    Commentators differ as to the authenticity of Plutarch's report.  As the word sunkrisis does not occur in other reports, Furley (following Sandbach) suggests that it is most likely an error for pikron, ‘bitter’ which occurs instead in another report.  However, Furley concedes that Plutarch at least understands the earliest atomists to be committed to the view that all combinations of atoms, as much as sensible qualities, should be understood as conventional rather than real (Furley 1993 pp. 76–7n7). This would suggest that everything at the macroscopic level—or, strictly, everything available to perception—is regarded as unreal.  The ontological status of arrangement or combination of atoms for Democritus is a vexed question, that affects our understanding of his metaphysics, his historical relationship to Melissus, and the similarity of his views to the modern primary-secondary quality distinction (Wardy 1988; Curd 1998; Lee 2005; Mourelatos 2005; Pasnau 2007).  If we take the ‘conventionality’ thesis to be restricted to sensible qualities, there is still an open question about Democritus' reason for denying their ‘reality’ (Wardy 1988; O'Keefe 1997; Ganson 1999).