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Democritus, Fragment 156

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

W. I. Matson
W. I. Matson
Affiliation:
University of California(Berkeley)
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Extract

Received interpretation. As far as I have been able to determine, all scholars who have dealt with this fragment have followed Plutarch (to whom the preservation of the fragment is due) in holding (i) that and are synonyms for ‘body’ and ‘void’ respectively, and (ii) the purport of the pronouncement is simply that ‘even void has a nature and substantiality of its own’ (). But (i) is included in Aristotle's dictionary of Atomist jargon, while (ii) is put better in the celebrated Fragment 125 . In consequence, Fragment 156 has been deemed more curious than important. Despite the extreme scarcity of Democritean fragments other than moralizings, Kirk and Raven do not even print it. No doubt this assumed unimportance explains why it has not been noticed how unsatisfactory Plutarch's exegesis is.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , May 1963 , pp. 26 - 29
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1963

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References

page 26 note 1 Ap. Simplic. de caelo; see D.-K. 68 A 37.

page 26 note 2 B 6, lines 1–2.

page 26 note 3 B 7, section 7.

page 26 note 4 Metaphysics A 4, 985b4; D.-K. 67 A 6.

page 26 note 5 From Theophrastus; D.-K. 67 A 8.

page 26 note 6 It seems safe to say that these testimonia are paraphrases of Fragment 156.

page 26 note 7 is found five times in the Greek corpus; but inasmuch as three of the occurrences are in commentaries on Democritus (Aristotle, D.-K. 68 A 37; Galen, D.-K. 68 A 49; and Philoponus on Phys. 188a19, Vitelli 110, 10) which refer in all probability to the sentence under discussion, the word is in effect a that would be were it not for the (quite unenlighten-ing) Alcaeus Fragment 76 (Bergk): It is not at all plausible that if had at any time been a living alternative to it would have escaped being recorded.

For a full investigation of the word see A. C. Moorhouse, ‘ in Classical Greek’, C.Q. N.S. xii (1962), 235–8.Google Scholar

page 27 note 1 Adv. Coloten, ap. D.-K. 68 B 156:

page 28 note 1 Ancilla and Companion to the Pre-Socratk Philosophers.

page 28 note 2 Kirk, and Raven, , The Presocratic Philosophers, 555 (p. 407).Google Scholar

page 28 note 3 Die Philosophic der Griechen (Leipzig, 1920), ii. 1056.Google Scholar

page 28 note 4 See p. 26 n. 7.

page 28 note 5 Sanders, , Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache (Leipzig, 1863), ii. 435 col. 1;Google ScholarGrimm, , Deutsches Wörterbuch (Leipzig, 1877), Bd. iv, Abth. ii, 2033 f.Google Scholar

page 28 note 6 As it is not, in any other language known to me.

page 29 note 1 See my articles on Parmenides and Democritus in Mastenvorks of Philosophy, ed. Magill, and McGreal, (New York, 1962).Google Scholar

page 29 note 2 See Kirk, and Stokes, , ‘Parmenides’ Refutation of Motion', Phrorusis v (1960), 1–4. The articles referred to in the previous note commit the error, exposed in this paper, of attribut ing the ‘bad’ argument to Parmenides also.Google Scholar

page 29 note 3 Or that if he paid any attention to it, what he said has been lost altogether.

page 29 note 4 Could there be here, implicitly, a sarcastic reminiscence of Parmenides' triumphant conclusion (B 8, lines 38–41)

page 29 note 5 If he did, he would presumably not have had to use such an indirect argument in rebutting Colotes.