Aither is a double-blind peer review, Open Access online academic journal. It is indexed at ERIH+ and Scopus. It is published by the Faculty of Arts of the Palacký University in Olomouc in cooperation with the Philosophical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. It comes out twice a year. Every second issue is international and contains foreign-language articles (mainly in English, but also in German and French). The journal is registered under the number ISSN 1803-7860.

Aither 14/2015:100-117 | DOI: 10.5507/aither.2015.017

Does Lucretius Think about Social Progress?

Ulrich Wollner
Katedra filozofie FF UMB

The theme of human history - its birth and development - come together with the question of the origin of first communities, cities and political institutions among the most interesting part of the fifth book of Lucretius' poem De rerum natura. The aim of the article is to gradually analyze and interpret all four stages in human development and focus on the examination of the question whether it is possible to characterize this development as a progress. Do people progress continuously towards more sophisticated forms of life? Is the new phase better than the previous one? Are people better? Are they more moral than people living in earlier stages of historical development?

Published: September 30, 2015  Show citation

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Wollner, U. (2015). Does Lucretius Think about Social Progress? Aither, 7(14), 100-117. doi: 10.5507/aither.2015.017
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