{"agent_id":"democritus","agent_name":"Democritus","slug":"the-nomos-physis-distinction","label":"The nomos/physis distinction: strict eliminativism about secondary qualities, or softer reading?","topic":"The nomos/physis distinction","question":"Strict eliminativism about secondary qualities, or softer reading?","position":"Sweet, bitter, hot, cold, color, sound, smell — these do not exist as objective properties of things. They are what atomic interactions produce in our sensory apparatus when the *eidōla* (films) streaming from objects strike sense organs whose atomic structure determines the response. The things themselves have only the primary properties of their constituent atoms: size, shape, motion, arrangement. The phenomenal qualities are *nomoi* — conventional names we give to atomic effects on us. The reality is atoms and void. Fragment D16 puts the doctrine in its most condensed form: \"by convention sweet, by convention bitter, by convention hot, by convention cold, by convention colour; but in reality atoms and void.\" The Democritean coinage *eteē* (in reality, in truth — Galen attests this is my word) marks the distinction between the conventional-phenomenal realm and the real-atomic realm. The eliminativism is strict, not relational, not two-aspect: secondary qualities have no reality in the things; they exist only in the affection of perceivers by atomic structures. The softer relational and two-aspect readings preserve a phenomenal-realism that the fragments explicitly deny.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"Sweet, bitter, hot, cold, color, sound, smell — these do not exist as objective properties of things.","n":[]},{"t":"They are what atomic interactions produce in our sensory apparatus when the *eidōla* (films) streaming from objects strike sense organs whose atomic structure determines the response.","n":[]},{"t":"The things themselves have only the primary properties of their constituent atoms: size, shape, motion, arrangement.","n":[]}],[{"t":"The phenomenal qualities are *nomoi* — conventional names we give to atomic effects on us.","n":[]},{"t":"The reality is atoms and void.","n":[]},{"t":"Fragment D16 puts the doctrine in its most condensed form: \"by convention sweet, by convention bitter, by convention hot, by convention cold, by convention colour; but in reality atoms and void.\" The Democritean coinage *eteē* (in reality, in truth — Galen attests this is my word) marks the distinction between the conventional-phenomenal realm and the real-atomic realm.","n":[1,2]}],[{"t":"The eliminativism is strict, not relational, not two-aspect: secondary qualities have no reality in the things; they exist only in the affection of perceivers by atomic structures.","n":[3]},{"t":"The softer relational and two-aspect readings preserve a phenomenal-realism that the fragments explicitly deny.","n":[4,5]}]],"texts":"The verbatim fragment D16 (DK 68 B9 / B125, preserved by Sextus Empiricus, *Against the Mathematicians* VII.135; also Diogenes Laertius IX.72 and Galen, *On Medical Experience* 15.7): 'by convention sweet, by convention bitter, by convention hot, by convention cold, by convention colour; but in reality atoms and void.' The complementary fragments: D15 (DK 68 B117, 'in reality we know nothing; for truth is in the depths'); D17 (DK 68 B9, 'in fact we know nothing firm, but what changes according to the condition of the body and the things that enter it and come up against it'); D18-D21 (the variations on the 'in reality' phrasing). The testimonia: Theophrastus, *De Sensibus* 49-83 (the detailed account of atomist sensation theory); Aristotle, *Metaphysics* IV.5, 1009b7-12 on the relativity of perception; Sextus Empiricus, *Against the Mathematicians* VII.135-140 (the principal source for the eliminativist fragments). Reception: the Lockean primary/secondary qualities distinction (Locke explicitly credits atomism); the Berkeley-Locke debate; Galen on the use of *eteē* as a Democritean coinage for 'in reality'; modern: Taylor (1999), commentary 'Secondary Qualities' pp. 175-9; Furley (1987); Gail Fine, 'Knowledge and Logos in the *Theaetetus*' (1979); J. Annas, 'Truth and Knowledge' (in *Doubt and Dogmatism*, ed. Schofield et al., 1980); Berryman (2009).","works":["The verbatim fragment D16 (DK 68 B9 / B125, preserved by Sextus Empiricus, *Against the Mathematicians* VII.135","also Diogenes Laertius IX.72 and Galen, *On Medical Experience* 15.7): 'by convention sweet, by convention bitter, by convention hot, by convention cold, by convention colour","but in reality atoms and void.' The complementary fragments: D15 (DK 68 B117, 'in reality we know nothing","for truth is in the depths')","D17 (DK 68 B9, 'in fact we know nothing firm, but what changes according to the condition of the body and the things that enter it and come up against it')","D18-D21 (the variations on