Between Materialism and Immaterialism

Philosophical Atomism in India and Greece

Between Materialism and Immaterialism: Philosophical Atomism in India and Greece

(A comparative perspective)1

Victoria Lysenko

Institute of Philosophy, Russian Academy of Sciences

The molecule was composed of atoms, and the atom was

nowhere large enough even to be spoken of as extraordin-

ary small. It was so small, such a tiny, early, transitional

mass, a coagulation of the unsubstantial, of the non-yet-

substantial and yet substance-like, of energy, that it was

scarcely possible to think of it as material, but rather as

mean and borderline between material and immaterial.

Thomas Manni

Philosophical atomism is a well known doctrine usually closely associated with a realistic

and mechanistic outlook representing the material universe as composed of indivisible minute

corpuscles. But if we try to identify the nature of these atoms in philosophical terms, we find

ourselves entrapped into a net of problems and contradictions. Are these atoms indivisible

because of their hardness and solidity (from the Greek atomos “uncuttable”, “indivisible”),

because of their extreme smallness, or because of their status of transcendental metaphysical

entities? Are they solid material bodies having whatever small spatial extension, or non-

extensional points? Suppose, they were bodies, but bodies have sides - front, back etc. which

may be identified as their parts. Even a mere possibility of these “parts’ would run counter the

idea of the partlessness and indivisibility of atoms. If they were points without extension they

could not constitute material things, as an addition of non-extensive points would never overpass

a point. This kind of anti-atomistic arguments occurring in Greek, Indian or Arab atomism, may

be roughly summarized in a single statement: The atom is torn, as it were, between the necessity

to be a material body (since the minutest of material bodies must be itself a material body) – and

the impossibility to be so (since such a body even being physically indivisible is subjected to

mental division).

1 Published in: Materialism and Immaterialism in India and Europe. Ed. Partha Ghose. PHISPC 12(5), Centre for Studies in Civilizations, Delhi, 2010, p.253-268.


Nevertheless, in spite of all its logical complexities and problematical character, the

idea of atoms as constitutive ultimate blocks (or “bricks”) of the universe has become one of the

first and the most efficient explanatory models in the history of theoretical thought. How was it

possible that long before the experimental discovery of the atom, long before the appearance of

quantum physics with its theories and sophisticated equipment, there arose in two great

civilizations of Antiquity -- Greece and India -- the idea of ultimate constitutive parts of things?

If we suppose that it was a result of the observation of some general modes of human activity

like constructing something from parts, for example a house or an altar from bricks, or like

destruction of things down to some further indivisible parts, then why did this idea not arise in

other civilizations, like Egypt, or Mesopotamia, or China with their highly sophisticated

construction techniques? That leads us to assume that the presuppositions of this idea are rather

of mental than of a purely practical order.

Does the more or less parallel birth of atomism in Greece and in India result from

influence or of borrowingii? Till now we do not dispose of any facts proving that Indian thinkers

have imported this idea from the Greek atomists or vice versa. Any exchange of ideas is not only

a matter of contacts between two civilizations (of course, there were some iii), but rather a matter

of culturally determined availability and openness of one culture towards the ideas coming from

outside. As the Indian tradition was rather self-centered and resisted any external influence, it

seems hardly possible that Indian atomism had the Greek originsiv.

In this paper, I try to outline some theoretical or intellectual presuppositions of the

atomistic doctrine, leaving aside the questions either of possible borrowing or of chronological

priority of one or the other atomistic traditionv. The long-term goal of this paper is to find

support for the idea that Indian and Greek forms of atomism share a common root in a basic

language type. As preliminary support this paper introduces a methodology of comparative

analysis and a description of the Greek and Indian philosophies of atomism in terms of their

most important common features and differences.

Thus, excluding a factor of influence of one tradition over the other, we are left with, at

least, two series of data. First, their common Indo-European substrate - a basic alphabetic

principle characteristic of the Indo-European language familyvi, and some similar structural

generating schematizations proper to their respective languages – the Sanskrit and the Greek :

from letters (phonemes) to syllables, from syllables to parts of the word (prefixes, radicals,

suffixes, endings), from words to phrases. Greeks directly referred to letters as an image of

atomsvii. Indian tradition, being mainly oral, presented similarly clear parallels between atoms

and phonemesviii. It is quite symptomatic that the Sanskrit terms for “atoms” – aṇu and

paramāṇu - were widely used in the ancient Indian phonetic tradition (śīkṣā)ix. There is a rather


mysterious statement of Bhartṛhari in his Vākyapadīya (I.110): “It has been accepted by different

(thinkers) that wind, atoms, cognition, become śabda (word, sound, language)”. The view that

the atoms become ‘śabda’ is attributed by different scholars to the traditional Jaina view on

speech and languagex. Some Indian and Western scholars believe that the idea of atomic

structure of sound/word’s (śabda) was part of the world outlook of many Indian thinkers,

Buddhists and Jainas includedxi. If we take in account the generally accepted view that the Jaina

atomism had been the most ancient among other atomistic traditions of India, a connection

i Thomas Mann. The Magic Mountain, in Collected Work, Alfred A. Knopf, 1927, vol. 1, p. 359.

ii The scholars who believed in borrowing disagree as to who has borrowed from whom. According to R. Garbe,

Indian atomism, as the more ancient one, influenced Greek atomism (see R.Garbe. The Philosophy of Ancient India.

Chicago, 1897, p.38), while A. Keith held to the idea of a Greek influence over Indian atomism (see: A.Keith.

Indian Logic and Atomism. An Exposition of the Nyāya and Vaiśeṣika System. Oxford, 1921, p. 18).iii See for example:N.M. Chapekar. Ancient India and Greece: A Study of their Cultural contacts. Delhi, 1977; H.

Rawlinson. Intercourse between India and the Western World. From the Earliest Times to the Fall of Rome . New

York, 1971; iv About the lack of xenological interest in India see: Wilhelm Halbfass. India and Europe. An Essay of

Understanding. Chapter 11.Traditional Indian Xenology. SUNY Press, 1988, p. 172-196.v Some new data and hypothesis are extensively discussed in: McEvilley’s Shape of Ancient thought. Comparative

Studies in Greek and Indian Philosophies. New York: Allworth Press, 2002.

vi Joseph Needham was one of the first to connect the emergence of atomism with the alphabetic principle on which

the great majority of written languages rests. He refers to the parallel between the limitless variety of words

formable from the relatively few letters of the alphabet, and to the idea that a very small number of ―elementary

particles could, in a multitude of combinations, engender the limitless variety of material bodies (Joseph Needham.

