Lucretius I
An Ontology of Motion
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Edinburgh University Press
Published:8th Feb '18
Should be back in stock very soon
Thomas Nail argues convincingly and systematically that Lucretius was not an atomist, but a thinker of kinetic flux. In doing so, he completely overthrows the interpretive foundations of modern scientific materialism, whose philosophical origins lie in the atomic reading of Lucretius’ immensely influential book De Rerum Natura.This means that Lucretius was not the revolutionary harbinger of modern science as Greenblatt and others have argued; he was its greatest victim. Nail re-reads De Rerum Natura to offer us a new Lucretius – a Lucretius for today.
Following in the footsteps of Deleuze and Serres, Thomas Nail has rescued Lucretius as a philosopher of flux. In a reading at once daring and patient, the De Rerum Natura emerges as a text still capable of surprising us. Nail shows us that Lucretius truly is our contemporary. -- Brooke Holmes, Princeton University
Thomas Nail’s inspired reading of Lucretius leaves us moderns with the kind of excitement the Romans must have felt as they first scrolled through that founding text of materialism. Nail makes ancient ideas erupt in a contemporary context, demonstrating their necessity to cutting-edge science and philosophy. Antiquity has never felt so alive. -- Ryan Johnson, Elon University
ISBN: 9781474434676
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 290g
288 pages