Single Idea 14038

[catalogued under 26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 6. Early Matter Theories / g. Atomism]

Full Idea

One must eliminate unlimited division into smaller pieces (to avoid making everything weak and being forced in our comprehensive grasps of compound things to exhaust the things which exist by reducing them to non-existence).

Gist of Idea

There cannot be unlimited division, because it would reduce things to non-existence

Source

Epicurus (Letter to Herodotus [c.293 BCE], 56)

Book Reference

Epicurus: 'The Epicurus Reader', ed/tr. Inwood,B. /Gerson,L. [Hackett 1994], p.11


A Reaction

A basic argument for atoms, but it seems to rest on Zenonian paradoxes about infinite subdivision. An infinite subdivision of a unit doesn't seem to turn it into zero.