Science and Civilization in China. Volume 4, Physics and Physical Technology, Part. 1. Cambridge University

Press, 1962, p.26(b). The idea of the deep structural influence of the alphabetic system on the Greek philosophy of

nature and mathematics was developed by the Russian sinologist Artem I. Kobzev. See: Ucheniye o symvolah i

chislah v kitayskoy klassicheskoy filosofii (Teaching about Symbols and Numbers in Traditional Chinese

Philosophy). Moscow: Oriental Literature, 1994.

vii Aristotle illustrates three modes of difference between physical objects in terms of

modifications in the

shape, arrangement, and position of the atoms with the examples of the letters A and N, AN and NA, and Ј and H. viii For example, Vasubandhu in his Abhidharmakośabhāṣya (Part III.Lokanirdeṣa, kar. 85) states: “Atom, phoneme

and moment are the limit [of division] of sensory matter (rūpa), name and time”.

ix In the Riktantra (41), aṇu is equivalent to the half of mātrā and paramāṇu to the interval between two varṇas

(phonemes). In the Vājasaneyi-prātiśākhya (1.59-61), aṇu is 1/4 of mātrā, while paramāṇu – 1/8 of mātrā. In the

Sabhuśīkṣā, aṇu is defined as imperceptible by senses, in the Lomaṣiśikṣā, aṇu is compared with the mote in the

sunbean. In A Dictionary of Sanskrit Grammar ( āāā KaṣinathVasudevbhyankar Oriental Institute,

Baroda, 1961), aṇu is defined as

ethe mātrā.


between ‘phonetic’ and philosophical forms of atomism may become a possibility worth of a

more profound research.

There is another, this time rather indirect, proof of this “linguistic” hypothesis through a

negative example. One of the first Vaiśeṣika texts (Candramati’s Daśapadārthaśāstra)

containing the idea of atoms was translated into the Chinese language as early as the 5th century

ADxii, but this idea did not produce any impact on the Chinese thoughtxiii, because there were no

linguistic and hence no intellectual means to assimilate and develop itxiv.

Though some common linguistic factors – morphology of words, syntactical structure of

the sentence -- may serve as a model for constructing the indefinite number of objects of

different complexity from some simple constitutive elements, they prove to be a necessary but

not an indispensable condition. Otherwise, why there are no traces of atomism in other Indo-

European civilizations, for instance in Ancient Persia?

But what then constitutes a necessary and indispensable condition? Here, we have to

deal with a second series of data - a certain structure of theoretical thinking provided by the

means of the above-mentioned Indo-European linguistic patternsxv. We think theoretically when

we are trying to understand what things are through their internal, intrinsic nature, through their

essence and not appearance. The atoms are something that we could not see the way we observe

ordinary things, thus their existence must be proved indirectly, for example, through an analogy

x Jan Houben in his paper Bhatṛhari’s Familiarity with Jainism, refers to Sūryanārāyanna Śukla, Gaurinath Śāstri

and others (Annals BORI LXXXV 1994, p. 8-10).xi See, for example, J. Bronkhorst. Studies on Bhartṛihari 5. Bhartṛihari and Vaiṣeśika. - Asiatische Studien/ Études

Asiatiques, 47.1, p. 86.

xii In language,paramāṇu tas ’’aṇu as ‘’. See

Ui, Hakuju. Vaiṣeśika Philosophy according to the Daśapadārthaśāstra. Chinese text, English translation and

notes. London, 1917. xiii I am not talking here about the Buddhist Abhidharmic and later Yogācāra texts also translated into Chinese

beginning from the 3-rd century onwards. Some of them presented the Buddhist atomistic doctrine, but it was not

elaborated by the Chinese thinkers in their own doctrines. xiv Explaining why in China atomism never really took root Joseph Needham observes, that the Chinese written

character is an organic whole, a Gestalt, and minds accustomed to an ideographic language would perhaps hardly

have been so open to the idea of an atomic constitution of matter. As Needham points out, however, the Chinese

recognized the function of the atomic principle in numerous contexts, for example the reduction of written

characters to radicals, the composition of melodies from the notes of the pentatonic scale, and the representation of

Nature through the permutations and combinations of the broken and unbroken lines in the hexagrams of their

ancient work of divination the I Ching (Op. cit. ). The fact that atomism developed in Greece but not in China is also

discussed by Artem Kobzev (op. cit., p. 347-348 et al.) and Jean-Paul Reding in the Chapter "Words for Atoms—

Atoms for Words" (J.P Reding. Comparative Essays in Early Greek and Chinese Rational Thinking, Ashgate,

2004).


with observable facts (the most widespread is the analogy with dust motes in a sunbeam), or

through logical inference (a necessity to postulate a terminal point for the process of dividing

things into their parts). As far as the theoretical origins of atomism are concerned, it is

indispensable that certain philosophical problematizations are articulated and - what is even

more important - receive different interpretations and solutions. These are problems of whole

and parts, cause and effect, essence and appearance, one and many, continuity and discontinuity.

Philosophical mind is always trying to create a coherent and logically justified world

view, a sort of optical device through which the real world would be represented as an integrated

whole, a common horizon of meaning. Philosophical doctrines, in as much as they try to justify

such a holistic world outlook may be regarded as models of wholeness (integrity, continuity,

completeness, consistency, continuity, and entirety). I believe that the presence and development

of, at least, two models of wholeness constitute an important theoretical precondition of

atomism.

The first type refers to a single eternal principle possessing absolute unity and plenitude

of being, deprived of any real parts, qualitative distinctions, change and modification. This

pursuit of unity may be regarded as a presupposition for all rational science. As Andrew G.M.

van Melsen observes, “Without fundamental unity, no universal laws are possible, without

fundamental immutability, no laws covering past, present and future can be valid”xvi. If such kind

of model is challenged by the necessity to justify multitude and change, it reduced them to

illusion, ignorance, opinion. The most representative examples of this radical ‘monistic’ model in

India seems to be the Upaniṣadic idea of the eternal Brahman/Ātman (as a single reality

(developed in the Advaita-Vedānta of Shankara), in Greece - the doctrine of Eleates.

