Based on protons, neutrons and electrons A definition of 'matter' more fine-scale than the atoms and molecules definition is: matter is made up of what atoms and molecules are made of, meaning anything made of positively charged protons, neutral neutrons, and negatively charged electrons. Similarly, can you see particles of matter? Matter is made of single particles called atoms and is any substance that has either mass or volume. Matter can exist in three states, either as a solid, a liquid or a gas. Atoms are the basic building blocks of matter and bind together to make elements. Elements are a substance that can only have one type of atom.

Read the following sentences from the passage: 'Whatever the state of matter may be, all matter is made of tiny particles called atoms. These particles are too tiny to see with the naked eye; they're even too small to see with a regular microscope. If you line up a million atoms next to each other, they will be a this as a single piece of human. Explain that all matter on Earth exists in the form of a solid, liquid, or gas, and that solids, liquids, and gases are all made of extremely tiny particles called atoms and molecules. Tell students that an atom is the smallest building block of matter and a molecule is two or more atoms connected together. Everything animate and inanimate is composed of one or the other, or both of these eternal principles. Matter and spirit are of equal duration; both are self-existent, they never began to exist, and they never can be annihilated. Matter as well as spirit is eternal, uncreated, self existing.

A number of important theorists in ancient Greek natural philosophyheld that the universe is composed of physical ‘atoms’,literally ‘uncuttables’. Some of these figures are treatedin more depth in other articles in this encyclopedia: the reader isencouraged to consult individual entries on Leucippus, Democritus,Epicurus and Lucretius. These philosophers developed a systematic andcomprehensive natural philosophy accounting for the origins ofeverything from the interaction of indivisible bodies, as theseatoms—which have only a few intrinsic properties like size andshape—strike against one another, rebound and interlock in aninfinite void. This atomist natural philosophy eschewed teleologicalexplanation and denied divine intervention or design, regarding everycomposite of atoms as produced purely by material interactions ofbodies, and accounting for the perceived properties of macroscopicbodies as produced by these same atomic interactions. Atomistsformulated views on ethics, theology, political philosophy andepistemology consistent with this physical system. This powerful andconsistent materialism, somewhat modified from its original form byEpicurus, was regarded by Aristotle as a chief competitor toteleological natural philosophy.

Since the Greek adjective atomos means, literally,‘uncuttable,’ the history of ancient atomism is not onlythe history of a theory about the nature of matter, but also thehistory of the idea that there are indivisible parts in any kind ofmagnitude—geometrical extension, time, etc. Although the term‘atomism’ is most often identified with the systems ofnatural philosophy mentioned above, scholars have also identifiedcommitments to indivisibles in a number of lesser known figures. Oftenthese are formulated in response to paradoxes like those of Zeno ofElea (early 5^th c. BCE) about infinite divisibility ofmagnitudes. Some of these identifications of other kinds of atomismoutside the main tradition are controversial and based on slightevidence.

• Bibliography

1. Atomism before Leucippus?

Leucippus (5th c. BCE) is the earliest figure whose commitment toatomism is well attested. He is usually credited with inventingatomism. According to a passing remark by the geographer Strabo,Posidonius (1^st c. BCE Stoic philosopher) reported thatancient Greek atomism can be traced back to a figure known as Moschusor Mochus of Sidon, who lived at the time of the Trojan wars. Thisreport was given credence in the seventeenth century: the CambridgePlatonist Henry More traced the origins of ancient atomism back, viaPythagoras and Moschus, to Moses. This theologically motivated viewdoes not seem to claim much historical evidence, however.

In 1877, Tannéry argued that Zeno of Elea’s arguments aboutdivisibility must have been formulated in response to some earlyPythagoreans. Tannéry’s view, which was widely accepted in theearly twentieth century, is based on the claim that one of Zeno’sparadoxes about the possibility of motion would best make sense if itwere attacking an atomist thesis, and thus that the Pythagoreans, whoare reported to have talked of monads or unit numbers, must have beenatomists of a sort. Tannery’s thesis has been thoroughly challengedsince then: most scholars instead consider atomism to be one of anumber of positions formulated in response to the arguments ofParmenides and Zeno (first half of the fifth century). Afourth-century Pythagorean, Ecphantus, interpreted the Pythagoreanmonads as indivisible bodies: he is reported to have been sympatheticto atomism of a kind similar to Democritus’. Plato’s discussion of thecomposition of solids from plane surfaces is thought to be based onfourth-century Pythagorean theories.

