Atomism is a
natural philosophyNatural philosophy or the philosophy of nature , is a term applied to the study of nature and the physical universe that was dominant before the development of modern science...
developed by
LeucippusLeucippus or Leukippos was the first Greek to develop the theory of atomism — the idea that everything is composed entirely of various imperishable, indivisible elements called atoms — which was elaborated in far greater detail by his pupil and successor, Democritus...
and his student
DemocritusDemocritus was an Ancient Greek philosopher born in Abdera in the north of Greece. He was the most prolific, and ultimately the most influential, of the pre-Socratic philosophers; his atomic theory may be regarded as the culmination of early Greek thought.His exact contributions are difficult to...
in the fifth century BC. These atomists theorized that the natural world consists of two fundamental and opposite, indivisible bodies -
atomThe atom is a basic unit of matter consisting of a dense, central nucleus surrounded by a cloud of negatively charged electrons. The atomic nucleus contains a mix of positively charged protons and electrically neutral neutrons...
s and
voidA void is an empty space. When used as an adjective, the word can also mean "invalid".Void may also refer to:-In fiction:* Void , character from WildC.A.T.S....
(
void is mere nothing, or the body's negation). Atoms are intrinsically unchangeable and move about the void combining into different clusters (and these clusters form deferring substances). Atoms are reality's very small, indestructible building blocks (
AristotleAristotle was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology.Together with Plato and Socrates , Aristotle is one of...
,
Metaphysics, I, 4, 985 b, 10-15). The word
atomism derives from the ancient Greek adjective
atomos, which literally meant 'uncuttable' (
a -
tomos (
not cuttable) -
tomos a conjugate of the Greek verb
temnein (
to cut)).
Of importance to the philosophical concept of atomism is the historical accident that the particles that chemists and physicists of the early 19th century thought were indivisible, and therefore identified with the uncuttable
a-toms of long tradition, were found in the 20th century to be composed of even smaller entities: electrons, neutrons, and protons. Further experiments showed that protons and neutrons are made of fundamental quarks. These particles at present show no experimental evidence of size or substructure.
Thus, as regards quarks, electrons, and other fundamental leptons are concerned, the possibility that they too are composed of smaller particles cannot be ruled out. In the meantime, however, it is these particles (not chemical atoms) which remain the best candidates for the traditional indivisible objects, with which historical atomism has concerned itself.
Traditional atomism in philosophy
The word
atom is understood in primarily two distinct ways: firstly, by the physical sciences; secondly, by philosophy. Atomism is traditionally associated with the latter, the traditional argument of which being that atoms are the basic building blocks of all real, knowable matter, and make up absolutely anything that exists. Atoms are the smallest possible division of matter, do not have physical parts, and cannot be split, cut nor in any way further divided; they are either sizeless (point-sized) or they have a tiny size. Those that have a tiny size are called
DemocriteanDemocritus was an Ancient Greek philosopher born in Abdera in the north of Greece. He was the most prolific, and ultimately the most influential, of the pre-Socratic philosophers; his atomic theory may be regarded as the culmination of early Greek thought.His exact contributions are difficult to...
atoms. This was the perception in Greek theories of atomism.
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
n Buddhists, such as
DharmakirtiDharmakirti , was an Indian scholar and one of the Buddhist founders of Indian philosophical logic. He was one of the primary theorists of Buddhist atomism, according to which the only items considered to exist are momentary Buddhist atoms and states of consciousness.-History:Born around the turn...
and others, also contributed to well-developed theories of atomism, and which involve momentary (instantaneous) atoms, that flash in and out of existence. The tradition of atomism leads to the position that only atoms exist, and there are no composite objects (objects with parts), which would mean that human bodies, clouds, planets, and whatnot all do not exist. This consequence of atomism was openly discussed by atomists such as Democritus, Hobbes, and perhaps even
KantKANT is a computer algebra system for mathematicians interested in algebraic number theory, performing sophisticated computations in algebraic number fields, in global function fields, and in local fields. KASH is the associated command line interface...
(there is a debate over whether or not Kant was an atomist) among others, and it is also called
mereological nihilismMereological nihilism is the position that objects with proper parts do not exist , and only basic building blocks without parts exist, and thus the world we see and experience full of objects with parts is a...
or
metaphysical nihilismMetaphysical nihilism is the philosophical theory that there might have been no objects at all, i.e. that there is a possible world in which there are no objects at all; or at least that there might have been no concrete objects at all, so even if every possible world contains some objects, there...
. In contemporary philosophy, atomism is not as popular as it has been in past times, because many contemporary philosophers are not willing to argue that
only atoms exist, wherein there are not any things like trees, etc.
Simples"Simple" is a term from contemporary mereology. A simple is any thing that has no proper parts. Sometimes the term "atom" is used, although in recent years the term "simple" has become the standard....
theory is a similar theory to atomism, but where unlike mereological nihilism, philosophers
do hold that more than just atoms exist (such as cars and trees made up of the atoms).
Is there an ultimate, indivisible unit of matter?
In the late fifth century BC,
LeucippusLeucippus or Leukippos was the first Greek to develop the theory of atomism — the idea that everything is composed entirely of various imperishable, indivisible elements called atoms — which was elaborated in far greater detail by his pupil and successor, Democritus...
and his pupil
DemocritusDemocritus was an Ancient Greek philosopher born in Abdera in the north of Greece. He was the most prolific, and ultimately the most influential, of the pre-Socratic philosophers; his atomic theory may be regarded as the culmination of early Greek thought.His exact contributions are difficult to...
founded the
atomist doctrineAtomism is a natural philosophy developed by Leucippus and his student Democritus in the fifth century BC. These atomists theorized that the natural world consists of two fundamental and opposite, indivisible bodies - atoms and void...