The diametrically opposite type of models represents a kind of additive whole, a

mechanical sum of homogeneous or heterogeneous parts. In this model, which I call ‘atomistic’,

discontinuity and multitude are not only the original but also the only real state of things, while

oneness, continuity and wholeness are regarded as constructed, artificial and, in the final

analysis, illusory. If the first model reduces discontinuity to continuity, change to permanence,

and multitude to a single principle, the second lays stress on discontinuity, change and multitude.

In India it is a theory of dharmas of the Buddhists Abhidharmic authors, in Greece - Leucippus-

Democritus’ atomistic doctrinexvii.

xv I can refer here to the fact that in the Sanskrit as well as in the Ancient Greek distinctions were made between

substance (noun, substantive), attributes (adjective), motion (verb), between being as presence and being as

becoming (Sanskrit as and bhu), between subject and object of knowledge (viṣaya and viṣayin), space and time etc..xvi “Atomism” in Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2nd edition, ed. Donald M. Borchert, Macmillan, New York etc.,vol.1,

p. 384.


Along with ‘monistic’ and ‘atomistic’ models, a third type of models relevant to the

atomism has been developed in Indian thought (with no clear counterpart in Greece): a whole is

something more than a mere mechanical addition of parts, it is closely connected to them

through the relation of inherence (samavāya). I call this model ‘holistico-atomistic’. It was

specially elaborated in the Vaiśeṣika and Nyāya systems. Its main difference from the Buddhist

‘atomistic’ model consists in the idea that atoms are enduring substances (and not the momentary

phenomena of the Buddhists) constituting things not directly through their mere collecting

together (as in the Buddhist atomism) but through some intermediate “molecules” – dyads and

triads. These latter are the most elementary (atomic) wholes integrity of which, as we will see

later, calls for a special metaphysical justification.

According to the substance-quality relationship, atomism may be classified into three

main types – “substantial” (atoms are permanent substances, their qualities are secondary and

changeable), “qualitative” (atoms are properties), and “intermediate” (both substance and

qualities participate in atom’s identity). The most consistent exemplification of the “substantial”

atomism seems to be the Jaina doctrine (atoms are qualitatively homogeneous substances) in

India, and the atomistic doctrine of Leucippus-Democritus in Greece. The “qualitative” atomism

is represented in India by the Buddhist Abhidharmic theory of dharmas (where dharmas are a

kind of “phenomenological” properties without underlying substance); in Greece - by the theory

of Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, according to which there are as many qualitatively different

“atoms” (he called them “seeds”) as there are different qualified substances in nature. The

Vaiśeṣika atomism, which I will examine later on in more details, represents the third type.

The three models of wholes and their varieties discussed so far, as I will show further on,

were logically interdependent in the sense that each of them carried to its logical conclusion gave

birth to problems calling for the help of some other.

With regard to the problem of the linguistic presuppositions of atomism, it is very

important to note that in India from the very early time, language has become a subject of a

specialized theoretical reflection. It is namely in two modes of recitation of the Vedic hymns that

xvii We may also call ‘atomistic’ or ‘atomism’ in a larger sense of the word any doctrine of the reducibility of the

complex to the simple: in this sense, one can identify epistemological atomism with its units of perception; linguistic

atomism with its alphabetic principle; logical atomism, postulating atomic or elementary propositions; biological

atomism, with its discrete organic units (cells or genes); and, surely, mathematical atomism, namely, the doctrine—

originating with the Pythagoreans of the 6th century BCE—that all mathematical concepts are ultimately reducible

to numbers. One can also mention the atomistic doctrines of space, time and movement. For me all these kinds of

‘atomism’ are exemplifications of the atomistic style of thinking (See my paper "Atomistic Mode of Thinking" as

Exemplified by the Vaiśeṣika Philosophy of Number, in: Asiatische Studien/ Études Asiatiques, XLVIII, 2, 1994, p.

781-806).


we find the first exemplifications of the “monistic” and “atomistic” models: the first one is

padapасha (recitation by words) and the second is saṃhitаpасha (continuous recitation), both

were proposed in the “phonetics” (śikṣā), one of the earliest Vedic ‘disciplines’xviii.

In the Rik-Pratiśākhya (II.1), an expression: saṃhitā padaprakṛtiḥ gave rise to a

problem: which of the two (saṃhitā or pada) was meant to be the basis (prakṛti) of the other? If

the compound padaprakṛtiḥ is interpreted as determinative, the sense of the expression is: "the

saṃhitа is the basis of the pada", but if this compound is understood as possessive, we may read

the phrase the other way: "the saṃhita has the pada as its basis". The difference of opinion

among commentators of this text is suggestive of the two possibilities: either the Veda was

created word after word as an additive whole (the atomistic model) or it from time immemorial

presented itself as one indivisible totality which was subsequently divided into conventional

parts – words etc. (the monistic model)xix.

But what is even more important with regard to these speculative possibilities is the fact

that Indian thinkers did not simply used Sanskrit (as Greeks thinkers used Greek), did not simply

dwell in it (if we recall the famous Heidegger’s expression ‘Language is the house of Being’),

but, from the very early times, made it a subject of analysis and theoretization (Indian

Vyākaraṇa was the earliest linguistic science in the history of mankindxx).

This fact explains for me the much more important role of atomism in India as compared

with the atomistic tradition in Greece. The atomistic doctrine has gradually become a

constitutive part of a pan-Indian philosophy of nature, shared or systematically challenged – in

more or in less degree - by thinkers of the majority of Indian philosophical schools. Among the

atomists we find the Jainas, Ājīvikas, Buddhists (Abhidharmist thinkers), Vaiśeṣikas and

Nāyaiyikas, Mīmāṃsākas, some Vedāntists (dualistic school of Madhva) and even the later

followers of Sāṃkhya which introduced atoms along their traditional tanmātras (“fine

xviii The Pratiṣākhyas, the oldest phonetic texts dealing with the manner in which the Vedas are to be enunciated are

dated as early as 500 BCE.

xix Later, Bhartṛhari (fifth century AD) in his concept of the sentence-meaning (Vākyapadīya, II,41-48), while

expressing his commitment to the monistic model (sentence is indivisible meaning-bearer; words are but

conventional constructions of the Grammarians), proposed other kinds of approaches to this problem under the

rubrics of khaṇḍapakṣa (opinions about divisibility of sentence-meaning), some of which are presented as two

different interpretations of the śabdasaṃghāta – the point of view according to which the sentence-meaning is

composed of the word-meanings: in one case the word-meanings are the same inside and outside the sentence

(atomistic model of additive whole), in the other, words obtain their meaning only inside the sentence due to their

relation with each other (holistico-atomistic model).xx The great Indian grammarian Pāṇini (c.450-350 BCE) mentioned the names of his predecessors - other

grammarians, etymologists and phoneticians. It means that at that time grammar and other sciences already existed

as established traditions.


elements”). Among their opponents - the Yogācāra and Mādhyamika Buddhists and the

Advaita-Vedāntins. Thus, almost all the participants of Indian philosophical community took

part (especially during the period of the Buddhist-Brahmanical controversies) in the discussion

of atomistic doctrines.