2. Leucippus and Democritus

Leucippus and Democritus are widely regarded as the first atomistsin the Greek tradition. Little is known about Leucippus, while theideas of his student Democritus—who is said to have taken overand systematized his teacher’s theory—are known from a largenumber of reports. These ancient atomists theorized that the twofundamental and oppositely characterized constituents of the naturalworld are indivisible bodies—atoms—and void. The latter isdescribed simply as nothing, or the negation of body. Atoms are bytheir nature intrinsically unchangeable; they can only move about inthe void and combine into different clusters. Since the atoms areseparated by void, they cannot fuse, but must rather bounce off oneanother when they collide. Because all macroscopic objects are in factcombinations of atoms, everything in the macroscopic world is subjectto change, as their constituent atoms shift or move away. Thus, whilethe atoms themselves persist through all time, everything in the worldof our experience is transitory and subject to dissolution.

According to Aristotle’s presentation (On Generation andCorruption I 8), the motivation for the first postulation ofindivisible bodies is to answer a metaphysical puzzle about thepossibility of change and multiplicity. Parmenides had argued that anydifferentiation or change in Being implies that ‘what isnot’ either is or comes to be. Although there are problems ininterpreting Parmenides’ precise meaning, he was understood to haveraised a problem about how change can be possible without somethingcoming from nothing. Several Presocratics formulated, in response,philosophical systems in which change is not considered to requiresomething coming into being from complete nonexistence, but rather thearrangement of preexisting elements into new combinations. The atomistsheld that, like Being, as conceived by Parmenides, the atoms areunchangeable and contain no internal differentiation of a sort thatwould allow for division. But there are many Beings, not just one,which are separated from another by nothing, i.e. by void.

By positing indivisible bodies, the atomists were also thought to beanswering Zeno’s paradoxes about the impossibility of motion. Zeno hadargued that, if magnitudes can be divided to infinity, it would beimpossible for motion to occur. The problem seems to be that a bodymoving would have to traverse an infinite number of spaces in a finitetime. By supposing that the atoms form the lowest limit to division,the atomists escape from this dilemma: a total space traversed has onlya finite number of parts. As it is unclear whether the earliestatomists understood the atoms to be physically or theoreticallyindivisible, they may not have made the distinction.

The changes in the world of macroscopic objects are caused byrearrangements of the atomic clusters. Atoms can differ in size, shape,order and position (the way they are turned); they move about in thevoid, and—depending on their shape—some can temporarilybond with one another by means of tiny hooks and barbs on theirsurfaces. Thus the shape of individual atoms affects the macroscopictexture of clusters of atoms, which may be fluid and yielding or firmand resistant, depending on the amount of void space between and thecoalescence of the atomic shapes. The texture of surfaces and therelative density and fragility of different materials are alsoaccounted for by the same means.

The atomists accounted for perception by means of films of atomssloughed off from their surfaces by external objects, and entering andimpacting the sense organs. They tried to account for all sensibleeffects by means of contact, and regarded all sense perceptions ascaused by the properties of the atoms making up the films acting on theatoms of animals’ sense organs. Perceptions of color are caused by the‘turning’ or position of the atoms; tastes are caused bythe texture of atoms on the tongue, e.g., bitter tastes by the tearingcaused by sharp atoms; feelings of heat are ascribed to friction.Democritus was taken by Aristotle to have considered thought to be amaterial process involving the local rearrangement of bodies, just asmuch as is perception.

A famous quotation from Democritus distinguishes between perceivedproperties like colors and tastes, which exist only ‘byconvention,’ in contrast to the reality, which is atoms and void.However, he apparently recognized an epistemological problem for anempiricist philosophy that nonetheless regards the objects of sense asunreal. In another famous quotation, the senses accuse the mind ofoverthrowing them, although mind is dependent on the senses. Theaccusation is that, by developing an atomist theory that undermines thebasis for confidence in sense perception, thought has in effectundercut its own foundation on knowledge gained through the senses.Democritus sometimes seems to doubt or deny the possibility ofknowledge.

The early atomists try to account for the formation of the naturalworld by means of their simple ontology of atoms and void alone.Leucippus held that there are an infinite number of atoms moving forall time in an infinite void, and that these can form into cosmicsystems or kosmoi by means of a whirling motion which randomlyestablishes itself in a large enough cluster of atoms. It iscontroversial whether atoms are thought to have weight as an intrinsicproperty, causing them all to fall in some given direction, or whetherweight is simply a tendency for atoms (which otherwise move in any andevery direction, except when struck) to move towards the centre of asystem, created by the whirling of the cosmic vortices. When a vortexis formed, it creates a membrane of atoms at its outer edge, and theouter band of atoms catches fire, forming a sun and stars. Thesekosmoi are impermanent, and are not accounted for by purposeor design. The earth is described as a flat cylindrical drum at thecenter of our cosmos.

