Democritus, Epicurus, Lucretius. The truth of the minuscule.
Beautiful Letters| N° d'inventaire | 18261 |
| Format | 13 x 18.5 |
| Détails | 246 p., paperback. |
| Publication | Paris, 2014 |
| Etat | Nine |
| ISBN | |
There was the agreed sentence according to which the atomism of Democritus would result from a simple "coinage of the Eleatic being." There was this crowd of monographs which tended to "dematerialize" the Democritean atom, to make of it anything one wanted except a corpuscle. Jean Salem, taking a contrary position, endeavored to present a materialist interpretation of this thought which he considers to be the foundation of philosophical materialism. Far from being reduced to a somewhat baroque offshoot of Parmenidean Eleaticism, the philosophy of atoms extends and amplifies the speculations of Empedocles and Anaxagoras, even those of the first Ionian physiologists. It is also linked to prehistory and the history of science. Thus, despite some differences of doctrine, Epicurus and his Roman disciple Lucretius only extended the extraordinary intuition of their predecessor Democritus. It is from such principles that Jean Salem gives, in the texts gathered here, a commentary on the Letter in which Epicurus summarizes his ethics; he describes the struggle that Lucretius led against popular religion; he attempts to determine what are, from the Epicurean point of view, the conditions of pure pleasure. The author then paints a quick sketch of what a history of philosophical atomism could be: Democritus, Epicurus, Lucretius, but also the Mottécallemîn, Nicolas d'Autrecourt, Gassendi, Boyle, Cudworth, Newton, Diderot, etc. He points out the extreme interest of the dogma concerning the atomicity of time, a dogma that several atomists - Greek, Roman, Latin or Arab - supported. Jean Salem finally approves, in the study which closes this collection, what the antiquist Karl Marx already affirmed: the strange Epicurean theory of atomic declination has at least this great merit: it attempts to "save", even within the most radical materialism, the incontestable fact of freedom.
There was the agreed sentence according to which the atomism of Democritus would result from a simple "coinage of the Eleatic being." There was this crowd of monographs which tended to "dematerialize" the Democritean atom, to make of it anything one wanted except a corpuscle. Jean Salem, taking a contrary position, endeavored to present a materialist interpretation of this thought which he considers to be the foundation of philosophical materialism. Far from being reduced to a somewhat baroque offshoot of Parmenidean Eleaticism, the philosophy of atoms extends and amplifies the speculations of Empedocles and Anaxagoras, even those of the first Ionian physiologists. It is also linked to prehistory and the history of science. Thus, despite some differences of doctrine, Epicurus and his Roman disciple Lucretius only extended the extraordinary intuition of their predecessor Democritus. It is from such principles that Jean Salem gives, in the texts gathered here, a commentary on the Letter in which Epicurus summarizes his ethics; he describes the struggle that Lucretius led against popular religion; he attempts to determine what are, from the Epicurean point of view, the conditions of pure pleasure. The author then paints a quick sketch of what a history of philosophical atomism could be: Democritus, Epicurus, Lucretius, but also the Mottécallemîn, Nicolas d'Autrecourt, Gassendi, Boyle, Cudworth, Newton, Diderot, etc. He points out the extreme interest of the dogma concerning the atomicity of time, a dogma that several atomists - Greek, Roman, Latin or Arab - supported. Jean Salem finally approves, in the study which closes this collection, what the antiquist Karl Marx already affirmed: the strange Epicurean theory of atomic declination has at least this great merit: it attempts to "save", even within the most radical materialism, the incontestable fact of freedom.