’ conception of matter. Thus, God „gave motion to matter“ (Boyle), and
God, as prime unmoved mover activated „matter in solid,
massy, hard, impenetrable, movable particles“ (Newton). As
we have seen before, as simple and simplistic as all this, Democriteanism
certainly was not.
As we have explained before, atomism was
a reaction against Anaxagorism, which had introduced nous to set the arché into Universal Becoming-Being,
and thus to create Pythagorean order and harmony in the Cosmos, while at
the same time negating anánke, and even tyché. Democritus, as mechanical materialist,
but also as a naive dialectical materialist, introduced the two categories
of ultimate irreducible reality: átomos a n d
to kenón, that is, the pléroma and the kénoma, the full and the empty.
According to Democritus, Motion of the átomoi in to kenón was an everlasting, infinite, indestructible,
irreducible fact of Universal Existence. Motion became a function, a property
of true, concrete totality, átomos a n d to kenón: „there
are in reality only atoms a n d void“ (Frag. 125). Thus, the only
„trueborn“ objects of epistéme and gnosis are: atoms-void, pléroma-kénoma, that is, Being and
Not-Being a n d Motion
of Being in Not-Being, that is, Movement of Atoms in the Void. Anything else, is „bastard“
knowledge, derived from aísthesis, from deceptive sense-perception.
Surely, this is ancient, materialist, deterministic dialectics, not
our Dialogics, but concerning Cosmos, Relation and Einai, we could learn a
mighty lot from Leucippus and Democritus.
Of mayor philosophic significance is the fact that Democritus did not
„rob“ the senses of their pertinent role in the process of acquiring knowledge;
he only stressed the severe limitations of sense-perception, especially of
the common folks, and he would certainly have agreed with Epicurus’ statement:
„All the senses are the heralds of truth“.
This is meant when Democritus stated, „colour is a convention,
the sweet is a convention, the bitter is a convention. ...“ (Frag. 125). Contrasting the senses with nous, Democritus made the former
argue as follows: „Poor nous (reason)
after depriving us of the means of proof, you want to beat us down. Your
victory is also your defeat.“ (Frag. 125)
In this way, Democritus had explained a very important patrian, dialectical,
universal category: essence-appearance, by differentiating
between outward show (appearance) and inner reality (essence) of ever-changing
things and processes. Thus, everything that appears „mechanical“ in Democritus’
atomism, may very well also have an internal dialectical „essence“. Certainly,
Democriteanism is not Historical Dialectical Materialism, but, it is full
of the oriens, the Aurora, the Latency-Tendency,
towards this real "negation" within the universal world system, which
will be explained by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky later.
However, let us now expound the philosophic background to the doctrine
of Atomism. It is pertinent to state that we have difficulties to distinguish
between the „trueborn“ Democritean philosophic contributions and those of
his teacher, Leucippus. It is much easier to differentiate between the specific
contributions of the couplet Marx and Engels towards the development of Scientific
Socialism. In the case of the „fathers“ of Atomism, this is practically an
impossible venture. Many fragments appropriated to Democritus are, in all
probability, results of the compound endeavour of both great thinkers. At
any event, we will make Democritus responsible for the laurels and errors
of early mechanical, deterministic Atomism. As such, he will be a „trueborn“
representative of Leucippus. Certainly, both of them had many followers
and disciples in Antiquity; consequently, the 4th Century B.C. had also
produced other „Atomists“ of „lesser“ philosophic stature. Among them were
Metrodorus of Chios, Anaxarchus of Abdera, and, of course,
the teacher of Epicurus, Nausiphanes of Teos (born around 360 B.C.). We will
deal later with the Epicurean philosophy of nature, with its principle
of arbitrium liberum (free will).
As already intimated, the doctrine about átomos and to kenón should really be called Átomos-To-Kenonism,
because both elements of Being have the same ontological
stature. We would recall that the immediate progenitors of Atomism
-- Empedocles and Anaxagoras - in their hylozoistic weltanschauung had attempted to synthesize
Eleatism, Pythagoreism and Heracleitism. The early Stoics, for example, Zeno
of Citium, will continue this dialectical materialist process. Atomism
itself was per saltum a quintessential development
within the general epígénesis of hylozoistic materialism. It
was per se a logical evolutionary product
within the patrian dialectics of Human Nous and Social Existence.
ATOMOS
A N D TO KENON
We should recall
that "Not-Being", or even "Non-Being", and "Nothing" are completely
different philosophic termini. For Leucippus and Democritus, the aporía of „Not-Being - Nothing“
was relatively simple to solve and to resolve. According to them, Being cannot
become from Nothing, hence Being cannot be destroyed totally. Obviously,
here the concept "Nothing" has its usual, common, "negative", destructive,
patrian connotation; it has nothing to do with our transhistoric, transcendental,
emancipatory Triagory, Nothing.
