Democritus was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher who formulated an atomic theory of the cosmos. He proposed that everything is composed of invisible, indivisible atoms moving through empty space, and that all phenomena can be explained by the motions and interactions of atoms. Democritus traveled widely to acquire knowledge and was motivated by his thirst for learning. He recognized two types of knowledge - "legitimate" knowledge acquired through reason and "illegitimate" knowledge based on subjective sense perceptions. Democritus believed that ethics and politics should be based on principles of equality and that poverty is preferable to living under tyranny. He made early observations in mathematics and developed theories of how the earth and cosmos were formed from atoms in chaos

1. UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL
PEDRO RUIZ GALLO
MAESTRIA EN EDUCACION MENCION
DIDACTICAS DEL IDIOMA INGLES
Curso : Filosofía y
Epistemología
DEMOCRITUS
Lic. Lupe Rivera Gonzales
Docente . Dr. Wilson Lozano Diaz

4. QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
1.- Which the theory of Democritus was?
 He was an influential pre-Socratic
philosopher and pupil of Leucippus, who
formulated an atomic theory for the
cosmos. Democritus is recognized as the
earliest proponent of the concept of
atomism.

5. QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
2.- What motivated Democritus to realized their
trips and that places knew?
 Democritus expense the inheritance that his
father had left knowing different countries was
motivated by his thirst of the knowledge. After
returning to his native land he occupied himself
with natural philosophy.
 He traveled to Asia, and the India and Ethiopia
 He traveled along Greece to acquire a
knowledge of its culture

6. QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
3.- How the atomists explained the philosophy and the
science?
 Democritus followed in the tradition of Leucippus. They
were both strict determinists and materialists, they
believed that everything was been of natural laws .
 The history of modern science has shown that
mechanistic questions lead to scientific knowledge,
especially in physics, while the teleological question can
be useful in biology, in adaptationist reasoning at
providing proximate explanations, though the deeper
evolutionary explanations are thoroughly mechanistic.
The atomists looked for mechanistic questions, and gave
mechanistic answers. Their successors until the
Renaissance became occupied with the teleological
question, which arguably hindered progress.

7. QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
4.- What did Democritus propose about the
Atoms?
 The theory of Democritus and Leucippus held
that everything is composed of "atoms", which
are physically, but not geometrically, indivisible;
that between atoms were in the space; that
atoms are indestructible; have always been, and
always will be, in motion; that there are an
infinite number of atoms, and kinds of atoms,
which differ in shape, and size. Of the mass of
atoms,

8. QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
5.- Who was the first philosopher in
developing the theory of the atomism?
 Leucippus was widely the first
philosopher that develop the theory of
atomism,

9. QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
6.- In what Democritus based the Void hypothesis ?
These atoms always exist in the hole, subjected to a movement that
is they consustancial. Therefore, all that exists is the atoms and the
hole. The introduction of the existence of the hole is a novelty with
regard to Empédocles and Anaxágoras and that it collides frontly
with the negation of the hole (not to be) that Parménides demanded.
Now then, without the existence of the hole it is impossible to explain
the movement, for what necessarily has to exist. The atoms move in
that hole on-line straight line in a principle, but, for strictly
mechanical causes, some of them leave their trajectory and they
collide against other, to those that deviate, colliding the group
against other atoms, causing the aggregation in groups of atoms
every bigger time, and that they will give place to the constitution of
the objects just as us we know them.

10. QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
7.- What did Democritus think about the
knowledge?
 The knowledge of truth according to
Democritus is difficult, since the perception
through the senses is subjective. As from
the same senses derive different
impressions for each individual, then
through the sense-impressions we cannot
judge the truth.

11. QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
8.- Why did he refer to the knowledge like
genuine?
 The second kind of knowledge is the
“legitimate” , can be achieved through the
intellect, in other words, all the sense-data from
the “illegitimate” must be elaborated through
reasoning. In this way one can get away from the
false perception of the “illegitimate” knowledge
and grasp the truth through the inductive
reasoning.

12. QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
9.- How many types of Knowledge did
Democritus mention?
 There are two kinds of knowing, the one
he calls “legitimate” (gnesie: genuine) and
the other “bastard or illegitimate” ( skotie:
obscure)

13. QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
10.- What thought had Democritus about
the equality?
 The ethics and politics of Democritus
come to us mostly in the form of maxims.
He says that "Equality is everywhere
noble," but he is not encompassing
enough to include women or slaves in this
sentiment.

14. QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
11.- What Democritus thought about the
Goodness?
 He believed in the Goodness came more from
practice and discipline than from innate human
nature. He believed that one should distance
oneself from the wicked, stating that such
association increases disposition to vice. The
anger, while difficult to control, must be mastered
in order for one to be rational.

15. QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
12.- What idea had Democritus about the
poverty?
 The poverty in a democracy is better than
prosperity under tyrants, for the same reason
one is to prefer liberty over slavery. Those in
power should "take it upon themselves to lend to
the poor and to aid them and to favor them, then
is there pity and no isolation but companionship
and mutual defense and concord among the
citizens and other good things ."

16. QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
13.- What observations made about of
the mathematics?
 .Democritus was among the first to
observe that a cone or pyramid has one-
third the volume of a cylinder or prism
respectively with the same base and
height. Also, a cone divided in a plane
parallel to its base produces two surfaces.

17. QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
14.- What thought had Democritus about the first
humans?
 Democritus thought that the first humans lived an
anarchic and animal sort of life, going out to forage
individually and living off the most palatable herbs and
the fruit which grew wild on the trees. They were driven
together into societies for fear of wild animals, he said.
He believed that these early people had no language, but
that they gradually began to articulate their expressions,
establishing symbols for every sort of object, and in this
manner came to understand with each other.

18. QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
15.-Which the theory was of the Earth and the cosmos?
 Democritus held that the Earth was round, and stated
that originally the universe was composed of nothing but
tiny atoms churning in chaos, until they collided together
to form larger units—including the earth and everything
on it.
 He surmised that there are many worlds, some growing,
some decaying; some with no sun or moon, some with
several. He held that every world has a beginning and an
end, and that a world could be destroyed by collision with
another world.

19. THANK YOU !!!