Strato of Lampsacus

Strato of Lampsacus (c. 335-c. 269 BC) was an Peripatetic philosopher, who was mainly interested in physics, and was the third director of the Lyceum after the death of Theophrastus.

Life

He was the son of Arcesilaus of Lampsacus. He was the tutor of Ptolemy Philadelphus and also taught Aristarchus of Samos. He succeeded Theophrastus as head of the school c. 287 BC, and, after presiding over it eighteen years, was succeeded by Lyco. [Diogenes Laërtius, v.] He devoted himself especially to the study of natural science, whence he obtained, or, as it appears from Cicero, assumed the name of Physicus ( _el. Φυσικός). Cicero, while speaking highly of his talents, blames him for neglecting the most necessary part of philosophy, that which has respect to virtue and morals, and giving himself up to the investigation of nature. [Cicero, "Acad. Quaest." i. 9; "de Fin." v. 5.] In the long list of his works, given by Diogenes Laërtius, several of the titles are upon subjects of moral philosophy, but the great majority belong to the department of physical science.

Philosophy

He expanded on Aristotle's physics, noticing that falling objects (e.g. rainwater off a roof) accelerate as they reach the ground rather than falling at a steady rate as Aristotle foretold.

Another one of his teachings was the "doctrine of the void", postulating that all bodies contained a void of variable size, which also accounted for weight differences between 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 out 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. [Cicero, "De Natura Deorum", i. 13.]

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 also was one of the first philosophers to formulate an atheistic worldview, in which the universe is regarded as a mechanism and transcendent forces (i.e. deities) are nonexistent.

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. [Cicero, "Lucullus", 121. in Reale, G., "A History of Ancient Philosophy". SUNY Press. (1985).]

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