In Greece, the atomistic tradition, in the strict sense of the word, was rather marginal as

compared with the Platonian idealism and, especially, with the Aristotelian mainstream

qualitative philosophy of nature and its late Hellenistic and Medieval scholastic developments in

Europe and the Middle East.

What was the relationship of our atomistic thinkers to the monistic models developed in

their respective traditions?

It is generally recognized that in Greek philosophy, Leucippus and his disciple

Democritus (fifth century BC)xxi elaborated their theory of atoms and void as an attempt to

reconcile the sense-data experience with the Eleatic monism. According to Parmenides,

illusionary sensory image due to opinion (doxa) should be discarded for the mind could

contemplate the eternal peace, identity, unity, oneness, homogeneity, density of the immutable

true being as its own naturexxii. Aristotle was the first to suggest that Leucippus and Democritus

attributed properties of Parmenide’s ungenerated, indestructible, unalterable, homogeneous,

solid, and indivisible Being to atoms, and recognized the reality of the non-being in the form of

void to justify the multiplicity and change. Though the opinion had been thus reinstated in its

right to pronounce something reliable about Reality, Democritus retained Parmenide’s division

between the way of truth and the way of opinion in the form of , accordingly, “legitimate

knowledge” (of atoms and void), and ‘bastard knowledge” (of gross objects given us by the

senses), and for this reason true only by convention (Fr. 9)xxiii. Nevertheless, in another fragment

(Fr.125), mind is presented as somehow based on the senses, though it examines their data

critically.

Thus, the atomistic doctrine of Leucippus-Democritus has been developed on the basis

of some presuppositions common with the monistic model of Eleates. An atom is indivisible for

xxi No writings by Leucippus or Democritus have survived; all we possess is just a few fragments cited in the works of other ancient authors. One of the most important collections of these fragments can be found in Hermann Diels’s Die Fragmente derVorsokratiker, Vol. II, 6th ed., with additions by WaltherKranz, ed. (Berlin, 1952). There is an English translation of the fragments in Kathleen Freeman, Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UniversityPress, 1948; see also more recent collection in Salomo Luria. Democritus. Texts. Translation. Research. Leningrad 1970.xxii “Thinking and the thought that it is are the same; For not without what is, in which it is expressed”. (The Way of

Truth, B 8.34-36) For thought and being are the same”. (Ibid. B 3). See:

http://parmenides.com/about_parmenides/ParmenidesPoem.html?page=12.

xxiii The most important source for Democritus’s theory of knowledge is Sextus Empiricus (see

Diels etc. op. cit.)


the same reason as Parmenide’s Being (division presupposes void, atom’s solidity excludes any

void). Both (Eleats and Atomists) accepted that Being is something immutable, ungenerated,

indestructible, unalterable, homogeneous etc., both regarded void as a condition of multiplicity

and motion, both drew a distinction between true knowledge and opinion, both agree on the

impossibility of qualitative change (Democritus reduced it to quantitative change). In fact, the

atoms were a sort of miniature Parmenidean Beings, separated by void.

In India, some atomistic worldviews were opposed to the monistic model more

radically than it was the case with Eleats and Leucippus-Democritus. So the Buddhists of the

Abhidharma schools completely rejected permanence, substantiality and continuity of one single

principle like the Brahman/Ātman of the Upaniṣads, or eternal elements in the doctrine of

Pakuda Kaccāyanaxxiv (these essentialist doctrines were classified in the Buddhist literature under

the rubric of ‘ṣaśvatavāda’, doctrine of permanence). In the Abhidharmic ontology, static being

had been replaced with momentary becoming, and enduring substance - with series of dharmas

(point-instances).

However, from the Buddhist soteriological perspective, the atomistic doctrine meant to

represent not the world as it really exists independently of our knowledge, but the world that one

should experience and understand in order to get free from his or her enslavement in the

saṃsāra. In other words, the Buddhist atomistic views were epistemologically and

psychologically instrumental and practical, unlike the contemplative and theoretical

schematizations of the Greek Atomists. In the final analysis, the Buddhist’s atomistic doctrine

seems to be rather a by-product of their theory of dharmas (developed along with it during the

first half of the first millennium, but not being present in the early Buddhismxxv), than an

independent and systematic philosophy of nature.

Atoms (paramāṇu) are ultimate units of the sensitive matter (rūpa) existing in the

series (santāna) of point-instants (kṣaṇa) constituting the material things as well as the sense-

organs (indriya) fit for grasping them (the like grasps the like). The Vaibhaṣikas distinguished

between two types of paramāṇu – singular (dravya-paramāṇu) and collective (saṃghata-

paramāṇu). The singular atom is generated by the four great elements (mahābhūta) represented

by their main properties (for example, hardness and action of supporting for earth, moisture and

xxiv According to the theory which was attributed to this Ājīvika in the Buddhist Samaññaphalasutta or in the Jaina

Sūtrakṛtāṅga, there are seven eternal and immutable elements earth, air, fire, water, joy, sorrow and life (joy and

sorrow are comparable with Empedocles’ love and hate).xxv The idea of material atom (here material means possessing the property of resistance to impact or impermeability

– sapratighata) is explicitly formulated in the Abhidharmahṛdaya of Dharmaṣri (2nd century AD), further developed

in the Mahāvibhāṣa and especially in works of Vasubandhu and Sañghabhadra. The position of the Sarvāstivāda-

Vaibhaṣika is systematically exposed by Vasubandhu in his “Abhidharmakoṣabhāṣya”.


action of cohesion for water etc.); it has no parts or extension, and exists only in company of

other singular atoms. The minimal “collective” atom has eight components (four elements, four

properties derived from them, like color-form, smell, taste, touch). Other varieties of ‘collective’

atoms may include four sense-capacities. Each atom contains an equal portion of all the eight

components (four mahābhūtas and four bhautikas), therefore the distinction between, say, the

atom of earth from the atoms of other elements is explained by the predominance (adhika) of

action of supporting. A comparison inevitably comes to mind between the Buddhist idea of atom

as a cluster of properties and Anaxagoras qualitative atomism, especially, his idea that every

thing contains all possible kinds of “seeds” and is named after the seed that predominates in it.

