Empedocles (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Empedocles (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
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Empedocles
First published Thu Sep 26, 2019; substantive revision Wed Sep 25, 2024
In the middle of the fifth century BCE, Empedocles of Acragas
formulated a philosophical program in hexameter verse that pioneered
the influential four-part theory of roots (air, water, earth, and
fire) along with two active principles of Love and Strife, which
influenced later philosophy, medicine, mysticism, cosmology, and
religion. The philosophical system responded to Parmenides’
rejection of change while embracing religious injunctions and magical
practices. As a result, Empedocles has occupied a significant position
in the history of Presocratic philosophy as a figure moving between
mythos
and
logos
, religion and science. Modern
debate arises from the lack of consensus on the number of his verse
works, their relation to one another, and the coherence of his
philosophical system as a whole. This entry will introduce Empedocles,
his life and work – traditionally referred to as
On
Nature
and the
Purifications
– as well as the
scholarly debates that continue to dominate study of his philosophical
system. It closes with the influence Empedocles had upon his
successors. The numbering of the fragments in this article follows
that of the Diels-Kranz edition [DK] and Laks and Most 2016;
translations are from Laks and Most.
The sixth edition of Diels-Kranz’s
Die Fragmente der
Vorsokratiker
remains the gold standard for the fragments of the
Presocratic philosophers. In this system of classification, each
Presocratic thinker is numbered (roughly) chronologically –
Empedocles is DK 31 in the series, for example. Following this number
(which we omit in cases where it is clear we are referring to
Empedocles), fragments of each philosopher are subdivided into one of
three categories:
testimonia
, or witnesses to the
philosopher’s thought, constitute ‘A’ fragments; the
actual words of the philosopher fall under the category of
‘B’ fragments; imitations come under ‘C’
fragments. After a fragment’s letter, each also receives a
sequential distinguishing number. For example, the first fragment of
Empedocles referred to in this article, DK 31 A 1, signals that it
arises from the Diels-Kranz edition, focuses on Empedocles, and is
testimonium no. 1. In 2016, a new and updated edition of the
Presocratic philosophers was published with a facing translation by
André Laks and Glenn W. Most. It is now essential to consult
this monumental work of scholarship in addition to Diels-Kranz. For
this reason, we also include notations from Laks and Most’s
edition following Diels-Kranz. Laks and Most follow a different system
of notation for the fragments: ‘P’ (= person) fragments
include those in which a philosopher’s person is discussed.
These give information on a philosopher’s biography,
personality, and memorable sayings. ‘D’ (= doctrine)
fragments refer to all references to the doctrine of the philosopher,
including their own words. Finally, ‘R’ (= reception)
fragments preserve later conceptions of the philosopher’s
doctrine.
1. Life and Writings
2. On Nature
2.1 Roots and Forces
2.2 Cosmogony
2.3 Zoogony
2.4 Perception/Cognition
3. Purifications
3.1 Transmigration
3.2 Gods and daemons
4. Relation of
On Nature
to
Purifications
5. Influence
Bibliography
Academic Tools
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Related Entries
1. Life and Writings
The philosopher Empedocles was a native of the south-central Sicilian
polis of Acragas (Agrigento). Although the precise dates of his
lifetime are unknown, the sources agree that he was born in the early
fifth century BCE; according to Aristotle, he died at sixty years of
age (DK 31 A 1 = P 5b). Rich detail on the philosopher’s life
survives in particular through a late biography written in Diogenes
Laertius’
Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers
which dates to the third century CE. Unfortunately, much of this is a
romantic confection, and is often derivative of the verses of
Empedocles himself. It is likely that he was born to an aristocratic
family; his grandfather kept horses and was remembered as a victor at
the Olympic Games. According to the fourth-century BCE sophist
Alcidamas’
Physics
(A 1 = P 15), Empedocles was a
student of Parmenides of Elea, and later became an adherent of
Anaxagoras and Pythagoras. This intellectual apprenticeship, while
hardly possible on chronological grounds, does accurately reflect the
verses’ engagement with Parmenides’ theories of coming to
be and passing away, and Empedocles’ familiarity with the
Pythagoreans and Anaxagoras is not unlikely. The third-century BCE
biographer of eminent philosophers, Hermippus, by contrast, held that
he was an emulator of Xenophanes (A 1 = P 14). There is an
unacknowledged, but nonetheless thoroughgoing engagement with
Hesiod’s representation of the divine, the world-order and its
genesis, and the place of humans in it (Most 2007, Gheerbrant 2022,
Strauss Clay 2022). In Empedocles’ lifetime, Acragas underwent a
series of political transformations from tyranny to oligarchy to
democracy. The biographical tradition persistently attributes
democratic sensibilities to Empedocles, although the value of this
evidence is contested (Horky 2016, Andolfi 2020, Santaniello 2022): he
is said to have championed the people against those advancing
inequality or aiming at tyranny (A1 = P 18–19). Further, he was
associated with dismantling an oligarchy of the “Thousand”
and rejecting an offer of kingship; similarly, his father apparently
forestalled a rising tyranny (D.L. 8.72). These anecdotes may explain
Empedocles’ reputation as a talented orator in the absence of
any prose treatises. In Aristotle’s
Sophist
, he is
credited with rhetoric’s invention (A 1 = R 5). So too,
Aristotle’s
On the Poets
praised his kinship with Homer
in the force of his language and metaphor (A 1 = R 1b). Significantly,
Gorgias was associated with him as a student (A 1 = P 24). Elsewhere,
Empedocles is reported to have been a physician (A 1 = P 24) and a
founder of the Sicilian school of medicine. Evidence for this
reputation is present already in the late fifth century in the
Hippocratic
On Ancient Medicine
, which critiques
Empedocles’ alliance of the study of nature and medicine (A 71 =
R 6). Most provocatively, he is said to have brought a dead woman back
to life and been worshipped as a god in his own lifetime (A 1 = P 29),
narratives clearly embellished from his poetry (B 112.4 = D 4.4). Like
his contemporaries, Empedocles supposedly travelled widely, visiting
Thurii after its foundation in 445/4, Olympia, and elsewhere in the
Peloponnese. His enemies may have taken such an absence as an
opportunity to exile the philosopher (A 1 = D.L. 8.67). Reports on his
death are confused. We can be sure that he did not make the fiery leap
into Aetna, as was widely held in antiquity (Chitwood 1986). It is
possible, but that is all, that he died in the Peloponnese (A 1 = P
29.71b–72).