Species are not regarded as permanent abstract forms, but as theresult of chance combinations of atoms. Living things are regarded ashaving a psychê or principle of life; this is identifiedwith fiery atoms. Organisms are thought to reproduce by means of seed:Democritus seems to have held that both parents produce seeds composedof fragments from each organ of their body. Whichever of the partsdrawn from the relevant organ of the parents predominates in the newmixture determines which characteristics are inherited by theoffspring. Democritus is reported to have given an account of theorigin of human beings from the earth. He is also said to be thefounder of a kind of cultural anthropology, since his account of theorigin of the cosmos includes an account of the origin of humaninstitutions, including language and social and politicalorganization.

A large group of reports about Democritus’ views concern ethicalmaxims: some scholars have tried to regard these as systematic ordependent on atomist physics, while others doubt the closeness of theconnection. Because several maxims stress the value of‘cheerfulness,’ Democritus is sometimes portrayed as‘the laughing philosopher.’

3. Plato and Platonists

Although the Greek term atomos is most commonly associatedwith the philosophical system developed by Leucippus and Democritus,involving solid and impenetrable bodies, Plato’s Timaeuspresents a different kind of physical theory based on indivisibles. Thedialogue elaborates an account of the world wherein the four differentbasic kinds of matter—earth, air, fire, and water—areregular solids composed from plane figures: isoceles and scaleneright-angled triangles. Because the same triangles can form intodifferent regular solids, the theory thus explains how some of theelements can transform into one another, as was widely believed.

In this theory, it is the elemental triangles composing the solidsthat are regarded as indivisible, not the solids themselves. WhenAristotle discusses the hypothesis that the natural world is composedof indivisibles, the two views he considers are Plato’s andDemocritus’, although he seems to have more respect for the latterview. Aristotle criticizes both Plato’s and the fourth-centuryPythagorean attempts to construct natural bodies possessing weight fromindivisible mathematical abstractions, whether plane surfaces ornumbers.

It has been suggested that Plato accepted time atoms, i.e.,indivisible minima in time, but this is controversial. A report byAristotle suggests that the belief of Plato’s student Xenocrates in theexistence of indivisible lines was also shared by Plato; othertestimony suggests that points are really what Plato refers to asindivisible.

In late antiquity, the Neoplatonist Proclus defended Plato’s accountagainst Aristotle’s objections; these arguments are preserved inSimplicius’ commentary on Aristotle’s On the Heavens.Simplicius credits the Pythagoreans as well as Plato with a theorycomposing bodies from plane surfaces. Simplicius also comparesPythagorean views to Democritean atomism, inasmuch as both theoriesposit a cause for hot and cold, rather than taking these to befundamental principles, as the Aristotelians do.

4. Xenocrates

A treatise in the Aristotelian corpus probably not by Aristotlehimself (On Indivisible Lines) addresses and refutes a numberof arguments offered for the existence of indivisible lines, withoutnaming their author. Plato’s student Xenocrates (396–314 BCE), thirdhead of the Academy, is reported to believe in indivisible lines, andhe may well be the target of the Aristotelian treatise.

One of the arguments attacked addresses a Zenonian problem abouttraversing or touching in succession an infinite series of parts. Theidea that there are indivisible lines offers an alternative to the viewthat any extended magnitude must be divisible to infinity. Anotherargument concerns Platonic Forms, and would only apply to those whoaccepted their existence. It argues that the Form of a trianglepresupposes the existence of a Form of a line, and adds that this idealline cannot have parts, presumably because parts are taken to be priorto the whole they compose and Forms need to have a kind of primacy tobe explanatory. A distinct argument also depends on the idea ofpriority: it is argued that if the physical elements composing a bodyare regarded as the ultimate parts prior to a whole, they cannot befurther divisible. Although this does not argue for indivisible linesper se, it is used to suggest that the objects of sense aswell as those of thought must include things without parts.

A further argument depends on thinking that opposite properties musthave opposite characteristics: if ‘many’ or‘large’ things have infinite parts, it is argued, then‘few’ or ‘small’ things must have only a finitenumber of parts. It is then concluded that there must be a magnitudewithout parts, apparently so that it is not further divisible and thuscomposed of an infinite number of parts. The last argument depends onthe idea that mathematicians talk of commensurable lines, and posit asingle unit of measurement: this would not be possible if the unit weredivisible, because the parts of the unit, if measured, would bemeasured by the unit measure and it would then turn out to containmultiple units within itself.