So, sense-qualities and sense-faculties considered by the Buddhists as ‘atoms’ had been

only subjective and, therefore, not fully reliable sensations for Leucippus-Democritus. According

to the latter, all the apparent differences between gross things in sight, smell, taste and touch

perceived by our senses (called “secondary properties” further on) can be reduced to

modifications in shapes, size, arrangement and position (called “primary properties” further on)

of atoms. Democritus elaborated a detailed correspondence between specific tastes, colors,

smells, and so on to specific shapes and sizesxxvi.

Nevertheless, in spite of that principle differences between the Buddhists and Leucippus-

Democritus, both rejected reasoning in terms of final causes, or prime mover. The Greek

atomists denying that our universe was intelligently designed, brought it under some universal

mechanical laws. Leucippus stated that “nothing happens at random, but everything for a reason

and by necessity” (Fr. 2). Aristotle blames them for not giving a clear explanation of the origin

of movement, but for them motion was natural to atomsxxvii. The Buddhists made similar accent

on the importance of the causal explanation of the current events ("What earlier circumstances

caused this event?") and the irrelevance, or inexpediency of searching for some final

“metaphysical” cause or causes, like eternal soul or Īśvara. Thus, according to the Buddhist

doctrine of "dependent origination" (pratītya-samutpāda), all phenomena arise in a mutually

interdependent web of causes and effectsxxviii.

xxvi Thus, an acid taste is composed of angular, small, thin atoms and a sweet taste of round, moderate-sized ones.

xxvii This atomistic determinism has received an interesting development in the doctrines of Epicurus (341–270

BCE) and, especially, of the Latin poet Lucretius Carus (96–55 BCE). Lucretius mentions the so called swerve of

atoms, by which they shift by a minimal amount in their downward course (De rerum natura 2.216–293), to

account for free will and also for the initial interaction of atoms productive of our universe. So, in the final analysis,

it was rather an auto-organization of chaos than a pure mechanical determinism.xxviii The typical formula of the pratītya samutpāda is like the following: ‘When this is, that is’. ‘From the arising of

this comes the arising of that’. ‘When this isn't, that isn't’. ‘From the cessation of this comes the cessation of that’.


Though the Buddhists did not develop their atomistic doctrine as systematically as the Greek

atomists or some other Indian philosophers, like the Jainas or the Vaiśeṣikas, they may be called

the champions of atomism in a more large sense of the word. They tried to get account of all the

phenomena in terms of ultimate units (dharmas), discontinuous in time (having no duration or

momentary – kṣaṇika), space and substance.

The ‘atomistic model’ is also present in Jaina’s philosophyxxix. In so far as homogeneous

atoms (there are no distinct kinds of atoms corresponding to the four kinds

of elements) form compounds (skandha) and the compounds form material

things we are dealing here with the model of the additive whole. Each atom has

one kind of taste, one smell, one color, and two kinds of touch (some atoms are viscid and

some dry, and these charge-like properties mediate their interactions). Due to their

eternal properties, they are capable of producing "aggregates": earth, water, shadow, sense

objects, karmic matter (the Jainas explain karma naturalistically as a kind of fine atomic matter

that sticks to the soulxxx). Along with the material atoms, the Jainas spoke about some fine atoms

that are so subtle that an unlimited number of them may occupy only one point of space, like

intersected sunbeams. It is clear that this kind of atoms could not be identified with material

mini-bodies as the latter must have some magnitude, solidity and impenetrability to the effect

that two of them cannot occupy one and the same place. The Jaina atom, in Thomas McEvilly’s

opinion, is subjected to the same reductio ad absurdum as Zeno of Elea has developed with

regard to the supposedly Pythagorean idea of the monad-points, the addition of which never

causes increase in magnitudexxxi. Some other kinds of the similar reductio were proposed by the

Indian thinkers of different affiliations (the Mahāyana Buddhists as well as the followers of the

Nyāya-Vaiśeṣikaxxxii).

But apart from the atomistic model of the Buddhists and the Jainas, Indian thinkers, namely

the Vaiśeṣika and Nāyaiyikas, have developed even more moderate alternatives to the extreme

monism of the Advaitic type. I called it holistico-atomistic model because it combines a

discontinuity of the atoms with a continuity of the wholes formed by themxxxiii.

xxix The Jaina atomism is placed by Indian tradition as early as the six century BCE, some scholars date it by the first

century BCE, other scholars hold that the Ājīvika Pakuda Kaccāyana exposed the most primitive from of atomism at

the time of the Buddha. But I agree with those scholars who hold that it is the Jaina atomism which bears the most

archaic character (for example the idea of the material karmic particles which are said to stick to the soul). For more

details about the discussion concerning this subject see: McEvilley op.cit., p. 317-318.xxx A comparison with Plato’s idea of matter which sticks to a pure soul inevitably comes to mind (Cf. Republic X

611, b-d).xxxi McEvilly op.cit., p. 319.xxxii Some of these arguments will be referred to further on.


What is common between the Vaiśeṣika and the Greek atomistic traditions is the fact

that both adopted the monistic model to the needs of their appropriate atomistic theories. In the

same manner as Leucippus and Democritus, or Anaxagores, bestow their ultimate units with

some important characteristics of Eleatic Being, the Vaiṣeṣikas attributed to their atoms

eternality and imperceptibility which for Indian thinkers were revealing the entities of the para-

empirical level (represented by Ātman or Brahman in Advaita, or Puruṣa in Sāṃkhya). For this

reason, I argue that the Vaiśeṣikas developed a kind of ‘metaphysical’ atomismxxxiv.

As in Greece, in India, a perceptibility was closely associated with the transient

character, liability to birth and destruction of gross things, whereas eternal undestructible entities

were supposed to be beyond direct observation. Therefore, in India, one of the most important

characteristics of atoms seems to be their imperceptibility. It may be explained in two different

ways (1) by their excessive smallness and subtleness (aṇutva) (2) by their metaphysical or

transcendental nature.