Though his work has not survived intact, Empedocles enjoyed a dynamic
afterlife among philosophers and their commentators, as well as
physicians and natural scientists. According to Diogenes Laertius,
Empedocles composed two poems,
On Nature
and the
Purifications
. Various other works were attributed to the
philosopher in antiquity, including a hymn to Apollo, a poem on the
invasion of Xerxes, medical texts, tragedies, epigrams, and political
essays, but there is no unambiguous evidence for these. The
interpretation of the extant fragments from
On Nature
and the
Purifications
is complicated by the modern scholarly debate
on whether they in fact constitute two works, as Diogenes Laertius
alleged, or a single philosophical project, as some recent scholars
have argued (Osborne 1987, Inwood 2001, Trépanier 2004, Janko
2005). The latter, heterodox position has been fueled further by the
recent publication of the first or second-century CE Strasbourg
papyrus (Martin and Primavesi 1999, Primavesi 2008), which contains a
portion of
On Nature
with lines that had traditionally been
assigned to the
Purifications
. This find unsettles the notion
of a physical doctrine separate from a religious one, showing that if
there are two works, these were much more closely thematically related
than was previously understood. Nevertheless, as the topics of the two
parts (if they did belong to a single poem) are sufficiently distinct,
we treat them separately here. The first primarily concerns the
formation, structure, and history of the physical world as a whole,
and the formation of the animals and plants within it; the second
concerns morality and purification. For convenience, this article uses
the traditional names for the two collections of fragments.
2. On Nature
On Nature
is a bold and ambitious work. It is addressed
variously to the Muse, Calliope; Empedocles’ disciple,
Pausanias; and perhaps also to the wider community of Acragas (Obbink
1993). The poem’s authority stems from its appeal to the divine
for inspiration. Empedocles’ Muse does not, however, forestall
the labor that the addressee must invest in being cognitively
receptive to the message of the work (B3 = D44; B 4 = D 47). As in
traditional didactic verse, Empedocles cultivates a
“master-pupil” relationship and promises Pausanias a
mortal intelligence to soar beyond all others (B 2 = D 42).
On
Nature
contains an ontology of matter and a cosmogony motivated
by the aggregation and separation of Empedocles’ four basic
elements through the power of Love and Strife. Following this, the
poem passes to zoogony and biology, as well as reflections on
cognition and perception.
2.1 Roots and Forces
On Nature
is based on the claim that everything is composed
of four roots; these are moved by two opposing forces, Love and
Strife.
Hear first of all the four roots of all things:
Zeus the gleaming, Hera who gives life, Aidoneus,
And Nêstis, who moistens with her tears the mortal fountain.
(B6 = D 57)
Since the roots are identified by the names of deities—and not
by the traditional names for the elements fire, earth, air, and
water—there are rival interpretations of which deity is to be
identified with which root (Picot 2022). Nevertheless, there is
general agreement that the passage refers to fire, earth, air (=
aither, the upper, atmospheric air, rather than the air that we
breathe here on earth) and water (cf. B 109 = D 207). Aristotle
credits Empedocles with being the first to distinguish clearly these
four elements (
Metaphysics
. 985a31–3). However, the
fact that the roots have divinities’ names indicates that each
has an active nature and is not just inert matter (Rowett 2016). These
roots and forces are eternal and equally balanced, although the
influence of Love and of Strife waxes and wanes (B 6 and B
17.14–20 = D 57 and D 73.245–51).
In fragment 17 of Diels-Kranz, apparently speaking of the physical
world as a whole, Empedocles states his fundamental thesis about the
relation of roots and forces:
Twofold is what I shall say: for at one time they [i.e., the
elements] grew to be only one
Out of many, at another time again they separate to be many out of
one.
And double is the birth of mortal things, double their death.
For the one [i.e., birth] is both born and destroyed by the coming
together of all things,
While the other inversely, when they are separated, is nourished
and flies apart (?).
And these [scil. the elements] incessantly exchange their places
continually,
Sometimes by Love all coming together into one,
Sometimes again each one carried off by the hatred of Strife.
many,>
And inversely, the one separating again, they end up being
many,
To that extent they become, and they do not have a steadfast
lifetime;
But insofar as they incessantly exchange their places
continually,
To that extent they always are, immobile in a circle. (B
17.1–13 = D 73)
Immediately one is struck by the comprehensive symmetry of this
scheme. It seems to address coming-to-be and passing-away, birth and
death, and it does so with an elegant balance. The four roots come
together and blend, under the agency of Love, and they are driven
apart by Strife. At the same time, elements have an active drive
toward homogenization on the principal of affinity (Primavesi 2016).
While this passage describes periods when one of the forces is
dominant, it also describes a cycle. One force does not finally
triumph over the other; rather, their periods of dominance succeed one
another in continual alternation.
Empedocles argues that these roots and forces do not pass away nor is
anything added to them. They are the permanent constituents of the
cyclic drama just described:
For these are all equal and identical in age,
But each one presides over a different honor, each one has its own
character,
And by turns they dominate while the time revolves.
And besides these, nothing at all is added nor is lacking;
For if they perished entirely, they would no longer be.
And this whole here, what could increase it, and coming from
where?
And how could it be completely destroyed, since nothing is empty
of these?
But these are themselves, but running the ones through the
others
They become now this, now that, and each time are continually
similar. (B 17.27–35 = D 73.258–266)
We find similar terminology in Parmenides’ poem when he argues
that the All is one and that it does not come to be:
And was not, nor will it be at some time, since it is now,
together, whole
One, continuous. For what birth could you seek for it?
How, from what could it have grown? (DK 28 B 8.5–7 = D
8.10–12).
Of course, a notorious consequence of Parmenides’ argument is
the impossibility of plurality and of the world of change that we
experience. By contrast, Empedocles argues for a plurality of
permanent entities, i.e., the roots and forces. By incorporating
plurality into his account, he can explain the changing world of our
experience as the combination and disaggregation of the enduring roots
under the influence of the enduring forces.
2.2 Cosmogony
Cosmogony is due to the interplay of the four roots and the two
forces. Each of the roots has its specific nature. Some – like
fire and water – are traditionally seen as antagonistic; others
– like fire and air – are seen as compatible. However,
Empedocles did not think the specific natures of the roots could cause
them to organize themselves into a cosmos. Hence, he introduces Love
and Strife. Love works by bringing together roots of different types
into harmony. It does so by instilling attraction among the different
types of roots for one another; without Love, these roots would not
naturally cohere. While it is true that Love then pulls what is
similar apart from what is similar, it does not do so by causing
repulsion for one another in similar roots. By contrast, Strife
aggregates similar roots together by instilling repulsion among
different types of roots for one another. The work of Strife is to
replace the attraction among different types of roots instilled by
Love with repulsion. During the history of a cosmos, these forces are
in contention, present together in waxing and waning strengths,
throughout the coming to be of the cosmos and its creatures and in
their passing away.
