Atomism

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In natural philosophy, atomism is the theory that all the objects in the universe are composed of very small, indestructible elements. Or, stated in other words, all of reality is made of indivisible basic building blocks. The word atomism derives from the ancient Greek word atomos which means "that which cannot be cut into smaller pieces".

Contents 1 Traditional atomism in philosophy 2 Other issues to do with philosophy and atomism 3 Indian atomism 3.1 Nyaya-Vaisesika school 3.2 Buddhist school 3.3 Jaina school 4 Greek atomism 4.1 The puzzle of similarities and differences 4.2 Are there different elements? 4.3 Is there an ultimate, indivisible unit of matter? 4.4 Consequences for guiding one's life 4.5 Facing reality 4.6 Atoms change 4.7 The exile of atomism 5 Islamic atomism 6 Atomic Renaissance 7 A different atom for each element 8 See also 9 External links 10 References

Traditional atomism in philosophy

There are two ways in which the word "atom" is used: to describe the atoms that scientists discuss, and those that philosophers discuss. Atomism is traditionally associated with the latter, where philosophers have argued that the basic building blocks of reality, and which make up absolutely anything that exists, are incredibly tiny objects that do not have physical parts, cannot be split, divided or cut, and which are either point-sized (sizeless) or they have a tiny size. Those that have a tiny size are called Democritean atoms. This was the case for the Greek theories of atomism. Indian Buddhists, such as Dharmakirti and others, have also contributed to well-developed theories of atomism, and which involve momentary (instantaneous) atoms, that flash in and out of existence. The tradition of atomism leads to the position that only atoms exist, and there are no composite objects (objects with parts), which would mean that human bodies, clouds, planets, and whatnot all do not exist. This consequence of atomism was openly discussed by atomists such as Democritus, Hobbes, and perhaps even Kant (there is a debate over whether or not Kant was an atomist) among others, and it is also called mereological nihilism or metaphysical nihilism. In contemporary philosophy, atomism is not as popular as it has been in past times, because many contemporary philosophers are not willing to argue that only atoms exist, wherein there are not any things like trees and etc.

Other issues to do with philosophy and atomism

If atomism is the idea that anything might ultimately consist of an aggregation of small units that cannot be sub-divided further, then "atomism" might be applied to even the aggregations of society or logic.

Accordingly, the term social atomism is used to denote the point-of-view that individuals rather than social institutions and values are the proper subject of analysis since all properties of institutions and values merely accumulate from the strivings of individuals. [1]

Similarly, Bertrand Russell developed logical atomism in an attempt to identify the atoms of thought, the pieces of thought that cannot be divided into smaller pieces of thought.

The atoms that chemists and physicists of the early 1800s thought were indivisible turned out to be composed of even smaller entities: electrons, neutrons, and protons. Similarly, experiments showed that protons and neutrons are made of even smaller quarks. So, the trend of empirical evidence for ever-smaller particles inside "atoms" suggests the question: "Is matter infinitely divisible?" Experiment likely can never answer that question; who can say that the experimentalists and the theorists will not contrive some even more powerful means to smash what some previously had thought to be "indivisible" to find that it is composed of even smaller pieces of matter and energy?

How about space and time? In many mathematical descriptions, space and time are infinitely divisible. That is, for example, many classical descriptions of space assume that between any two points of space, there will be another point of space. But some current theorists suggest that even space and time are composed of measurable quanta that "cannot be cut into smaller pieces" to observe.

Indian atomism

In ancient India, from the Vedic era (from around 1500 BC to 500 BC), the material world was classified into four elements: earth (Prithvi), fire (Agni), air (Maya) and water (Apa). To these four elements was added a fifth one: ether (Akasha). According to some scholars, these five elements (Pancha Mahabhootas) were identified with the various human senses of perception; earth with smell, air with feeling, fire with vision, water with taste and ether with sound. Indians at the time had perceived the material world as comprising these 5 elements. The Buddhist philosophers who came later, rejected ether as an element and replaced it with life, joy and sorrow.