Democritus and Leucippus argued: Man is
not born from Nothing, hence Man cannot pass away into Nothing. They postulated,
by applying the eviternal principle of Heracleitus, that Being can only change, and Change as Motion has
polymorphic mensions. Of course, later this differentiation in the eternal,
infinite continuum of Motion, Aristotle will introduce. However, for the
Atomists, change still implied internal, intensive, qualitative
mechanical combination or separation of lesser developed wholes, that is,
parts of Total-Being, of Everything, the "opposite" of "Nothing". Surely,
different to our philosophy, Atomist Everything was not considered to
include "Nothing" too, to be really Everything. Our Simple
Logics: A Universal "Everything" without a "Nothing" cannot be an Everything
at all! Thus, the Hobson's choice, Everything or Nothing,
is formal-logically embedded.
Nonetheless, as noted before, for Democritus, Ultimate Existence, Total-Being,
was composed of two contradictory more-developed wholes, the Full and the
Empty, átomos and to kenón, pléroma and kénoma. (Frag.
125, 156 and 168). For us, and only for us, this simply means that
patrian, philosophic Totality consists of Being (A)
and Not-Being or Non-Being (Non-A), is composed
of Everything (A) and Not-Everything or Non-Everything
(Non-A -- which is not identical to our triagory,
Nothing). (See: Frag.
156). Philosophically, it is not very clear what precisely the various
ancient philosophers really have understood by Not-Being, Non-Being or Nothing.
From all the above, we can conclude logically, that, in contradistinction
to the Sophist, Gorgias, who has negated Being threefold, like
Parmenides, who has defended Being; and, like the Milesian naturalists, Thales,
Anaximenes and Anaximander, who have vindicated Being, Leucippus and Democritus
have postulated a kind of deterministic "unity-and-contradiction-of-opposites":
Being - Not-Being, as Totality. However, the Atomists, being
less dialectical, differed with Anaximander and Heracleitus
in explaining Being-Becoming. Anaximander’s apeiron can change qualitatively and become water
or fire; the pýr of Heracleitus can combine
with the arché-element of Thales, with water, and
produce the psyché - the psychic forerunner of
Anaxagoras’ nous, and Democritus’ compound
of „fiery atoms“. The átomoi do not produce to kenón, and vice versa; however, both are necessary
for the composition of Anaxagorean chremata and spermata. Change and variety result from the interaction
of átomoi, and from their interpenetration
of to kenón, where the former are active
(like the Aristotelian morphé) and the latter is passive (like the Aristotelian
hýle). In fact, later Aristotle
will even differentiate between an active and passive nous. And yet, in spite
of their independent ontological stature, the
atoms and the void are two "sides" of the same one and only
arché, of the atoms, of "A".
Now, what did Democritus consider an atom to be? Certainly, it had some theoretical
similarities with our current conception of an atom in Physics, but, under no circumstances,
Hussein could produce an atomic bomb with it. We can neither split the Democritean
atom into protons, nor into neutrons,
nor into particles or "wavicles"; it was not even equivalent to an electron
or an „elementary particle“; furthermore, it had no positive, negative or
neutral mesons, it could not emit gamma rays, and had no alpha, beta or even
omega disintegration; it was not matter, though to kenón seemed to be "anti-matter";
in fact, there were no positive atoms and negative atoms, in the sense of
positive- and anti-matter. Similarly, to kenón was not just a vacuum, in the modern understanding
of this term, it was not even empty space, not the aether, not an electro-magnetic
field, or even „anti-matter“ in Galaxy Messier 87 or Cygnus A. As stated
already, to
kenón is material Not-Being,
which has an equal status and scientific relevance like Being, like átomos. Atomos and to kenón are the two arché-elements of Atomistic materialism,
of Atomos-To-Kenonism. The atom was for Democritus not a scientific hypothesis;
he considered it to have a real, concrete existence; it was a universal-philosophic
entity - its physical existence was only one mension of its universal reality.
Consequently, neither the atoms nor the void, just originated from oudén, from the Nihil, like a bolt
from the blue. They had and have a material intellectual existence a priori and a posteriori. However, they are two
sides of the same arché, of universal Being.
For them, Nothing was ex-philosophic, has nothing to do with Being
and Not-Being.
Both philosophic concepts, as indicated already, have historic antecedents.