While all commentators take the passage at B17.1–13 (=D
73.233–244) as fundamental, their interpretations vary,
sometimes widely. In the traditional sort of interpretation (see
Guthrie 1965, O’Brien 1969, Wright 1981) this passage speaks
about a two-part symmetrical cosmic cycle, which endlessly repeats
itself. We can trace the history of one cycle, beginning with the
point at which all the roots are united, completely intermingled and
motionless under the total domination of Love, an image reminiscent of
Parmenides’ spherical “what-is”. Then Strife enters
and begins to separate the roots out, until finally all are completely
separated into distinct, self-contained masses of fire, air, earth and
water. At this point, Love begins to unite the roots until, once
again, they are completely intermingled and another cycle begins. In
each half of the cycle, as the separation or unification proceeds,
there is a cosmogony (generation of a cosmos or ordered world) and a
zoogony (generation of animals). In the first half-cycle, under the
increasing influence of Strife, a cosmos and then animals come to be.
In the second half, under the increasing influence of Love, again a
cosmos and animals come to be. We will start with the traditional
interpretations which hold that there are double cosmogonies and then
look at the second strain of interpretations where there is only one
cosmogony.
Empedocles posits a stage in which Love is totally dominant and all
things are unified into a Sphere (B 27 and 29 = D 89 and 92). Since
this spherical unity includes the roots, they are presumably
thoroughly intermingled with one another (for an alternative view,
Sedley 2016). The Sphere is the initial stage in the formation of the
cosmos; it is not itself a cosmos. At this point, Strife begins to
insinuate itself into the Sphere (B 30 and 31 = D 94 and 95). The
outcome is the separation of the roots into a cosmos (A 49 = D
99a–b). The latter requires a separation of roots into
identifiable masses of earth, air, water, and fire (B 38 = D 122),
even though there might still be some (much diminished) presence of
each root within each of the four masses. The roots of earth, water,
air and fire would predominate in the respective masses, making them
identifiable as such. The mass of earth is at the center; water more
or less surrounds the earth. Air forms the next layer. From fire at
the periphery, the sun comes to be as a distinct entity. This
geocentric formation is what the ancients usually recognized to be our
cosmos. Since it is Strife that separates the roots, the cosmogony so
described is presumably dependent on Strife’s influence.
Empedocles also describes a time when Strife has separated the roots.
This separation is total and is the opposite pole from the Sphere,
which is a total mixture under the influence of Love.
When Strife has reached the deepest depth
Of the vortex, and Love has come to be in the center of the
whirl,
Under her dominion all these [i.e., the elements] come together to
be only one,
Each one coming from a different place, not brusquely, but
willingly (B 35.20–23 = D 75.3–6)
First of all, this somewhat mysterious description suggests that the
means by which Strife separates the roots from the beginning is a
vortex. Heavier elements like earth settle in the middle and lighter
ones like fire are pushed to the periphery. This reference to the
vortex also implies that dominance by Strife is characterized by the
whirling motion of the cosmos as we know it. In addition, this
fragment suggests the end of the rule of Strife and the beginning of
the rule of Love, as this principle begins to insinuate itself into
the elements. The latter part of this passage describes the unifying
effect of Love.
At this point, we can start to consider the difference between
traditional and non-traditional interpretations of Empedocles’
cycle. While in traditional interpretations the separation by Strife,
as described above in B 30 and 31 (= D 94 and 95), produces at first a
cosmos, the continuing influence of Strife gradually increases the
separation. Eventually, when Strife is totally dominant as described
in B 35 (= D 75), the roots are so thoroughly separated into their
respective places, each constituting a mass totally on its own, with
no presence in it of any portion of any of the other roots, that the
cosmos and all its movements are destroyed. These interpretations then
hold that there is another cosmogony in the reverse progress from
complete separation to complete unity, under the influence of Love.
Certainly, the symmetry of the fundamental principle might suggest a
second cosmogony. However, we do not find in the remains of
Empedocles’ poem a description of another cosmogony, one taking
place under the influence of Love. Of course, that we do not find one
does not mean that it did not exist, given the fragmentary nature of
the text. In fact, Aristotle suggests in a number of places (
De
Caelo
II 13, 295a29;
De Generatione et Corruptione
II 7,
334a5) that Empedocles was committed to such a second cosmogony. But
he says Empedocles shied away from holding to such a cosmogony because
it is not reasonable to posit a cosmos coming to be from elements
already separated – as though cosmogony can only happen through
the separation of elements out of a previously blended condition of
them all (
De Caelo
, III 2, 301a14).
Such issues lend weight to a second strain of interpretation (see
Bollack 1965–1969, Solmsen 1965, Long 1974, Wellmann 2020),
which still reads the fundamental principle of B 17 (= D 73) as
referring to alternating periods of domination by Love and Strife.
However, they hold that there is only one cosmogony and one zoogony.
In the vortex, Strife dominates in order to separate the roots into
their respective places, shattering Love’s Sphere.
Strife’s creation of separate elements allows for their
recombination by Love to form a cosmos. As described above, this would
be a condition in which some portions of each of the other roots
become intermingled. Love asserts her influence, forming the cosmos
(consisting of a world-order with continental land-masses, oceans,
rivers, winds, sun, moon, seasons, planets, stars, etc.). From the
mixture of roots in due proportions, there arise various forms of
animal life. Ultimately, both animals and cosmos perish as Love
totally reunifies the roots. Thus, finally, the Sphere is restored and
the cosmos ends. On this interpretation there is a single cosmogony
generated by the increasing power of Love and a single zoogony under
alternating dominance by Love and Strife. The idea of a single
cosmogony and zoogony is attractive, in part, because it echoes other
Presocratic philosophers.
The discovery and publication of twelfth-century Byzantine scholia on
Aristotle’s
Physics
On Generation and
Corruption
, and
On the Heavens
(Rashed 2001, 2014, 2018)
that preserve an elaborate cosmic time line for Love and
Strife’s rule has further divided scholarly opinion. The scholia
record an increase of Love’s power for sixty units of time; a
perfect Sphere for forty units; and a rule of Strife lasting sixty
units. Oliver Primavesi (2016) has linked this ratio to Pythagorean
number philosophy through the structure of a double tetractys.
Nonetheless, the authenticity of the scholia’s time line in
relation to Empedocles’ philosophical system remains contested
(Osborne 2005, Ferella 2021).
2.3 Zoogony
So far we have concentrated primarily on the coming to be of the
cosmos. However, the interplay of forces and the combination of roots
also explains the coming to be and destruction of living things:
But when a divinity was mixed more with a [scil. different]
divinity,
These [scil. the divine elements] would come together, according
to how each one happened to be
And many other things came to be born besides these, continuously.
