Leucippus

This article is about the philosopher. There was also a Greek mythological Leucippus (mythology)

Leucippus

Leucippus or Leukippos (first half of 5th century B.C.E.) was the originator of atomism, the philosophical belief that everything is composed entirely of various imperishable, indivisible elements called atoms. He was born at Miletus or Abdera^[1].

There are no existing writings which we can attribute to Leucippus, since his writings seem to have been enfolded into the work of his famous student Democritus (q.v. for more on atomism). In fact, it is virtually impossible to identify any views about which Democritus and Leucippus disagreed.

He was a contemporary of Zeno, Empedocles and Anaxagoras of the Ionian school of philosophy. 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.

The most famous among Leucippus' lost works were titled Megas Diakosmos (The Great Order of the Universe or The great world-system^[2]) and Peri Nou (On mind).

A single fragment of Leucippus survives^[3]:

Nothing happens at random (maten), but everything from reason (ek logou) and by necessity.

Leucippus, Diels-Kranz 67 B1

Footnotes

1. ^  Diels/Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker [I]
2. ^  The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy, pg. xxiii. Note that Democritus was a resident of Abdera. Some said Leucippus was from Elea, for his philosophy is associated with the Eleatic philosophers.
3. ^  Ibid., pg. xxiii.

Sources

A.A. Long (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy (pgs. xxiii, 185)

Diels/Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker [I] 67A

Laertius Diogenes, Diogenes Lartius: Lives of Eminent Philosophers, IX.30-33

External links

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry

Template:Presocratics

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