Philosophers in ancient India believed that, except the Akasha (ether), all other elements were physically palpable and hence comprised miniscule particles of matter. The last miniscule particle of matter which could not be subdivided further was termed Parmanu. The word Parmanu is a combination of 'Param', meaning beyond, and 'Anu' meaning atom. Thus the term Parmanu suggests that, at least at an abstract level, Indian philosophers in ancient times had conceived the possibility of splitting an atom which, as we know today, is the source of atomic energy. This Indian concept of the atom was developed independently and prior to the development of the idea in the Greco-Roman world. The first philosophers who formulated ideas about the atom in a systematic manner were the philosophers Kanada and Pakudha Katyayana who both lived in the 6th century BC and were contemporaries of Gautama Buddha. They had propounded ideas about the atomic constitution of the material world.

As Hindu and Buddhist theology began to mature, a number of distinct schools of philosophy emerged in India. The origins of Indian atomism remain unclear; the pre-Greek materialist philosopher Uddalaka seems to have laid some of the groundwork for atomism, and the ancient “Sassata-Vada” doctrine of eternalism, which held that elements are eternal, is also suggestive of a possible starting point for atomism (Gangopadhyaya, 1981). While there is some disagreement among scholars as to the origin of Indian atomism, the general consensus is that the Indian and Greek versions of atomism developed independently. Some scholars doubt this, given the similarities between Indian atomism and Greek atomism and the proximity of India to scholastic Europe, as well as there being some evidence suggesting the possibility of Pythagoras visiting India. The earliest schools of Indian atomism however, began to develop before Greek atomism and before the time of Leucippus.

A number of important branches of Indian philosophy became involved with atomism to varying extents, particularly the Nyaya-Vaisesika, Jaina and Buddhist schools.

Indian atomism in the Middle Ages was still mostly philosophical and/or religious in intent, though it was also scientific. Because the “infallible Vedas”, the oldest Hindu texts, do not mention atoms (though they do mention elements), atomism was not orthodox in many schools of Hindu philosophy, although accommodationist interpretations or assumptions of lost text justified the use of atomism for non-orthodox schools of Hindu thought. The Buddhist and Jaina schools of atomism however, were more willing to accept the ideas of atomism. Still, Indian theories of atomism were at least on par in terms of complexity and explanatory power with those of the Greek atomists.

Nyaya-Vaisesika school

The Nyaya-Vaisesika school had one of the earliest forms of atomism; scholars date the Nyaya and Vaisesika texts from the 6th century BC to the 1st century BC. Like the Buddhist atomists, the Vaisesika had a pseudo-Aristotelian theory of atomism. They posited the four elemental atom types, but in Vaisesika physics atoms had 24 different possible qualities, divided between general (what we would call extensive) properties and specific (intensive) properties. Like the Jaina school, the Nyaya-Vaisesika atomists had elaborate theories of how atoms combine. In both Jaina and Vaisesika atomism, atoms first combine in pairs (dyads), and then group into trios of pairs (triads), which are the smallest visible units of matter. This parallels with the structure of modern atomic theory, in which pairs or triplets of supposedly fundamental quarks combine to create most typical forms of matter.

Buddhist school

The Buddhist atomists had very qualitative, Aristotelian-style atomic theory. According to ancient Buddhist atomism, which probably began developing before the 4th century BC, there are four kinds of atoms, corresponding to the standard elements. Each of these elements has a specific property, such as solidity or motion, and performs a specific function in mixtures, such as providing support or causing growth. Like the Hindu Jains, the Buddhists were able to integrate a theory of atomism with their theological presuppositions. Later Indian Buddhist philosophers, such as Dharmakirti and Dignāga, considered atoms to be point-sized, durationless, and made of energy.