(B 59 = D 149)
Empedocles uses a striking image to illustrate how roots are mixed to
produce animals:
As when painters color many-hued sacrificial offerings,
Both men, by reason of their skill, very expert in their art,
They grasp many-colored pigments in their hands,
Then, having mixed them in harmony, the ones more, the others
less,
Out of these they compose forms similar to all things,
Creating trees, men, and women,
Wild beasts and birds, water-nourished fish,
And long-lived gods, the greatest in honors:
In this way may your mind not succumb to the error that it is from
elsewhere [scil. than from the four elementary roots]
That comes the source of all the innumerable mortal things whose
existence is evident,
But know this exactly, once you have heard the word of a god. (B
23 = D 60)
Although this analogy seems to describe the way Love combines
different roots, as we shall see Empedocles associated zoogony with
the influence of both forces. We can distinguish two sets of fragments
that tell of the way that living beings come to be. The first set
tells about fantastic events and creatures; the second about
natural-sounding events and creatures.
Let us start with the fantastic. Empedocles says that there was a time
when separate limbs wandered around on their own:
From it [scil. the earth] blossomed many faces without necks,
Naked arms wandered about, bereft of shoulders,
And eyes roamed about alone, deprived of brows. (B 57 = D
157).
The wandering and straying suggest aimless and disorderly movements
(and so, some influence of Strife). Then, however, these separate
limbs combined in random ways to make fantastic creatures:
Many grew double of face and double of chest,
Races of man-prowed cattle, while others sprang up inversely,
Creatures of cattle-headed men, mixed here from men,
There creatures of women fitted with shadowy genitals. (B 61 = D
156)
In these fragments there is a change from separateness to combination
and cooperation (Sedley 2016). Combination and cooperation are, of
course, the work of Love. Whether this phase also produced
non-fantastic creatures, e.g., ox-headed oxen, is not clear. Aristotle
seemed to think it did, because he says some of these combinations
were fitted to survive (
Physics
. II 8, 198b29).
In the second set of fragments we find an explanation of the way that
present day creatures come to be.
Come then: how fire, separating off, drew upward the nocturnal
saplings
Of much-weeping men and women—
Hear this. For my tale is not aimless nor ignorant.
First, complete [or: rough] outlines sprang up from the earth
Possessing a share of both, of water as of heat.
These fire sent upward, wishing to reach what was similar to
it;
As yet they displayed neither the lovely framework of limbs
Nor the voice and the organ that is native to men. (B 62 = D
157)
This phase produces the earliest human forms, which are autochthonous,
and they have yet to show entirely human features. Ultimately, from
these there developed men and women as we know them today (B
63–65 = D 164, 162, 171, 172). At this point, sexual
reproduction becomes the focus of Empedocles’ account. Still,
this first phase begins with separation of elements, as the first
lines of the fragment show, and so it involves some influence of
Strife.
It has been proposed that the move from discrete necks, arms, and eyes
to the existing, compound bodies of humans and animals is an
anticipation of a kind of evolution through natural selection (Sedley
2016). That is, single-limbed organisms joined together with one
another to produce temporary compounds that survived on the basis of
their success in the environment, and eventually came to reproduce
themselves.
In the traditional interpretations, these fragments describe two
zoogonies, one under the increasingly dominant influence of Love and
the other under the dominant influence of Strife. So, the living
beings produced by the work of Love belong to the era when Love rules
and those brought into existence by Strife belong to the era when
Strife rules. By contrast, in the second strain of interpretation,
there is only one zoogony, which takes place under the increasing
influence of Love, although Strife is still present. Thus, there are
not two zoogonies happening in distinct cosmic cycles; rather there
are fluctuations of Love and Strife within the progress from total
domination by Strife to that by Love. This question has been affected
by a surprising discovery. In 1994, at the Bibliothèque
Nationale et Universitaire of Strasbourg, a papyrus was identified as
containing extensive fragments of Empedocles’ poem; some of this
material was hitherto unknown to modern readers. In the wake of this
discovery, some scholars have argued the newly found material added
weight to the traditional reading. For instance, Trépanier
(2003) argues that
ensemble
(see Martin
and Primavesi 1999: 144–149) strengthens previous evidence for a
kind of zoogony taking place under the influence of Strife, which is
fully distinct from the kind of zoogony under the influence of Love.
In turn, distinct zoogonies imply distinct cosmogonies.
However, the double zoogony implies that animals or their parts will
come to be through a process of separation. Since zoogony under
increasing Love is shown to be a kind of assembly of parts that leads
to viable creatures, by parity of reasoning, zoogony under increasing
Strife should be a sundering of wholes that leads to viable creatures
or to the sort of parts that are condemned to further disintegration.
The task, then, for the traditionalists is to find in the manuscript
passages that clearly show a sundering that produces viable creatures
or parts thereof. In turn, the sundering must clearly belong to a
stage in which Strife is not just dominant—after all, their
opponents recognize a fluctuation in the influence of Love and
Strife—but is achieving complete separation. While the
traditionalists have presented passages from the manuscript that they
claim to be such evidence, the claims have not gone unchallenged (see
Balaudé 2010 and Laks 2001). At this point in the continuing
scholarly debate perhaps it is not too bold to say that the new
material presents some – not uncontested – evidence for a
double zoogony.
The question of the sequence of these stages is, perhaps, not as
important as the fact that, on any view, Empedocles is proposing a way
of explaining living beings by competing principles of Love and
Strife. While each of the four roots has its particular quality, these
qualities alone are not enough to explain how a cosmos and its
creatures come to be. Besides the interaction of fire, air, earth, and
water, there must be other forces at work in order to have the world
we live in. Thus, the four roots, with the particular qualities, are
not so naturally antagonistic as to defy combination but are capable
both of repelling one another and of coming together. On the one hand,
a lot of our world is the effect of disintegration because the roots
prove to be antagonistic due to Strife; on the other, they also come
together by harmonizing their particular qualities due to Love. When
harmony is a creative force, how Love achieves combination comes to
the fore. The explanation of harmonizing what could be antagonistic
achieves an important depth in the idea of a proportional mixture of
roots. Empedocles says that flesh and blood are composed of
approximately equal parts of earth, fire, water, and aither (B 98 = D
190). Another proportion of elements produces bone (B 96 = D 192).
Thus, a proper balance harmonizes the roots and banishes antagonism.
However we read the cycles of Love and Strife, then, this harmony of
potentially opposing roots is only a phase. In the sphere of Love, the
ratio that produces the variety of creatures gives way to a
homogenizing blend of roots.
These fragments seem related to ancient medicine, with its theory of
the proper mixture of hot and cold, dry and wet as constituting the
healthy condition of the body (recall that we are told that Empedocles
was a physician as well as a philosopher and poet). However, the
extant fragments do not show any detailed connection with medical
explanations. The equal proportion in the mixture of blood does seem
related to another kind of explanation. Blood has a central role to
play in Empedocles’ account of biological processes, to which we
now turn; among other things, it is that whereby men think (B 105 = D
240). It appears that the equal mixture allows discernment of all
things (since, of course, all things are made up of the four elements
in differing proportions).
