Strato of Lampsacus - Philosophy

Philosophy

Strato emphasized the need for exact research, and, as an example of this, he made use of the observation of how water pouring from a spout breaks into separate droplets as evidence that falling bodies accelerate.

Whereas Aristotle defined time as the numbered aspect of motion, Strato argued that because motion and time are continuous whereas number is discrete, time has an existence independent of motion. He was critical of Aristotle's concept of place as a surrounding surface, preferring to see it as the space which a thing occupies. He also rejected the existence of Aristotle's fifth element.

He emphasized the role of pneuma, ('breath' or 'spirit') in the functioning of the soul; soul-activities were explained by pneuma extending throughout the body from the 'ruling part' located in the head. All sensation is felt in the ruling-part of the soul, rather than in the extremities of the body; all sensation involves thought, and there is no thought not derived from sensation. He denied that the soul was immortal, and attacked the 'proofs' put forward by Plato in his Phaedo.

Strato believed all matter consisted of tiny particles, but he rejected Democritus' theory of empty space. In Strato's view, void does exist, but only in the empty spaces between imperfectly fitting particles; Space is always filled with some kind of matter. Such a theory permitted phenomena such as compression, and allowed the penetration of light and heat through apparently solid bodies.

The opinions of Strato have given rise to much controversy; but unfortunately the result has been very unsatisfactory on account of lack of information. He seems to have denied the existence of any god outside of the material universe, and to have held that every particle of matter has a plastic and seminal power, but without sensation or intelligence; and that life, sensation, and intellect, are but forms, accidents, and affections of matter.

Nor does his pupil Strato, who is called the natural philosopher, deserve to be listened to; he holds that all divine force is resident in nature, which contains, he says, the principles of birth, increase, and decay, but which lacks, as we could remind him, all sensation and form.

Like the atomists (Leucippus and Democritus) before him, Strato of Lampsacus was a materialist and believed that everything in the universe was composed of matter and energy. Strato was one of the first philosophers to formulate an atheistic worldview, in which God is merely the unconscious force of nature.

You deny that without God there can be anything: but here you yourself seem to go contrary to Strato of Lampsacus, who concedes to God a pardon from a great task. If the priests of God were on vacation, it is much more just that the Gods would also be on vacation; in fact he denies the need to appreciate the work of the Gods in order to construct the world. All the things that exist he teaches have been produced by nature; not hence, as he says, according to that philosophy which claims these things are made of rough and smooth corpuscles, indented and hooked, the void interfering; these, he upholds, are dreams of Democritus which are not to be taught but dreamt. Strato, in fact, investigating the individual parts of the world, teaches that all that which is or is produced, is or has been produced, by weight and motion. Thus he liberates God from a big job and me from fear.

Strato endeavoured to replace the Aristotelian teleology by a purely physical explanation of phenomena, the underlying elements of which he found in heat and cold, with especially heat as the active principle. Although Strato's view of the universe can be seen as atheistic, he would probably have accepted the existence of lesser gods within the universe, and in the context of Greek religion it is unlikely that he would have regarded himself as an atheist.