Skip to content
Licensed Unlicensed Requires Authentication Published by De Gruyter April 7, 2020

Democritus’ Theory of Colour

  • Kelli Rudolph EMAIL logo
From the journal Rhizomata

Abstract

I argue that Democritus presents a theory of colour in which the predominance of atomic shapes and microstructural arrangements are necessary but not sufficient for colour vision. Focusing primarily on Democritus’ basic colours, I analyse his microstructural account, providing a new analysis of the natural and technological underpinnings of his method of explanation. I argue that the notion of predominance allows Democritus to account for both the variation and the repeatable correspondence of colour perception by setting limits on possible microstructures. This account, however, is complicated by the evidence for a Democritean theory of colour transformation and distorted vision, which arise from a dynamic interplay of features at the level of microstructures and at the level of perception.

Bibliography

Avotins, Ivars (1980): “Alexander of Aphrodisias on Vision in the Atomists”, Classical Quarterly 30, pp. 429–454.10.1017/S0009838800042385Search in Google Scholar

Bailey, Cyril (1928): The Greek Atomists and Epicurus. Oxford: Clarendon.Search in Google Scholar

Baldes, Richard (1975): “Democritus on Visual Perception: Two Theories or One?”, Phronesis 20, pp. 93–105.10.1163/156852875X00012Search in Google Scholar

Baldes, Richard (1978): “Democritus on the Nature and Perception of ‘Black’ and ‘White’”, Phronesis 23, pp. 87–100.10.1163/156852878X00019Search in Google Scholar

Baltussen, Han (2000): Theophrastus against the Presocratics and Plato: Peripatetic Dialectic in the De Sensibus. Leiden: Brill.10.1163/9789004321113Search in Google Scholar

Beare, John (1906): Greek Theories of Elementary Cognition: From Alcmaeon to Aristotle. Oxford: Clarendon. Search in Google Scholar

Beavis, I. C. (1988): Insects and Other Invertebrates in the Classical World. Exeter: Exeter University Publications.10.5949/liverpool/9780859892841.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Beta, Simone and Maria Michaela Sassi, eds. (2003): I colori nel mondo antico: esperienze linguistiche e quadri simbolici (Atti della giornata di studio). Sienna: Edizioni Cadmo.Search in Google Scholar

Blackman, David (1973): “Evidence of Sea Level Change in Ancient Harbours and Coastal Installations”. In: David Blackman (ed.): Marine Archaeology. Bristol: Archon Books, pp. 115–139.Search in Google Scholar

Blackman, David (1982a): “Ancient Harbours in the Mediterranean: Part 1”, International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 11. No. 2, pp. 79–104.10.1111/j.1095-9270.1982.tb00079.xSearch in Google Scholar

Blackman, David (1982b): “Ancient Harbours in the Mediterranean: Part 2”, International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 11. No. 3, pp. 185–211.10.1111/j.1095-9270.1982.tb00079.xSearch in Google Scholar

Bodnár, István (1998): “Atomic Independence and Indivisibility”, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 16, pp. 35–61.Search in Google Scholar

Bradley, Mark (2009): Colour and Meaning in Ancient Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Bruno, Vincent (1977): Form and Colour in Greek Painting. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.Search in Google Scholar

Burkert, Walter (1977): “Air-Imprints or Eidola: Democritus’ Aetiology of Vision”, Illinois Classical Studies 2, pp. 97–109.Search in Google Scholar

Caston, Victor. (2015): “Perception in Ancient Greek Philosophy”. In: Mohan Matthen (ed.): The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Perception. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 29–50.10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199600472.013.036Search in Google Scholar

Clarke, Michael. (2004): “The Semantics of Colour in the Early Greek Word-Hoard”. In: Liza Cleland, Karen Stears, and Glenys Davies (eds.): Colour in the Ancient Mediterranean World, BAR International Series 1267. Oxford: Hedges, pp. 131–139.Search in Google Scholar

Cleland, Liza, Stears, Karen, and Davies, Glenys, eds. (2004). Colour in the Ancient Mediterranean World. BAR International Series 1267. Oxford: Hedges.10.30861/9781841713731Search in Google Scholar

Craddock, Paul, Meeks, Nigel, Cowell, Michael, and Middleton, Andrew (1998): “The Refining of Gold in the Classical World”. In: Dyfri Williams (ed.): The Art of the Greek Goldsmith. London: British Museum Press, pp. 111–138.Search in Google Scholar