2.4 Perception/Cognition
It is not clear that Empedocles makes a distinction between perception
and cognition. Certainly the tradition in antiquity, exemplified by
Aristotle, attributes to him only an account of perception, which is
based on the following:
For it is by earth that we see earth, by water water,
By aether divine aether, and by fire destructive fire,
And fondness by fondness, and strife by baleful strife. (B 109 = D
207)
If we take “see” (
opôpamen
) to mean sense
perception, then this characterization suggests that such perception
is by the likeness of external elements to internal elements. Then,
since roots and principles in the perceiver are related to the roots
and principles in the perceived object, the passage suggests that
elements in one correspond to elements in the other. This passage, of
course, does not make clear how this correspondence results in the
perception of color and shape. Still, Empedocles is able to explain,
by way of “effluences” how the elements in the perceived
object affect the elements in the perceiver. Everything gives off
effluences (B 89 = D 208). These are tiny particles that flow out from
objects continually. One can then grasp one half of the
correspondence; effluences from the perceived object flow to the
perceiver, in particular to the perceptual organ. Then, effluences of
fire would make contact with the fire in the eye. On this basis, since
fire, e.g., is white, one can construct an account of the way that
fire, and the other roots, are responsible for color perception.
However, these sorts of explanation do not encompass the perception of
Love and Strife, which seems to depend on deduction (B 17.21 = D
73.252).
In view of such difficulties, some have argued that B 109 (= D 207)
implies a more general notion than sense perception. If
opôpamen
includes understanding and knowledge (as it
seems to in the case of Love and Strife), then Empedocles is not
talking about the meeting of external and internal elements. Rather,
he implies a more abstract operation in which we acquire an
intellectual grasp of the roots and the forces and do not just
perceive them (see Kamtekar 2009). However, two recent studies that
focus on the perception of color imply that B 109 (= D207) describes
sense perception (Ierodiakonou 2005 and Kalderon 2015:
1–16).
Whether B 109 is about sense perception or not, in another passage (B
84 = D 215) Empedocles focuses on the senses when he talks about the
way the eye functions (trans. Rashed 2007):
Just as when someone, before taking to the road, constructs a lamp
for himself,
A flame of gleaming fire in a stormy night,
Fitting, as protection against all winds, lantern casings
That scatter the breath of the buffeting winds,
While the light, finer as it is, leaping through to the
outside,
Shines on the threshold with its unimpaired beams,
Thus, after Aphrodite had fitted the ogygian fire enclosed in
membranes with pegs of love,
She poured round-eyed Korê in filmy veils
These kept off the depth of water flowing round about them,
But allowed the fire to pass through to the outside, in that it is
finer, where they had been bored through with marvellous funnels.
In the lantern, the flame is shielded by a linen screen, but the light
still goes through the linen. So the eye has a membrane through which
the flame within the eye goes out. This account of the eye refers to
another important Empedoclean idea: the surface of the eye has
passages through which the effluent fire goes out. Still, effluences
go in the other direction, as well, from the objects. This possibility
suggests another important Empedoclean idea. In a well-known passage
of Plato’s
Meno
where Socrates is supposed to be giving
Empedocles’ theory of perception, effluences come from the
object of perception to the organ of perception. In this account there
is also a way to distinguish the different kinds of perception.
Different sized effluences from the object fit similarly shaped
openings or pores in the different organs. Then colors are effluences
from objects fitted to the pores of the eye (A 92 = D 209). So,
perception of color is based on a correspondence between the shape of
the pores in the eye and the shape of the particles that flow from the
perceived object.
Empedocles’ portrayal of the functions of the mind also seems
based on the philosophy of affinity. Its materialist basis is clear
from Empedocles’ contention that the blood around the heart is
uniquely suited to cognition:
Nourished in the seas of back-springing blood,
Where above all is located what humans call thought:
For the blood around the heart is for humans their thought. (B 105
= D 240).
As in Parmenides’ account of thought as a “mixture of
much-wandering limbs” (B 16 = D 51), so too in Empedocles
thinking appears to result from the blended ratio (Palmer
2019)—in this case, of the mixture of earth, water, air, and
fire (A 86 = D 237). It has been suggested that the roughly even
distribution of the four elements in blood is what makes it so suited
to cognition (Long 1966). Though both cognition and sense perception
operate on the basis of affinity, their relationship to one another is
less clear. According to the traditional interpretation, cognition
does not seem to rely upon the senses. Nor is there a single
“command center” in the blood around the heart, where
effluences from the sensory organs are relayed to. Instead, cognition
operates as a sense in its own right. This materialist account of
cognition has lately been called into question (Curd 2016). As
Empedocles is committed to the idea that all things have a share of
thought (B 110 = D 257), then this must include things that have no
blood. For humans, pericardial blood might then serve as a command
center for sensory data, for evaluation and judgment.
However we interpret the process of cognition, it is clear that
thought has the potential to dramatically alter an individual’s
constitution:
For if, leaning upon your firm organs of thought
prapides
),
With pure efforts you gaze upon them benevolently,
They [i.e., the elements] will all be present to you throughout
your lifetime
And many other good things will come to you from them. For these
things themselves
Are what makes each thing grow in one’s character, according
to each person’s nature.
But if you covet different things, such as those that among men
are
Countless miseries that blunt their thoughts,
Certainly they will abandon you quickly, as the time
revolves,
In their desire to rejoin the race that is theirs.
For know that all things feel (
phronesis
) and have their
share of thought (
noema
). (B 110 = D 257)
Acceptance of Empedocles’ philosophical program is envisioned as
being dependent upon his physicalist doctrine of the mixture of
elements. Its adoption by the addressee relies on a constitution that
is receptive to truth. Still, one remains capable of growing in wisdom
(Sassi 2016). Alternatively, the disciple will increasingly become
cognitively corrupted, “blunted”. The philosopher
Theophrastus reports that Empedocles attributed individual
temperaments to the more or less favorable mixture of the elements
within blood, which was responsible for intelligent, slothful, and
impetuous individuals (B 86 = D 237).
It is likely not coincidental that the balance of elements in blood
that is productive of thought approximates the elemental balance also
found within the Sphere under the influence of Love. This would
suggest that cognition is to be associated with Love. But the failure
of perfect cognition should be linked to the imperfections of the
mixture of the elements in blood, and this must be due to the
co-presence of Strife (Long 1966).
3. Purifications
The title of Empedocles’ hexameter poem,
Purifications
is not likely to be original; still, the title provides a valuable
guide to its contents. Purification or cleansing
(καθαρμός) could be
performed both prior to pollution (to ward it off) and after it was
incurred (to dissolve its power). Ritual and symbolic washing with
water or blood were lustral, as was abstinence from select harmful
practices. Seers held that the purification of the body could remove
disease; at the same time, Pythagoreans and Orphic mystics apparently
understood purification as the emancipation of the soul from the body.
