Empedocles
| Empedocles | |
|---|---|
| |
| Nationality | Greek |
| Influences | Parmenides; Pythagoras |
| Occupations | Philosopher; mystic; poet |
| Notable works | On Nature; Purifications |
| Era | Ancient Greek philosophy |
| Known for | Four classical elements; Love and Strife; precursor to pluralist cosmology |
| Influenced | Plato; Aristotle |
| Wikidata | Q83375 |
Empedocles was an influential Greek philosopher, poet and mystic from the Sicilian city of Acragas (modern Agrigento). He lived in the fifth century BCE and is best known for proposing that all matter is built from four eternal “elements” – earth, water, air and fire – mixed and re-mixed by two opposing cosmic forces: Love (an attraction that unites things) and Strife (a repulsion that separates them). This cyclical vision of the cosmos, in which the elements come together under Love and scatter under Strife, offered a dynamic pluralist alternative to the static universe of earlier thinkers. Empedocles also wrote about living things and the soul, combining his empirical observations with mystical and religious ideas. His blend of mythic imagery, natural philosophy and ethical teaching left a lasting mark on later science, medicine, literature and spiritual thought.
Early Life and Education
Empedocles was born in Acragas (Agrigento) in Sicily, probably around 490 BCE, into a wealthy and noble family. His grandfather was an Olympic champion, indicating the family’s high status. Details of his education are uncertain. Ancient sources suggest he was influenced by leading thinkers such as Parmenides, Anaxagoras and Pythagoras, but these claims may reflect later attributions rather than recorded schooling. In any case, he was clearly familiar with the debates of early Greek natural philosophy. Like Parmenides, he wrote in epic verse (the hexameter meter of Homer), and like the Pythagoreans he showed interest in the immortality of the soul and in numerical or mystical patterns in nature.
Empedocles was also active in public life. He is described as an eloquent orator and political leader who championed democracy in Acragas and spoke out against tyranny and inequality. There are stories of him prosecuting corrupt officials and even helping to overthrow an oligarchy in his city. According to legend, he once rejected an offer of kingship, preferring to stand with the common people. His reputation for wisdom and charisma led some to treat him as almost divine. He dressed in luxurious robes and bronze sandals and reportedly carried perishable flowers, remarking on their decay as a lesson in impermanence. Later anecdotes, mostly legendary, claim he had miraculous healing powers (even reviving the dead) and that he was worshipped as a god while alive. According to one famous myth, he caused his own death by leaping into the crater of Mount Etna at the moment of his choosing, hoping to demonstrate his divinity – an idea foiled when his bronze sandal surfaced in the lava. In reality, he likely died of natural causes while traveling on the Greek mainland, but the dramatic stories about his end reflect the mystery that surrounded him.
Major Works and Ideas
Empedocles’s surviving teachings come from fragments of didactic poems he composed in Greek verse. Ancient writers report two titles for his works: On Nature (Physika) and Purifications (Katharmoi). Modern scholars debate whether these were two separate poems or parts of one comprehensive work, but traditionally “On Nature” is taken to cover his physical cosmology and “Purifications” his theology and ethics. We do know the content covers both areas, and fragmentary evidence shows he interwove the two themes even within single poetic books.
At the heart of Empedocles’s thought is the idea that all physical things are made from four elements (often called “roots”). These are Earth, Air, Fire and Water – fundamental substances that cannot be created from one another and that always exist. In his verses Empedocles sometimes gave them the names of gods (Zeus for fire, Hera for earth, etc.) to emphasize their active, living quality. Unlike his predecessor Parmenides, who argued the world was a single unchanging reality, Empedocles took a pluralist view: he allowed more than one kind of basic substance. He kept Parmenides’s insight that nothing can truly be born or destroyed out of nothing, so his four elements themselves are eternal. Everything we see is formed by mixing these elements in different proportions; everything that changes is just a new combination of old matter. For example, a plant or mountain is made of earth and water with a touch of fire and air. When a thing decays or is destroyed, its elements separate again but are not annihilated. By proposing four stable elements, Empedocles aimed to explain the variety and change of the sensible world while preserving an underlying permanence – a compromise between the unchanging One and the flux of common experience.