the 'in reality' phrasing). The testimonia: Theophrastus, *De Sensibus* 49-83 (the detailed account of atomist sensation theory)","Aristotle, *Metaphysics* IV.5, 1009b7-12 on the relativity of perception","Sextus Empiricus, *Against the Mathematicians* VII.135-140 (the principal source for the eliminativist fragments)"],"reception":"the Lockean primary/secondary qualities distinction (Locke explicitly credits atomism); the Berkeley-Locke debate; Galen on the use of *eteē* as a Democritean coinage for 'in reality'; modern: Taylor (1999), commentary 'Secondary Qualities' pp. 175-9; Furley (1987); Gail Fine, 'Knowledge and Logos in the *Theaetetus*' (1979); J. Annas, 'Truth and Knowledge' (in *Doubt and Dogmatism*, ed. Schofield et al., 1980); Berryman (2009).","status":"The interpretation of the *nomos/physis* distinction is the central question in Democritean epistemology and one of the foundational questions in the longer history of primary/secondary qualities. The strict eliminativist reading is most directly supported by the verbatim D16 and is the standard modern consensus (Taylor 1999, Furley 1987, Barnes 1979, KRS 1983). The relational-realist reading has been defended in various forms by readers who emphasize that even on the strict reading the phenomenal qualities exist *as* the affection of perceivers — i.e., relationally. The two-aspect reading emphasizes that Democritus preserves the phenomenal realm as a real domain even while denying it independent existence. The relativity-of- perception fragments (D17, the dependence on bodily condition) have been used to support both Pyrrhonist appropriations (Sextus) and modern relational readings. Locke explicitly credited atomism with the primary/secondary distinction that shaped modern philosophy. The 'wretched mind' fragment (D23) raises a related but distinct question (the epistemological tension between mind and senses) that bears on but does not settle the eliminativist question.","era":"c. 460 - c. 370 BCE","discipline":"Philosophy","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"The Atomists, Leucippus and Democritus","page":"p. 204","canonical":"","quote":"We thus have a dichotomy between how things seem to us and how they are in reality, expressed in the celebrated slogan (D16) 'By convention sweet... in reality atoms and void.' Further, the distinction between the reality of things and the appearances which that reality presents has to be supplemented by an account of the 217 Doctrines: Epistemology causal processes via which we receive those appearances.","label":"The Atomists, Leucippus and Democritus, p. 204"},{"n":2,"work":"The Atomists, Leucippus and Democritus","page":"p. 131","canonical":"","quote":"The overthrow is a fall for you' [= D23]. d. GALEN On the Elements according to Hippocrates 1.2 'For by convention colour, by convention sweet, by convention bitter, but in reality atoms and the void' says Democritus, who thinks that all 131 For the translation see note on D20. 132 A follower of Democritus; see DK 76.","label":"The Atomists, Leucippus and Democritus, p. 131"},{"n":3,"work":"The Atomists, Leucippus and Democritus","page":"pp. 203–204","canonical":"","quote":"Was that thought, then, totally inconsistent? Or can the appearance of systematic contradiction be eliminated or at least mitigated? The former interpretation is based on the atomists' account of the secondary qualities (see above).","label":"The Atomists, Leucippus and Democritus, pp. 203–204"},{"n":4,"work":"The Atomists, Leucippus and Democritus","page":"pp. 163–164","canonical":"","quote":"And in that case, what ground could there be for denying that they actually do have some colour? The reasons for denying the ascription to the atoms go deeper than the contingent fact that all the atoms which human beings encounter are too small to be perceived by human beings.","label":"The Atomists, Leucippus and Democritus, pp. 163–164"},{"n":5,"work":"The Atomists, Leucippus and Democritus","page":"pp. 164–165","canonical":"","quote":"On that conception of an intrinsic property, in which an intrinsic property is an essential property of a kind of thing, it remains to be answered why some secondary quality (or qualities) should not be an intrinsic property (or properties) of an atom.","label":"The Atomists, Leucippus and Democritus, pp. 164–165"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"atomism-s-ontology","label":"Atomism's ontology: are atoms-and-void the fundamental reality in their own right, or specifically engineered as a Parmenidean-response (Furley)?"},{"slug":"anti-teleology","label":"Anti-teleology: rigorous mechanism (necessity + chance), or the 'necessity without reason' charge Aristotle alleged?"},{"slug":"ethics-of-euthymia","label":"Ethics of euthymia: integrated with the atomic physics (Furley), separate ethical project, or inherited popular wisdom?"}]}