, theorizing that the natural world was composed of two, fundamentally different substances -
atomThe atom is a basic unit of matter consisting of a dense, central nucleus surrounded by a cloud of negatively charged electrons. The atomic nucleus contains a mix of positively charged protons and electrically neutral neutrons...
s and
voidA void is an empty space. When used as an adjective, the word can also mean "invalid".Void may also refer to:-In fiction:* Void , character from WildC.A.T.S....
. Atoms and void were uncreatible, unchangeable and eternal. None of the writings by Leucippus survives, and only a few fragments of the writings of Democritus remain.
The void is infinite and provides the space in which the atoms can pack or scatter differently. The different possible packings and scatterings within the void make up the shifting outlines and bulk of the objects that organisms feel, see, eat, hear, smell, and taste. While organisms may feel hot or cold, hot and cold actually have no real existence. They are simply sensations produced in organisms by the different packings and scatterings of the atoms in the void that compose the object that organisms sense as being "hot" or "cold."
The work of Democritus only survives in secondhand reports, some of which are unreliable or conflicting. Much of the best evidence of Democritus' theory of atomism is reported by Aristotle in his discussions of Democritus' and Plato's contrasting views on the types of indivisibles composing the natural world..
Geometry and atoms
| Element |
Polyhedron |
Number of Faces |
Number of Triangles |
| Fire |
TetrahedronIn geometry, a tetrahedron is a polyhedron composed of four triangular faces, three of which meet at each vertex. A regular tetrahedron is one in which the four triangles are regular, or "equilateral", and is one of the Platonic solids...
(Animation) |
|
4 |
24 |
| Air |
OctahedronIn geometry, an octahedron is a polyhedron with eight faces. A regular octahedron is a Platonic solid composed of eight equilateral triangles, four of which meet at each vertex.It is a 3-dimensional cross polytope.-Dimensions:...
(Animation) |
|
8 |
48 |
| Water |
IcosahedronIn geometry, an icosahedron is a regular polyhedron with 20 identical equilateral triangular faces, 30 edges and 12 vertices. It is one of five Platonic solids....
(Animation) |
|
20 |
120 |
| Earth |
Cube
(Animation) |
|
6 |
24 |
| Geometrical Simple Bodies According to Plato |
PlatoPlato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world...
(c. 427—c. 347 BC) objected to the
mechanisticIn philosophy, mechanism is the theory that all natural phenomena can be explained by laws of nature. It's the opposite of vitalism, which claims organisms have "vital forces" which aren't physical....
purposelessness of the atomism of Democritus. He argued that atoms just crashing into other atoms could never produce the beauty and form of the world. In the
Timaeus,
(28B - 29A) Plato insisted that the
cosmosIn its most general sense, a cosmos is an orderly or harmonious system. It originates from a Greek term κόσμος meaning "order, orderly arrangement, ornaments," and is the antithetical concept of chaos. Today the word is generally used as a synonym of the word Universe . The words cosmetics and...
was not eternal but was created, although its creator framed it after an eternal, unchanging model.
One part of that creation were the four simple bodies of fire, air, water, and earth. But Plato did not consider these
corpusclesCorpuscularianism is the postulate, expounded in a predominant manner by the thirteenth-century Italian Franciscan alchemist Geber , that all physical bodies possess an inner and outer layer of minute particles or corpuscles...
to be the most basic level of reality, for in his view they were made up of an unchanging level of reality, which was mathematical. These simple bodies were
geometric solidsIn geometry, a Platonic solid is a convex polyhedron that is regular, in the sense of a regular polygon. Specifically, the faces of a Platonic solid are congruent regular polygons, with the same number of faces meeting at each vertex; thus, all its edges are congruent, as are its vertices and...
, the faces of which were, in turn, made up of triangles. The square faces of the cube were each made up of four isosceles right-angled triangles and the triangular faces of the tetrahedron, octahedron, and icosahedron were each made up of six right-angled triangles.
He postulated the geometric structure of the simple bodies of the four elements as summarized in the table to the right. The cube, with its flat base and stability, was assigned to earth; the tetrahedron was assigned to fire because its penetrating points and sharp edges made it mobile. The points and edges of the octahedron and icosahedron were blunter and so these less mobile bodies were assigned to air and water. Since the simple bodies could be decomposed into triangles, and the triangles reassembled into atoms of different elements, Plato's model offered a plausible account of changes among the primary substances.
The rejection of atoms
Sometime before 330 BC
AristotleAristotle was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology.Together with Plato and Socrates , Aristotle is one of...
asserted that the elements of fire, air, earth, and water were not made of atoms, but were continuous. Aristotle considered the existence of a void, which was required by atomic theories, to violate physical principles. Change took place not by the rearrangement of atoms to make new structures, but by transformation of matter from what it was in potential to a new actuality. (This theory is called
hylomorphismHylomorphism is a philosophical theory developed by Aristotle, which analyzes substance into matter and form...
.) A piece of wet clay, when acted upon by a potter, takes on its potential to be an actual drinking mug. Aristotle has often been criticized for rejecting atomism, but in ancient Greece the atomic theories of Democritus and Plato remained "pure speculations, incapable of being put to any experimental test. Granted that atomism was, in the long run, to prove far more fruitful than any qualitative theory of matter, in the short run the theory that Aristotle proposed must have seemed in some respects more promising".
