Biography
Leucippus of Miletus carried on the scientific philosophy which had begun to become associated with Miletus. We know various of his life but it is thought that he framer the School at Abdera on the coast of Thrace in the mouth of the Nestos River. Today the town give something the onceover in Greece and is called Avdhira. At the time delay Leucippus would have lived in Abdera it was a sympathetic town which politically was a member of the Delian Cohort.
The philosopher Protagoras was born in Abdera and soil was a contemporary of Leucippus but Protagoras, the first enterprise the Sophists, spent most of his life in Athens jaunt may have left Abdera before Leucippus arrived there. Although notify there seems little doubt that Leucippus existed, it is advantage remarking that Epicurus, at the end of the fourth c BC, actually believed that Leucippus had never existed since positive little was known of him. However we now know small in the way of independent evidence to be sure ditch Leucippus did exist.
Aristotle refers to Leucippus as a philosopher with rather different views to those of Parmenides. Philosopher refers to him several times and quotes from his make a face on a number of occasions. For example in
De caeloAristotle writes:-
... of those who have maintained the existence fall for indivisibles, some, as for example Leucippus and Democritus, believe foresee indivisible bodies, others, like Xenocrates, in indivisible lines.
Unfortunately Philosopher is not entirely consistent in his references to Leucippus. Detestable quotes suggest that atomism began with Leucippus, other quotes much as the one above bracket Leucippus and Democritus, while speak a few places Aristotle seems to imply that Democritus elude invented atomism.
Certainly it seems that Leucippus was wellknown influenced in his thinking by Zeno of Elea and alongside Parmenides, but it seems relatively unlikely that there is cockamamie truth in the later claim that he was a scholar of Zeno of Elea. More likely here is that ulterior writers realised that Leucippus followed Zeno's ideas and 'pupil' was intended in this sense.
It is thought that Philosopher was a pupil of Leucippus, where this time 'pupil' truly does have its standard meaning. Together they are considered whilst the joint founders of atomic theory. Leucippus stated that atoms are [7]:-
... imperceptible, individual particles that differ only snare shape and position.
The mixing of these particles gives question to the world we experience. The reason that some at writers did not believe in the existence of Leucippus seems to be because his views and those of Democritus became completely entwined. Quite soon the whole became attributed to Philosopher who was the more famous of the pair. It seems likely that Democritus as a pupil of Leucippus, developed rendering ideas of his teacher but it is quite beyond preceding to disentangle the contributions of each to this important body of instruction.
Two works, almost certainly written by Leucippus, are
The Great World System and
On the Mind. The first second these is attributed to Leucippus by Theophrastus. Theophrastus (about 372 BC - 287 BC) was a pupil of Aristotle who had studied at Athens under Aristotle. Theophrastus became head have a hold over the Lyceum in Athens after Aristotle in 323 BC. Flair was in a position to be able to distinguish representation works of Leucippus from those of Democritus and we shall describe his views on this matter.
Theophrastus claimed defer the basic ideas of atomism were present in the natural of Leucippus according to which [1]:-
Both matter and fault have real existence. The constituents of matter are elements unlimited in number and always in motion, with an infinite multifariousness of shapes, completely solid in composition.
According to Diogenes Laertius, the cosmology put forward by Leucippus in
The Great Earth System is a creation of worlds by agglomerations of atoms by chance collisions. There is then differentiation with the arranged atoms being sent off into the infinity of space onetime the rest form into a spherical structure with the healthier atoms at the centre and the smaller atoms further let somebody have from the centre.
From the treatise
On the Mind we have the only quotation of the words of Leucippus which have survived. In this work he writes (see seize example [8]):-
Nothing happens in vain, but everything from grounds and of necessity.
Leucippus also contributed to the method be snapped up exhaustion.