Jaina school

The most elaborate and well-preserved Indian theory of atomism comes from the philosophy of the Jaina school, dating back to at least the first century BC. The Jains envisioned the world as consisting wholly of atoms, except for souls. Their concept of atoms was very similar to classical atomism, differing primarily in the specific properties of atoms. Each atom, according to Jaina philosophy, has one kind of taste, one smell, one color, and two kinds of touch, though it is unclear what was meant by “kind of touch”. Atoms can exist in one of two states: subtle, in which case they can fit in infinitesimally small spaces, and gross, in which case they have extension and occupy a finite space. Although atoms are made of the same basic substance, they can combine based on their eternal properties to produce any of six “aggregates,” which seem to correspond with the Greek concept of “elements”: earth, water, shadow, sense objects, karmic matter, and unfit matter. To the Jains, karma was real, but was a naturalistic, mechanistic phenomenon caused by buildups of subtle karmic matter within the soul. They also had detailed theories of how atoms could combine, react, vibrate, move, and perform other actions, all of which were thoroughly deterministic.

Greek atomism

The puzzle of similarities and differences

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The various arguments of atomism trace the various attempts to understand sufficiently why some things of the world, such as different fires, are so similar in appearance and yet other things, such as dark nights, are so different from their opposites, as fires compared to dark nights.

Around 475 BC, Parmenides in his philosophical poem On Nature posed the puzzle this way.

Consider how very much one fire is like another fire.

But notice how opposite in nature all the dark nights are to fire. [2]

As the solution for that puzzle, Parmenides stated that, despite the appearances of differences, all things are composed of the same solitary, never-created, never-ending, eternal Being—the One—the "it" that is "without beginning and without end." [3]

This is not an atomism theory, because Parmenides did not speculate on eternal indivisible units that composed the "eternal Being," but Parmenides provided two important features that atomism theories later would employ: 1) asserting that all objects of the physical world consisted of some never-created and never-ending hidden substance and 2) explaining the differences among objects to be the result of different configurations of the never-ending substance hidden inside them.

Are there different elements?

Empedocles about 450 BC looked at the puzzle of similarities and differences and conjectured in a poem also titled "On Nature" that things of similarity, like fires, are composed of the same proportions of the elements fire, air, earth, and water. On the other hand, opposite substances, like fire and dark night, have inverse or otherwise contrasting proportions of the four elements.

And the elemental substances of fire, air, earth, and water are never-created and never-ending. Accordingly, changes in the physical world, such as growth and decay, consist merely of shifts in the combinations of the elements fire, air, earth, and water. [4]

But Empedocles still had not discovered atomism. For even though Empedocles postulated that there were the four different elements composing the hidden substance of physical objects, he did not discuss the internal structure of these different elements. The four elements fire, air, earth, and water were fluids, not discrete particles.

Is there an ultimate, indivisible unit of matter?

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At least as early as 400 BC, Democritus was teaching and writing that the hidden substance in all physical objects consists of different arrangements of 1) atoms and 2) void. Both atoms and the void were never created, and they will be never ending. Democritus became famous for this idea, but he followed closely what his teacher Leucippus taught, and it is not known where Leucippus got the ideas he taught Democritus.

The void is infinite and provides the space in which the atoms can pack or scatter differently. The different possible packings and scatterings within the void make up the shifting outlines and bulk of the objects that we feel, see, eat, hear, smell, and taste. We sense hot and cold, but hot and cold have not real existence. For hot and cold are simply sensations produced in us by the different packings and scatterings of the atoms in the void that compose the object that we sense as being "hot" or "cold."

Democritus also wrote his exposé of nature titled "On Nature". But very few fragments of Democritus's writings have survived. Nevertheless, there are many derivative works of Democritus's students that scholars say faithfully represent Democritus's writings. Lucretius's On the Nature of Things provides an example. One scholar attributes the large loss of Democritus's writings to the burning of the library at Alexandria in 48 B.C. when Julius Caesar allegedly burned his own ships to prevent his Egyptian enemy from taking them, the flames then leaping from the burning ships to the library in which were Democritus's writings together with many other worthy books of the ancient world. [5]

Nevertheless, the derivative works by Democritus's students and progeny work out several segments of a theory on how the universe began its current stage. The atoms and the void are eternal. And after collisions that shatter large objects into smaller objects, the resulting dust, still composed of the same eternal atoms as the prior configurations of the universe, falls into a whirling motion that draws the dust into larger objects again to begin another cycle.

