Empedokle ̄s of Akragas (ca 460 – 430 BCE)
Philosopher-poet and natural scientist, born ca 483 BCE, author of one or two lost didactic
epics, the On Nature and The Purifications. His prominent family secured victories in the
chariot-race at the Olympics, and retained its position after the fall of the tyranny in
Akragas. D L records Empedokle ̄s’ involvement in early struggles for the
democratic regime (8.64–66), which may have some independent basis, for his source,
T (FGrHist 566 F 2), remarks that Empedokle ̄s’ democratic leanings seem at odds
with his lordly and conceited posture in his poetry. This presumptuous tone, however, prob-
ably inspired his colorful figure in the biographical tradition, including the tale of his leap
into the flaming caldera of Aetna.
Empedokle ̄s’ poetry survives mainly from citations in later authors, especially A
and S, but a recently-reconstructed papyrus containing 74 lines of four continu-
ous sections (a, b, c, d) brings the extant total to ca 490 lines. DK divide our fragments
between two works, following the thematic affiliations of the two titles. Thus, On Nature
discussed natural science, while The Purifications told of the exile of the soul and its struggle
to regain its place over several reincarnations. Some recent scholarship, however, prefers a
single poem, combining both themes. The debate continues. Only Diogene ̄s Laërtios (8.77)
gives both titles, but even he, perhaps considering them a unit, provides a single verse-sum
for both. Other authors mention either no titles or only one. The opening of section d of
the Strasbourg papyrus, omitting a title, overlaps with a number of lines which Simplicius
records from On Nature, and contains a discussion of reincarnation, including the previously
known fragment B 139, cited from The Purifications. The second half of section d shifts to the
origin of life, material suited to the On Nature. This does not eliminate the possibility of two
original works, but now it seems that On Nature also discussed the after-life.
Empedokle ̄s’ most lasting influence on Western science remains his theory of the four
elements – earth, air (sometimes aithe ̄r), fire and water – the permanent building blocks of
the universe, adopted, with modifications, by most subsequent ancient philosophical schools
except the Atomists. Less historically influential, but equally central to Empedokle ̄s’ physi-
cal system, was his doctrine of the cosmic cycle driven by two equal and opposite moving/
volitional powers, Love and Strife, sharing dominion over the elements, Love combining
and Strife separating them. Each power always eventually achieves, in alternation, full sway
over the elements.
Thus, the universe oscillates between two extreme states, during which no world can
come to be, because of the exclusive predominance of Love or Strife over the elements.
Under the rule of Love, all four elements become harmoniously fused into one all-
embracing super-organism, which Empedokle ̄s calls the Sphairos god, while under the rule
of Strife the four elements either separate into different places, or perhaps slide into chaos
(the evidence is unclear). Only in the middle periods do worlds like ours occur.
The apparent motivation for the theory seems to be a commitment to non-emergence
(i.e., no state has ontological priority to any other), and through it, an attempt to respond to
P’ critique of change. Aristotle provides an important hint (GC 1.1 [315a19–
20]), wondering if one ought not to consider the Sphairos-god as having an equal claim to be
a first-principle, alongside the elements. That is, perhaps neither elements nor Sphairos
are prior to each other, but merely extreme limits of the two-way never-ending process
of becoming. Thus, becoming as a whole might acquire eternal and invariant limits, like
Parmenide ̄s’ Being.
EMPEDOKLE ̄S OF AKRAGAS