The Final Cut - Democritus and Leuccipus

-Democritus (c. 460-370 BC) and Leuccipus (c. 5th century BC) are famous for being the pioneers of "atomism" ("atomon" = indivisible, un-cuttable).
   -Perhaps a response to Zeno and his paradoxes because they argued that eventually if you keep dividing everything, you WILL hit a smallest point that can't be divided!  They called this point the "atom".
   -Also had a response to Melissus and his "motion is impossible" theory by saying that there MUST be a nothingness upon which something can move into, because we can see that motion is clearly possible!  Therefore, there is "being" (atoms) and "non-being" (void).  Motion happens when the atom moves into the void.
-We don't actually know where Leuccipus is from, but we do know for sure that he was well-versed in Parmenides' Eleatic philosophy.  However, it's most likely that he was responding to Zeno and Melissus, not Parmenides himself.
   -Democritus seems to be directly influence by (or a student of) Leuccipus.
-We're pretty sure Democritus lived around the same time as Socrates, so it's kind of misleading to label him as a "Pre-Socratic".
-Democritus was most likely from Abdera, Thrace.
-We're also not sure who said what in the atomist doctrine, as the chronicles would usually just refer to the atomists as a whole or collective instead of giving credit to individual philosophers.
-Democritus also wrote on both atomism and ethics as well.
-Atomists believed that atoms had a wide variety of shapes so that they can fit together and shit.
   -The soul has round atoms that allow us to flow around the body.
   -There are an infinite number of atoms; being is not one and infinite, but MANY and infinite!
      -They believed that there was no reason why there would be a limit to atoms, and yet no limit to void/space.
   -There seems to have been a debate among atomists as to the size of atoms.
   -There have always been atoms, and they just bounce around off of each other forever, and that over time the atoms that are similar to other ones connect with each other.
      -The heavier atoms tend to form a center, and the lighter ones go to the outside.
   -Believed in an infinite number of worlds (due to the infinite number of atoms).
-Democritus also did echo Parmenides and others in that our senses can't completely be trusted because TRUE existence is just atoms and void, which we can't plainly see (like the Matrix with everything just being code).
   -Like Xenophanes and Heraclitus said, we don't really know anything!  We can only believe...