Atomos democritus contribution

He elaborated a system originated by his teacher Leucippus into a materialist account of the natural world.

Democritus atomic model name

The atomists held that there are smallest indivisible bodies from which everything else is composed, and that these move about in an infinite void. Of the ancient materialist accounts of the natural world which did not rely on some kind of teleology or purpose to account for the apparent order and regularity found in the world, atomism was the most influential.

Even its chief critic, Aristotle, praised Democritus for arguing from sound considerations appropriate to natural philosophy. According to ancient reports, Democritus was born about BCE thus, he was a younger contemporary of Socrates and was a citizen of Abdera, although some reports mention Miletus. As well as his associate or teacher Leucippus, Democritus is said to have known Anaxagoras, and to have been forty years younger than the latter DK 68A1.

A number of anecdotes concern his life, but their authenticity is uncertain. The work of Democritus has survived only in secondhand reports, sometimes unreliable or conflicting: the reasoning behind the positions taken often needs to be reconstructed. Much of the best evidence is that reported by Aristotle, who regarded him as an important rival in natural philosophy.

Aristotle wrote a monograph on Democritus, of which only a few passages quoted in other sources have survived. Democritus seems to have taken over and systematized the views of Leucippus, of whom little is known.