'Contract' succeeded 'status' as the basic organising principle in modern political vs. ancient society.
Catherine WilsonEven if the gods did exist, the Epicureans argued, they didn't care about us. Rather, everything comes from nature, and all that really exists are atoms and void, moving and congregating.
Catherine WilsonIn the old systems, hierarchies emanate power from above to below through forms of line management and are ideologically supported by cosmologies and theologies featuring celestial rulers and their deputies - the 'rule of the best.'
Catherine WilsonI had the idea that there were secret laws of the universe that could explain the baffling human reality around me, and that philosophers maybe had the key to them.
Catherine WilsonWe use and need to use both systems in complex political societies, and we oscillate in our commitments, because both oligarchy and rule by the will of masses have their bad points, as the ancient philosophers all knew.
Catherine WilsonFor the chemists, who wanted to manufacture new medicines and elixirs and transform base substances into noble ones, the notion that there was no metaphysical barrier to doing so - it was just a matter of getting the particles into new arrangements - was encouraging. That was the Baconian programme.
Catherine Wilson