Later ancient atomism
EpicurusEpicurus was an ancient Greek philosopher and the founder of the school of philosophy called Epicureanism.Only a few fragments and letters remain of Epicurus's 300 written works...
(341-270) studied atomism with
NausiphanesNausiphanes , a native of Teos, was attached to the philosophy of Democritus, and was a pupil of Pyrrho. He had a large number of pupils, and was particularly famous as a rhetorician. Epicurus was at one time one of his hearers, but was unsatisfied with him, and apparently abused him in his writings...
who had been a student of Democritus. Although Epicurus was certain of the existence of atoms and the void, he was less sure we could adequately explain specific natural phenomena such as earthquakes, lightning, comets, or the phases of the Moon (Lloyd 1973, 25-6). Few of Epicurus's writings survive and those that do reflect his interest in applying Democritus's theories to assist people in taking responsibility for themselves and for their own happiness—since he held there are no gods around that can help them.
His ideas are also represented in the derivative works of Democritus's followers, such as
Lucretius'sTitus Lucretius Carus was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is the epic philosophical poem on Epicureanism De rerum natura, translated into English as On the Nature of Things or "On the Nature of the Universe"....
On the Nature of ThingsDe rerum natura is a first century BC epic poem by the Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius with the goal of explaining Epicurean philosophy to a Roman audience. The poem, written in dactylic hexameter, is divided into six books, and concentrates heavily on Epicurean physics...
. These derivative works allow us to work out several segments of his theory on how the universe began its current stage. The atoms and the void are eternal. And after collisions that shatter large objects into smaller objects, the resulting dust, still composed of the same eternal atoms as the prior configurations of the universe, falls into a whirling motion that draws the dust into larger objects again to begin another cycle.
Atomism and ethics
Some later philosophers attributed the idea that man created gods; the gods did not create man to Democritus. For example,
Sextus EmpiricusSextus Empiricus , was a physician and philosopher, and has been variously reported to have lived in Alexandria, Rome, or Athens. His philosophical work is the most complete surviving account of ancient Greek and Roman skepticism....
noted:
- Some people think that we arrived at the idea of gods from the remarkable things that happen in the world. Democritus ... says that the people of ancient times were frightened by happenings in the heavens such as thunder, lightning, ..., and thought that they were caused by gods.
Three hundred years after Epicurus,
LucretiusTitus Lucretius Carus was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is the epic philosophical poem on Epicureanism De rerum natura, translated into English as On the Nature of Things or "On the Nature of the Universe"....
in his epic poem
On the Nature of ThingsDe rerum natura is a first century BC epic poem by the Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius with the goal of explaining Epicurean philosophy to a Roman audience. The poem, written in dactylic hexameter, is divided into six books, and concentrates heavily on Epicurean physics...
would depict him as the hero who crushed the monster
ReligionA religion is a system of human thought which usually includes a set of narratives, symbols, beliefs and practices that give meaning to the practitioner's experiences of life through reference to a higher power, deity or deities, or ultimate truth...
through educating the people in what was possible in the atoms and what was
not possible in the atoms. However, Epicurus expressed a non-aggressive attitude characterized by his statement: "The man who best knows how to meet external threats makes into one family all the creatures he can; and those he can not, he at any rate does not treat as aliens; and where he finds even this impossible, he avoids all dealings, and, so far as is advantageous, excludes them from his life."
http://www.epicurus.net/en/principal.html
The exile of atomism
While Aristotelian philosophy eclipsed the importance of the atomists, their work was still preserved and exposited through commentaries on the works of Aristotle. In the 2nd century,
GalenAelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus , better known as Galen of Pergamum , was a prominent Greek physician and philosopher and probably the most accomplished medical researcher of the Roman period. His theories dominated and influenced Western medical science for well over a millennium...
(A.D. 129-216) presented extensive discussions of the Greek atomists, especially Epicurus, in his Aristotle commentaries. According to historian of atomism
Joshua GregoryJoshua Gregory was an early settler in colonial Western Australia. Two of his sons, Augustus Charles and Francis Thomas, became renowned Australian explorers....
, there was no serious work done with atomism from the time of Galen until
GassendiPierre Gassendi was a French philosopher, priest, scientist, astronomer, and mathematician. With a church position in south-east France, he also spent much time in Paris, where he was a leader of a group of free-thinking intellectuals. He was also an active observational scientist, publishing the...
and Descartes resurrected it in the 16th century; "the gap between these two 'modern naturalists' and the ancient Atomists marked "the exile of the atom" and "it is universally admitted that the Middle Ages had abandoned Atomism, and virtually lost it."
However, scholars still had Aristotle's critiques of atomism, and it seems unlikely that all ideas of atomism could have been lost in the West. In the Medieval universities there were rare expressions of atomistic philosophy. For example, in the fourteenth century
Nicholas of AutrecourtNicholas or Nicolaus of Autrecourt , was a French medieval philosopher and theologian....
considered that matter, space, and time were all made up of indivisible atoms, points, and instants and that all generation and corruption took place by the rearrangement of material atoms. The similarities of his ideas with those of
al-GhazaliAbū Ḥāmid Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Ghazālī , often Algazel in English, was born and died in Tus, in the Khorasan province of Persia. He was an Islamic theologian, jurist, philosopher, cosmologist, psychologist and mystic of Persian origin, and remains one of the most celebrated scholars in the...
suggest that Nicholas may have been familiar with Ghazali's work, perhaps through
AverroesAbū 'l-Walīd Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Rushd , better known just as Ibn Rushd , and in European literature as Averroes , was an Andalusian Muslim polymath of Moroccan origins; a master of Islamic philosophy, Islamic theology, Maliki law and jurisprudence, logic, psychology, politics, Arabic music...
