Democrite, Epicure, Lucrece: La Verite Du Minuscule

The general belief used to be that the Atomism of Democritus resulted from a mere “replication of the Eleatic being.” A profusion of monographs tended to “dematerialise” the Democritean atom, interpreting it to be anything one wished other than a corpuscle. Adopting a contrary view, Jean Salem endeavoured to present a materialistic interpretation of this thought, which he considers to be the founding concept of philosophical materialism. Far from limiting itself to the role of a rather strange offshoot of Parmenidean Eleatism, Atomism expands upon and amplifies Anaxagoras’ and Empedocles’ speculations and even those of the first Ionian natural philosophers. Furthermore, it is linked to prehistory and the history of science. Also, despite a few doctrinal divergences, Epicurus and his Roman disciple Lucretius merely expanded upon their predecessor Democritus’ extraordinary intuition.Using these principles as his point of departure, Jean Salem offers, in this compendium of texts, a commentary on the Letter in which Epicurus summarises his ethics, describes Lucretius’ struggle against popular religion, and seeks to identify the conditions of pure pleasure according to the Epicureans. Then the author briefly outlines what could be regarded as a history of philosophical Atomism: Democritus, Epicurus, Lucretius, as well as the Motekallamin, Nicolas d’Autrecourt, Gassendi, Boyle, Cudworth, Newton, Diderot, etc. He points out the extreme value of the dogma on the atomicity of time – one supported by several Greek, Roman, Latin and Arab atomists. Lastly, in his concluding analysis, Jean Salem sanctions what enthusiasts of antiquity such as Karl Marx, had already affirmed: the odd Epicurean theory of Atomic Declination possesses at least the great merit of attempting to “salvage,” within the very core of the most radical materialism, the indisputable fact of free will.