Everything about Leucippus totally explained
» This article is about the philosopher. There was also a Greek Leucippus (mythology) and a genus of hummingbirdsLeucippus or
Leukippos (
Greek: Λεύκιππος, first half of
5th century BC) was among the earliest philosophers of
atomism, the idea that everything is composed entirely of various imperishable, indivisible elements called
atoms. He was born at
Miletus or
Abdera
Overview
There are no existing writings which we can attribute to Leucippus, since his writings seem to have been folded into the work of his famous student
Democritus (
q.v. for more on atomism). In fact, it's virtually impossible to identify any views about which Democritus and Leucippus disagreed.
Leucippus was a contemporary of
Zeno,
Empedocles and
Anaxagoras of the
Ionian school of philosophy. Leucippus was most influenced by Zeno, who possessed a great interest in the
problems and paradoxes of space. He studied at the school in Elea, but it isn't certain whether this was before or after the death of
Parmenides. Around 440 B.C. or 430 B.C. Leucippus founded a school at Abdera, which his pupil, Democritus, was closely associated with. His fame was so completely overshadowed by that of Democritus, who systematized his views on atoms, that
Epicurus doubted his very existence, according to
Diogenes Laertius x. 7.
However
Aristotle and
Theophrastus explicitly credit Leucippus with the invention of Atomism. Leucippus agreed with the Eleatic argument that
true being doesn't admit of vacuum. And there can be no movement in the absence of vacuum. Leucippus contended that since movement exists, there has to be vacuum. However, he concludes that vacuum is identified with non-being, since it can't really be. Leucippus differed from the Eleatics in not being encumbered by the
conceptual intermingling of being and non-being.
Plato made the necessary distinction between
grades of being and types of negation.) and
Peri Nou (
On mind).
Quotes
A single fragment of Leucippus survives:
Nothing happens at random (maten), but everything from reason (ek logou) and by necessity. |
Notes and references
A.A. Long (ed.),
The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy (pgs. xxiii, 185)
Diels-Kranz,
Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker [I] 67A
Diogenes Laertius,
Diogenes Lartius: Lives of Eminent Philosophers, IX.30-33
Further Information
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