To explain how the elements combine or separate, Empedocles introduced two opposing cosmic forces: Love (Greek Philia) and Strife (Greek Neikos). Love is a principle that attracts and brings elements together, while Strife repels and drives them apart. These forces are often personified as god-like powers in his poetry. When Love predominates, elements unite and mixtures form; when Strife predominates, elements break apart. Empedocles envisioned the universe as cycling through phases dominated alternately by Love and Strife. In the “Love” phase all the elements are completely mingled into a single spherical mass (a god-like Unity), a state in which no distinct objects can exist. As Love’s power wanes and Strife grows, this sphere begins to split: first one element separates, then another, until finally the four elements are fully separated. In this “Strife” phase there is again emptiness (all is apart), but as Strife declines and Love increases, the elements recombine into new worlds, plants and animals. Thus Empedocles described a cosmic cycle of creation and destruction: the universe is reborn over and over in endless alternating epochs of harmony and discord. In one fragment he puts it poetically: “Once all grew to be one from many, and once again many from one.” Through such cycles, the cosmos exists eternally in a state of perpetual flux, even though its four building blocks never change in themselves.
Empedocles also applied his scheme to living beings and the human body. He offered an account of how animals and plants might have originated by the random assembly of parts. In one famous image, he describes all sorts of limbs, eyes, and other organs forming separate creatures in a primordial “mixture.” Most of these mismatched creatures would be malformed and quickly perish (anticipating a form of natural selection), but the fortunate combinations survived and grew into actual species. In this way he tried to explain the diversity of life without invoking creation by a god. (Plato later gave a comical version of Empedocles’ idea in his Symposium: initially humans were spherical creatures split in two, achieving completeness only when two halves reunited under the power of Love.)
Beyond physics and biology, Empedocles addressed ethics and the soul. He was a follower of Pythagoras in considering the soul immortal and subject to transmigration (reincarnation). He claimed to be a daimôn (a kind of spirit being) trapped in a human body. According to Empedocles, souls pass through many life-forms as a purification process for sins committed in past lives (for instance, he reports that he himself had been punished for meat-eating). Because he believed all animals share kinship through souls, he famously abstained from killing or eating animals – an early form of vegetarianism motivated by religious and ethical reasons. He taught that humans must live by purity and reverence to counter the wanderings of the soul. In his cosmology the soul is also bound up in the cycle of Love and Strife: when Love dominates, all souls may reunite in a divine oneness; under Strife, souls fragment again into many births. This spiritual doctrine was coupled with practical advice about ritual cleansing and moral conduct, suggesting that right living could hasten the soul’s release from suffering. In sum, Empedocles’ major ideas combined a physical theory of a universe of four elements with a mystical vision of love, hate and rebirth governing both nature and the human psyche.
Method
Empedocles’s approach to philosophy was unusual by modern standards: he taught in poetic form and often mixed science with myth. His writings were composed in dactylic hexameter (the meter of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey), suggesting they were intended to be recited or sung to a learned audience. This style gave his ideas a ceremonial, almost prophetic tone. He frequently invoked the Muses and addressed his poems to specific students or the city, as if imparting divine wisdom.
Rather than deductive proofs or experiments, Empedocles used vivid analogies and personifications. For example, he depicted the four elements as gods (Zeus, Hera, Hades and Nestis) to convey their characteristics; he called the unifying force “Love” and the dividing force “Strife,” making abstract principles feel personal and dramatic. His imagery was rich with natural symbolism: he compared the union of elements to marriage and childbirth, and the disunion to harvest and decay. This blending of mythic narrative with natural philosophy was characteristic of early Greek thought, which had not yet sharply separated religion and science.
Empedocles’s broader method also involved engagement with medical and mystical ideas. He is said to have practiced as a healer and to have described his philosophy as a kind of remedy for disease (both of body and soul). In fragments he promises “healing words for all ills” and knowledge of remedies. This suggests he saw no strict boundary between medicine, religion and natural philosophy. He treated the cosmos like a living organism governed by spiritual laws as much as by material ones.
Importantly, Empedocles valued observation of nature. Although the records we have are poetic, he refers to seaside and mountain scenes, animal reproduction and plants, showing attentiveness to the world. His four-element theory was partly inspired by everyday experiences – for example, he noticed how earth, water, air and fire seemed like basic constituents of nature (the ground, the seas, the sky and the sun). Still, there is no evidence he conducted experiments in a modern sense; his “method” was primarily philosophical speculation couched in artful verse. Ancient commentators noted his skill in rhetoric and metaphor. Aristotle, commenting centuries later, praised Empedocles’s poetic force but also treated him as a thinker deserving serious analysis.
In summary, Empedocles taught through inspired poetry, mythic storytelling and analogical reasoning. He wove together ideas from science, religion and ethics, using literary flair to communicate complex theories to listeners. His method reflects an age when philosophy was bound up with poetry and myth rather than separated as an abstract discipline.