Musaeus and Epimenides also had
Purifications
attached to
their names. Any one or indeed all of these associations may have
attracted the title to Empedocles’ work.
Apart from the relatively rare explicit citations from the
Purifications
, scholars have been hard pressed to identify
what fragments come from this work as opposed to
On Nature
and in general adhere to “ritual” themes as the deciding
factor. Additionally, the internal audience appears to be not a single
individual as Pausanias, but the people of Acragas in general, and so
second-person plural addresses are often taken as evidence for the
Purifications
. Diogenes Laertius, however, offers a secure
reference to the incipit of the work, in a fragment in which
Empedocles notoriously declares his divinity and his powers of
prophecy and healing to his fellow citizens.
Friends, you who dwell in the great city beside the yellow
Acragas
On the lofty citadel and who care for good deeds,
Respectful harbors for strangers, inexperienced in
wickedness,
I greet you! I, who for you am an immortal god, no longer
mortal,
I go among you, honored, as I am seen,
Crowned with ribbons and with blooming garlands.
Whenever I arrive with these in the flourishing cities,
I am venerated by men and by women; they follow me,
Thousands of them, asking where is the road to benefit:
Some of them desire prophecies, others ask to hear,
For illnesses of all kinds, a healing utterance,
Pierced for a long time by terrible . (B 112 = D
4)
This audacious beginning is intended to shock and awe, although
Empedocles’ subsequent redefinition of the gods and his distance
from them somewhat tempers this initial impression (Trépanier
2004). In what follows the fragments of the
Purifications
disclose an ancient decree and an “oracle of Necessity” of
transmigration for fallen daemons, “spirits”, as
punishment for their alliance with Strife through bloodshed and
perjury (B 115 = D 10 and 11). After becoming polluted, the daemon is
successively rejected by the elements and banished from the divine for
30,000 seasons. Startlingly, Empedocles reveals that he too is a
participant in this cosmic migration. Incarnation has the potential to
expiate the crime of the daemon, and by moving through a series of
lives as plants, animals, and finally, humans, he returns to the
banquets of the gods. But in order to achieve this enlightened state,
the daemon must adhere to a rigid ethical program, refusing meat,
beans, and the bay leaf, and heterosexual sex as well. These
injunctions constitute a thoroughgoing indictment of traditional Greek
religion.
Transmigration is governed by the four roots under the influence of
Love and Strife, aligning the
Purifications
with the physical
doctrine of
On Nature
. Here, however, the ramifications of
matter, attraction, and repulsion are paramount for humans. Strife
sets off the initial collapse of divine unity, creating the daemons
who descend into the cycle of incarnations. Their return to the
worship of Love permits an eventual restoration to the divine.
Empedocles gives a vivid portrayal of her peaceful worship by early
humans; this near Golden Age is in stark contrast to those fragments
that inveigh against traditional sacrifices and the eating of meat in
language evocative of Agamemnon’s sacrifice of Iphigenia and
Thyestes’ cannibal feast of his children. Worship of Love allows
for a return to the divine. At last, the daemons arise as gods;
released from exile, they enjoy a blessed life (B 146 and 147 = D 39
and 40).
3.1 Transmigration
Transmigration is central to the philosophical program of the
Purifications
. The doctrine already had adherents in the
followers of Orphism and among the Pythagoreans, and Empedocles no
doubt drew upon this prominent south Italian and Sicilian tradition in
advocating for his own cycle of incarnations (Kingsley 1995, Palmer
2019). One part of the cycle begins under the total domination of Love
through the Sphere, with Strife exiled from the four roots. After
these have become blended, Strife “leaps” into action,
becoming the motivator of the pollution by those gods who perjure a
sacred decree governed by Necessity. This triggers a chain reaction of
banishment and wandering for the newly fallen daemons in a fragment
traditionally taken as part of the
Purifications
(O’Brien 2001):
There is an oracle of Necessity, an ancient decree of the
gods,
Eternal, sealed by broad oaths:
Whenever by crimes some one [scil. of them] pollutes his limbs, by
murder
<…> whoever commits a fault by perjuring himself on
oath,
The divinities (
daimones
) who have received as lot a long
life,
Must wander thrice ten thousand seasons far from the blessed
ones,
Growing during this time in the different forms of mortal
beings,
Exchanging the painful paths of life.
For the force of the aether chases them toward the sea,
The sea spits them out toward earth’s surface, the earth
toward the rays
Of the bright sun, and he [i.e., the sun] hurls them into the
eddies of the aether.
Each one receives them from another, but all hate them.
Of them, I too am now one, an exile from the divine and a
wanderer,
I who relied on insane Strife. (B 115 = D 10)
The daemon’s fate reworks a passage from Hesiod’s
Theogony
(775–806) that recounts the prerogatives of
the goddess Styx, who, after strife and quarrels have emerged,
punishes the gods’ perjury with an exile of nine years
(Santamaría 2022). Yet, as in
On Nature
, the four
roots are crucial – air, water, earth, and fire play a key role
in the cycle of incarnation, successively expelling the daemon from
their spheres of influence. Details on the beginning of the cycle
remain frustratingly unclear. At what stage in the rising influence of
Strife the gods pollute themselves is ambiguous, as are the precise
conditions under which the gods become daemons. As in epic and
tragedy, there may be “dual motivation”: Strife provokes
transmigration, but the daemon remains accountable for its crimes.
Punishment arises through exile from the gods and a long wandering;
the daemon is hated by all and reliant on Strife. Neither Zeus nor
Hades will receive it (B 142 = D 12). The fate of mortals in general
is grim:
Alas! Wretched race of mortals, miserable race!
From such kinds of strife and from such groans you are born! (B
124 = D 17)
The
persona loquens
laments, “I wept and wailed when I
saw an unaccustomed place” (B118 = D 14), and finds himself,
“Far from what honor and from what abundance of
bliss”… (B 119 = D 15). Transmigration as part of the
ritual of purification mandates partaking in a world of suffering in
which all life is fated to be born, become corrupt, and die. This
reasserts the doctrine in
On Nature
that all things are
mortal except for the four roots and Love and Strife, which combine
and break down matter. Empedocles narrates his own dissolutions and
recombination,
For as for me, once I was already both a youth and a girl
a bush and a bird, and a sea-leaping, voyaging fish. (B 117 = D
13)
The wandering of the daemon forms a “ladder” of
transmigration, in a cycle ascending from animal to plant to human.
This hierarchy of incarnation is further subdivided, with laurel at
the highest plant rung; lions at the highest animal one; and seers,
poets, doctors, and leaders of men for humans (B 127, 146 = D 36, 39).