Democritus found fault with the philosophers around him who pandered to the unwitting hungers and passions of people that cause them to yearn for an "intelligent designer". Democritus asserted that some things were possible in the universe and somethings were not possible. And he asserted that it was not possible that there could have been an intelligent designer. What would have made the intelligent designer?

The workings of the universe are entirely mechanical, driven by what he called the "vibrations," the velocities and impacts of the constituent atoms^*. He explained that things happen because of what he called "necessity," the mechanistic collisions and aggregations of the atoms according to their own "nature." He explained the common person's belief in gods to be the result of animal passions, faulty understanding, and ignorance of how the correlated motions of the atoms caused powerful displays of nature such as thunder, lightning, and earthquakes.

^* Note: Modern theories of the fundamental physical components such as Superstring theory include an important role for their vibrational states.

Consequences for guiding one's life

Epicurus studied atomism with Nausiphanes who had been a student of Democritus. But Epicurus was less interested in the part of Democritus's theories that explained wild nature, as in worlds, universes, and earthquakes. Epicurus was more interested in applying Democritus's theories to assist people in taking responsibility for themselves and for their own happiness—since in reality there is no god around that can help them.

By 310 BC, Epicurus argued that, if a person tangled responsibly with the reality that there is no god to help them, there would be three effects on the person's life. First, many obligations of the law, state, and politics are no longer necessary because often the obligations serve no purpose other than to indulge animal passions that are destructive and counter-productive in making people miserable—for no good reason. Second, rather than accepting the law, state, and politics of their parents, wise people should band together and create a more functional society by a social contract of agreement among themselves on what would make things work. Third, since neither god nor any other high moral value existed without people willing it into existence, there was no good reason to work for justice in the society—unless that work gave the activist pleasure or some other real payoff. [6]

However, Epicurus asked people to notice that it was much more pleasurable to live in a community in which there was harmony, in which there was friendship, in which there was freedom, in which men and women were treated equally, in which people felt that there was fairness, and in which people felt that they had something to look forward to when they thought about the next day, the next month, the next year.

And in attempting to describe the principles that actually worked for people to give them pleasure, value, and hope, Epicurus and his community of Epicureans developed a series of aphorisms for people to revise according to what worked, to discuss when sorting through problems, and to memorize for testing and using in helping each other—because they were alone in the universe even if their animal passions tempted them to wish for gods that could help them.

Epicurus summarized the principles that he and his community discovered in a book of Principal Doctrines. Here are a few samples. [7]

Death is nothing to us; for that which has been dissolved into its elements experiences no sensations, and that which has no sensation is nothing to us.

Some men want fame and status, thinking that they would thus make themselves secure against other men. If the life of such men really were secure, they have attained a natural good; if, however, it is insecure, they have not attained the end which by nature's own prompting they originally sought.

No pleasure is a bad thing in itself, but the things which produce certain pleasures entail disturbances many times greater than the pleasures themselves.

It is impossible for someone to dispel his fears about the most important matters if he doesn't know the nature of the universe but still gives some credence to myths. So without the study of nature there is no enjoyment of pure pleasure.

Injustice is not an evil in itself, but only in consequence of the fear which is associated with the apprehension of being discovered by those appointed to punish such actions.

Where without any change in circumstances the things held to be just by law are seen not to correspond with the concept of justice in actual practice, such laws are not really just; but wherever the laws have ceased to be advantageous because of a change in circumstances, in that case the laws were for that time just when they were advantageous for the mutual dealings of the citizens, and subsequently ceased to be just when they were no longer advantageous.