5. Minima Naturalia in Aristotle

All Matter Is Made Of Particles

An argument in Aristotle (Physics 1.4, 187b14–21) issometimes taken by later writers as evidence that Aristotle allowedfor the existence of minima in natural things. Aristotle writes thatthere is a smallest size of material substrate on which it is possiblefor the form of a given natural tissue to occur. Blood and bone, say,are all materially composed of given proportions of earth, air, fire,and water: there needs to be a certain minimal amount of thesematerial components present before the form of blood or bone canoccur. This doctrine, while it is surely compatible with the view thatthe material components are nonetheless infinitely divisible, issometimes read, by some Neoplatonist commentators and later sourcesinterested in atomist theory, as evidence that Aristotle endorsed theexistence of minimal physical parts. In late antiquity, this debateseems to have moved away from the radical solution of positing minimalphysical parts or atoms—a view that seems to have had fewadvocates—into a puzzle about the possibilities of ‘bottomup’ explanation or the need to regard emergent properties as‘supervening’ and not mere products of the necessarymaterial base.

6. Diodorus Cronus

Download webcam driver. Diodorus Cronus (late 4th c. BCE), a member of the supposedDialectical School, is reported to have offered new arguments thatthere must be partless bodies or magnitudes. Most reports suggest thathis focus was on logical arguments rather than on physical theory: heused arguments that depend on positing mutually exhaustivealternatives.

Perhaps drawing on an argument of Aristotle’s (Sens. 7,449a20–31]), Diodorus apparently used the idea that there is a smallestsize at which an object at a given distance is visible as the basis foran argument that there are indivisible magnitudes. His argument beginsfrom the idea that there is a difference in size between the smallestsize at which a given object is visible—presumably from a givendistance—and the largest size at which it is invisible. Unless weconcede that, at some magnitude, a body is both invisible and visible(or neither), there cannot be any other magnitude intermediate betweenthese two magnitudes. Magnitudes must increase by discrete units.

Sextus Empiricus (AM 10.48ff) reports an argument ofDiodorus’ also concluding that magnitudes have discrete intervals. Italso denies the existence of moving bodies, insisting that bodies moveneither when they are in the place where they are, nor when they are inthe place where they are not. Since these alternatives are presented asexhaustive, the conclusion must be that bodies are never moving.However, rather than assert that everything is static, Diodorus tookthe view that bodies must have moved without everbeing in motion: they are simply at one place at one moment,and at another place at another moment.

As well as postulating the existence of indivisible smallest bodiesand magnitudes, Diodorus seems to have supposed that there areindivisible smallest units of time. The argument about motion does notquite make it explicit that this is what he is committed to, but it isa reasonable inference: given his insistence that bodies are always atone place or another at any given time, he might well suppose thatinfinite divisibility of time would open up the threatening possibilityof indeterminacy as to whether the change of place has taken place.

For those who posit indivisibles as a way to escape paradoxes aboutinfinite divisibility, parallel arguments might equally well have beenapplied to the problem of completing tasks in an infinitely divisibletime. Advent sq9204 driver download. Sextus Empiricus reports that the Aristotelian Strato ofLampsacus (d. 268/70 BCE) argued for time atoms, although this iscontradicted by other sources. Sorabji 1983 suggests that Strato merelycountenanced the possibility that time could be discrete whilespace and motion are continuous, without endorsing this position.

7. Epicurean Atomism

Democritus’ atomism was revived in the early Hellenistic period, andan atomist school founded in Athens about 306, by Epicurus (341–270BCE). The Epicureans formed more of a closed community than otherschools, and promoted a philosophy of a simple, pleasant life livedwith friends. The community included women, and some of its membersraised children. The works of the founder were revered and some of themwere memorized, a practice that may have discouraged philosophicalinnovation by later members of the school.

Epicurus seems to have learned of atomist doctrine throughDemocritus’ follower Nausiphanes. Because Epicurus made somesignificant changes in atomist theory, it is often thought that hisreformulation of the physical theory is an attempt to respond toAristotle’s criticisms of Democritus. Even more significant, however,is the increasing centrality of ethical concerns to Epicurus’ atomism,and the importance of the view that belief in an atomist physicaltheory helps us live better lives.

