Customer Reviews

The Atomists: Leucippus and Democritus: Fragments (Phoenix Supplementary Volumes)

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In this book CCW Taylor amends an eons-long dearth of information in English about the greatest philosopher-scientist from antiquity. Popular during the Renaissance and Enlightenment as a source of information and wisdom about scientific principles (feeding Bacon's spirit for the writing of his Novum Organum), Democritus has all but been pushed back into obscurity by the triumph of English 19th century Platonism and the concomitant recrudescence of Aristotlian studies. Denied even a word of mention by Plato but acknowledged several times in the Aristotelian corpus as the greatest of his predecessors (but uncredited as the guide for much of what Aristotle observed, thought, and wrote) Democritus (and his follower Epicurus) suffered unmercifully at the hands of Christian authors whose judgments stilled monastic hands from re-copying his texts.

Professor Taylor has taken the pitifully small remnant of fragments from a once voluminous oeuvre, and the few notices about Democritus written by Diogenes Laertius, Galen, the Aristotelians, Roman authors, and Church fathers and arranged them in a sensible order with English translations of the fragments which also appear in Greek and with the notices fully translated (no Greek). There are judiciously written notes on the central issues of atomism, on Democritus's ethical works, and on cruxes in the texts. There is a general index, an annotated index of ancient works from which the citations are taken, an index to the footnotes and commentary on the testimonia, a concordance of Taylor's with other systems of enumerating the fragments and notices (Diels-Kranz, Luria), and a bibliography.

Surely this book is a must reference source for anyone who seriously studies the Pre-Socratic philsophers and is well worth the inflated price that academic presses charge for books whose sales will be limited to libraries and scholars.

The only disappointment I will register is Taylor's cursory treatment of the problem of Leucippus's historicity. Here his judgment is wrong, and he fails fully to discuss the issues and the evidence.

[Review by Thomas D. Worthen] In this book CCW Taylor amends an eons-long dearth of information in English about the greatest philosopher-scientist from antiquity. Popular during the Renaissance and Enlightenment as a source of information and wisdom about scientific principles (feeding Bacon's spirit for the writing of his Novum Organum), Democritus has all but been pushed back into obscurity by the triumph of English 19th century Platonism and the concomitant recrudescence of Aristotlian studies. Denied even a word of mention by Plato but acknowledged several times in the Aristotelian corpus as the greatest of his predecessors (but uncredited as the guide for much of what Aristotle observed, thought, and wrote) Democritus (and his follower Epicurus) suffered unmercifully at the hands of Christian authors whose judgments stilled monastic hands from re-copying his texts.

Professor Taylor has taken the pitifully small remnant of fragments from a once voluminous oeuvre, and the few notices about Democritus written by Diogenes Laertius, Galen, the Aristotelians, Roman authors, and Church fathers and arranged them in a sensible order with English translations of the fragments which also appear in Greek and with the notices fully translated (no Greek). There are judiciously written notes on the central issues of atomism, on Democritus's ethical works, and on cruxes in the texts. There is a general index, an annotated index of ancient works from which the citations are taken, an index to the footnotes and commentary on the testimonia, a concordance of Taylor's with other systems of enumerating the fragments and notices (Diels-Kranz, Luria), and a bibliography.

Surely this book is a must reference source for anyone who seriously studies the Pre-Socratic philosophers and is well worth the inflated price that academic presses charge for books whose sales will be limited to libraries and scholars.

The only disappointment I will register is Taylor's cursory treatment of the problem of Leucippus's historicity. Here his judgment is wrong, and he fails fully to discuss the issues and the evidence.

This is a very needed book for those of us deeply involved with Democritus. Several translations of these fragments exist, but the Greek text is needed in order to check out various key words that various English versions translate differently.

The book is breathtakingly expensive, but you get what you pay for these days. The scholarship is first class, and the book itself is nicely made.

S. Milligan
Brooklyn, NY