The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy by A. A. Long

Author:A. A. Long [A. A. Long]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9780521441223
Publisher: Cambridge University Press

NOTES

A version of this chapter has already appeared as part of the chapter “Anaxagoras and the Atomists” in C. C. W. Taylor, ed. Routledge History of Philosophy, Vol. I, From the Beginning to Plato (London, 1997), and material from it also appears in The Atomists, text and translation by C. C. W. Taylor (Toronto, 1999). Permission from these publishers to reprint Mr Taylor’s work is gratefully acknowledged.

1 For Democritus’ poetics, which falls outside the scope of this chapter, see Most in this volume p. 339.

2 To adapt Aristotle’s example (Metaph. 1.4 985b18-19), AN differs from NA in ordering, and AN from AZ in orientation within a given ordering.

3 While most of the ancient sources agree that atoms are too small to be perceptible, some late sources indicate that some atoms are very large (even on one account “as big as a world”). It seems to me most likely that the atomists held that, while there are atoms of all possible sizes (for the same reason that there are atoms of all possible shapes), all the atoms in our world are too small to be perceived. See Barnes [14] ch. 17 (b).

4 For a full discussion of the atomists’ use of this principle, see S. Makin, Indifference Arguments (Oxford and Cambridge, MA, 1993).

5 Plutarch states this maxim in what is presumably the atomists’ own terminology: “The thing no more is than the no-thing,” where “thing” represents the word den, an artificial formation specifically coined to contrast with mêden, “nothing,” itself etymologically equivalent to mêd’ hen “not one [sc. thing].”

6 For a fuller discussion, see Sedley [409].

7 On the nature of these, see p. 187.

8 In Aristotle’s system natural motion is motion that is intrinsic to the nature of a thing of a certain kind, for example, it is natural for a stone to move downwards, that is, to fall to the earth when unsupported. Things may also be caused, by the exercise of external force, to move in ways contrary to their natural motion, for example, a stone may be thrown upwards. The atomists’ thesis that all atomic motion is the product of precedent atomic interaction, is thus in Aristotle’s terms equivalent to the thesis that all atomic motion is unnatural, a claim that he held to be incoherent (since the concept of unnatural motion presupposes that of natural motion).

9 See Kline and Matheson [403] and Godfrey [404]. I. M. Bodnár, “Atomic Independence and Indivisibility,” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 16 (1998), 35–61, argues (at 49–53) that, rather than providing evidence for the actual views of the atomists, the texts of Philoponus are mere guesses prompted by his interpretation of the Aristotelian texts on which he is commenting.

10 Restrictions of space preclude discussion of various questions about the nature of atoms that have been the subject of much scholarly dispute. The vexed question of whether atoms have weight is discussed by numerous writers, most fully by O’Brien [407], with cogent criticism by Furley [408]. On the questions of whether, and in what sense, atoms may be said to have parts, see for example, Barnes [14] ch.

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