Epicurus takes to heart a problem Democritus himself recognized (see2. above), which is that atomist theory threatens to undermine itselfif it removes any trust we can place in the evidence of the senses, byclaiming that colors, etc. are unreal. He notoriously said that‘all perception is true,’ apparently distinguishing betweenthe causal processes which impact our senses, all of which originatewith the films of atoms sloughed off by objects, and the judgments wemake on the basis of them, which may be false. Reasoning to truthsabout things that are not apparent—like the existence ofatoms—depends on the evidence of the senses, which is always truein that it consists of impacts from actually existing films. Forparticular phenomena, like meteorological events, Epicurus endorses theexistence of multiple valid explanations, acknowledging that we mayhave no evidence for preferring one explanation over another.

It may be that Epicurus was less troubled by any suchepistemological uncertainties because of his emphasis on the value ofatomist theory for teaching us how to live the untroubled and tranquillife. Denying any divine sanction for morality, and holding that theexperience of pleasure and pain are the source of all value, Epicurusthought we can learn from atomist philosophy that pursuing natural andnecessary pleasures—rather than the misleading desires inculcatedby society—will make pleasure readily attainable. At the sametime, we will avoid the pains brought on by pursuing unnatural andunnecessary pleasures. Understanding, on the basis of the atomisttheory, that our fears of the gods and of death are groundless willfree us from our chief mental pains.

Epicurus made significant changes to atomist physical theory, andsome of these have been traced to Aristotle’s criticisms of Democritus.It seems that Democritus did not properly distinguish between thethesis of the physical uncuttability of atoms and that of theirconceptual indivisibility: this raises a problem about how atoms canhave parts, as evidenced by their variations in shape or their abilityto compose a magnitude, touching one another in a series on differentsides. Epicurus distinguished the two, holding that uncuttable atomsdid have conceptually distinct parts, but that there was a lowest limitto these.

Epicurus’ view of the motion of atoms also differs from Democritus’.Rather than talking of a motion towards the center of a given cosmos,possibly created by the cosmic vortex, Epicurus grants to atoms aninnate tendency to downward motion through the infinite cosmos. Thedownward direction is simply the original direction of atomic fall .This may be in response to Aristotelian criticisms that Democritus doesnot show why atomic motion exists, merely saying that it is eternal andthat it is perpetuated by collisions. Moreover, although this is notattested in the surviving writings of Epicurus, authoritative latersources attribute to him the idea that it belongs to the nature ofatoms occasionally to exhibit a slight, otherwise uncaused swerve fromtheir downward path. This is thought to explain why atoms have frominfinite time entered into collisions instead of falling in parallelpaths: it is also said, by Lucretius, to enter into the account ofaction and responsibility. Scholars have proposed a number ofalternative interpretations as to how this is thought to work.

Epicurus seems to have taken a different view on the nature ofproperties, denying Democritus’ claim that perceived properties onlyexist ‘by convention’. His successor Polystratus furtherdefended and elaborated a claim about the reality of properties,including relational properties. Moreover, with the recovery of newpapyrological evidence, controversy has arisen about the extent towhich Epicurus rejected Democritus’ attempt to account for all causalprocesses by the properties of the atoms and void alone. AlthoughEpicurus’ ideas have long been known from three surviving letterspreserved in the biography by Diogenes Laertius, no copy of his longerwork On Nature had been available. However, followingexcavation of the Epicurean library at Herculaneum that was buried by avolcanic eruption, some parts of this work are being recovered. Many ofthe scrolls found are badly damaged, however, and interpretation ofthis newly recovered material is ongoing.

The Herculaneum library contains much work of the EpicureanPhilodemus (1st c. BCE). Philodemus wrote extensively, including on thehistory of philosophy, ethics, music, poetry, rhetoric and theemotions. He wrote a treatise on the theory of signs: because they areempiricists, believing that all knowledge comes from our senseexperience, later Epicureans were concerned about the basis for ourknowledge of imperceptibles like the atoms, and engaged in an extensivedebate with the Stoics about the grounds for inferences toimperceptible entities.

Although Epicurus’ doctrines teach the value of a quiet life in aspecially constructed Epicurean community and decry the search forfame, atomist theory is also regarded as a cure for the troublesafflicting others outside the community, and there are certainlyEpicurean texts written for a wider audience. Besides the letters byEpicurus himself summarizing his doctrines, the Epicurean philosopherLucretius (d. c. 50 BCE) wrote a long Latin poem advocating Epicurus’ideas to Roman audiences. Lucretius makes clear his close allegiance toEpicurus’ own views, and provides more detail on some topics than hassurvived from Epicurus’ own work, such as an extended account of theorigins of human society and institutions. A less sympatheticcontemporary of Lucretius, Cicero, also wrote a number of Latin worksin which an Epicurean spokesman presents the doctrines of the school.Diogenes of Oenoanda propagated Epicurean doctrines in Asia Minor,inscribing them on the wall of a Stoa in his home town. Excavation ofthese since the nineteenth century has also produced new texts, aimedat converting passersby to Epicurean theory. Smith 1993, in his latestedition of the text of the inscriptions, dates them to the early secondcentury CE.

