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Empedocles
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pre-Socratic philosophy
Engraving of Empedocles
Full name Empedocles (Έμπεδοκλής)
Birth 490 BC
Death 430 BC
School/tradition Pluralist School
Main interests cosmogenesis and ontology
Notable ideas All matter is made up of four elements: water, earth, air and fire.
Empedocles (Greek: Ἐμπεδοκλῆς, ca. 490–430 BC) was a Greek pre-Socratic philosopher and a citizen of Agrigentum, a Greek colony in Sicily. Empedocles' philosophy is best known for being the origin of the cosmogenic theory of the four classical elements. He also proposed powers called Love and Strife which would act as forces to bring about the mixture and separation of the elements. These physical speculations were part of a history of the universe which also dealt with the origin and development of life. Influenced by the Pythagoreans, he supported the doctrine of reincarnation. Empedocles is generally considered the last Greek philosopher to record his ideas in verse. Some of his work still survives today, more so than in the case of any other Presocratic philosopher. Empedocles' death was mythologized by ancient writers, and has been the subject of a number of literary treatments.
Life
Empedocles was born, c. 490 BC, at Agrigentum (Acragas) in Sicily to a distinguished family.[1] Very little is known about his life. His father Meto seems to have been instrumental in overthrowing the tyrant of Agrigentum, presumably Thrasydaeus in 470 BC. Empedocles continued the democratic tradition of his house by helping to overthrow the succeeding oligarchic government. He is said to have been magnanimous in his support of the poor;[2] severe in persecuting the overbearing conduct of the aristocrats;[3] and he even declined the sovereignty of the city when it was offered to him.[4]
His brilliant oratory,[5] his penetrating knowledge of nature, and the reputation of his marvellous powers, including the curing of diseases, and averting epidemics,[6] produced many myths and stories surrounding his name. He was said to have been a magician and controller of storms, and he himself, in his famous poem Purifications seems to have promised miraculous powers, including the destruction of evil, the curing of old age, and the controlling of wind and rain.
Empedocles was acquainted or connected by friendship with the physicians Acron[7] and Pausanias,[8] who was his eromenos;[9] with various Pythagoreans; and even, it is said, with Parmenides and Anaxagoras.[10] The only pupil of Empedocles who is mentioned is the sophist and rhetorician Gorgias.[11]
Timaeus and Dicaearchus spoke of the journey of Empedocles to the Peloponnese, and of the admiration which was paid to him there;[12] others mentioned his stay at Athens, and in the newly-founded colony of Thurii, 446 BC;[13] there are also fanciful reports of him travelling far to the east to the lands of the Magi.[14]
According to Aristotle, he died at the age of sixty, (c. 430 BC) even though other writers have him living up to the age of one hundred and nine.[15] Likewise, there are myths concerning his death: a tradition, which is traced to Heraclides Ponticus, represented him as having been removed from the earth; whereas others had him perishing in the flames of Mount Etna.[16]
Works
Empedocles is considered the last Greek philosopher to write in verse and the surviving fragments of his teaching are from two poems, Purifications and On Nature. Empedocles was undoubtedly acquainted with the didactic poems of Xenophanes and Parmenides[17] - allusions to the latter can be found in the fragments, - but he seems to have surpassed them in the animation and richness of his style, and in the clearness of his descriptions and diction. Aristotle called him the father of rhetoric, and, although he acknowledged only the meter as a point of comparison between the poems of Empedocles and the epics of Homer, he described Empedocles as Homeric and powerful in his diction.[18] Lucretius speaks of him with enthusiasm, and evidently viewed him as his model.[19] The two poems together comprised 5000 lines.[20] About 550 lines of his poetry survive, although because ancient writers rarely mentioned which poem they were quoting, it is not always certain to which poem the quotes belong. Some scholars now believe that there was only one poem, and that the Purifications merely formed the beginning of On Nature.[21]
Purifications
We possess only about 100 lines of his Purifications. It seems to have given a mythical account of the world which may, nevertheless, have been part of Empedocles' philosophical system. The first lines of the poem are preserved by Diogenes Laërtius:
Friends who inhabit the mighty town by tawny Acragas
which crowns the citadel, caring for good deeds,
greetings; I, an immortal God, no longer mortal,
wander among you, honoured by all,
adorned with holy diadems and blooming garlands.
To whatever illustrious towns I go,
I am praised by men and women, and accompanied
by thousands, who thirst for deliverance,
some ask for prophecies, and some entreat,
for remedies against all kinds of disease.[22]
It was probably this work which contained a story about souls,[23] where we are told that there were once spirits who lived in a state of bliss, but having committed a crime (the nature of which is unknown) they were punished by being forced to become mortal beings, reincarnated from body to body. Humans, animals, and even plants are such spirits. The moral conduct recommended in the poem may allow us to become like gods again.
On Nature
There are about 450 lines of his poem On Nature extant, including 70 lines which have been reconstructed from some papyrus scraps known as the Strasbourg Papyrus. The poem originally consisted of 2000 lines of hexameter verse,[24] and was addressed to Pausanias.[25] It was this poem which outlined his philosophical system. In it, Empedocles explains not only the nature and history of the universe, including his theory of the four classical elements, but he describes theories on causation, perception, and thought, as well as explanations of terrestrial phenomena and biological processes.
Philosophy
Although acquainted with the theories of the Eleatics and the Pythagoreans, Empedocles did not belong to any one definite school. An eclectic in his thinking, he combined much that had been suggested by Parmenides, Pythagoras and the Ionian schools. He was both a firm believer in Orphic mysteries, as well as a scientific thinker and a precursor of physical science. Aristotle mentions Empedocles among the Ionic philosophers, and he places him in very close relation to the atomist philosophers and to Anaxagoras.[26]
Empedocles, like the Ionian philosophers and the atomists, tried to find the basis of all change. They did not, like Heraclitus, consider the coming into existence and motion as the existence of things, and rest and tranquillity as the non-existence, because they had derived from the Eleatics the conviction that an existence could not pass into non-existence, and vice versa. In order to allow change to occur in the world, against the views of the Eleatics, they viewed changes as the result of mixture and separation of unalterable substances. Thus Empedocles said that a coming into existence from a non-existence, as well as a complete death and annihilation, are impossible; what we call coming into existence and death is only mixture and separation of what was mixed.[27]
The four elements
It was Empedocles who established four ultimate elements which make all the structures in the world - fire, air, water, earth.[28] Empedocles called these four elements "roots", which, in typical fashion, he also identified with the mythical names of Zeus, Hera, Nestis, and Aidoneus.[29] Empedocles never used the term "element" (Greek: στοιχεῖον) (stoicheion), which seems to have been first used by Plato.[30] According to the different proportions in which these four indestructible and unchangeable elements are combined with each other the difference of the structure is produced. It is in the aggregation and segregation of elements thus arising, that Empedocles, like the atomists, found the real process which corresponds to what is popularly termed growth, increase or decrease. Nothing new comes or can come into being; the only change that can occur is a change in the juxtaposition of element with element. This theory of the four elements became the standard dogma for the next two thousand years.