Theoretically, the cycle applies to all living creatures. This
consideration necessitates the injunction against bloodshed and
meat-eating:
Will you not desist from evil-sounding murder? Do you not see
That you are devouring each other in the carelessness of your
mind? (B 136 = D 28)
Humans unaware of the cycle of transmigration commit murder by eating
flesh. The verb in Greek for “devouring”
(δάπτοντες) is used of
wild animals, highlighting the dehumanizing effect of being
carnivorous. The legal language of the gods’ oath returns in the
human sphere, where all humans are bound by the injunction against
killing (B 135 = D 27a). The hexameter verse form is used to
spectacular effect in Empedocles’ equation of ritual animal
sacrifice to human sacrifice familiar from Agamemnon’s slaughter
of Iphigenia:
The father, lifting up his own son who has changed shape,
Cuts his throat, with a prayer—fool that he is! The others
are at a loss
While they sacrifice the suppliant; but he [scil. the father],
deaf to the shouts,
Has cut the throat and prepared an evil meal in his house.
In the same way, a son seizes his father and children their
mother,
And ripping out their life they devour the flesh of their dear
ones. (B 137 = D 29)
The gnomic wisdom that “not to be born is best” is
modified by Empedocles in light of his prior transgressions:
Alas, that the pitiless day did not destroy me earlier,
Before I contrived terrible deeds about feeding with my claws! (D
76.5–6)
This fragment, although traditionally attributed to the
Purifications
, we now know is from
On Nature
, again
pointing to the fundamental unity of what have been perceived as
physical and ritual doctrines. Vegetarianism becomes an antidote to
the cannibalism inherent in meat-eating, and the extant fragments show
similar injunctions against bay leaves (B 140 = D 32) and beans (B 141
= D 31).
At an earlier stage in the cycle with Love more powerful, humans
enjoyed a kind of Golden Age of prosperity and peace. Under her
influence, humans and animals are harmonious: beasts and birds become
tame and gentle (B 130 = D 26). For these humans, the worship of Love
rejects blood sacrifice for honey, myrrh, perfume, and votives (B 128
= D 25). Early human history thus models the ethical norms that must
be recovered in Empedocles’ modernity in order to become pure
and advance in the cycle of incarnations. The focus upon ethics in the
Purifications
is a radical shift from prior Presocratic
discourse (Barnes 1979). Abstaining from meat, bay, beans, and
heterosexual congress may place the cycle in the realm of human
manipulation, and the
Purifications
thus has a didactic
message with the potential to accelerate the daemon’s path from
human to divine being. More speculatively, it has been suggested that
the motion of the cycle itself can be changed on the basis of human
action (Osborne 2005), though this has not gone unchallenged
(Picot-Berg 2015).
3.2 Gods and daemons
The prominence of the divine is made clear in the fragments of the
Purifications
. In an introduction or an introductory section,
Empedocles asks the Muse, Calliope, to aid his inspired discourse
about the “blessed gods” (B 131 = D 7). Who are these
figures (Picot 2022)? According to Hippolytus, Empedocles’ gods
include the four elements—Zeus, Hera, Aidoneus, and
Nestis—and the two powers, Love and Strife (
Refutation of
All Heresies
7.29). Each plays a crucial role in the cycle of
transmigration outlined in the poem: Strife governs the exile of the
daemon; the elements hate and successively reject it; and the worship
of Love creates the conditions for the daemon’s restoration.
This restoration to godhood further expands the pantheon to include
gods who enjoy a shared hearth and banqueting, the absence of human
misery, and freedom from destruction (B 147 = D 40). They are subject
to the divine “oracle of Necessity” mandating against
bloodshed and they fall into the cycle of transmigration after
foreswearing it, becoming daemons like Empedocles.
Daemons constitute a sub-category of gods “who have received as
lot a long life” (B 115 = D 10), and by qualifying their
immortality Empedocles adapts their traditional association with fate
and a protecting spirit for humans as is evident in, for example,
Hesiod (
Erg.
122, 314). The cycle constantly renews the body
of the daemon; in one fragment, a female subject is described as
“enveloping in an unfamiliar cloak of flesh” (B 126 = D
19) a figure regularly interpreted as the daemon. At the same time,
the fragments take for granted some set of stable qualities that are
incrementally purified. Scholars also generally accept some
psychological continuity between the daemon and its mortal
incarnations (Barnes 1979; Long 2015). In the absence of any
Empedoclean discussion of the soul or an incorporeal carrier, the
material makeup of the daemon continues to be debated, with arguments
for it as Love and Strife (Cornford 1912); embodied Love (Kahn 1960);
incorporeal imprints of the Sphere (Therme 2010);
aither
(Shaw 2014); or compounds of the roots (Barnes 1979, Trépanier
2014, 2017, 2020) – the controversy has even led to the
reassertion of the fundamental incompatibility of Empedocles’
daemonology and physics (Santaniello 2021), although this remains a
minority view. Presumably, unlike the roots and Love and Strife, these
“long-lived” gods will be subject to dissolution under the
total reigns of Love or Strife (B 21 = D 77a).
Daemons occupy transient forms, incarnating into plant life, animals,
and humans. Empedocles relates that they wander in these for thirty
thousand seasons. Their exile on earth is well-expressed by Empedocles
in his affirmation that while the daemon transmigrates, it neither
reaches the abode of Zeus nor the palace of Hades (B 142 = D 12). It
is a period of suffering and loss, underscoring the importance of the
escape that is the daemon’s return to godhood. Incarnation
appears to form a “ladder”. The highest order of plants is
the laurel, and of animals, the lion. Empedocles states of humans:
At the end they become seers, hymn singers, doctors,
And leaders for humans on the earth,
And then they blossom up as gods, the greatest in honors. (B 146 =
D 39)
Since antiquity, these figures have been interpreted as ethically
ideal types, as closely allied with Love. If this is correct, then the
daemons have become purified of Strife at this end point in the cycle.
Empedocles’ identification of himself as one ‘trusting in
mad Strife’ (B 115 = D 10) may, however, indicate the continuing
influence of Strife (Tor 2022), even at the end of the ladder. An
alternative suggestion is that an alliance with Love and purification
is unnecessary and that “time served” is sufficient to
graduate a daemon to godhood (Picot-Berg 2015).
Perhaps the most important question mark surrounds the issue of the
position of the daemon in the wider cosmic alternation of Love and
Strife. The fragments give no unequivocal direction on integrating
transmigration into the ultimate dissolution of the elements under
Strife or their complete mixture under Love. Nor do scholars yet agree
on a methodology for approaching this issue (Marciano 2001). Much
earlier scholarship rejected the compatibility of the cosmic and
daemonic cycles (Diels 1898). A related solution has been to suggest
that the cycle of the daemon is a mythological allegory of the
physical cycles of Love and Strife (Primavesi 2008). ). On this
reading, for example, the rupture of the Sphere mirrors the breakdown
in the community of daemons. More often, interpreters attempted to
unite the cycles of transmigration within the broader movements toward
the one and the many. This suggests that there is no eternal paradise
for the daemon after attaining godhood again.
