Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy

Heraclitus pointed out that the world is characterized by opposites. If we were never ill, we would not know what it was to be well. If we never knew hunger, we would take no pleasure in being full. If there were never any war, we would not appreciate peace. And if there were no winter, we would never see the spring.

You can’t experience being alive without realizing that you have to die, she thought. But it’s just as impossible to realize you have to die without thinking how incredibly amazing it is to be alive.

Fatalism is the belief that whatever happens is predestined.

Democritus did not believe in any "force" or "soul" that could intervene in natural processes. The only things that existed, he believed, were atoms and the void. Since he believed in nothing but material things, we call him a materialist.

Democritus agreed with his predecessors that transformations in nature could not be due to the fact that anything actually "changed." He therefore assumed that everything was built up of tiny invisible blocks, each of which was eternal and immutable. Democritus called these smallest units atoms.

what this philosopher's project was. Democritus agreed with his predecessors that transformations in nature could not be due to the fact that anything actually "changed." He therefore assumed that everything was built up of tiny invisible blocks, each of which was eternal and immutable. Democritus called these smallest units atoms.

Democritus (c. 460-370 B.C.) and he was from the little town of Abdera on the northern Aegean coast.

Anaxagoras (500-428 B.C.) was another philosopher who could not agree that one particular basic substance--water, for instance--might be transformed into everything we see in the natural world. Nor could he accept that earth, air, fire, and water can be transformed into blood and bone.

Empedocles (c. 490-430 B.C.) from Sicily to lead the way out of the tangle they had gotten themselves into.

Parmenides and Heraclitus both say two things:

Parmenides says:

a) that nothing can change, andb) that our sensory perceptions must therefore be unreliable. Heraclitus, on the

other hand, says:

a) that everything changes ("all things flow"), andb) that our sensory perceptions are reliable.