Influence
Empedocles’s influence on Western thought has been vast, especially given how early he lived. Not only do more fragments of his poetry survive than of any other pre-Socratic philosopher, but many later thinkers absorbed and referred to his ideas. In antiquity, physicians, philosophers and poets all took notice of Empedocles.
For example, the famous Hippocratic text On Ancient Medicine (5th century BCE) complains that some doctors focus on Empedocles’s doctrines, arguing that proper medicine depends on understanding the nature of the human being – which Empedocles inquired into by asking what people are made of. In philosophy, Plato mentions Empedocles several times. In the Symposium, Socrates recounts Aristophanes’ comedic speech that references Empedoclean concepts like original spherical humans split apart, and in other dialogues Plato calls upon Empedocles as a notable presocratic figure.
Empedocles loomed large in Aristotle’s work. Among the philosophers Aristotle cites most often, Empedocles ranks near the top (Aristotle only mentions Plato himself more frequently). Aristotle credits Empedocles with first clearly identifying the four classical elements. He also engages critically with Empedocles’s ideas in Metaphysics and On the Heavens, questioning aspects of the element theory and the cosmic cycle. Aristotle’s successor Theophrastus, in his writings on sense perception and physics, took issue with Empedocles’s explanations of sight, hearing and so on, indicating that his detailed claims about the natural world were still discussed in the Peripatetic school.
Later Hellenistic and Roman thinkers continued the tradition. The founder of Epicureanism, Epicurus, and his circle commented on Empedocles; one pupil, Hermarchus, wrote a now-lost twenty-two–book work Against Empedocles. In the first century BCE, the Roman poet-philosopher Lucretius hailed Empedocles in his epic poem De Rerum Natura, calling him a true messenger of nature and praising his combination of poetic genius with scientific insight. Stoic philosophers like Zeno and Chrysippus also admired aspects of Empedocles. In the Catholic and Orthodox Christian eras, Empedocles’s writings (through medieval translations and commentaries) were sometimes engaged as secular knowledge about nature and the soul.
Outside philosophy, Empedocles left a mark on literature and art. During the Renaissance and Romantic periods his figure became legendary. In the 19th century, poets and writers portrayed him as a god-like visioner. Friedrich Hölderlin wrote an unfinished play The Death of Empedocles (Der Tod des Empedokles), and Friedrich Nietzsche composed a “stillborn” tragedy on him. Matthew Arnold wrote the famous poem “Empedocles on Etna,” imagining the philosopher on his fiery mountain. These literary works often emphasize his mysterious death and his dual role as sage and magician. Empedocles also earned mention in science history: 19th-century scientists sometimes called him a “precursor of atomism” or noted that his idea of imperishable matter parallels conservation of mass in later chemistry.
Even in everyday education, Empedocles’s legacy endures. Schoolchildren learn about the four classical elements and Love/Strife forces as standard ancient Greek theories of nature. Many stadiums, buildings and scholarly awards are named after him in his native Sicily and beyond. In astronomy, his name graces a crater on the Moon’s far side, honoring him among the ancient thinkers commemorated on lunar maps. In modern alternative medicine and New Age philosophy, the four elements and the idea of universal love vs. conflict are sometimes traced back to Empedocles. Thus Empedocles is remembered as a pioneer: he brought together science, religion and ethics in one grand scheme and prepared the way for pluralistic cosmologies in Western thought.
Critiques
Empedocles’s doctrines did not go unchallenged. Both ancient and modern thinkers have raised objections to his system.
In antiquity, Aristotle provided the most famous critiques. While acknowledging Empedocles’s originality, Aristotle pointed out problems with some details. He argued that Empedocles’s account of how one element turns into another or emerges did not really explain anything; Aristotle preferred a more gradual process. Aristotle also noted that the personifications of Love and Strife were not sufficient to be proper causes of motion. Theophrastus questioned Empedocles’s physics of perception, such as the idea that sensory understanding comes from emanations of similar particles from objects. Other skeptics simply ridiculed him: the satirist Timon of Phlius wrote caustic lines mocking the four-element theory, and various later authors poked fun at the notion of humans as balls split apart.
From the standpoint of later science, Empedocles’s model is scientifically incorrect. Chemistry has shown that matter is made of atoms and molecules, not four literal elements, and physics describes forces (like gravity, electromagnetism and nuclear forces) that don’t map onto Love and Strife personifications. Biologists reject spontaneous assemblage of parts producing lifeforms. Empedocles’s cycle of the universe does not correspond to modern cosmology or evolution. In that sense, his system is seen more as a historical curiosity than a true physical theory today.
