Let us now try to relate each of the philosophers regarding their ideas about knowledge to other

philosophers by looking at their similarities and differences in their concepts employed.

First we have Democritus and Hobbes

We can trace a similarity in their idea about knowledge. And that is in their concept of motion or
movement.

As a thorough materialist, Democritus held that thought can be explained in the same way that any
other phenomenon can, namely, as the movement of atoms. When the eyes see something, this
something is an ‘effluence’ or the shedding of atoms by the object, forming an ‘image’. These atomic
images of things enter the eyes (and other organs of sense) and make an impact upon the soul, which is
itself made up of atoms.

And for Thomas Hobbes, Motion is a key concept. Hobbes set out to explain both physical and mental
events as nothing more than bodies in motion. Motion says Hobbes is a continual relinquishing of one
place and acquiring of another. Hobbes refers to two kinds of motion that are peculiar to animals or
people, and one of which is the voluntary motion. According to him it is evident that the imagination is
the first internal beginning of all voluntary motion. Imagination is the cause of voluntary acts, but
imagination itself and the human activity we call thought are also explained as being consequences of
prior motions.