THE PLURALISTS

General Notions

The Pluralists are those philosophers who, putting to themselves the problem of being (Parmenidean) and of becoming (Heraclitean), attempt a reconciliation between the two factions by having recourse to more primordial elements. They accept on the one side the being of Parmenides, but they break it up into various parts, so that the root of things would be found in various elements. The composition and decomposition of these original elements would give the explanation of the becoming of Heraclitus.

Thus the Pluralists believe that they have overcome the opposition between being and non-being. The chief philosophers of this group are Empedocles of Agrigentum, Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, and Democritus of Abdera.

Empedocles

Empedocles lived from approximately 490 to 430 B.C. Of Doric origin, he was a physician, naturalist, poet, philosopher, and wonder-worker. He wrote two books, Physics and Purifications, of which large fragments remain. It is said that the people revered him as a worker of wonders and that he died on a exploration of Mount Etna in Sicily.

Like Parmenides, Empedocles admits that being is not born nor does it die, because it is eternal. Unlike Parmenides, he says that being quadruple: land, water, air, and fire. These four elements are the roots of things, the latter being only different combinations of these elements. To explain the process of these combinations, Empedocles has recourse to two forces, primitive and fundamental -- love and strife.

From the beginning, since elements were regulated by love, they were an indistinct whole and formed the sphere. In the process of time, strife, which circulated about the sphere, penetrated and divided the elements. Thus they came to form the stars (zone of fire), ether (air), the oceans, and the earth; and from the earth came forth all things, including plants and men. An alternating balance of hate and of love destroys men until, by a natural reaction of love, hatred will be banished and everything will return to form once more the ancient sphere, to begin again a new period of hate and love similar to the first.

That part of Empedocles' theory dealing with the four elements endured longest, and fell into decline only with the advent of modern chemistry.

Anaxagoras

Anaxagoras, who was of Ionic origin, was born about 500 B.C. Invited by Pericles, he went to Athens, where he remained about thirty years. Accused of impiety, he was obliged to leave the city in 431 B.C., and went to Lampsacus, where he founded a school. He died in 428 B.C. Anaxagoras was the first philosopher to enter Athens. He wrote a work entitled Peri physeos, of which large fragments are extant.

Parmenides' being is constituted, according to Anaxagoras, of an infinite number of particles, homogeneous but qualitatively different. Aristotle called this agglomerate "homoeomeries," that is, homogeneous parts. They enter to make part of every becoming, and the prevalence of a given quality of particles over another is the reason for the qualitative difference of things. Such particles are endowed with an immanent intelligence, which Anaxagoras designated with the name "Nous." The "Nous" gathers and distinguishes the "homoeomeries" of the original Chaos; for this reason the "Nous" is the cause of their distinctions and groupings.

No matter how often Anaxagoras had admitted that to give a reason for the distinctions and groupings of an infinite number of particles it was necessary to have recourse to intelligence, every time he explains becoming he fails to make use of the "Nous" and runs to the conduct of natural laws. Hence he is reproved by Plato and Aristotle for not having known how to use his discoveries in the determination of final causes.

The Atomists: Leucippus & Democritus(pictured)

Leucippus -- probably of Miletus -- and Democritus of Abdera were physicians. Leucippus was the founder of the Atomist School; but his disciple Democritus, who was born about 460 B.C., and lived about ninety years, was its greater exponent. A naturalist and an avid searcher for knowledge, he journeyed into many regions to increase his notions, and many fragments of his works remain.

In Democritus, as in those who preceded him, we assist at the breaking up of the being of Parmenides into an infinity of particles, each of them indivisible. Democritus called these particles "atoms." The atoms are material, qualitatively homogeneous, but of different form and gravity and are endowed with motion "ab aeterno," from higher to lower.

Because atoms are endowed with motion, Democritus admits a second primordial element, the void, that is, infinite space which surrounds the atoms and gives them the possibility of movement. The differences in gravity cause the atoms to whirl into motion, thus giving origin to the formation of things. Every union of atoms indicates a birth, just as every separation of atoms indicates a death. Thus from the primitive void have come the stars and the earth and all beings, including man.

The soul also is formed of light atoms similar to those of fire, and with death it is resolved into atoms.

Democritus does not deny the gods, but even they, he says, are subject to the universal mechanism: they arose from the composition of atoms, and will be reduced to their component parts by decomposition. They live in interastral space, happy and not concerned with the destiny of men. The wise man does not fear them because they are powerless to do either good or evil.

Democritus admits only sensitive cognition, a product of the motion of atoms, which in a light form separate themselves from the body, penetrate the empty spaces of our organism and set in motion the atoms of our sensitive faculties. The movement produces cognition. Indeed, not everything that comes to us through the senses is really outside the sensitive faculty.

To this end, Democritus distinguishes the objective properties which are real in bodies -- such as form, size, movement, etc.; and the subjective qualities which are due to the reactions of our faculties -- for example, odor, color, taste, etc. These are in the objects only as a point of origin; in the subject they exist as specific qualities.

The system of Democritus, the model upon which all the materialistic systems will more or less be re-formed, presents to us a world regulated by mechanics (motion) and by the natural laws which act in the picture of cosmic necessity. No rationality is possible in this world of mechanical forces and hence no finality or purpose.

Thus are formed and are broken up the heavens and earth; thus human generations succeed one another, without there being a reason for their birth or for their decomposition; they are unconscious effects of unconscious causes. Life and death have no value, and everything is swallowed up in the night of atoms, whence everything took its origin. Such a system does not solve, but aggravates the problem of life, and inclines one to despair without comfort.