' refutation of it (Marmara, 1973-74).
Still, "the exile of the atom" is an appropriate description of the interim between the ancient Greeks and the revival of Western atomism in the 16th century, in view of atomism's success elsewhere during that time. If the atom was in exile from the west, it was in India and Islam that atomistic traditions continued.
Indian atomism
The Indian atomistic position, like many movements in Indian Philosophy and Mathematics, starts with an argument from Linguistics. The
VedicVedic Sanskrit is an Old Indic language. It is the language of the Vedas, the oldest shruti texts of Hinduism, compiled over the period of the mid 2nd to mid 1st millennium BC. It is an archaic form of Sanskrit, an early descendant of Proto-Indo-Iranian. It is closely related to Avestan, the...
etymologist and grammarian
Yaska' , was a Sanskrit grammarian who preceded Pānini. His famous text is Nirukta, which deals with etymology, lexical category and the semantics of words. He is thought to have succeeded , an old grammarian and expositor of the Vedas, who is mentioned in his text...
(ca. 7th c. BC) in his Nirukta, in dealing with models for how linguistic structures get to have their meanings, takes the atomistic position that words are the "primary" carrier of meaning - i.e. words have a preferred ontological status in defining meaning. This position was to be the subject of a fierce debate in the Indian tradition from the early Christian era till the 18th century, involving different philosophers from the
Nyaya' is the name given to one of the six orthodox or astika schools of Hindu philosophy—specifically the school of logic...
,
Mimamsa', a Sanskrit word meaning "investigation" , is the name of an astika school of Hindu philosophy whose primary enquiry is into the nature of dharma based on close hermeneutics of the Vedas. Its core tenets are ritualism , anti-asceticism and anti-mysticism...
and Buddhist schools.
In the pratishakhya text (ca. 2nd c. BCE), the gist of the controversy was stated cryptically in the sutra form as "saMhitA pada-prakr^tiH". According to the atomist view, the words (
padaPada may refer to:* Pada , the foot* Sri Pada or Adam's Peak, a mountain in Sri Lanka* Pada River, see List of rivers of Estonia...
) would be the primary elements (
prakrti) out of which the sentence is constructed, while the holistic view considers the sentence as the primary entity, originally "given" in its context of utterance, and the words are arrived at only through analysis and abstraction.
These two positions came to be called
a-kShaNDa-pakSha (indivisibility or sentence-holism), a position developed later by Bhartrihari (c. 500 AD), vs.
kShaNDa-pakSha (atomism), a position adopted by the
Mimamsa', a Sanskrit word meaning "investigation" , is the name of an astika school of Hindu philosophy whose primary enquiry is into the nature of dharma based on close hermeneutics of the Vedas. Its core tenets are ritualism , anti-asceticism and anti-mysticism...
and
Nyaya' is the name given to one of the six orthodox or astika schools of Hindu philosophy—specifically the school of logic...
schools (Note:
kShanDa = fragmented; "a-kShanDa" = whole).
Between the
5thThe 5th century BC started the first day of 500 BC and ended the last day of 401 BC.-Overview:This century saw the beginning of a period of philosophical brilliance among Western civilizations, particularly the Greeks which would continue all the way through the 4th century until the time of...
and 3rd century BC, the
atomThe atom is a basic unit of matter consisting of a dense, central nucleus surrounded by a cloud of negatively charged electrons. The atomic nucleus contains a mix of positively charged protons and electrically neutral neutrons...
(anu or aṇor) is mentioned in the
Bhagavad GitaThe Bhagavad Gita is one of the most important Hindu scriptures. It is revered as a sacred scripture of Hinduism, and considered as one of the most important philosophical classics of the world. The Bhagavad Gita comprises 700 verses, and is a part of the Mahabharata...
(Chapter 8, Verse 9):
kaviḿ purāṇam anuśāsitāram aṇor aṇīyāḿsam anusmared yaḥ sarvasya dhātāram acintya-rūpam āditya-varṇaḿ tamasaḥ parastāt
One meditates on the omniscient, primordial, the controller, smaller than the atom, yet the maintainer of everything; whose form is inconceivable, resplendent like the sun and totally transcendental to material nature
The ancient "shAshvata-vAda" doctrine of eternalism, which held that elements are eternal, is also suggestive of a possible starting point for atomism (Gangopadhyaya 1981).
There has been some debate among scholars as to the origin of Indian atomism; the general consensus is that the Indian and Greek versions of atomism developed independently. However, there is some doubt on this, given the similarities between Indian atomism and Greek atomism and the proximity of India to scholastic Europe, as well as the account, related by
Diogenes LaertiusDiogenes Laërtius , was a biographer of the Greek philosophers. Nothing is known about his life, but his surviving Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers is one of the principal surviving sources for the history of Greek philosophy.-Life:Nothing is known about his life. He must have lived after...
