According to some twentieth-century philosophers, Paul Tannery (1887), ''Pour l'histoire de la science Hellène'' (Paris), and J. E. Raven (1948), ''Pythagoreans and Eleatics'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), are the major purveyors of this view. unit-point atomism was the philosophy of the Pythagoreans, a conscious repudiation of

Parmenides Parmenides of Elea (; grc-gre, Παρμενίδης ὁ Ἐλεάτης; ) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher from Elea in Magna Graecia. Parmenides was born in the Greek colony of Elea, from a wealthy and illustrious family. His dates a ...

and the Eleatics. It stated that atoms were infinitesimally small ("point") yet possessed corporeality. It was a predecessor of

Democritean Democritus (; el, Δημόκριτος, ''Dēmókritos'', meaning "chosen of the people"; – ) was an Ancient Greek pre-Socratic philosopher from Abdera, primarily remembered today for his formulation of an atomic theory of the universe. No ...

atomism Atomism (from Greek , ''atomon'', i.e. "uncuttable, indivisible") is a natural philosophy proposing that the physical universe is composed of fundamental indivisible components known as atoms. References to the concept of atomism and its atoms ...

. Most recent students of

presocratic philosophy Pre-Socratic philosophy, also known as early Greek philosophy, is ancient Greek philosophy before Socrates. Pre-Socratic philosophers were mostly interested in cosmology, the beginning and the substance of the universe, but the inquiries of thes ...

, such as

Kurt von Fritz Karl Albert Kurt von Fritz (25 August 1900 in Metz – 16 July 1985 in Feldafing) was a German classical philologist. Appointed to an extraordinary professorship for Greek at the University of Rostock in 1933, he was one of the two German profess ...

Walter Burkert Walter Burkert (; 2 February 1931 – 11 March 2015) was a German scholar of Greek mythology and cult. A professor of classics at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, he taught in the UK and the US. He has influenced generations of studen ...

Gregory Vlastos Gregory Vlastos (; el, Γρηγόριος Βλαστός; July 27, 1907 – October 12, 1991) was a preeminent scholar of ancient philosophy, and author of many works on Plato and Socrates. He transformed the analysis of classical philosophy ...

Jonathan Barnes Jonathan Barnes, British Academy, FBA (born 26 December 1942 in Wenlock, Shropshire) is an English scholar of Aristotelianism, Aristotelian and ancient philosophy. Education and career He was educated at the City of London School and Balliol Co ...

, and Daniel W. Graham have rejected that any form of atomism can be applied to the early Pythagoreans (before

Ecphantus of Syracuse Ecphantus or Ecphantos ( grc, Ἔκφαντος) or Ephantus () is a shadowy Greek pre-Socratic philosopher. He may not have actually existed. He is identified as a Pythagorean of the 4th century BCE, and as a supporter of the heliocentric theor ...

and Daniel W. Graham (1996), ''Studies in Greek Philosophy: The Presocratics'' (Princeton: Princeton University Press), 257. Unit-point atomism was invoked in order to make sense of a statement ascribed to

Zeno of Elea Zeno of Elea (; grc, Ζήνων ὁ Ἐλεᾱ́της; ) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher of Magna Graecia and a member of the Eleatic School founded by Parmenides. Aristotle called him the inventor of the dialectic. He is best known fo ...

in Plato's ''

'': "these writings of mine were meant to protect the arguments of Parmenides against those who make fun of him. . . My answer is addressed to the partisans of the many. . ."

(1982), ''The Presocratic Philosophers'' (London: Routledge), 232–33. The anti-Parmenidean pluralists were supposedly unit-point atomists whose philosophy was essentially a reaction against the Eleatics. This hypothesis, however, to explain Zeno's paradoxes, has been thoroughly discredited.

Notes

Pythagorean philosophy {{philo-stub