Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura: A media ecological template

Titus Lucretius Carus, or simply Lucretius (~94–55 bce), wrote the epic philosophical poem De Rerum Natura (common translation: On the Nature of Things, On the Nature of the Universe or The Way Things Are). The poem is an early scientific treatise, a classic example of grammar-as-interpretation that added some needed nuance to the rigid determinism of Democritus’ atomistic ontology and, more generally, promised to enlighten popular understanding of Epicurean philosophical doctrine. Key passages in Lucretius’ poem pre-empt several core precepts of media ecology, including the indeterminacy of causal explanation that amounts to a ‘soft’ form of determinism (i.e. ‘medium theory’) in both the natural and human-built worlds, whereby the formal properties of things offer clues to their causal potency, or capacity to effect change. It can be argued, by extension, that the media ecological emphasis on formal cause as the primary mechanism governing change also has roots in Lucretius’ epic poem.