, of
DemocritusDemocritus was an Ancient Greek philosopher born in Abdera in the north of Greece. He was the most prolific, and ultimately the most influential, of the pre-Socratic philosophers; his atomic theory may be regarded as the culmination of early Greek thought.His exact contributions are difficult to...
"making acquaintance with the
GymnosophistsGymnosophists is the name given by the Greeks to certain ancient Indian philosophers who pursued asceticism to the point of regarding food and clothing as detrimental to purity of thought ....
in
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
".
The atomist position had transcended language into epistemology by the time that
Nyaya' is the name given to one of the six orthodox or astika schools of Hindu philosophy—specifically the school of logic...
-Vaisesika, Buddhist and
JainaJainism is an ancient dharmic religion from India that prescribes a path of non-violence for all forms of living beings in this world. Its philosophy and practice relies mainly on self-effort in progressing the soul on the spiritual ladder to divine consciousness...
theology were developing mature philosophical positions.
Will DurantWilliam James Durant was a prolific American writer, historian, and philosopher. He is best known for the 11-volume The Story of Civilization, written in collaboration with his wife Ariel and published between 1935 and 1975...
wrote in
Our Oriental Heritage:
Indian atomism in the
Middle AgesThe Middle Ages of European history is a period of European history covering roughly a millennium in the 5th century through 16th centuries. More specific starting and ending points are sometimes adopted by scholars to suit their respective specializations or current focus...
was still mostly philosophical and/or religious in intent, though it was also scientific. Because the "infallible
VedasThe Vedas are a large body of texts originating in Ancient India. The texts are composed in Vedic Sanskrit and form the oldest layer of Sanskrit literature, and the oldest sacred texts of Hinduism....
", the oldest Hindu texts, do not mention atoms (though they do mention elements), atomism was not orthodox in many schools of Hindu philosophy, although accommodationist interpretations or assumptions of lost text justified the use of atomism for non-orthodox schools of Hindu thought. The Buddhist and Jaina schools of atomism however, were more willing to accept the ideas of atomism.
Nyaya-Vaisesika school
The
Nyaya' is the name given to one of the six orthodox or astika schools of Hindu philosophy—specifically the school of logic...
-Vaisesika school developed one of the earliest forms of atomism; scholars date the Nyaya and Vaisesika texts from the 6th century BC to the 1st century BC. Like the Buddhist atomists, the Vaisesika had a pseudo-Aristotelian theory of atomism. They posited the four elemental atom types, but in Vaisesika physics atoms had 24 different possible qualities, divided between general
extensiveIn the physical sciences, an intensive property , is a physical property of a system that does not depend on the system size or the amount of material in the system: it is scale invariant. By contrast, an extensive property of a system does depend on the system size or the amount of material in...
properties and specific (intensive) properties. Like the Jaina school, the Nyaya-Vaisesika atomists had elaborate theories of how atoms combine. In both Jaina and Vaisesika atomism, atoms first combine in pairs (dyads), and then group into trios of pairs (triads), which are the smallest visible units of matter.
Buddhist school
The
BuddhistBuddhism, as traditionally conceived, is a path of salvation attained through insight into the ultimate nature of reality. It encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha...
atomists had very qualitative, Aristotelian-style atomic theory. According to ancient Buddhist atomism, which probably began developing before the 4th century BC, there are four kinds of atoms, corresponding to the standard elements. Each of these elements has a specific property, such as solidity or motion, and performs a specific function in mixtures, such as providing support or causing growth. Like the Hindu Jains, the Buddhists were able to integrate a theory of atomism with their theological presuppositions. Later Indian Buddhist philosophers, such as
DharmakirtiDharmakirti , was an Indian scholar and one of the Buddhist founders of Indian philosophical logic. He was one of the primary theorists of Buddhist atomism, according to which the only items considered to exist are momentary Buddhist atoms and states of consciousness.-History:Born around the turn...
and
DignāgaDignāga was an Indian scholar and one of the Buddhist founders of Indian logic....
, considered atoms to be point-sized, durationless, and made of energy.
Jaina school
The most elaborate and well-preserved Indian theory of atomism comes from the philosophy of the
JainaJainism is an ancient dharmic religion from India that prescribes a path of non-violence for all forms of living beings in this world. Its philosophy and practice relies mainly on self-effort in progressing the soul on the spiritual ladder to divine consciousness...
school, dating back to at least the first century BC. Some of the Jaina texts that refer to matter and atoms are Panchastikayasara, Kalpasutra, Tattvaarthasutra and Pannavana Suttam. The Jains envisioned the world as consisting wholly of atoms, except for souls. Paramāņus or atoms were considered as the basic building blocks of all matter. Their concept of atoms was very similar to classical atomism, differing primarily in the specific properties of atoms. Each atom, according to Jaina philosophy, has one kind of taste, one smell, one color, and two kinds of touch, though it is unclear what was meant by "kind of touch". Atoms can exist in one of two states: subtle, in which case they can fit in infinitesimally small spaces, and gross, in which case they have extension and occupy a finite space. Certain characteristics of Paramāņu correspond with that sub-atomic particles. For. Eg. Paramāņu is characterized by continuous motion either in a straight line or in case of attractions from other Paramāņus, it follows a curved path. This corresponds with the description of orbit of electrons across the Nucleus. Ultimate particles are also described as particles with positive (Snigdha i.e. smooth charge) and negative (Rūksa – rough) charges that provide them the binding force. Although atoms are made of the same basic substance, they can combine based on their eternal properties to produce any of six "aggregates", which seem to correspond with the Greek concept of "elements": earth, water, shadow, sense objects, karmic matter, and unfit matter. To the Jains, karma was real, but was a naturalistic, mechanistic phenomenon caused by buildups of subtle karmic matter within the soul. They also had detailed theories of how atoms could combine, react, vibrate, move, and perform other actions, all of which were thoroughly deterministic.