But the question arises as to how imperceptible atoms can form perceptible objects

possessive of colour, smell, etc.? Greek atomists reduced the qualities of perceptible objects to

shape, size, position etc. of the atoms which are too tiny to be perceived. In India, the

explanation of the imperceptibility of atoms by their tiny size was shared by the Jains, Ājīvikas

and Buddhists (the latter believed that atoms can be perceived not separately, but only in large

accumulations, like one hair in accumulation of hairs). But the Vaiśeṣikas, at least as early as

Praśastapāda, hold their atoms to be imperceptible not because of the limited sense capacities xxxv,

but because their atoms are a sort of metaphysical, transcendental entities. As in Indian tradition,

only yogins we supposed to see and to experience the highest reality, it is symptomatic that the

Vaiśeṣikas refer to the perception of yogins (yogipratyakṣa) as instrumental in the direct

cognition of atomsxxxvi.But what is the nature of these atoms? While for the Greek atomists all the atoms were

made up of the same material, or substantially homogeneous (it is also true of the Jaina atoms

xxxiii The Vaiṣeśikasūtras view the existence of atoms as a corollary of the world's existence; they list their

properties, pointing out that the properties of earth atoms can change if exposed to fire (pīlu-pāka-vāda), and so on

— it is an outline of the doctrine to be further elaborated in the commentaries. Praśastapāda uses atomistic principles

to explain the emergence and destruction of the world; he dwells at length on pīlu-pāka ('atom-baking'), introduces

the concept of atomic compounds – the dyads and triads, and describes the ways in which macro-objects are formed

from the tiniest imperceptible particles. All these ideas are developed and specified in the commentaries on the

Praśastapādabhāṣya: Vyomaiśiva’s (circa 948-972 AD) Vyomavatī, Śrīdhara’s (circa 950-1000) Nyāyakandalī

and Udayana’s (circa 1050-1100) Kiraṇāvalī — of the three commentaries it is Śrīdhara’s being the most

circumstantial presentation of the Vaiśeṣika’s atomistic theory.

xxxiv See my paper: The Atomistic Theory of Vaiśeṣika: Problems of Interpretation. - History of Indian Philosophy.

A Russian Viewpoint. Indian Council of Philosophical Research, New Delhi, (republication of the 1993) (in press).


which in this respect are the most closed to that of Leucippus-Democritus), not subjected to

change and different only in shape, position, movements etc., the Vaiśeṣikas held their atoms to

be materially different substances having different qualities, but the same spherical

(parimāṇḍala) shape and small (aṇu) size. Thus, the sense-properties of atoms, like color, taste,

smell, touch - real for the Vaiśeṣikas because they belong to the atoms, were reduced by the

Greeks to infinitely different shapes, sizes etc. On the contrary, shapes etc. reduced by the

Vaiśeṣikas to an indifferent parimāṇḍala, were hypostasized by the Greeksxxxvii.

Closely connected with this is the difference in their understanding of the relationship

between atoms and elements (they are four in both traditions – earth, water, fire, air/wind). If the

Greeks explained the variety of elements by the variety of shapes, arrangements, positions and

movements of their respective atoms, for the Vaiśeṣikas the atoms, from the very begining, were

in possession of the elements’ sense-qualities and it is namely according to these qualities that

they were classified into four groups: atoms of earth possessive of smell, color, taste, touch,

atoms of fire having color, taste, touch, atoms of water having taste, touch, and atoms of wind

having only touch. These qualities except for color and touch undergoing change in the process

of heating (pīlupāka) are said to be as permanent as their respective atoms.

What conclusions may be drawn from this difference? The Greek atomists were trying to

exclude what they considered to be subjective sense-qualities from their world picture which was

supposed to be “lawfully’ based on mind. By this, they were forerunners of the classical

European science with its ideal of “objectivity” factoring out observer’s sense-reactions. For the

Vaiśeṣikas, as for the majority of Indian philosophers, senses are considered to be a more

reliable instrument of cognition (pramāṇa) than mind or reason resorting to the logical inference

(anumāṇa).

But whether the Vaiśeṣika paramāṇu were the atoms, that are indivisible, in the same sense

as the Greek atoms? The Sanskrit terms for “atom” aṇu and parāmāṇu mean literally

“small/fine”, 'least'/finest', accordingly. In Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika, the term 'aṇu' has at least two

meanings—it denotes (i) substance (dravya) and refers exclusively to atom as a material particle;

xxxv That natural limitation can, in principle, be overcome with the help of instruments, such as a microscope.xxxvi See my paper: La connaissance suprarationelle chez Praśastapāda. - Asiatische Studien/ Études Asiatiques

LII/1/1998, pp. 85-116.

xxxvii So, atoms of Leucippus and Democritus, unlike the Vaiśeṣika ones, have nothing in common with the sense-

reactions produced by them: the taste is explained by the atom’s shapes, black and white color by their roughness

and smoothness, correspondingly, hot temperature (and fire) by the movements of the spherical atoms, cold

temperature – by the position and motionlessness of the cubical atoms.


and (ii) size (parimāṇa) as a quality (guṇa) of substance which is attributed not only to a single

atom, but also to a dyad (dvyaṇuka), composed of two atoms. These Sanskrit terms suggest the

dichotomy of fine/gross (sukṣma-sthūla), frequent enough in Indian philosophy, especially in

Jainism and Sāmmkhya but not necessarily implying indivisibility, for example the tanmātra

(subtle elements constitutive of gross elements) of Sāṃkhya are fine but not atomic.

Nevertheless, the history of Indian atomism bears witness to the notion of indivisibility being

invariably associated, directly or indirectly, with another qualities of paramāṇu, particularly,

with its eternal character (nitya). An eternal substance is such because it has no parts into which

it could desintegrate, and therefore it is indivisible. In the course of its evolution, Indian atomism

attaches an increasing importance to the notion of indivisibility, which finally comes to be

regarded as the key property of paramāṇu.

It is quite evident from the Nyāya-sūtras, (further on NS) where three possibilities of division

of whole into parts are examined (NS 4.2.15-17): the first one is a division till the full

destruction, or rather dissolution of things (pralaya). If we accept this, it means that all things

consist of “pralaya” (dissolution) and simply not exist (NS 4.2.15). The other possibility is an

infinite division (NS 4.2.17) – in that case, the very large object as well as the minute dyad would

both consist of an endless number of particles (the famous paradox of the Mount Meru which is

equal to a grain because both of them consist of equally innumerable partsxxxviii). As neither

destruction, nor regressus ad infinitum are admissiblexxxix, the only valid possibility is to limit

the scale of diminishing minuteness by postulating its terminal point in the

form of the atom—the utmost small and thus indivisible physical bodyxl.

