Humanities and Arts

Postdoctoral position in History of Atomism at the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology Full-time scholarship: under request, the candidates can teach and/or support Dr. Piergiacomi’s courses in the history of philosophy of science. Applications are invited for one (1) full-time postdoctoral position at the Humanities & Arts department at Technion, Israel Institute of Technology (Haifa, Israel). The successful candidate will join the research laboratory directed by Dr. Enrico Piergiacomi and conduct independent and collaborative research under the project Digital Atomism: Democritus and the Democritean Tradition. The goal of the project is to conduct cutting-edge research on the earliest phase of atomism, namely Leucippus, Democritus, and the Democriteans (including but not limited to key figures like Anaxarchus, Metrodorus of Chios, and Nausiphanes), as well as in its subsequent reception. These thinkers not only laid the groundwork for the atomistic theories of Epicurus and Lucretius, but also served as a source of inspiration for corpuscular theories espoused by influential figures such as Francis Bacon, Galileo Galilei, and Pierre Gassendi. Their ideas also exerted a pervasive influence on various seemingly disparate intellectual strands, including scepticism (exemplified by Pyrrho and Sextus Empiricus), alchemy, libertinism, and even Marxism. Additionally, the project seeks to create a digital platform that will host a new collection of evidence on the ancient atomists and edit/translate texts of the Renaissance/early modern period that were directly influenced by these thinkers. An example is Giovanni Magneno’s Democritus reviviscens sive de atomis (Paris 1646). A list of desirable texts to be studied can be provided in advance.