A Comprehensive Study of Lucretius' On the Nature of Things

2020 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 18K00012
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Review Section: Basic Section 01010:Philosophy and ethics-related
• Research Institution: Nagoya Institute of Technology
• Principal Investigator: Seguchi Masahisa 名古屋工業大学, 工学(系)研究科(研究院), 教授 (40262943)
• Project Period (FY): 2018-04-01 – 2021-03-31
• Keywords: ルクレティウス / 事物の本性について / 古代原子論 / アトミズム / 啓蒙時代 / ロマン主義 / 快楽主義 / 無神論

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Using his imagination and logic, Lucretius developed an atomistic cosmology in which countless universes with infinite expanse are formed from atoms and emptiness, which are repeatedly dismantled and reborn, with rational persuasiveness based on his daily experiences and observations of the living natural world. He presented the physiology of human senses, sleep, dreams, and love, as well as the mechanism of heredity, depicted the development of human society and civilization, and rationally explained thunderstorms, storms, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and even pestilence, which had been thought to be the work of the gods, in terms of atoms and emptiness. Lucretius was neither an atheist nor a hedonistic hedonist as criticized in the Western Christian world. I was able to compile the results of my research, including the history of his reception, and publish the first commentary on him in Japan.

Free Research Field

哲学・倫理学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

ルクレティウスの『事物の本性について』は、エピクロス哲学の最も重要な情報源であり、その合理的精神と詩の想像力は、詩人や哲学者だけではなく、近代自然科学の成立にも寄与し、多くの科学者にも多大な影響を与え続けた。そのため欧米でのルクレティウス研究は豊富な蓄積と進展があるが、日本では学術研究がきわめて少ない。本研究はその不足を補い、古代原子論が、強い反発と批判を受けながら、いかに変容され、いかにテクノロジーを生み出す近代自然科学の世界観に取り込まれていったかを跡付けた。学術研究の成果の一端をまとめて、一般読者向けの解説書を出版したので、より広く日本社会に古代原子論の意義を理解する機会を提供できた。