For Epicurus, people were driven by passions and hungers they inherited from the past but could not understand. One of the inexplicable passions and hungers was the longing for a creator god to watch over them; but the inherited longing for a creator god to make sense out of the chaos was delusional. Accordingly, in this world that lacks a god that will help, only people banding together in a wise social contract to remove the message of the creator god could make any difference at all. Three hundred years later, Lucretius in his epic poem On the Nature of Things would depict Epicurus as the hero who crushed the monster Religion through educating the people in what was possible in the atoms and what was not possible in the atoms.

However, Epicurus expressed non-aggression to Religion or any other face of violence in the following statement. "The man who best knows how to meet external threats makes into one family all the creatures he can; and those he can not, he at any rate does not treat as aliens; and where he finds even this impossible, he avoids all dealings, and, so far as is advantageous, excludes them from his life." [8]

Facing reality

Plato objected to the mechanistic purposelessness of the atomism of Democritus. He argued that atoms just crashing into other atoms could never produce the beauty and form of the world. In the Timaeus, Plato wrote the following question and answer sometime around 350 BC. [9]

Is the world created or uncreated? — that is the first question.

Created, I reply, being visible and tangible and having a body, and therefore sensible; and if sensible, then created; and if created, made by a cause, and the cause is the ineffable father of all things, who had before him an eternal archetype.

For Plato, even the Creator used an "eternal archetype" of the Good to form the earth. As part of that creation, the Creator made atoms of fire, air, earth, and water. But the atoms imitated the ideals of the Good and followed the laws of the Creator. Plato even speculated on the specific forms of the atoms according to the table to the right.

That the Creator controlled the atoms that He had created profoundly affected the proper form of human government and society. In the Republic, Plato asserted the philosopher-king should serve as captain and true pilot of the ship of state. The philosopher-king should follow the ideal Good associated with the Creator, should exact obedience from subjects, and should keep people from sinking into the depravity that "democracy" and "liberty" would promote. Plato describes the mechanism of the inherited passions and hungers that the philosopher-king would have to control in the people this way. [10]

Then you must further imagine the same thing to happen to the son which has already happened to the father:—he is drawn into a perfectly lawless life, which by his seducers is termed perfect liberty.

Plato taught a point-of-view that attracted kings and tyrants of his day. Plato himself tutored Dionysus II until such time as the young Dionysus exerted the power he had to expel his competitors from the kingdom, including Plato, his teacher.

Atoms change

Sometime before 330 BC Aristotle asserted that the atoms of fire, air, earth, and water actually change when making new combinations to form the objects that we see. But changes in nature exhibit direction and not chaos. To treat this issue of direction in change, Aristotle asserted the principles of "in potency" and "becoming" to deal with what he saw as the primary flaw in Democritus's atomism—Democritus's insufficient explanation for the direction of change among the atoms: [11]

when air is produced from water, the same matter has become something different, not by acquiring an addition to it, but has become actually what it was potentially, and, again, water is produced from air in the same way.

Accordingly, Aristotle concluded that every material object in the universe has two essential components: the 1) potential matter and the 2) actual matter. The potential matter consists of the atoms of fire, air, earth, and water that can change from one potential condition to another and can be observed directly. In contrast, the actual matter, such as the statue into which the bronze is cast, can appear or disappear depending on what a sculptor does with the bronze. [12] Actual matter can be contained in time of the 1) past, time of the 2) future, or 3) both. [13]

Of things which do not exist but are contained by time some were, e.g. Homer once was, some will be, e.g. a future event; this depends on the direction in which time contains them; if on both, they have both modes of existence.

Though Aristotle realized that atoms cannot be eternal because they change, he still contended that something had to be eternal. And he concluded that motion must be eternal, but there is a prime mover behind it all. [14]

Our present position, then, is this: We have argued that there always was motion and always will be motion throughout all time, and we have explained what is the first principle of this eternal motion: we have explained further which is the primary motion and which is the only motion that can be eternal: and we have pronounced the [prime mover] to be unmoved.