8. Atomism and Particle Theories in the Sciences

Lifeview ez loader driver download. Some figures concerned with the natural sciences, especiallymedicine, are thought to have regarded organic bodies as made of somekind of particles. The details of these views are often obscure. Galen,in On the Natural Faculties, divides medical theorists intotwo groups, following the division of natural philosophers. On the oneside are continuum theorists, who hold that all matter is infinitelydivisible but that all the matter in things subject to generation andcorruption is susceptible to qualitative alteration. On the other arethose who suppose that matter is composed of tiny, unchangeableparticles separated by void spaces, and explain qualitative change asproduced only in compound bodies, by rearrangement of the particlesalone. In Galen’s view, qualitative alteration is needed to produce thepowers whereby beneficent Nature directs change: Galen credits thefirst group with asserting the priority of Nature and its beneficentorder, and the latter with denying this.

Although ancient natural philosophers tend to fall on either side ofGalen’s divide—continuum theory plus beneficent teleology, vs.atomism plus blind necessity— there is a danger in taking thisdichotomy to be exhaustive or exclusive of possible naturalphilosophies. Inasmuch as the view Plato develops in Timaeusis atomistic and also endorses teleological explanation, for example,his position complicates the picture, and other theories of naturalphilosophy in the Hellenistic period do not divide so neatly onto oneside or the other. Galen has polemical interests in discrediting thosewho deny the need for qualitatively irreducible faculties or powersemployed by Nature to produce beneficial results. In cases where wehave only scattered reports and secondhand information, it isdifficult to know which views should be counted as atomistic. Aprevailing tendency in modern scholarship to identify atomisttendencies with ‘mechanistic’ thinking is notcharacteristic of ancient Greek atomism: the identification was madein the work of Henry More and Robert Boyle in the 17th century. Galenelsewhere explicitly contrasts atomist thought with the schools whoappeal to ideas from mechanics.

The theories of Heracleides of Pontus (4th c. BCE) and Asclepiadesof Bythnia (2nd c. BCE) are sometimes likened to atomism. Both—apupil of Plato, and a medical theorist—are said to have positedthe existence of corpuscles they call anarmoi onkoi, i.e. somekind of ‘masses’, but the precise meaning is disputed.Although the theories of Asclepiades in particular are oftenassimilated to atomism, there is reason to think that Galen’sidentification of his view as atomistic is polemical, and thatAsclepiades’ particles are capable of division into infinitely manypieces. Erasistratus of Ceos, one of the great anatomists of the thirdcentury BCE, is another of those whom Galen suggests may have been onthe atomist side, despite his acceptance of design in nature.Erasistratus had posited that the tissues of the body are composed of atriple braid of vein, artery and nerve: Galen reports that even thetissue of the nerve is made up of this tiny braid. He claims that theErasistrateans are divided as to whether the elemental nerve tissue isa continuous mass or is composed of small particles like those of theatomists.

One of the most prominent writers on mechanics in antiquity, Hero ofAlexandria (1st c. CE), has been regarded, following Hermann Diels, asan atomist. In the introduction to his Pneumatica, hedescribes matter as made up of particles with spaces betweenthem. However, Hero’s account of pneumatic effects involving thecompression of air—discovered by Ctesibius—seems to dependon the deformation of elastic particles which can be compressedartificially but will spring back to their original shape quitevehemently. If so, his account denies a fundamental tenet of classicalatomism, that atoms do not change in their intrinsic properties likeshape.

Bibliography

The sections of this Bibliography correspond to the sections of theentry.

