ABSTRACT
Democritus wrote at a time when Ancient Greek philosophy, characterized by an attempt to give a logical and rational, as opposed to a mythical, account of the material, social and moral world, was well into its second century. For the atomists like Democritus, it exists as the space between atoms. Democritus dealt with this by utilizing his account of the human senses. When Democritus declared that all that exists are atoms in the void he meant it quite literally. It seems to clash with the idea, stressed by Democritus, that everything happens of necessity. There are conflicting views on the extent to which Democritus developed a systematic ethics. There is a basic problem with Democritus’ position. It assumes that individual humans can make choices and control their actions. Modern atoms differ widely from what Democritus had in mind and the modern scientific case for them differs widely from the abstract arguments offered by Democritus.