But the criticism of atomism in both traditions has revealed that for one and the same thing to

be something material - even of the smallest dimension - and, at the same time, indivisible is

xxxviii This argument of the Nyāya authors may be compared to the Zeno paradox of divisibility mentioned before.

xxxix This proof of the existence of the atom reveals some stricken similarities with the argumentation in favor of

postulating indivisible entities ascribed to Democritus by Aristotle: “Since … the body is divisible through and

through, let it have been divided. What, then, will remain? A magnitude? No: that is impossible, since then there

will be something not divided, whereas ex hypothesis the body was divisible through and through. But if it be

admitted that neither a body nor a magnitude will remain, and yet division is to take place, the constituents of the

body will either be points (i.e. without magnitude) or absolutely nothing. If its constituents are nothings, then it

might both come-to-be out of nothings and exist as a composite of nothings: and thus presumably the whole body

will be nothing but an appearance” (Aristotle. On Generation and Corruption, Part II, translated by H. H. Joachim

http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/gener_corr.1.i.html).xl As Uddyotakara puts it, “When a clod of earth comes to be divided into smaller and smaller pieces, that point at

which the division ceases, and then which there is nothing smaller, is what we call “paramāṇu” (the atom)”(

Vārttika to the NS 4.2.16).


fraught with undesirable consequences. The purely physical character of atom as a micro-body is

threatening its metaphysical status - that of the ultimate cause and the origin of all composed

things. This difficulty is manifested first of all in the problem of atoms’ combination - the way

the atoms are connected with one another. According to the Yogācāra Buddhist criticsxli of the

Vaiśeṣika atomism, as atoms are capable of conjunction they must be made up of component

parts (the argument is exposed in the NS 4/2/24xlii).

As Vatsyāyana explains,

“ and becomes

cseparation b

t

- c

xliii

In other words, assuming that one atom may enter in conjunction with other atoms, we

must agree that it has component parts, but if it has component parts, it cannot be the atom, the

smallest and further indivisible corpuscle. This is a kind of difficulty that arises in all forms of

philosophical atomism as distinct from scientific atomism. As a matter of fact, if an atom is

identified as a physical body, its indivisibility may be problematic, but if for the sake of

indivisibility the atom is assimilated to a mathematical point, it would be impossible to explain

how these points form a physical bodyxliv.

Facing this kind of difficulty the Greeks and after them the Arabic atomists have come to

distinguish between two types of divisibility - physical and mental. According to some not very

reliable testimony, Democritus draws a distinction between atoms, on the one side, and logically

or mentally discernable parts of atoms – the ameros (literally ‘not having parts), on the other

xli Uddyotakara refers to Vasubandhu’s Vimṣatikavṛtti.

xlii [Objection] [An atom must be composed of parts], also because the conjunction [of one atom with other atoms] is

possible. //NS 4.2.24// (Nyāya philosophy. Literal translation Gautama's Nyāyasūtra and Vātsyāyana's Bhāṣya.

Part IV. Tr. M.Gangopadhyaya, Calcutta, 1976).

xliii The Nyāya-sūtras of Gautama : with the Bhāṣya of Vātsyāyana and the Vārttika of Uddyotakara. Volume IV. /

translated into English, with notes from Vāchaspati Miṣra's 'Nyāya-vārttika-tātparyaṭīkā;', Udayana's

'Pariśuddhi', and Raghuttama's Bhāsyachandra, by Ganganatha Jha/, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi etc., p. 1616.

xliv In Aristotle’s words, “… when the points were in contact and coincided to form a single magnitude, they did not

make the whole any bigger (since, when the body was divided into two or more parts, the whole was not a bit

smaller or bigger than it was before the division): hence, even if all the points be put together, they will not make

any magnitude” (Op.cit.).


side. This distinction has become clearer with the atomistic doctrine of Epicures and his

followers. Even the later Aristotelian minima naturalia theory did not mean much more than a

theoretical limit of divisibility – rather potential than actual.

This attempt to draw a clear-cut distinction between mental and physical divisibility, or

indivisibility, seems to have no counterpart in the classical Vaiśeṣika atomism. This fact may be

explained by the absence in the Indian theoretical tradition of any parallel opposition between

actuality and potentiality which had been so important for the Greek thought.

But if the Vaiśeṣika atom is such an imperceptible “metaphysical” entity, how could it

have color, taste, smell or touch which are sense qualities par excellence? Here we touch upon

the core problem of the Vaiśeṣika’s atomism – how to account for the transition from

imperceptible atoms to perceptible gross things? Why this problem presents a challenge for the

Vaiśeṣika’s metaphysics? First of all, because of their own concept of causality, according to

which qualities of effects result from the homogeneous qualities of their causes, so, if there is a

smallness (aṇutva) in the cause (atom) there must be also smallness - even of a greater degree -

in the effects (combination of atoms). Taking in account this rule, there is no continuity and

transition between small (aṇutva) and big size (mahattva), and by the same token, between

imperceptible eternal atoms and perceptible gross things.

It is namely for this reason that the Vaiśeṣikas have finally arrived to the conclusion that

single atoms could not constitute the direct cause of the world. Śrīdhara argued that single atoms

cannot be productive, because if they could, they would eternally produce indestructible effects

like themselves. A dyad could neither produce perceptible things as a combination of two atoms

have the same minute size (aṇu) as atoms themselves, and because it is not number "two" but

numbers beginning from "three" onwards which are productive of large size associated with

perceptible gross size of things (mahat). As for the triad, in order to be even of a minimal

perceptible size, it must have constitutive parts which themselves are effects, i.e. combinations of

atoms, and not single atoms. Therefore, the parts of a triad are dyads (a substance-effect), not

three single atoms (substances-causes). In the final analysis, it is a triad composed of six atoms

which constitutes a real building block of the material universe. While a single atom is held to be

imperceptible, a triad made up of six atoms, is considered to be the smallest perceptible entity.