Basing the purpose in life on striving for the ideal, Aristotle stated the rules for the enlightened warrior. [15]

First of all they should provide against their own enslavement, and in the second place obtain empire for the good of the governed, and not for the sake of exercising a general despotism, and in the third place they should seek to be masters only over those who deserve to be slaves.

Thus, with a philosophy that justified the use of power by an enlightened warrior to plunder the barbarian, Aristotle attracted favor from warriors, and he became tutor to Alexander the Great, who conquered and exacted tribute from more of the world than had any one man up to that time in history.

The exile of atomism

While Aristotelian philosophy eclipsed the importance of the atomists, their work was still preserved and exposited through commentaries on the works of Aristotle. In the 1st century, Galen (129-216 AD) presented extensive discussions of the Greek atomists, especially Epicurus, in his Aristotle commentaries. In the West, atomism was largely an ignored footnote of philosophy, as it was incompatible with Aristotelianism. According to historian of atomism Joshua Gregory, there was no serious work done with atomism from the time of Galen until Gassendi and Descartes resurrected it in the 16th century; “the gap between these two ‘modern naturalists’ and the ancient Atomists marked the exile of the atom” and “it is universally admitted that the Middle Ages had abandoned Atomism, and virtually lost it.” However, scholars still had Aristotle’s texts on atomism, and it seems unlikely the ideas of atomism could have been lost in the West. Rather, it was studied in the universities as an incorrect, pre-Aristotelian system of physics. Still, “the exile of the atom” is an appropriate description of the interim between the ancient Greeks and the revival of Western atomism in the 16th century, in view of atomism’s success elsewhere during that time. If the atom was in exile, it was exiled to India, which already had sophisticated schools of atomism, and to Islam, which further developed atomism. (Actually, it may very well have been exiled throughout non-Western civilization, but the only detailed records available are on Indian and Islamic atomism.)

Islamic atomism

Atomistic philosophies are found very early in Islam, and represent a synthesis of the Greek and Indian ideas. Like both the Greek and Indian versions, Islamic atomism was a charged topic that had the potential for conflict with the prevalent religious orthodoxy. Yet it was such a fertile and flexible idea that, as in Greece and India, it flourished in some schools of Islamic thought.

The most successful form of Islamic atomism was in kalam philosophy. In kalam atomism, atoms are the only perpetual, material things in existence, and all else in the world is “accidental,” meaning something that lasts for only an instant. Nothing accidental can be the cause of anything else, except perception, as it exists for a moment. Accidentals are the direct result of God’s constant intervention, without which nothing could happen. Thus kalam atomism is completely dependent on God, and meshes with other Ash’ari Islamic ideas on causation, or the lack thereof (Gardet).

New Islamic ideas were developed, such as the possibility of there being particles smaller than an atom, during Europe's “exile of atomism”, but a number of old Greek ideas were also preserved. Commentators expanded on many Greek texts, especially those of Aristotle, and when Islam began spreading through Europe, many old ideas were brought back to the West, along with Islamic and Indian ideas. After the time of the 12th-century commentator Averroes (1126-1198 AD), an influential Islamic thinker in Spain, Aristotelian philosophy and physics became a standard by which other theories were judged. Averroes’ commentaries, which were studied along with original texts, secured the place of Aristotle in scholastic thought. Through Aristotle and his refutations of earlier Greek philosophers, and the ideas contributed by Islamic and Indian schools of atomic thought, atomism made its way back into Western thought.

Atomic Renaissance

Aristotle held sway in the universities of Europe for most of the Middle Ages, and even through the time of Newton Aristotelian physics was the standard, although other theories were beginning to be introduced to university curriculum by then (Kargon, 1966). But by the late 16th century, criticism of Aristotle was mounting. The experimental philosophy was gaining ground, and with the evidence weighing in against the old physics, atomism soon reappeared in new forms. The main figures in the rebirth of atomism were Rene Descartes, Pierre Gassendi, and Robert Boyle, but there were many important ancillary figures as well.

