h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Democritus - The Laughing Philosopher - A3871758
Author: Abderian_Sophist - U1443035

I've been curious about Democritus, a relatively unknown philosopher, since I first learned about him in college. I thought that it might be fun to leverage that interest into this, my first attempt at a Guide Entry. Let me know what you think.

Thanks,

Mark

Hi A-S,

I haven't read this through carefully yet but, at first glance it looks as though it will be a worthy addition to the Guide. It is well laid out. I often mention emocritus when teaching about atomic structure, but hadn't heard him referred to as 'The Laughing Philosopher'

My first thought is that there should be an introductory paragraph, stating in brief who Democtitus was and his sphere of influence - before mentioning his nickname.

Unfortunately, owing to my initerant student lifestyle I don't have the relevant textbook to hand, so I'm relying on memory for the moment. So for the time being my one criticism is that in order properly to understand where the atomists stood in the pre-Socratic intellectual climate, you need to have some idea of what the Eleatics had asserted. I'm not asking you to write a full account of Eleatic philosophy, you understand; but it's the fact that according to Parmenides there logically must exist _one_ thing and _no_ void that makes atomism historically striking: many things, in a void. After Parmenides, up until Socrates philosophers were either in support of him or trying to deal with his arguments; in the atomists' case, the latter. But the Entry doesn't recognise that at all.

Otherwise I like it.

Hello and thanks for taking the time to read my entry. I'm sorry that it has taken me so long to respond, things have been a little busy at home and, to tell the truth, my writing is very slow - some might say constipated, but that would be rude, so you won't here that from me.

radioactiveBIGAL1: I've rearranged the opening paragraph so there is more of an introduction of Democritus before I get into the nickname explanation. My original intention was that, since the nickname was in the title, and it's a little unusual, getting right into it would draw people into the entry. But, I guess what you're saying is that it's more confusing than amusing. So, I've made the change.

RFJS: I've also added a new section Something from Nothing where I talk more about the Eleatic school of thought and how the atomist vision contrasts with it. I had orginally left it out because the Eleatic view, with the attendent paradoxes of Zeno, always gave me a headache. I never really understood what they were saying - it all seemed so in your face, counter intutitive and anti-common sense. So I wasn't sure I could do it justice, and am still not sure that I have done it justice. Also, I thought that the bigger issue for Democritus, the thing that made him stand out was more his mechanical view of the world - the fact that he did it all without gods, or spirits. Anyway, I've taken a stab at describing the pre-Socratic conventional wisdom.

Let me know what you think. Thanks again.

Mark

'it all seemed so in your face, counter intutitive and anti-common sense.'

Is that so unusual in philosophy?

I think you've done the Eleatics enough justice for talking about Democritus.

Facsinating!!!!

Well done. This is very good indeed. For a first Entry, it's exceptionally good, in fact.

I learned a lot (maybe not too difficult, mind, on such a subject!)

One small point - you're using American spellings. the EG standard is British English, so it should be 'honour' not 'honor'. (There may be others)

Pin

Hoo-Hoo! Good work!

Maybe he was laughing at Aristotle. I know I do as often as I can.

Thanks to all for the generous compliments and encouraging words.

Regarding the British English issues; I fixed honor/honour, looked for color/colour and center/centre and found none. Having now exhausted my knowledge of British vs American spelling differences I'm afraid that I'm going to have to rely on the kindness of strangers for help locating any other problems.

Mark

you use BCE and AD for your dates
shouldn't it be either BCE and CE or BC and AD
I'm not sure if one or the other is standard in the EG

Democritus makes an appearance in the Tom Holt novel 'Alexander at the Worlds End', a very funny black comedy, but thanks to you I now know Holt simplified the philosophy considerably

There are people round here () who specialise in spelling reform, but here are the remaining 'Americanisms' I've spotted :

recognized >> recognised
behavior >> behaviour
hypothesized >> hypothesised
realize >> realise

Thank you, thank you, done (AD to CE) and done (smoothing z's into s's and adding u's).

Thinking myself clever and having uncovered a British prejudice against the letter "z" I was also going to change "characterized" to "characterised", but a Merriam-Webster search says that no such word exists.

And I was having trouble with getting the American spellings correct - I'm afraid that my writing speed will now slow from constipated to glacial.

Thanks again for taking the time to help.

This is an excellent entry, and should have no problem being accepted into the Guide.

Two little points of h2g2 Style:

We use BC and AD rather than BCE and CE.

We use 'single quotes' rather than "double quotes".

It would be great if you could change these.

Great stuff. I don't think I have anything to quibble with here that hasn't already been mentioned - and anything I did have was pretty minor.

I don't think you'll have too much trouble before this makes it to the Edited Guide. Clearly written and easy to understand, yet obviously it's well researched.

At the risk of being accused of shameless self-promotion, any chance of a link to A617843 (How to be a Philosopher)

On the -ise/-ize question, they're _both_ permissible on British English. What isn't permissible is 'analyze'.

'Characterised' isn't in the dictionary I suppose because it's a past participle; 'characterise' is as far as I know as permissible a word in British English as any other Graeco-Roman hybrid.

I've made all of the changes discussed, namely:

-replaced BCE/CE notation with BC/AD (although I'd of thought the former was more PC).
-replace " with '
-changed 'characterizes' to 'characterises' (While Websters was able to identify the British spelling of most of the words in question, for some reason it does not recognize (sorry recognise) characterise).
-in the interest of cross-pollination I added the requested link to 'How to Be a Philosopher'

Thanks again for all the help.

Great first entry
Better than a lot of tenth or twentieth entries around here.

Thanks

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