The Vaiśeṣikas compare it with a mote of dust in a sunbeamxlv. In the final analysis, there are

two main “quantum jumps” in the construction of the material universe : from single atoms to

dyads and then from dyads to triads.

xlv The same perceptible image of atom was proposed by Greek atomists, according to Aristotle (Aristotle. On Soul I,

2).


Thus, to overcome a discontinuity between atoms and macro-objects, between partless

and divisible entities, the Vaiśeṣikas have proposed a rather complicated decision of this

question along quasi-Pythagorean lines: if a combination of two or more atoms is not different

from a single atom by its size, it has to be different by the number (saṃkhyā) of the atoms

constitutive of it. As isolated atoms, according to Praśastapāda, exist only during the pralaya

(the cosmic periodical dissolution) the problem of their transformation into gross things arises

only at the very beginning of the new world cycle. Atoms themselves being deprived of any

intrinsic properties that may compel them to enter in combinations (like Jaina atoms which are

mutually attracted by the opposition of their properties of dryness and viscidity) are in need of

some external prime mover. The role of this mover is played by the adṛṣṭas – unseen positive

(dharma) or negative (adharma) karmic forces produced by good or bad actions of living beings

and accumulated in their souls (ātman). As souls are eternal all-pervasive and immaterial

substances, adṛṣṭas being their qualities (guṇas), are also a kind of omnipresent structural

factors constitutive of the moral and spiritual state of our universe. It is due to the adṛṣṭas that

its main parameters have been kept and carried on through the cosmic night and reproduced at

the beginning of the new world-period (kalpa).

But why are the atoms combined into the dyads and triads? The Vaiśeṣika’s answer is

deistic – the dyads are resulting out of Iśvara's simultaneous cognition (apekṣabuddhi) of two

atoms, triads - of three dyads. The role of Īśvara, in the final analysis, is like that of Demiourgos

in Platon's Timeus; as for the adṛṣṭas, they may be compared to the eidos (forms) - the original

design that provides Demiourgos with a paradigm of creation of this world. Evidently, the

introduction of Īśvara was necessary to justify this numerical scheme of progressive

complexification of matter. Were there no dyads and triads, there would be no need for Īśvara's

apekśabuddhi.

The speculative character of the Vaiśeṣikas’ atomism was disputed even by their

realistic allies – the Mīmāṃsākas who did not insist on the absolute indivisibility and

minuteness being quite content with perceptible atoms in the form of motes. As for the role of

Īśvara in the creation of the gross-things, it looks like an artificial ad hoc hypothesis rather

then a fully developed theistic or deistic argument. In the normal state of the universe, when

its karmicaly determined structure is well established, Īśvara does not interfere into the

generating of gross things. What makes a pot is not only its material, but also its form. Among

such form-making factors the Vaiśeṣika authors seem to suggest a vyūha – loose or tight

arrangement of the dyads, which, in its turn, is determined by the adṛṣṭa of the person


making it. It is the adṛṣṭa or rather the adriṣṭas (in the plural) that play a role a teleological

factor.

Śrīdhara argues: “Though the atoms [of earth] have no species, nevertheless as far as

their arrangement (vyūha) is determined by the force of the adṛṣṭas, their products have species”

The fact that atoms of earth have no sub-classes means that they do not have identity of

particular things, like pots, cows, sugar etc. while the things made up of them have it due to the

adṛṣṭa”xlvi.

It may follow from this, that sense-qualities though somehow present in individual atoms

are specified as some particular smell, taste, color etc. only in the atomic compounds, in the

“molecules” – dyads and triads (dvyaṇuka and tryaṇuka). Depending of their vyūha these

compounds become constitutive parts of sugar or other particular things. But, as we saw,

according to Śrīdhara, this vyūha is the result of a certain adṛṣṭa. Thus, the structure of things

created on this earth by human agents seems to depend on their unseen karmic potentials.

How could the adṛṣṭa which is a quality of ātman have something in common with the

production of sugar or any other thing? As I mentioned before, for the Vaiśeṣikas, souls are all-

pervasive and omnipresent. However, even if the whole universe is permeated by the infinite

number of souls, that does not make it intelligent. Outside the body ātmans are deprived of

consciousness, though they still continue to be a support of the adṛṣṭas from the previous

existences, like at the time of the cosmic night. As everything made up by men here on earth

bears the impression of their adṛṣṭas, the material universe is inseparable from the moral order

(Dharma). In that sense, the universe is anthropologically programmed (cf. with anthropic

principle in modern physicsxlvii).

With this we come to the most important difference of the two atomistic traditions

compared in this paper. If we agree that atomism, whatever cultural form it may take, is

condemned to oscillate between materialism and immaterialism, we may arrive to the conclusion

that Greek atomism was more consistent in developing a materialistic and mechanical world

view: Leucippus held that there are an infinite number of atoms moving for all time in an infinite

void, forming into cosmic systems, or kosmoi, by means of a whirling motion. From ancient

times, the Greek atomism was considered to be a kind of scientific approach based on reasoning

xlvi Praśastapādabhāṣyam with the Commentary Nyāyakandalī of Śrīdhara. Ed. by Vindhyesvan Prasad Dvivedin.

India: шri Satguru Publications, 1895 (reprint 1984), p.31; Padārthadharmasaṃgraha of Praśastapāda. Transl.

into English by G.Jha. CO 4. Delhi–Varanasi (reprint from Pandit 1903–1915), 1982, p.75.

xlvii About the connection of the Vaiśeṣika atomism with the antropic principle see Plamen Gradinarov. Anthropic

Web of the Universe: Atom and Atman. Philosophy East and West. Vol.39 No.1 (January 1989), pp. 27-46.


and observation. The subsequent development of the atomistic ideas in philosophical and

scientific thought shared with this ancient doctrine the general idea that universe should be

inquired into from some ‘objective’ position excluding observers’ reactions to it as subjective

factors (‘secondary qualities’) distorting its otherwise reliable picture.

In India, the atomistic ideas never gave rise to a physical scientific-like theory. They

remained embedded in the specifically Indian view of the universe as designed for the moral

retribution of the living beings. In that sense, the Vaiśeṣika atomism, in a greater degree than the

Greek one, may serve (owing to its concept of adṛṣṭa) as an example of the synthesis between

philosophy of nature, ethics and soteriology. Modern Western philosophers of science through

the ideas of “noosphere”, “anthroposphere”, or the like, have already suggested that this kind of

synthesis may be quite possible and even desirable.

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Between Materialism and Immaterialism