One of the first groups of atomists in England was a cadre of amateur scientists known as the Northumberland circle, led by Henry Percy (1585-1632 AD), the 9th Earl of Northumberland. Although they published little of account, they helped to disseminate atomistic ideas among the burgeoning scientific culture of England, and may have been particularly influential to Francis Bacon, who became an atomist around 1605, though he later rejected some of the claims of atomism. Though they revived the classical form of atomism, this group as among the scientific avant-garde: the Northumberland circle contained nearly half of the confirmed Copernicans prior to 1610 (the year of Galileo’s The Starry Messenger). Other influential atomists of late 16th and early 17th centuries include Giordano Bruno, Thomas Hobbes (who also changed his stance on atomism late in his career), and Thomas Hariot. A number of different atomistic theories were blossoming in France at this time, as well (Clericuzio, 2000).

A more well-known advocate of atomism in the early 16th century was Galileo Galilei (1564-1642 AD). He first published a work based on atomism in 1612, Discourse on Floating Bodies (Redondi, 1969). In The Assayer, Galileo offered a more complete physical system based on a corpuscular theory of matter, in which all phenomena—with the exception of sound—are produced by “matter in motion”. Galileo found some of the basic problems with Aristotelian physics through his experiments, and he utilized a theory of atomism as a partial replacement, but he was never unequivocally committed to it. For example, his experiments with falling bodies and inclined planes led him to the concepts of circular inertial motion and accelerating free-fall. These notions contradicted the Aristotelian theories of impulse and natural place, which dictated that bodies fall equal distances in equal times and all motion (except that of the heavens) is finite. Atomism could not explain the law of fall, but was consistent with his concept of inertia, since motion was conserved in ancient atomism (but not in Aristotelian physics). Galileo scholar Pietro Redondi has even suggested that the root of the church’s persecution of Galileo was his rejection of Aristotelian philosophy and championing of atomism (Redondi, 1969). Although that was certainly not the whole story behind the so-called Galileo Affair, it is another intriguing element and may have a germ of truth.

Despite the success (and controversy) generated by 16th and 17th century atomists, atomism was not fully revived until Descartes and Gassendi published their new physics systems based on corpuscular (in the case of Descartes) and atomistic (in the case of Gassendi) theories. Descartes’ mechanical philosophy of corpuscularism had much in common with atomism, and may be considered in some sense another version of it. Descartes (1596-1650 AD) thought everything physical in the universe to be made of tiny “corpuscles” of matter. Like the ancient atomists, Descartes claimed that sensations, such as taste or temperature, are caused by the shape and size of tiny pieces of matter. The main difference between atomism and corpuscularism was the existence of the void. For Descartes, there could be no vacuum, and all matter was constantly swirling to prevent a void as corpuscles moved through other matter. Another key distinction between Descartes’ corpuscularism and classical atomism is Descartes’ concept of mind/body duality, which allowed for an independent realm of existence for thought, soul, and most importantly, God. Gassendi’s system was much closer to classical atomism, but without the atheistic undertones.

Pierre Gassendi (1592-1655 AD) was a Catholic priest from France who was also an avid natural philosopher. He was particularly intrigued by the Greek atomists, so he set out to “purify” atomism from its heretical and atheistic philosophical conclusions (Dijksterhius, 1969). Gassendi formulated his atomistic conception of mechanical philosophy partly in response to Descartes; he particularly opposed Descartes’ reductionist view that only purely mechanical explanations of physics are valid, as well as the application of geometry to the whole of physics (Clericuzio, 2000).

The final form of atomism that came to be accepted by most English scientists after Robert Boyle (1627-1692 AD) was an amalgam of the two French systems. In The Sceptical Chymist (1661), Boyle shows some of the problems with Aristotelian physics that arise from chemistry experimentation, and offers up atomism as a possible explanation. The unifying principle that led to the acceptance of this hybrid atomism was the mechanical philosophy, which was becoming widely accepted by Western scientists. Despite the problems with atomism, it was clear by the end of the 17th century that it was a better alternative than Aristotelian physics, especially since it was compatible with the mechanical philosophy.