There was a direct relation between the principle of Thales, water, and the
atom; also, a direct connection between Anaxagoras’ nous, which fills the empty "space"
between the homoiomeries, and to kenón. Furthermore, as stressed already, the
historico-social material conditions, which form the sine qua non for the historical evolution
of Atomism, were quintessential in the intellectual discovery of pléroma-kenoma. Atomism was not a scientific
product of the age of „Seven Wise Men“, also not of the Roman „Dark Ages“,
but, of Pericles’ Golden Age, a real, sprouting, capitalist birth, a tempus mirabilis. In addition, the essential
features and conceptions which constitute the átomoi, and, even more so, the kénoma, were borrowed and synthesized
from the philosophic accomplishments of Democritus’ naturalist, hylozoistic
predecessors; and, conversely, because Atomism was philosophic qua scientific, it postliminarily
influenced and posteriorly anticipated central characteristics of future
mechanical and dialectical materialist thought, for example, Epicureanism
and Lucretianism, but, also modern empiricism and positivism.
By taking the above in mind, we can state
that the Democritean atom , his "A", has a similarity to the Milesian
single, archaic substances; it was related to the material pýr of Heracleitus; it has an
affinity to the arithmós of Pythagoras as material constituent
of things; it is uncreated and unchangeable like the hen kai pan of Parmenides, but, as we
will see later, it is different from the hen without a pan of the early Stoicism of Zeno
of Citium; furthermore, there are now more than one unomnia, but they are unomnia all
the same. Moreover, the atoms are related to the six material substances of Empedocles
and to the spermata of Anaxagoras, but, at the
same time, they have distinctive features which differentiate them from all
above-mentioned genetic forms of Matter.
Concerning the above, we would recall that for Anaxagoras the Infinitesimal,
that is, the totality of the homoiomeries, was, at the same time, the Infinitely
Big; de mal en pis, the ultimate extremes of
reality -- Infinitesimal and Infinitely Big -- cannot really exist,
and, surely, not as separate entities of Being. The spermata are infinite in number and
variety; they are eternal, indestructible and unchanging - thus, to talk
about a totality of spermata, homoiomeries and things is already an
aporiac polylemma. Each thing-seed contains within itself all the qualities of the others,
in fact, of all things, except the fifth arché-substance, the quinta essentia, the nous. Nous, the thinking substance,
is mixed only in certain things. In Democritean materialism, the atom is the smallest element of
irreducible reality; as long as we cannot perceive it, it can have any physical
size; per definitionem it is „indivisible propter solidatem“ (Cicero), it cannot be cut
further, not subdivided or separated into anything anymore. But, like the
homoiomeries, the atoms are infinite in number, are eternal, immutable;
and uncreated. However, they are qualityless and in eternal self-motion;
they possess an intrinsic Aristotelian energeía, an auto-dynamism, and even a potential
subjectivity. Later, in Epicureanism, with the help of liberum arbitrium, they will acquire an Aristotelian
subjectivity, but one which is void of religious teleology and entelechy.
According to Democritus, qualities, as we perceive them via our senses,
in reality, do not exist: „Colour is a convention, sweetness is a convention,
bitterness is a convention; truly, there exist only the átomos and to kenón. (Frag. 125) As we could deduce, this does not signify
that Democritus had given sense-perception nil scientific-epistemological
value. We would recall that Parmenides had negated Not-Being - „Not-Being
cannot exist“ --, but for Democritus to kenón „exists just like everything“,
just like Being. Summa summarum, without noticing it, Democritus
actually had postulated two principles, "A" a n d
"B", but he did not realize it, he was caught in the patrian,
social barriers of his epoch.
Let us now proceed to expound the relation Being - Not-Being, id est, Motion, which is a function
of Total-Being. As stated before, the thing-seeds of Anaxagoras received
their primordial motion from a causa efficiens, from nous, which thereafter, like the
Epicurean gods, retreats to eternal rest, and which has nothing anymore to
do with cosmic Coming-Into-Being and Passing-Away. Change or Movement within
the universe is caused by „circulation“; in other words, mechanical motion
is kykloeidés (circular or cyclic), which
results from mixing - separation. It follows that Democritus, in the final
analysis, had not given anánke or tyché divine roles, in spite of his deterministic,
mechanical materialism. However, what he did was to introduce eternal anánke or Heracleitus’ cosmic justice
as necessary motion, as auto-dynamism, as causa materialis, directly into the indivisible
átomos, into Being, which moves in
infinite, permeable, material "space", in Not-Being. As we will explain in
the later, the átomos, subjected to their intrinsic
laws, which are guided by anánke, cannot „overstep their measures“; they
cannot develop a subjective free will of action. In this sense,
Necessity was elevated to a universal function, but not to a Superior Intelligence.
