There is, however, great difference of opinion among the exponents of atomism in regard to the nature of the atom.
Yet, in falling back, with a difference, upon the atomism of Democritus, Epicurus had to face some questions of logic.
Drawing upon Gassendi for his psychological atomism and upon Hobbes for a thoroughgoing nominalism, he reproduces, as the logical conclusion from Locke's premises, the position of Antisthenes.
But atomism has not been by any means universally regarded as the most satisfactory conception of the relation between space and matter.
But in this instance the facts do not take us intoatomism and anarchy.
Continuity of growth not atomism is thus the alternative to fixity of principles and aims.
Infinite space had been closely associated by Democritus and Epicurus with infinite atoms; and the next great step taken by Bruno was to rehabilitate atomism as a necessary concept of modern science.
The Epicureans took over theatomism of Democritus and Leucippus, with few modifications, and made it the basis of their own teaching.
Epicurus, therefore, adopted theatomism of Democritus en bloc, or with trifling modifications.
Epicurus early became acquainted with the atomism of Democritus, but his learning in earlier systems of philosophy does not appear to have been extensive.
The Stoics return to Heracleitus for their physics, Epicurus resurrects the atomism of Democritus.
Therefore he searched the past, and soon found what he wanted in the atomism of Democritus.
He notes that atomism and science were born, in Greece, of the same problem, and that in modern times the revival of the one was closely connected with that of the other.
Hannequin, a philosopher who is also an erudite scholar, examined the part taken byatomism in the history of science.
There is an atomism in the sciences of number, of quantity, of space; the theorems of geometry are groupings of individual points, each related only to the adjacent ones by certain definite laws.
But what concerns us chiefly at present is theatomism of human physiology.
But it was not until 1808 that modern atomism assumed a definite and acceptable form, and was furnished with an empirical basis by Dalton, who formulated the "law of simple and multiple proportions" in the formation of chemical combinations.
To show the true meaning of the atomism of the ancient philosophers, and the profound difference between their points of argument and those of contemporary men of science, I cite the following fundamental propositions of Democritus (B.
In my opinion, the atomism of our day must first of all be regarded merely as a convenient method for the investigation of ponderable matter.
Another difficulty lies in the atomism of the chemists; and still another {143} in the divergency of the aims at which the physical theory of atoms on the one hand and the chemical theory of atoms on the other seem to point.
The ancient atomism upon which Bruno founded his theory was, at any rate in its traditional rendering, frankly materialistic.
Again, in the Cena an animistic atomism is suggested, which presents a curious anticipation of some of Leibniz' characteristic views.
Physical atomism finds its justification in the experienced fact of resistance, which is the primary quality of body as perceived by our senses.
The demand for rational unity constitutes in the bosom of atomism something like a murmur of deep underlying continuity: it expresses in the very language of atomism, atomism's basic irreality.
The conceptual atomismof common thought leads it to place movement in a lower order than rest, fact in a lower order than becoming.
No doubt the use of number and the resulting atomism are imposed by definition, we might say, on the thought which proceeds by conceptual analysis, and then by unifying construction; that is to say, on synthetic thought.
Thus number appears as a fundamental category, as an absolute condition of intelligibility; some go so far as to regard atomism as a necessary method.
From the days of Grecian atomism men have attempted to show that all change in the Universe is ultimately reducible to changes of place, order, spatial arrangement and collocation, of those hypothetical atomic factors.
The underlying motive in atomism was not, I think, any empirical success in interpreting phenomena, but rather an instinctive belief that beneath all the changes of the sensible world there must be something permanent and unchanging.
Apart from the special form of the atomic theory which was invented for the needs of chemistry, some kind of atomism dominated the whole of traditional dynamics, and was implied in every statement of its laws and axioms.
Atomism in modern physics in Gassendi and Descartes in Boyle Leibnitz on Attributes in Descartes Spinoza's doctrine of Auerbach Augustine Avenarius, R.
Gratefully recognizing the suggestions from both sides, Leibnitz called Cartesianism the antechamber of the true philosophy, and atomism the preparation for the theory of monads.
But logical atomism was implicit even in this theory.
Only the force of the prepossession of mathematical atomism in analytic logic can account for its failure to do so.
As to the atomism of Democritus, it is not clear with which contemporaries he was finding fault.
Medium not needed in Atomism and Epicurianism, iv.
Accident in the sense of brute fact had to be acknowledged even by the tidiest and most dogmatic atomism of the last century.
That atomism must allow it to be accidental, in this sense, that the space surrounding any given atom was occupied by other atoms in a given manner.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "atomism" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