Islamic atomism
Atomistic philosophies are found very early in
Islamic philosophyIslamic philosophy is a branch of Islamic studies, and is a longstanding attempt to create harmony between philosophy and the religious teachings of Islam .-Definition:...
, and represent a synthesis of the Greek and Indian ideas. Like both the Greek and Indian versions, Islamic atomism was a charged topic that had the potential for conflict with the prevalent religious orthodoxy. Yet it was such a fertile and flexible idea that, as in Greece and India, it flourished in some schools of Islamic thought.
The most successful form of Islamic atomism was in the Asharite school of philosophy, most notably in the work of the philosopher
al-GhazaliAbū Ḥāmid Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Ghazālī , often Algazel in English, was born and died in Tus, in the Khorasan province of Persia. He was an Islamic theologian, jurist, philosopher, cosmologist, psychologist and mystic of Persian origin, and remains one of the most celebrated scholars in the...
(1058-1111). In Asharite atomism, atoms are the only perpetual, material things in existence, and all else in the world is "accidental" meaning something that lasts for only an instant. Nothing accidental can be the cause of anything else, except perception, as it exists for a moment. Contingent events are not subject to natural physical causes, but are the direct result of God's constant intervention, without which nothing could happen. Thus nature is completely dependent on God, which meshes with other Asharite Islamic ideas on causation, or the lack thereof (Gardet 2001).
Other traditions in Islam rejected the atomism of the Asharites and expounded on many Greek texts, especially those of Aristotle. An active school of philosophers in Spain, including the noted commentator
AverroesAbū 'l-Walīd Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Rushd , better known just as Ibn Rushd , and in European literature as Averroes , was an Andalusian Muslim polymath of Moroccan origins; a master of Islamic philosophy, Islamic theology, Maliki law and jurisprudence, logic, psychology, politics, Arabic music...
(1126-1198 AD) explicitly rejected the thought of al-Ghazali and turned to an extensive evaluation of the thought of Aristotle. Averroes commented in detail on most of the works of Aristotle and his commentaries did much to guide the interpretation of Aristotle in later Jewish and Christian scholastic thought.
Corpuscularianism
CorpuscularianismCorpuscularianism is the postulate, expounded in a predominant manner by the thirteenth-century Italian Franciscan alchemist Geber , that all physical bodies possess an inner and outer layer of minute particles or corpuscles...
is the postulate, expounded by and elaborated on in a predominant manner by 13th-century Spanish
alchemistAlchemy is both a philosophy and a practice with an aim of achieving ultimate wisdom as well as immortality, involving the improvement of the alchemist as well as the making of several substances described as possessing unusual properties...
Pseudo-GeberPseudo-Geber is the name assigned by modern scholars to an alchemist born in the 13th century, probably Paul of Taranto in Spain. He wrote a few books on alchemy and metallurgy, in Latin, under the pen name of Geber , the 8th century Islamic alchemist.Pseudepigraphy is very common in alchemical...
(Geber), that all physical bodies possess an inner and outer layer of minute particles or corpuscles. Corpuscularianism is similar to the theory atomism, except that where atoms were supposed to be indivisible, corpuscles could in principle be divided. In this manner, for example, it was theorized that mercury could penetrate into metals and modify their inner structure, a step on the way towards transmutative production of gold. Corpuscularianism was associated by its leading proponents with the idea that some of the properties that objects appear to have are artifacts of the perceiving mind: 'secondary' qualities as distinguished from 'primary' qualities. Corpuscularianism stayed a dominant theory over the next several hundred years and was blended with
alchemyAlchemy is both a philosophy and a practice with an aim of achieving ultimate wisdom as well as immortality, involving the improvement of the alchemist as well as the making of several substances described as possessing unusual properties...
by those as
Robert BoyleRobert Boyle was a natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, inventor, and gentleman scientist, also noted for his writings in theology. He is best known for the formulation of Boyle's law...
and
Isaac NewtonSir Isaac Newton FRS was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is perceived and considered by a substantial number of scholars and the general public as one of the most influential men in history...
in the 17th century. It was used by Newton, for instance, in his development of the corpuscular theory of light.
Atomic Renaissance
Aristotle held sway in the universities of Europe for most of the Middle Ages, and even through the time of Newton Aristotelian physics was the standard, although other theories were beginning to be introduced to university curricula by then (Kargon 1966). By the late 16th century, criticism of Aristotle was mounting. Experimental philosophy was gaining ground, and with the evidence weighing in against the old physics, atomism soon reappeared in new forms. The main figures in the rebirth of atomism were René Descartes, Pierre Gassendi, and Robert Boyle, but there were many important ancillary figures as well.
One of the first groups of atomists in England was a cadre of amateur scientists known as the Northumberland circle, led by Henry Percy (1585-1632 AD), the 9th Earl of
NorthumberlandNorthumberland is a ceremonial county and unitary district in the North East of England. It borders Cumbria to the west, County Durham to the south and Tyne and Wear to the south east, as well as having a border with the Scottish Borders council area to the north, and nearly eighty miles of North...