A different atom for each element

By the late 1700s, the useful practices of engineering and technology began to influence philosophical explanations for the composition of matter. Those who speculated on the ultimate nature of matter began to verify their "thought experiments" with some repeatable demonstrations, when they could.

In 1808, John Dalton assimilated the known experimental work of many people to summarize the empirical evidence on the composition of matter. He noticed that distilled water everywhere analyzed to the same elements, hydrogen and oxygen. Similarly, other purified substances decomposed to the same elements in the same proportions by weight.

Therefore we may conclude that the ultimate particles of all homogeneous bodies are perfectly alike in weight, figure, &c. In other words, every particle of water is like every other particle of water; every particle of hydrogen is like every other particle of hydrogen, &c.

Furthermore, he concluded that there was a unique atom for each element, using Lavoisier's definition of an element as a substance that could not be analyzed into something simpler. Thus, Dalton concluded the following.

Chemical analysis and synthesis go no farther than to the separation of particles one from another, and to their reunion. No new creation or destruction of matter is within the reach of chemical agency. We might as well attempt to introduce a new planet into the solar system, or to annihilate one already in existence, as to create or destroy a particle of hydrogen. All the changes we can produce, consist in separating particles that are in a state of cohesion or combination, and joining those that were previously at a distance.

And then he proceeded to give a list of relative weights in the compositions of several common compounds, summarizing: [16]

1st. That water is a binary compound of hydrogen and oxygen, and the relative weights of the two elementary atoms are as 1:7, nearly;

2nd. That ammonia is a binary compound of hydrogen and azote [[nitrogen|nitrogen], and the relative weights of the two atoms are as 1:5, nearly. . . .

Dalton concluded that the fixed proportions of elements by weight suggested that the atoms of one element combined with only a limited number of atoms of the other elements to form the substances that he listed.

See also

• Andrew Pyle
• Atomic theory
• Buddhist atomism
• History of chemistry
• Infinite divisibility
• The History and Adventures of an Atom - a satire by Tobias Smollett

External links

• Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Atomism: Antiquity to the Seventeenth Century
• Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Atomism in the Seventeenth Century
• Information and articles on a philosopher who opposes atomism
• Information on a philosopher who claims that atoms are point-sized
• Information on Buddhist atomism
• Article on traditional Greek atomism

References

• Clericuzio, Antonio. ‘’Elements, Principles, and Corpuscles; a study of atomism and chemistry in the seventeenth century’’. Dordrecht; Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000.
• Dijksterhuis, E. ‘’The Mechanization of the World Picture’’. Trans. by C. Dikshoorn. New York: Oxford University Press, 1969. ISBN 0691023964
• Firth, Raymond. ‘’Religion: A Humanist Interpretation’’. Routledge, 1996. ISBN 0415128978.
• Gangopadhyaya, Mrinalkanti. ‘’Indian Atomism: history and sources’’. Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1981. ISBN 039102177X
• Gardet, L. “djuz’” in Encyclopaedia of Islam CD-ROM Edition, v. 1.1. Leiden, Netherlands: Koninklijke Brill NV, 2001.
• Gregory, Joshua C. ‘’A Short History of Atomism’’. London: A. and C. Black, Ltd, 1981.
• Kargon, Robert Hugh. ‘’Atomism in England from Hariot to Newton’’. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966.
• Lloyd, GER. ‘’Early Greek Science: Thales to Aristotle’’. London: Chatto and Windus; New York: W. W. Norton, 1970. ISBN 0393005836
• Redondi, Pietro. ‘’Galileo Heretic’’. Translated by Raymond Rosenthal. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987. ISBN 069102426X
• Taylor, CCW, translator, commentator. ‘’The Atomists, Leucippus and Democritus: a text and translation with commentary by CCW Taylor’’. Toronto; Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1999. ISBN 0802043909es:Atomismo

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