However, critics also acknowledge his merits. Empedocles was praised for moving beyond Parmenides’s static monism and allowing for real change in the world; in that he anticipated a pluralist approach to nature. His preservation of matter (the idea that elements neither appear out of nothing nor perish entirely) is seen as an early insight akin to conservation laws. And his attempt to unify diverse phenomena (light, sound, heat, growth, human emotions) under one conceptual framework earned him respect. So while his specifics have been superseded, his imaginative effort to systematize nature has been admired as a stepping stone in the history of ideas.
Legacy
Empedocles’s long-term legacy lies in how he shaped subsequent thought about the natural world and humanity’s place in it. His four-element theory became a central part of classical and medieval science. Aristotle adopted the four elements (adding a fifth “aether” for celestial bodies) and taught this model for centuries. In medicine, the concept survived in the theory of the four humors (blood, phlegm, black bile, yellow bile), each humor linked to one element and a temperament, in Galenic medicine. Alchemists and astrologers in the Middle Ages and Renaissance also operated under the four-element paradigm, viewing it as secret wisdom. Thus Empedocles’s notion of elements, though outdated physically, shaped ideas in chemistry, biology and medicine until the 18th century, when modern atomic theory emerged.
As a symbol, Empedocles stands for the ancient effort to find order in nature through reason and poetry together. He is often cited as a forerunner of pluralism: the view that reality consists of multiple kinds of substance. This contrasts with monism (one substance) or dualism (two kinds), and it laid intellectual groundwork for later pluralistic schemes (for example, the 17th-century chemist Robert Boyle’s corpuscular theory had echoes of multiple primitives). His focus on cycles of unity and separation can be seen as an ancestor of dialectical ideas found in later philosophy (thesis-antithesis), though such connections are retrospective.
Culturally, Empedocles is remembered as the archetype of the wise but eccentric sage. Modern science does not credit him as correct, but historians of science honor him for his bold questions. Educators often mention Empedocles as an early thinker who tried to explain the world in natural terms. His story teaches both the limits and the daring of early philosophy. The image of Love and Strife also lives on metaphorically, representing harmony and conflict in everything from business team-building to psychological theory.
In summary, Empedocles’s legacy is twofold: content and example. The content of his ideas (elements and cosmic forces) dominated pre-modern cosmology. The example of his approach – unifying poetry, religion and observation – influenced how later generations thought about the interplay of myth and reason. To this day, references to “Empedoclean ideas” often signal the concept of balancing opposing forces or the ancient concept of classical elements, highlighting how his vision, though ancient, still resonates in our intellectual heritage.
Selected Works
Empedocles wrote didactic poems in Greek hexameter. Only fragments of his works survive, preserved in quotations and a few papyrus scraps. The principal titles associated with his writings are:
- On Nature (Greek Peri Physeos) – Empedocles’s cosmological poem, describing the composition and history of the universe in terms of the four elements and the forces of Love and Strife. It includes discussions of the world’s cyclical creation, the formation of plants and animals, and some account of perception and thought. Fragments of On Nature are found in commentaries by later authors (such as Simplicius and Alexander of Aphrodisias) and in the 20th-century discovery of the Papyrus Strasburg, which added new lines to known passages.
- Purifications (Greek Katharmoi, also called Paedagogus) – A poem concerned with the soul’s journey and moral purification, ritually cleansing the pollution of sin. It covers topics like the transmigration of souls, ethical injunctions (especially against violence and meat-eating), and the relationship between physical and divine. In antiquity, Purifications was often treated as a separate work focusing on religious wisdom. Modern scholarship tends to see it as thematically interwoven with On Nature. Surviving fragments include references to Empedocles’s supposed banishment by the gods and his quest for purification.
Other works are attributed to Empedocles in ancient lists (such as a hymn to Apollo, some tragedies or smaller poems, and medical writings), but no pieces of those have come down to us. What remains of Empedocles’s corpus – about 160 lines in total – is enough to reconstruct his main doctrines and to appreciate his style, but not to read his works in continuous form. In modern editions of the fragments, scholars label them with standard numbering (the Diels-Kranz fragments) for convenience, but typically we refer to the content by section (On Nature vs. Purifications). Despite the fragmentary state, these writings secure Empedocles’s reputation as one of the great pioneers of Western philosophy and science.