The atoms group themselves together in whirlpools and form various things,
eventually ge (the earth), and consequently
numerous worlds, the Universe. Logically, following the laws of evolution-involution,
of the Heracleitean apokatastasis-ekpyrosis, the worlds, the universes
-- not diverses or triverses -- can evolve and involve, can come-into-being
and pass-away. In this universal process, the possibilities of circulation
and circular motion are infinite, thus repetition is not necessarily a feature
of this eternal pánta
rhei. What remains,
what does not change, is Change itself, that is, the eternal,
infinite spiral, complex-multiplex process of evolution-involution, and,
we ask: why not also of transvolution?
ANANKE AND DETERMINISM
Nature versus "Big Promises of Hope"
Democritus explicitly denied that anything
in the Cosmos happens by tyché (by chance). All occurrences in objective
and subjective reality are guided by aitía-akoloúthesis, by cause-effect relations.
He would prefer a single scientific explanation of causation to the „crown
of Persia“: „all things occur for a reason, and
out of necessity“. (Leucippus) This principle Democritus had also
referred to human history, to social praxis-theory. „Men had created the conception of Chance, only to beautify
their own indeliberateness; only in negligible cases, Chance can challenge
Wisdom; for the greater part of human life, a resolute causal insight can
bring things in order.“ (Frag. 119)
Furthermore, „Chance is spent thrifty, most unreliable;
on the other hand, Nature is economical, based in herself. This is the reason,
in spite of her seemingly lesser, but all the more reliable force, why, in
the last analysis, she is victorious over big promises of hope.“
(Frags. 176, 168)
Consequently, Leucippus and Democritus,
in scientific enquiry and investigation of the cosmos, had rejected pure
tyché as a quintessential gnostic
principle. However, they did not realize that so-called „accident“ is itself
a form of necessity; de facto, they neglected the interdialectical relation
between these two categorical elements. Mutatis mutandis, they discarded prima causa, ultima causa, psyché, lógos or nous as sine qua non for living, material, universal
Becoming Being. Although they did not use these terms expressis verbis, the „left“ Aristotelian
Arab-Renaissance natura naturans, and even, natura naturata, sufficed to explain the processes of
objective-subjective reality. Thus, they were consequential quantitative-mechanical
determinists, but also quintessential qualitative-dialectical materialists.
All existing things, ens and esse, all processes, organic and inorganic,
have material antecedents and substrata, in which their essential existence
is based, and on which they depend for further existence. Motion is an intrinsic
feature of the átomos, and therewith of all things,
thus, Motion itself does not necessitate a First Cause, does not tolerate
any divine intruder, neither from Heaven nor from the Olympus. Also in this
case, to determine, to identify our concept "Relation",
Bezug, much can be learned from ancient
Atomism.
However, a careful study of the cosmology
of Democritus will reveal that virtualiter the creation of things all resulted as
much as of chance as of necessity. That they did not cognosce this fact,
as stated before, was not a personal defect, but the result of the limits
and limitations of their epoch, of the objective-real and subjective-real
historical barriers of the Periclean Age. At any event, the entire Ancient
World of that epoch was still strongly governed by the multifarious divine
forces of fatum; Anánke, Moíra,
Kismet, Adrasteía, Karma and Heimarméne - as we will see later,
these epitomized in Stoic cynicism, pessimism, nihilism and fatalism, and
was crowned by Roman religious fatalitas-necessitas.
Nonetheless, for Democritus, Necessity was
not dialectical, but mechanical fatum. The goddess Anánke was now no
more floating above the arché, above Chthón and Ánthropos,
she was an intrinsic part of Motion, a function of Matter. The danger was
that this conception of anánke could end up in eternal cycles of metempsychosis,
in repetitions of universal processes, in which nothing new under the sun
ever happened, that it could end up in a philosophy which considered that
nothing was governed by presight, insight, foresight and farsight; that nothing
was created by design, not even the Parthenon. Of course, the above has nothing
to do with an apology for the arguments, sic et non, related to the existence of God, as expounded
by Anselm, Aquinas, Descartes, Leibniz and Kant. The danger is, as Bloch
had warned, that the roles of Becoming and Rest can be interchanged and exchanged:
„Motion not only elevated itself above Being-At-Rest,
but it also had placed its crown on its own head“, consequently, it is not just a matter of motion in general,
but a specific case of exchange, of mechanics. (See; Ernst Bloch, Das Materialismusproblem...,
op, cit., p. 30.)