Davies, Malcolm and Jeyaraney Kathirithamby (1986): Greek Insects. London: Duckworth.Search in Google Scholar

Diels, Hermann (1879): Doxographi Graeci, Berlin: Reimer.Search in Google Scholar

Dürbeck, Helmut (1977): Zur Charakteristik der griechischen Farbenzeichnungen. Bonn: Habelt.Search in Google Scholar

Egan, R. B. (2004): ‘Eros, Eloquence and Entomo-Psychology in Plato’s Phaedrus’. In: R. B. Egan and M.A. Joyal (eds.): Daimonopylai: Essays in Classics and the Classical Tradition Presented to Edmund G. Berry. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Centre for Hellenic Civilization, pp. 65–87. Search in Google Scholar

English, Robert (1915): “Democritus’ theory of sense perception”, Transactions of the American Philological Association 46, pp. 218–221.10.2307/282943Search in Google Scholar

Ferrini, Maria (1999): Pseudo Aristotele: I Colori. Pisa: Edizioni ETS.Search in Google Scholar

von Fritz, Kurt (1953): “Democritus’ Theory of Vision”. In: Edgar Underwood (ed.): Science, Medicine and History: Essays on the Evolution of Scientific Thought and Medical Practice written in honour of Charles Singer, Volume 1. London-New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 83–99.Search in Google Scholar

Gage, John (1993): Colour and Culture: Practice and Meaning from Antiquity to Abstraction. London, New York: Thames and Hudson Ltd.10.1111/j.1467-8357.1994.tb00136.xSearch in Google Scholar

Gladstone, William (1858): Studies in Homer and the Homeric Age. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Godfrey, Raymond (1990): “Democritus and the Impossibility of Collision”, Philosophy 65, pp. 212–217.10.1017/S0031819100064494Search in Google Scholar

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang (1810): Zur Farbenlehre. Tübingen: J.G. Cotta’schen Buchhandlung.10.5479/sil.414424.39088007009129Search in Google Scholar

Graham, Alexander J. (1992): “Abdera and Teos”, Journal of Hellenic Studies 112, pp. 44–73.10.1163/9789004351066_015Search in Google Scholar

Graham, Daniel (2010): The Texts of Early Greek Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Guthrie, William K. C. (1965): A History of Greek Philosophy Volume 2: The Presocratic Tradition from Parmenides to Democritus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Hahm, David (1978): “Early Hellenistic Theories of Vision and the Perception of Color”. In: Peter Machamer and Robert Turnbull (eds.): Studies in Perception: Interrelations in the History of Philosophy and Science. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, pp. 60–95.Search in Google Scholar

Hankinson, Robert J. (1996): The Sceptics. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Ierodiakonou, Katerina (2004): “Empedocles and the Ancient Painters”. In: Liza Cleland, Karen Stears, and Glenys Davies (eds.): Colour in the Ancient Mediterranean World, BAR International Series 1267. Oxford: Hedges, pp. 91–95.Search in Google Scholar

Ierodiakonou, Katerina (2005): “Empedocles on Colour and Colour Vision”, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 29, pp. 1–38.Search in Google Scholar

Irwin, Eleanor (1974): Colour Terms in Greek Poetry. Toronto: Hakkert.Search in Google Scholar

Isaac, Benjamin H. (1986): The Greek Settlements in Thrace until the Macedonian Conquest. Leiden: Brill.Search in Google Scholar

Kline, A. David and Carl Matheson (1987): “The Logical Impossibility of Collision”, Philosophy 62, pp. 509–515.10.1017/S0031819100039061Search in Google Scholar

Κουκούλη-Χρυσανθάκη, Χάιδω (1990): “Άβδηρα”, Το Ἐργον της Ἀρχαιολογικής Εταιρείας 37, pp. 97–105.Search in Google Scholar

Κουκούλη-Χρυσανθάκη, Χάιδω (1991 [1994]): “Ανασκαφή αρχαίων Αβδήρων”, Πρακτικά Αρχαιολογικής Εταιρείας 146, pp. 193–199.Search in Google Scholar

Kranz, Walther (1912): “Die ältesten Farbenlehren der Griechen”, Hermes 47, pp. 126–140.Search in Google Scholar

Laks, André (1988): “Parménide dans Théophraste, De sensibus 3–4”, La Parola del Passato 43, pp. 262–280.Search in Google Scholar

Lazarides, Demetrios I. (1971): Thasos and its Peraia. Athens: Athens Center of Ekistics. Search in Google Scholar

