Abstract

This paper investigates the Democritean account of human nature and sociability. After briefly discussing what the claim that human beings are social animals means, the paper analyzes two culture stories, preserved in Diodorus of Sicily and John Tzetzes, that are typically taken to be Democritean, arguing that there are prima facie significant differences between the two accounts. The paper then concludes that human beings are not social animals by nature on the Democritean view, but rather that the Democritean account belongs to a different, that is, non-Aristotelian and non-Stoic, tradition of social thought.