Evidently, the natural scientists Leucippus
and Democritus were still living in the aurora of the science of physics,
that is, of quantitative and qualitative physics. Only in the 20th
Century, Man wouldl develop the Theory of Relativity, which, in general, postulated
that all Time and Space conceptions depend on Man’s adherence to a specific
material system, ordered, in his opinion, according to the three "dimensions"
of Space and that of Time. Where this „order“ comes from is a modern aporía,
is another story, but, at least, it indicates some deterministic will of some Superior Intelligence
or of the Subject of Nature, or of Emancipatory History. The second great
discovery was quantum
mechanics, which
allowed a definite indeterminism of an Epicurean nature. Hence, we are right
back to the archaic Immense Contradiction, which was already crypto-scientifically
contained in Democritean-Epicurean Atomism
DEMOCRITUS: PSYCHE AND EIDOLA
From the aforesaid, it is clear that psychology
and sense-perception will form "weak points" within the general philosophy
of Atomism; correctly Democritus had considered thought to be a kind of motion,
and that it can cause motion elsewhere, in a world, whose reality is only
moving atoms in the void. Thus, thought - also sense-perception - is a physical
process. He differentiated, as we have seen, between sense perception (bastard
knowledge), and cognitive perception (trueborn knowledge), which he had called
„understanding“.
Similarly, like thought, the psyché or pneuma (soul) is a physical entity
or process. Gods are made of extra-fine atoms,
but they are mainly interpreted as moral principles (See: Frag. 2, cited before), but, he did not fail to
relate divine inspirations to arts, poetry, aesthetics and „higher“ human things (Frag. 18, 21, 112, 129). What a poet writes, he did not
consider it to be madness (as Plato would define this later in his doctrine
of ideas), but, especially when inspired by the Divine, it is „beautiful“ (Frag. 17, 18). Hence,
with reference to our Unigory, to our objective, Beauty,
the atomists gave us "higher" guidance.
For Plato, the idea of the Beautiful was
the Idea of the Idea. Art was degraded to the reflection of the reflection
of barely Nothing - of to kenón. For Democritus, the soul, the res cogitans, is composed of the finest
atoms, the fire atoms. And, precisely
these Promethean-Heracleitean entities are most lively and active. It is
their rigorous penetration and vigorous activity in the human body which
cause what we call an active, living human being. Like Alcmaeon, Democritus
was of the opinion that the seat of thought and wisdom, of the átomos, was in the human brain, hence,
fire-atom activity was not concentrated in petto.
According to Democritus, why the human mind, the lógos, the nous can perceive everyday objects
via the senses, is because natural objects permanently emanate images or
pictures, eidóla, which then interpenetrate
human sense organs; of course, such knowledge could be deceptive. (Frag. 166) Hence, ideas are after-effects of sense-perception,
and, for various reasons -- exempli gratia, bad mnéme (memory) or bad sense-reception --
they could be faulty. As we will see later, for Plato, ideas are original,
archetypical, spiritual images or reflections of Being, of the alétheia (Truth), of the kalós (Beautiful) and of the agathós (Good). Relevant is, that
Democritus mentioned nothing about athánatos (immortality) of either thoughts,
the soul, or of gods. In the last analysis, all „pre-Socratic“ naturalists,
including Leucippus and Democritus, were not mechanical materialists, but
hylozoistic materialists, progenitors of historical dialectical materialism.
Finally, we should recall, that all is
not gold that glitters, and more than other terrestrial living beings, patrian
dialectical materialists, including their crypto-dialectical progenitors,
-- precisely, because they are scientists and philosophers, analysing an influent, effluent,
deliquescent material and intellectual reality -- can err, can be victims
of historical conditions which often bar their insight, farsight and foresight.
Democritus was certainly no exception, he disliked everything violent and wildly emotional (Frag. 47, 73, 264), he disapproved of sex or sexual vices (Frag. 32,
77, 74), like a typical "macho" of his epoch, he spoke depreciatively
about women (Frag. 105, 110, 111, 195, 273, 274, 236),
he had no special love for children (Frag. 275, 276,
279, 228) but, he considered joy, mirth, goodness
and cheerfulness as essential homofinal endeavours, he treasured culture, science and philosophy, valued friendship,
and was totally in love with democracy. (Frag.
39, 47, 50, 56, 59, 78, 97, 98, 251) There is much Luciferian, but
also Mephistophelian, in Democritus Atomism; but, in contradistinction to
Epicurus, he did not agree with Goethe’s final conclusion in Faust, that das Ewig-Weibliche zieht uns
hinan: the eternal
feminine draws us upward.
NEXT CHAPTER: EPICURUS:
IN MATTER:
ATOMIC
SUBJECTIVITY WITH FREE WILL
