Démocrite

Summary

Dominique Pagani often returns to a phrase of Democritus: "nothing exists but atoms and the void", everything else being only a combination of atoms1. He sees it as a rigorous position for its time, one that required extraordinary audacity, and he makes Democritus the first great materialist2. He also presents him as the first to form the hypothesis of the indivisible atom and to dare to formulate chance3. He recalls that his work is lost and is known through fragments, through Aristotle's quotations and through Diogenes Laertius. Democritus comes up mainly in connection with Marx's thesis, which sets him against Epicurus: Marx is an atomist, but not a Democritean4. Dominique Pagani also associates him with the difference between continuous and discontinuous, which he illustrates with the violin and the keyboard. Finally, he suggests that Democritus's view of the atom may be more idealist than Leibniz's idealism5.

1. 1From Plato to world revolution14 Jul 2022 · 5:23
2. 2From Copernicus to Lenin: revolution!28 Aug 2026 · 1:15:19
3. 3#15 Plato, Rousseau, Hegel and music9 Feb 2021 · 11:47
4. 4Tonight, we repoliticise (part 2)31 Mar 2018 · 1:48:21
5. 5Cynicism of the extreme centre or epistemic heroism? The dialectic of the middle20 May 2021 · 37:44

Summary produced automatically from 27 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.