4. Relation of
On Nature
to
Purifications
The relation between
On Nature
and
Purifications
is
the subject of varied speculations. Once it was thought that the first
was a scientific work and the latter a religious one. Since these
categories were understood to be antithetical, there could be no
relation at all between them; Empedocles had just written two
incompatible poems. More recently, as the usefulness of such a rigid
dichotomy seemed less plausible, commentators have seen the teaching
about nature as continuous with
Purifications
. Both, after
all, give a prominent place to Love and Strife. Nature, then, is ruled
by the very same principles that are the key to understanding the
drama of the ethical life, as Empedocles represents that.
Understanding how nature works, one will want to side with Love and
not Strife—especially, one will want to avoid the shedding of
blood, that whereby we think and perceive, the very principle of
conscious life. This sort of approach sees a complementarity between
the natural philosophy and the religious narrative. However, in light
of the Strasbourg manuscript, some have argued for a tighter unity.
Martin and Primavesi, for instance, focus on a part of
ensemble
which describes the moment when
Strife dominates in the vortex and Love comes to be in its center.
This description mirrors the same event described in B 35 (= D 75),
except that, besides roots being united by Love, there are also
persons of some sort being united in Love. According to the authors,
these persons are the incarnated
daimones
of
Purifications
; in turn, these
daimones
, whose
punishment through incarnation is coming to an end, are also particles
of Love. The dissolution of composite beings under Strife, then,
liberates these particles of Love from their cycle of incarnation and
they unite in Love at its advent in the center of the whirl (Martin
and Primavesi 1999: 83–86, 90–95). Such interpretations
might imply that there are not two poems but one. Nevertheless, the
way textual support has been marshaled for these sorts of readings has
not gone uncriticized (see Laks 2002, Bollack 2005).
Another interpretation has been proposed, which views the differences
in emphasis between the works as not necessarily establishing two
separate texts, but two ‘levels’ of teaching: esoteric and
exoteric (Curd 2005). On this reading, Empedocles is in fact
addressing two audiences, one general, represented by the people of
Acragas and the second-person plural, and one specialized group of
intimates, represented by the appeals to Pausanias and the use of the
second-person singular. The general audience is instructed in public
lectures on the necessity of purifying themselves and the means to do
so. By contrast, the inner circle receives a detailed explanation of
the cosmos’ inner workings, a more rigorous account of
Empedocles’ daemonology, and unique powers.
Finally, there has been a recent reconstruction of the
Purifications
and
On Nature
that assigns most of our
extant fragments to
On Nature
, a move that aims to reconcile
Empedocles’ physics and daemonology by placing them in the same
work (Ferella 2024). The
Purifications
is viewed as a
(largely lost) potpourri of regulations on purification, ritual
oracles, and healing utterances (Sedley 1989); meanwhile,
On
Nature
becomes the vehicle for Empedocles’ physical
philosophy as well as his doctrine on crime, punishment, rebirth, and
purification. If this is correct, Empedocles’ proemial narrative
of his exiled divinity authorizes the philosopher as one able to
pronounce on the nature of things and presages the vital importance of
metamorphosis in the physics. At the same time, the dialectic between
the ‘long lived’ gods and mortals who continually die and
are reborn finds its analogue in the cosmic actions of Love and Strife
who persist through a world of exchange, of combination and
dissolution (Ferella 2024).
5. Influence
As a testament to the success of Empedocles’ philosophy in its
afterlife, the philosopher boasts the largest number of preserved
Presocratic fragments. His popularity soon after his death is assured
by a reference to him in the Hippocratic
Ancient Medicine
, in
which the author protests that:
Some doctors and experts (
sophistae
) say that it is
impossible for anyone to know medicine who does not know what a human
being is […]. But what they are talking about belongs to
philosophy (
philosophiē
), like Empedocles and other
people who have written about nature—what a human being is from
the beginning, how he came about at first and what things he is
constituted of. (A 71 = R 6)
Part of this success must be attributed to Empedocles’
reputation as a poet rivaling Homer for his inspired use of diction
and metaphor (A 1 = R 1b). Lactantius wondered whether to class him
among the philosophers or poets (A 24 = R 3b). Indeed,
Empedocles’ choice of verse as a medium enacts important effects
upon the audience (Mackenzie 2021). Yet Empedocles’
philosophical theories too excited great interest in his successors.
Plato regularly refers to him by name, and in the
Symposium
he puts in the mouth of the comic poet Aristophanes a re-worked
version of the origin of the human that lampoons Empedoclean Love and
Strife and Empedocles’ interpretation of the evolutionary
development of the human species: a former spherical unity is split
into two and then only comes together through the influence of erotic
Love (O’Brien 2002). Aristotle was similarly influenced by him;
he mentions no philosopher with greater frequency except Plato. His
critiques range from Empedocles’ treatment of the generation of
elements (R 8a), to the problems of Love and Strife as motive
principles (A 42 = R 12 and 13), to the motionlessness of the earth (R
14), to the growth of plants and animals (A 70 = R 17), to the
generation of animal organisms (R 19). His successor, Theophrastus,
devotes a long, agonistic section of his
On Sensations
to
attacking Empedocles’ interpretations of sight, sound, smell,
and thought (A 86 = R 25). Timon of Phlius’
Silloi
ridiculed his use of elements (A 1 = R 37). Empedocles remained a
touchstone among the Stoics and Epicureans as well: a pupil of
Epicurus’, Hermarchus, wrote an
Against Empedocles
in
twenty-two books (Obbink 1988), while in his
De Rerum Natura
Lucretius offers fulsome—though not unqualified—praise of
the Agrigentine, who “scarcely seems to have been born of human
stock” (A 21.21 = R 31.733; complete translation of the entire
work is in Rouse 1924). Chrysippus is said to have interpreted
passages of his poetry (R 40a–b) and the Stoics were associated
with the element of fire that Empedocles may have given some
prominence to (A 31 = R 41). Sallust composed an entire
Empedoclea
, which Cicero commended to his brother (A 27 = R
36). Plutarch is said to have written a ten-book work on Empedocles;
in his extant works, he refers to and cites Empedocles more than
eighty times (Hershbell 1971; Jazdzewska 2020). Thanks to this robust
early tradition, rich exegesis on Empedocles continued in commentaries
written on these authors and by the early Christians until well into
late antiquity. Empedocles’ immortal hold on his readers
continues. Friedrich Hölderlin’s unfinished drafts of
Der Tod des Empedokles
continue to inspire modern analysis
(Foti 2006), and Nietzsche’s “stillbirth” tragedy on
Empedocles has been well-treated recently (Most 2005), as has Matthew
Arnold’s “Empedocles on Etna” (Kenny 2005).
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