Lee, Mi-Kyoung (2005): Epistemology after Protagoras: Responses to Relativism in Plato, Aristotle and Democritus. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/0199262225.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Lloyd, G. E. R. (1982): “Observational error in late Greek science”. In: Jonathan Barnes, Jacques Brunschwig, Myles Burnyeat, and Malcolm Schofield (eds.): Science and Speculation: Studies in Hellentistic Theory and Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 128–164.Search in Google Scholar

Long, Anthony (1996): “Theophrastus’ De Sensibus on Plato”. In: Keimpe Algra, Pieter van der Horst, and David Runia (eds.): Polyhistor: Studies in the History and Historiography of Ancient Philosophy Presented to Jaap Mansfeld on his Sixtieth Birthday. Leiden: Brill, pp. 345–362.Search in Google Scholar

Luria, Salomon (2007 [1970]): Democrito: Raccolta dei frammenti, interpretazione e commentario di Salomon Luria. Milan: Bompiani.Search in Google Scholar

Maxwell-Stewart, P.G. (1979): “Democritus on the Colour White (Theophrastus, De Sensu 73)”, Liverpool Classical Monthly 4. No. 9: pp. 197–198.Search in Google Scholar

Maxwell-Stewart, P.G. (1981): Studies in Greek Colour Terminology. Leiden: Brill.10.1163/9789004327856Search in Google Scholar

McDiarmid, John (1962): “The Manuscripts of Theophrastus’ De Sensibus”, Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 44, pp. 1–32.Search in Google Scholar

Müller-Boré, Kaete (1922): Stilistische Untersuchungen zum Farbwort und zur Verwendung der Farbe in der älteren griechischen Poesie. Berlin: E. Ebering (Diss., Kiel Univ.).Search in Google Scholar

O’Brien, Denis (1984): “Théories atomistes de la vision: Démocrite et le problème de la fourmi céleste”. In: L. G. Benakis (ed.): Proceedings of the First International Congress on Democritus, Volume 2. Xanthi: International Democritean Foundation, pp. 27–61.Search in Google Scholar

Osborne, H. (1968): “Colour Concepts of the Ancient Greeks”, British Journal of Aesthetics 8, pp. 269–283.10.1093/bjaesthetics/8.3.269Search in Google Scholar

Photos, E. (1987): Early Extractive Iron Metallurgy in N. Greece: A Unified Approach to Regional Archaeometallurgy, Institute of Archaeology, London, PhD.Search in Google Scholar

Platnauer, Maurice (1921): “Greek Colour-Perception”, Classical Quarterly 15, pp. 155–162.10.1017/S0009838800000616Search in Google Scholar

Prantl, Carl (1849): Aristoteles: Über die Farben. Erläutert durch eine Übersicht der Farbenlehre der Alten, Munich: Christian Kaiser.Search in Google Scholar

Ramage, Andrew and Craddock, Paul (2000): King Croesus’ Gold: Excavations at Sardis and History of Gold Refining. London: British Museum Publications Ltd.Search in Google Scholar

Rouveret, Agnès, Dubel, Sandrine and Naas, Valérie, eds. (2006): Couleurs et matières dans l’antiquité. Paris: Éditions Rue d’ Ulm/Presses de l’École normale supérieure.Search in Google Scholar

Rowe, C. J. (1974): “Conceptions of Colour and Colour-Symbolism in the Ancient World”. In: Adolf Portmann and Rudolf Ritsema (eds.): The Realms of Colour: Eranos Yearbook 41–1972, Leiden: Brill, pp. 327–364.Search in Google Scholar

Rudolph, Kelli (2009): Reading Theophrastus: A Reconstruction of Democritus’ Physics of Perception, Faculty of Classics, Cambridge, PhD.Search in Google Scholar

Rudolph, Kelli (2011): “Democritus’ Perspectival Theory of Vision”, Journal of Hellenic Studies 131, pp. 67–83.10.1017/S007542691100005XSearch in Google Scholar

Rudolph, Kelli (2016): “Sight and the Presocratics: Approaches to Visual Perception in Early Greek Philosophy”. In: Michael Squire (ed.): Sight and the Ancient Senses. London, New York: Routledge, pp. 36–53.Search in Google Scholar

Rudolph, Kelli (2018a): “Theophrastus and the Authority of the De Sensibus”. In: Jenny Bryan, Robert Wardy and James Warren (eds.): Authors and Authorities in Ancient Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 139–161.10.1017/9781108186650.008Search in Google Scholar

