EMPEDOCLE of AGRIGENTO – E. painted by Luca Signorelli in the chapel of B. Bozio in the cathedral of Orvieto (1502–1504).
between the physical interpretation and the mystical interpretation, and seems to lessen the distance that some have wished to discern between the Περὶ φάσως and the Καθαρχιού. Deussen contrasts E.’s lifeless elements with the animate elements of the hylozoists, but the nature of hatred and love is not well defined, and still less is their relation to the four elements; according to Aristotle’s testimony, it cannot even be excluded that they differ essentially from the latter. Giovanni Filopono, in his commentary on Aristotle (De generatione et corruptione, I, 5), says: “E. affirms that under the universal dominion of love everything becomes one and forms the sphere (αρχίρος), since the specific property of fire and of every other element no longer exists.” In the subsequent predominance of hatred, according to Plutarch (De facie lunari, 12), “the four elements are distinct, hostile, and isolated, without any communion, fleeing from and avoiding one another.”
E.’s cosmography places the terrestrial sphere at the center. Around it revolve, enclosed by the firmament, two hemispheres, one of fire, which forms the day, and the other of air, which forms the night. More interesting, though crude, are the biological theories. In the first period, the earth forms by itself, with the cooperation of the other elements, individual limbs and parts such as eyes, a head, arms, and shoulders; in a second period these parts unite into monstrous figures incapable of life; in a third period the species that are currently living are formed, and in a fourth period they reproduce through generation. Knowledge, too, is explained through the four elements, so that we see earth with earth, water with water, air with air, fire with fire, love with love, and hatred with hatred.
In the Καθαρχιού (“Purifications”), E. teaches the doctrine of metempsychosis, which, according to the testimony of the Pythagorean Timaeus reported by Diogene Laerzio, he is said to have learned from Pythagoras himself. He recounts that he himself had been a plant, a bird, a fish, a boy, and a girl; he declares that animals are of the same nature as we are, forbids killing them and eating their flesh, and finally announces the ethical precept: νηστεύσαι κακάνητος. These Orphic myths do not seem reconcilable with the naturalistic doctrines, even though the latter also contain numerous elements of polytheistic religion.
E., Roma 1905; F. Joliet, Lukrez u. E., Erlangen 1907; Cl. E. Millerd, On the Interpretation of E., Chicago 1908; E. