Democritus

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One of the first and greatest Greek philosophers was a man named Democritus. He is not as well-known as other great philosophers like Socrates, Plato, or Aristotle but he contributed greatly on the development of philosophy up until today. He, along with all pre-socratic philosophers, was a natural or physical philosopher. He is sometimes referred to as the father of modern sciences after his major discoveries and works. He was born in the city of Abdera, Greece, although some reports called him a Milesian, on c. 460 BCE and died at the age of about 90 years on c. 370 BCE. He was born to a wealthy family and enjoyed traveling. He was known as the laughing philosopher because of he emphasized the importance of the value of cheerfulness. Democritus is said to have written more than 70 books but none of them survived. Most of his works were unreliable because they, along with the works of most ancient Greek philosophers, were only in secondhand reports. Most of his works were told secondhand by another great philosopher named Aristotle because he considered Democritus as his biggest rival in the natural sciences. He seems to have taken over the works of his mentor, Leucippus. Both of them were very accomplished. His knowledge was vast for he worked on different fields such as cosmology, music, mathematics, ethics and physics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2004).
Democritus, along with his teacher Leucippus, was an atomist. Atomists believed that nature is composed of two fundamental principles, atoms and void. Atoms came from the Greek word atomos which means indivisible or something that cannot be broken down further. Parmenides, another well-known pre-socratic philosopher, believed that everything in existence has always b...

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...on is because Democritus focused more on the ‘many’ rather than the ‘one’ while Plato, on the other hand, focused more on the ‘one’ rather than the ‘many’. In my opinion, Plato placed Democritus on the bottom class of his ideal state together with the producers who see beautiful objects and believes in change rather than beuty itself which lasts forever. They might be opposite of each other but both contributed greatly in the progress of philosophy (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2004).
Even though he wasn’t as famous as Socrates or Plato, Democritus was one of the greatest Greek philosopher ever lived. His works might not be very reliable because none stayed in tact but they were a huge contribution to the development of philosophy, especially his atomic theory. His works made him known as the laughing philosopher and even as the father of modern sciences.

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