EPICURUS (341 – 270 BCE)

Third Century BCE

EPICURUS

“Epicurus’s philosophy combines a physics based on an atomistic materialism with a rational hedonistic ethics that emphasizes moderation of desires and cultivation of friendships.”

Summarized by the Roman author Lucretius, who wrote ‘On the Nature of the Universe’ in 55 BCE – “The light and heat of the Sun; these are composed of minute atoms which, when they are shoved off, lose no time in shooting right across the interspace of air in the direction imparted by the shove”. This may be considered as accurate for the time, when most people thought that sight was associated with something reaching out from the eye (EMPEDOCLES) .

Plato wrote of a marriage between the inner light and the outer light.

Euclid worried about the speed with which sight worked. He pointed out that if you close your eyes, then open them again, even the distant stars reappear immediately in your sight, although the influence of sight has had to travel all the way from your eyes to the stars and back again before you could see them.

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EPICURUS (341 – 270 BCE)

Third Century BCE

EPICURUS

Summarized by the Roman author Lucretius, who wrote ‘On the Nature of the Universe’ in 55 BCE – “The light and heat of the sun; these are composed of minute atoms which, when they are shoved off, lose no time in shooting right across the interspace of air in the direction imparted by the shove”. Accurate for the time, when most people thought that sight was associated with something reaching out from the eye ( EMPEDOCLES ).

Plato wrote of a marriage between the inner light and the outer light.

Euclid worried about the speed with which sight worked. He pointed out that if you close your eyes, then open them again, even the distant stars reappear immediately in your sight, although the influence of sight has had to travel all the way from your eyes to the stars and back again before you could see them.

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EMPEDOCLES of AGRIGENTUM (Sicily) (c.494 – c.434 BCE)

‘The four roots of all things are: AIR, WATER, FIRE and EARTH’

Two forces exist – LOVE and STRIFE.

EMPEDOCLES

The view of Empedocles developed the monists’ ideas that all substances are derived from a single source, into the concept of objects consisting of different compositions of these four basic elements.
The materials of the natural world being wrought from different blends of the four elemental principles, brought about through the eternal conflict between Love and Strife; their waxing and waning applied to cause mixing when Love is dominant, or separation by Strife.
Empedocles argued that this was the cause of transformation not just of the elements but also of the lives of people and cultures.

Popular mythology described how Aphrodite fashioned the human eye out of the four elements, held together by Love. She kindled the fire of the eye at the hearth fire of the universe, so that it would act like a lantern, transmitting the fire of the eye out into the world and making sight possible.
Empedocles realised that there must be more to sight than this, and that the darkness of night is caused by the body of the Earth getting in the way of light from the sun.

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Related sites

• hegel (marxists.org)