Physics after Aristotle bifurcated into two schools, the Epicureans and the Stoics, the one affirming an atomistic view in which the universe is composed of nothing more than particles careening blindly through the emptiness of space, the other a view in which matter fills the universe according to the dictates of rationality. An individual seeking enlightenment while Stoicism and Epicureanism held sway, from about 300 BCE to 300 CE, could choose one school or the other or attempt to learn from both, but the schools themselves remained detached intellectual traditions, separated by both their
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