For works on Leucippus, Democritus, Epicurus and Lucretius, see therelevant articles in this encyclopedia. This bibliography focuses onsources relevant to other figures mentioned in this article:

A. General

• Furley, David J. Two Studies in the Greek Atomists,Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1967.
• Furley, David J. The Greek Cosmologists vol 1: The Formationof the Atomic Theory and its Earliest Critics, Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1987.
• Hasper, Pieter Sjoerd. ‘Aristotle’s Diagnosis ofAtomism,’ Apeiron, 39 (2006): 121–56.
• Konstan, David. ‘Atomism and its Heritage: MinimalParts,’ Ancient Philosophy, 2 (1982): 60–75.
• Makin, Stephen. Indifference Arguments, Oxford: BlackwellPublishers, 1993.
• Pyle, Andrew. Atomism and Its Critics: From Democritus toNewton, Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 1997.
• Sedley, David. Creationism and its Critics in Antiquity,Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007.
• Sorabji, Richard. Time, Creation and the Continuum: Theoriesin Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, London and Ithaca, NY:Duckworth and Cornell University Press, 1983.

B. Atomism before Leucippus

• Cornford, F.M. Plato and Parmenides: Parmenides’ Way ofTruth and Plato’s Parmenides, translated with an introductionand a running commentary, London: Routledge, 1939.
• Guthrie, W.K.C. A History of Greek Philosophy vol. 1: TheEarlier Presocratics and the Pythagoreans, Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1967.
• Heidel, W.A. ‘The Pythagoreans and Greek Mathematics,’American Journal of Philology, 61 (1940): 1–33.
• More, Henry. Conjectura Cabbalistica, London: J. Flesher,1653.
• Owen, G.E.L. ‘Zeno and the mathematicians,’Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 58 (1957–8):199–222.
• Sedley, David, 2008, ‘Atomism’s Eleatic Roots,’ inPatricia Curd and Daniel W. Graham (eds.), The Oxford Handbook ofPresocratic Philosophy, Oxford: Oxford University Press,305–332.
• Tannéry, Paul. L’Histoire de la sciencehéllène, Paris: Georg Olms, 1887.

C. & D. Plato, Platonists and Xenocrates

• Dillon, John. The Heirs of Plato: A Study of the Old Academy(347–274 BC), Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003.
• Konstan, David. ‘Points, Lines, and Infinity: Aristotle’sPhysics Zeta and Hellenistic Philosophy,’ in John J.Cleary (ed.), Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in AncientPhilosophy, 3 (1988): 1–32.
• Mueller, Ian, ‘Plato’s Geometrical Chemistry and ItsExegesis in Antiquity,’, 159–76 in P. Suppes, J. Moravcsik andH. Mendell (eds.), Ancient and Medieval Traditions in the ExactSciences: Essays in Memory of Wilbur Knorr, Stanford: CSLIPublications, 2000.
• Opsomer, J. (2012), ‘In Defence of Geometric Atomism:Explaining Elemental Properties,’ in J. Wilberding and C. Horn(ed), Neoplatonism and the Philosophy of Nature, Oxford:Oxford University Press, pp. 147–73.
• Sambursky, S. The Physical World of Late Antiquity,London: Routledge, 1962.
• Sedley, David. ‘On Generation and Corruption1.2,’ 65–89 in Frans de Haas and Jaap Mansfeld (eds),Aristotle: On Generation and Corruption, Book 1:Symposium Aristotelicum, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004.
• Siorvanes, Lucas. Proclus: Neo-Platonic Philosophy andScience, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1996.
• Strang, Colin and K.W. Mills, ‘Plato and the Instant,’Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (SupplementaryVolume), 48 (1974): 63–96.

All Matter Is Made Of Atoms

E. Minima Naturalia

All Matter Is Made Of Atoms True Or False

• Copenhaver, Brian. ‘Scholastic Philosophy and RenaissanceMagic in the De Vita of Marsilio Ficino,’Renaissance Quarterly, 37 (1984): 523–54.
• Glasner, Ruth. ‘Ibn Rushd’s Theory of MinimaNaturalia,’ Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, 11 (2001):9–26.
• Murdoch, John E. ‘The Medieval and Renaissance Tradition ofMinima Naturalia,’ 91–132 in Christoph Lüthy, JohnE. Murdoch and William R. Newman (eds), Late Medieval and EarlyModern Corpuscular Matter Theories, Leiden: Brill, 2001.

F. Diodorus Cronus

• Denyer, Nicholas. ‘The Atomism of Diodorus Cronus,’Prudentia, 13 (1981): 33–45.
• Sedley, David. ‘Diodorus Cronus and HellenisticPhilosophy,’ Proceedings of the Cambridge PhilologicalSociety (New Series), 23 (1977): 74–120.