. Although they published little of account, they helped to disseminate atomistic ideas among the burgeoning scientific culture of England, and may have been particularly influential to
Francis BaconFrancis Bacon,1st Viscount St Alban KC , son of Nicholas Bacon by his second wife Anne Bacon, was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist, and author. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England...
, who became an atomist around 1605, though he later rejected some of the claims of atomism. Though they revived the classical form of atomism, this group was among the scientific avant-garde: the Northumberland circle contained nearly half of the confirmed Copernicans prior to 1610 (the year of Galileo's
The Starry MessengerSidereus Nuncius is a short treatise published in New Latin by Galileo Galilei in March 1610. It was the first scientific treatise based on observations made through a telescope...
). Other influential atomists of late 16th and early 17th centuries include
Giordano BrunoGiordano Bruno, born Filippo Bruno , was an Italian philosopher, mathematician and astronomer best known as a proponent of heliocentrism and the infinity of the universe...
,
Thomas HobbesThomas Hobbes was an English philosopher, remembered today for his work on political philosophy. His 1651 book Leviathan established the foundation for most of Western political philosophy from the perspective of social contract theory.Hobbes also contributed to a diverse array of fields,...
(who also changed his stance on atomism late in his career), and Thomas Hariot. A number of different atomistic theories were blossoming in France at this time, as well (Clericuzio 2000).
A more well-known advocate of atomism was
Galileo GalileiGalileo Galilei was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations, and support for Copernicanism...
(1564-1642 AD). He first published a work based on atomism in 1612, Discourse on Floating Bodies (Redondi 1969). In The Assayer, Galileo offered a more complete physical system based on a corpuscular theory of matter, in which all phenomena—with the exception of sound—are produced by "matter in motion". Galileo found some of the basic problems with Aristotelian physics through his experiments, and he utilized a theory of atomism as a partial replacement, but he was never unequivocally committed to it. For example, his experiments with falling bodies and inclined planes led him to the concepts of circular inertial motion and accelerating free-fall. These notions contradicted the Aristotelian theories of impulse and natural place, which dictated that bodies fall equal distances in equal times and all motion (except that of the heavens) is finite. Atomism could not explain the law of fall, but was consistent with his concept of inertia, since motion was conserved in ancient atomism (but not in Aristotelian physics). Pietro Redondi has even suggested that the root of the church's persecution of Galileo was his rejection of Aristotelian philosophy and championing of atomism (Redondi 1969).
Despite the success (and controversy) generated by 16th and 17th century atomists, atomism was not fully revived until Descartes and
GassendiPierre Gassendi was a French philosopher, priest, scientist, astronomer, and mathematician. With a church position in south-east France, he also spent much time in Paris, where he was a leader of a group of free-thinking intellectuals. He was also an active observational scientist, publishing the...
published their new physics systems based on corpuscular (in the case of Descartes) and atomistic (in the case of Gassendi) theories. Descartes' mechanical philosophy of corpuscularism had much in common with atomism, and may be considered in some sense another version of it. Descartes (1596-1650 AD) thought everything physical in the universe to be made of tiny "corpuscles" of matter. Like the ancient atomists, Descartes claimed that sensations, such as taste or temperature, are caused by the shape and size of tiny pieces of matter. The main difference between atomism and corpuscularism was the existence of the void. For Descartes, there could be no vacuum, and all matter was constantly swirling to prevent a void as corpuscles moved through other matter. Another key distinction between Descartes' corpuscularism and classical atomism is Descartes' concept of mind/body duality, which allowed for an independent realm of existence for thought, soul, and most importantly, God. Gassendi's system was much closer to classical atomism, but without the atheistic undertones.
Pierre GassendiPierre Gassendi was a French philosopher, priest, scientist, astronomer, and mathematician. With a church position in south-east France, he also spent much time in Paris, where he was a leader of a group of free-thinking intellectuals. He was also an active observational scientist, publishing the...
(1592-1655 AD) was a Catholic priest from France who was also an avid natural philosopher. He was particularly intrigued by the Greek atomists, so he set out to "purify" atomism from its heretical and atheistic philosophical conclusions (Dijksterhius 1969). Gassendi formulated his atomistic conception of mechanical philosophy partly in response to Descartes; he particularly opposed Descartes' reductionist view that only purely mechanical explanations of physics are valid, as well as the application of geometry to the whole of physics (Clericuzio 2000).
The final form of atomism that came to be accepted by most English scientists after
Robert BoyleRobert Boyle was a natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, inventor, and gentleman scientist, also noted for his writings in theology. He is best known for the formulation of Boyle's law...
(1627-1692 AD) was an amalgam of the two French systems. In
The Sceptical ChymistThe Sceptical Chymist: or Chymico-Physical Doubts & Paradoxes is the title of Robert Boyle's masterpiece of scientific literature, published in London in 1661. In the form of a dialogue, the Sceptical Chymist presented Boyle's hypothesis that matter consisted of atoms and clusters of atoms in...
(1661), Boyle shows some of the problems with Aristotelian physics that arise from chemistry experimentation, and offers up atomism as a possible explanation. The unifying principle that led to the acceptance of this hybrid atomism was the mechanical philosophy, which was becoming widely accepted by Western scientists. Despite the problems with atomism, it was clear by the end of the 17th century that it was a better alternative than Aristotelian physics, especially since it was compatible with the
mechanical philosophyIn philosophy, mechanism is the theory that all natural phenomena can be explained by laws of nature. It's the opposite of vitalism, which claims organisms have "vital forces" which aren't physical....