Rudolph, Kelli (2018b): “Tastes of Reality: Epistemology and the Senses in Ancient Philosophy”. In: Kelli Rudolph (ed.): Taste and the Ancient Senses. London, New York: Routledge, pp. 45–59.10.4324/9781315719245-3Search in Google Scholar

Samiou, C. (1993): “Ancient Ports of Abdera in Aegean Thrace”. In: Chares Tzalas (ed.): Fifth International Symposium on Ship Construction in Antiquity. TROPIS 5. Athens: Hellenic Institute for the Preservation of Nautical Tradition, pp. 363–368.Search in Google Scholar

Sassi, Maria Michaela (1978): Le teorie della percezione in Democrito. Florence: La Nuova Italia.Search in Google Scholar

Sassi, Maria Michaela (1994): “Una percezione imperfetta? I greci e la definizione dei colori”, L’Immagine Riflessa 2, pp. 281–302.Search in Google Scholar

Sassi, Maria Michaela (2003): “Il problema della definizione antica del colore, fra storia e antropologia”. In: Simone Beta and Maria Michaela Sassi (eds.): I colori nel mondo antico: esperienze linguistiche e quadri simbolici: Atti della giornata di studio. Sienna: Edizioni Cadmo, pp. 9–24.Search in Google Scholar

Sassi, Maria Michaela (2005): “L’esperienza del colore nel mondo Greco”. In: Marriavittoria Gallina (ed.): I greci: il sacro e il quotidiano. Milan: Cinsello Balsamo, pp. 119–129.Search in Google Scholar

Schindler, Maria (1964): Goethe’s Theory of Colour. London: New Knowledge.Search in Google Scholar

Sedley, David (1992): “Empedocles’ Theory of Vision and Theophrastus’ De Sensibus”. In: William Fortenbaugh and Dimitri Gutas (eds.): Theophrastus: His Psychological, Doxographical and Scientific Writings, RUSCH V. London, New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, pp. 20–31.Search in Google Scholar

Sharples, Robert (2003): “Theophrastus: On Dizziness”. In: William Fortenbaugh, Robert Sharples and Michael Sollenberger (eds. and trans.): Theophrastus of Eresus: On Sweat, On Dizziness, and On Fatigue. Leiden: Brill, pp. 170–249.Search in Google Scholar

Siegel, Ruth (1959): “Theories of Vision and Color Perception of Empedocles and Democritus: Some Similarities to the Modern Approach”, Bulletin for the History of Medicine 33. No. 2, pp. 145–57.Search in Google Scholar

Stratton, George (1917): Theophrastus and the Greek Physiological Psychology before Aristotle. London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd.10.1037/13839-000Search in Google Scholar

Struycken, Peter (2003): “Colour Mixtures According to Democritus and Plato”, Mnemosyne 56. No. 3, pp. 273–305.10.1163/156852503768181040Search in Google Scholar

Tanner, Jeremy. (2016): “Sight and painting: optical theory and pictorial poetics in Classical Greek art”. In: Michael Squire (ed.): Sight and the Ancient Senses. London, New York: Routledge, pp. 107–22.Search in Google Scholar

Taylor, C. C. W. (1999): The Atomists: Leucippus and Democritus. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Search in Google Scholar

Tiverios, Michalis (2008): “Greek Colonisation of the Northern Aegean”. In: Gocha Tsetskhladze (ed.): Greek Colonisation: An Account of Greek Colonies and Other Settlements Overseas. Leiden: Brill, pp. 1–154.Search in Google Scholar

Thompson, D’Arcy (1947): A Glossary of Greek Fishes. London: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Veckenstedt, Edmund (1888): Geschichte der griechischen Farbenlehre. Paderborn: Druck und Verlag von Ferdinand Schöningh.Search in Google Scholar

Villard, Laurence (2002): “Couleurs et maladies dans la Collection Hippocratique”. In: Laurence Villard (ed.): Couleurs et vision dans l’antiquité classique. Rouen: Publications de l’Université de Rouen.Search in Google Scholar

Wye, Kenneth (1991): The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Shells. London: Facts on File.Search in Google Scholar

Young, D. (1964): “The Greeks’ Colour Sense”, Review of the Society for Hellenic Travel 4, pp. 42–46.Search in Google Scholar

Published Online: 2020-04-07
Published in Print: 2020-03-26

© 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Downloaded on 1.5.2024 from https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/rhiz-2019-0012/html
Scroll to top button