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On the Nature of Things

Explore the characteristics of atoms, from their shapes and sizes to impact on senses. Compare ancient theories like Thales' water concept to modern views of corpuscular theory by Robert Boyle.

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On the Nature of Things

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  1. On the Nature of Things

  2. Characteristics of Atoms • Solid (I, 510) • Everlasting and Indestructible (I, 518-550) • Come in finitely many different shapes (II, 480) • An infinite number of atoms of each shape (II, 525) • Shapes of atoms account for coherence with other atoms, and for sensible effects.

  3. Characteristics of Atoms Velcro Atoms

  4. Characteristics of Atoms • Shape • Size • Hardness • Weight • Location • “Primary Qualities”

  5. Characteristics of Atoms • Color? • Taste? • Smell? • Temperature? • Sound? • “Secondary Qualities”

  6. Characteristics of Atoms • Atoms have primary qualities. • Atoms have no secondary qualities • Things have secondary qualities only because of the arrangements of their atoms, and because of the interaction between their atoms and our sense organs.

  7. Characteristics of Cheese • Soft texture • Constituent atoms do not bind very tightly. • Sharp smell • Atoms that emanate from cheese have shape that enters certain odor-receptors in the nose.

  8. Other Ancient Theories of Reality • Thales: Everything is ultimately water. • Reductive theory. • It can be gas, liquid or solid. • But it has essential properties that are inconsistent with essential properties of some things in reality: • Fire • Building blocks of reality must be consistent with all things in reality.

  9. Other Ancient Theories of Reality • Thales: Everything is ultimately water. • Anaximander: Air • Heraclitus: Fire • Pherecydes: Earth

  10. Other Ancient Theories of Reality • Empedocles: Water, Air, Fire, and Earth • Everything in reality made of various combinations of these. • Democritus took a different approach: ultimate constituents are something unfamiliar to us, so not inconsistent with anything in reality— “theoretical posit” • But Aristotle endorsed Empedocles’ theory, and his views prevailed until 17th Century.

  11. Robert Boyle (1627-1691) English scientist “Corpuscular Theory of Matter”

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