G. Followers of Democritus and Epicurus

• Betegh, Gábor (2006). ‘Epicurus’ Argument forAtomism,’ in Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 30:Summer 2006. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Clay, Diskin. Paradosis and Survival: Three Chapters in theHistory of Epicurean Philosophy, Ann Arbor: University ofMichigan Press, 1998.
• Frischer, B. The Sculpted Word: Epicureanism and PhilosophicalRecruitment in Ancient Greece, Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 1982.
• Gigante, Marcello. Philodemus in Italy: The Books fromHerculaneum, translated by Dirk Obbink, Ann Arbor: University ofMichigan Press, 1995.
• Smith, Martin Ferguson. Diogenes of Oinoanda: The EpicureanInscription, Edited with Introduction, Translation and Notes,Naples: Bibliopolis, 1993.
• Warren, James. Epicurus and Democritean Ethics: An Archaeologyof Ataraxia, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
• Warren, James (ed.) Cambridge Companion to Epicureanism,Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

H. Atomism and Particle Theories in the Sciences

• Berryman, Sylvia. The Mechanical Hypothesis in Ancient GreekNatural Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,2009.
• Berryman, Sylvia. ‘The Evidence for Strato of Lampsacus inHero of Alexandria,’ in Marie-Laurence Desclos andW.W. Fortenbaugh (eds.), Strato of Lampsacus, New Brunswick,NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2011.
• Drachmann, A. G. Ktesibios, Philon and Heron: A Study inAncient Pneumatics, Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1948.
• Gottschalk, Hans. Heracleides of Pontus, Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1980.
• Netz, Reviel. ‘Were There EpicureanMathematicians?’ Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy,XLIX (2015): 283–320.
• Vallance, J.T. The Lost Theory of Asclepiades ofBithynia, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990.
• Von Staden, Heinrich. ‘Teleology and Mechanism: AristotelianBiology and Early Hellenistic Medicine,’ 183–208 in WolfgangKullmann and Sabine Föllinger (eds), Aristotelische Biologie:Intentionen, Methoden, Ergebnisse, Stuttgart: F. Steiner Verlag,1997.

I. Atomism in Other Traditions

• Adamson, P. (2016) ‘Atomismus beiar-Rāzī,’̄, in T. Buchheim, D. Meissner &N. Wachsmann (ed.), Soma[ΣΩΜΑ]: Körperkonzepte undkörperliche Existenz in der antiken Philosophie undLiteratur. Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag.
• Baffioni, C. (1982), Atomismo e antiatomismo nel pensieroislamico, Napoli: Instituto Universitario Orientale.
• Cerami, C. (2012). ‘Mélange, Minima Naturalia etcroissance animale dans le Commentaire Moyen d’Avarroèsà De Generation et Corruption I.5,’ in J. Biard andS. Romnevaux (eds), Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 137–164.
• Dhanani, Alnoor. The Physical Theory of Kalam, Leiden:E.J. Brill, 1994.
• Ganeri, Jonardo. Philosophy in Classical India, London:Routledge 2001.
• Glasner, Ruth. ‘Ibn Rushd’s Theory of MinimaNaturalia,’ Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, 11 (2001):9–26.
• Langermann, Tzvi (2009). ‘Islamic Atomism and the GalenicTradition,’ History of Science 47:277–295.
• McGinnis, Jon. ‘The Topology of Time: An Analysis ofMedieval Islamic Accounts of Discrete and Continuous Time,’The Modern Schoolman, 81 (2003): 5–25.
• Pines, Shlomo. Studies in Islamic Atomism,trans. Michael Schwartz, ed. Tzvi Langermann, Jerusalem: The MagnesPress, 1997.
• Potter, Karl H. Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies vol. 2:Indian Metaphysics and Epistemology, Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1977.
• Rashed, Marwan. ‘Natural philosophy,’ 287–307 inPeter Adamson and Richard C. Taylor (eds), The Cambridge Companionto Arabic Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University press,2005.

Academic Tools

Other Internet Resources

All Matter Is Made Of Atoms

• Atomism, maintained by S. Marc Cohen, University of Washington
• The Final Cut: Democritus and Leucippus, at History of Philosophy Without Gaps, maintained by Peter Adamson, King’s College London
• atomism, entry in Wikipedia.

Related Entries

Aristotle | atomism: 17th to 20th century | Democritus | Epicurus | Leucippus | Lucretius | Plato | Pythagoras | Zeno of Elea: Zeno’s paradoxes

Acknowledgments

All Matter Is Made Of

I wish to thank the editor John Cooper and Tim O’Keefe for helpfulcomments and suggestions, and Patrick S. O’Donnell and RobertWisnovsky for bibliographical references.

Copyright © 2016 by
Sylvia Berryman<sberrym@interchange.ubc.ca>