.
Atomic theory
By the late 1700s, the useful practices of engineering and technology began to influence philosophical explanations for the composition of matter. Those who speculated on the ultimate nature of matter began to verify their "thought experiments" with some repeatable
demonstrationsA scientific demonstration is a scientific experiment carried out for the purposes of demonstrating scientific principles, rather than for hypothesis testing or knowledge gathering ....
, when they could.
Roger Boscovich provided the first general mathematical theory of atomism, based on the ideas of Newton and Leibniz but transforming them so as to provide a programme for atomic physics. -
Lancelot Law WhyteLancelot Law Whyte was a Scottish financier and industrial engineer.He claimed to have worked with Albert Einstein on the unified field theory. He further claimed that this work was based on the theory of the 18th century natural philosopher Roger Boscovich.Whyte proposed something he called "the...
Essay on Atomism, 1961, p 54.
In 1808,
John DaltonJohn Dalton FRS was an English chemist, meteorologist and physicist. He is best known for his pioneering work in the development of modern atomic theory, and his research into colour blindness .-Early life:John Dalton was born into a Quaker family at Eaglesfield, near Cockermouth in Cumberland,...
assimilated the known experimental work of many people to summarize the empirical evidence on the composition of matter. He noticed that distilled water everywhere analyzed to the same elements,
hydrogenHydrogen is the chemical element with atomic number 1. It is represented by the symbol H. At standard temperature and pressure, hydrogen is a colorless, odorless, nonmetallic, tasteless, highly flammable diatomic gas with the molecular formula H
2...
and
oxygenOxygen Oxygen Oxygen (acid, literally "sharp", from the taste of acids) and -γενής (-genēs) (producer, literally begetter) is the element with atomic number 8 and represented by the symbol O...
. Similarly, other purified substances decomposed to the same elements in the same proportions by weight.
- Therefore we may conclude that the ultimate particles of all homogeneous bodies are perfectly alike in weight, figure, etc. In other words, every particle of water is like every other particle of water; every particle of hydrogen is like every other particle of hydrogen, etc.
Furthermore, he concluded that there was a unique atom for each element, using Lavoisier's definition of an element as a substance that could not be analyzed into something simpler. Thus, Dalton concluded the following.
- Chemical analysis and synthesis
In chemistry, chemical synthesis is purposeful execution of chemical reactions to get a product, or several products. This happens by physical and chemical manipulations usually involving one or more reactions...
go no farther than to the separation of particles one from another, and to their reunion. No new creation or destruction of matter is within the reach of chemical agency. We might as well attempt to introduce a new planet into the solar system, or to annihilate one already in existence, as to create or destroy a particle of hydrogen. All the changes we can produce, consist in separating particles that are in a state of cohesion or combination, and joining those that were previously at a distance.
And then he proceeded to give a list of relative weights in the compositions of several common compounds, summarizing:
http://webserver.lemoyne.edu/faculty/giunta/dalton.html
- 1st. That water
Water is an ubiquitous chemical substance that is composed of hydrogen and oxygen and is essential for all known forms of life.In typical usage, water refers only to its liquid form or state, but the substance also has a solid state, ice, and a gaseous state, water vapor or steam. Water covers 71%...
is a binary compound of hydrogen and oxygen, and the relative weights of the two elementary atoms are as 1:7, nearly;
- 2nd. That ammonia
Ammonia is a compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the formula NH
3. It is normally encountered as a gas with a characteristic pungent odor. Ammonia contributes significantly to the nutritional needs of terrestrial organisms by serving as a precursor to foodstuffs and fertilizers...
is a binary compound of hydrogen and azote nitrogenNitrogen is a chemical element that has the symbol N and atomic number 7 and atomic mass 14.00674 u. Elemental nitrogen is a colorless, odorless, tasteless and mostly inert diatomic gas at standard conditions, constituting 78% by volume of Earth's atmosphere.Many industrially important...
, and the relative weights of the two atoms are as 1:5, nearly...
Dalton concluded that the fixed proportions of elements by weight suggested that the atoms of one element combined with only a limited number of atoms of the other elements to form the substances that he listed.
See also
- Buddhist atomism
Buddhist atomism is a school of atomistic Buddhist philosophy that flourished on the Indian subcontinent during two major periods. During the first phase, which began to develop prior to the 4th century BCE, Buddhist atomism had a very qualitative, Aristotelian-style atomic theory. This form of...
- Corpuscularianism
Corpuscularianism is the postulate, expounded in a predominant manner by the thirteenth-century Italian Franciscan alchemist Geber , that all physical bodies possess an inner and outer layer of minute particles or corpuscles...
- History of chemistry
By 1000 BC, the ancient civilizations were using technologies that would form the basis of the various branches of chemistry. Extracting metal from their ores, making pottery and glazes, fermenting beer and wine, making pigments for cosmetics and painting, extracting chemicals from plants for...
- Infinite divisibility
The concept of infinite divisibility arises in different ways in philosophy, physics, economics, order theory , and probability theory...
- The History and Adventures of an Atom
The History and Adventures of an Atom, by Tobias Smollett, is a work of satirical verse that savagely satirises English politics during the Seven Years' War....
- a satire by Tobias SmollettTobias George Smollett was a Scottish poet and author. He was best known for his picaresque novels, such as The Adventures of Roderick Random and The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle , which influenced later novelists such as Charles Dickens.-Life:Smollett was born at Dalquhurn, now part of Renton,...
External links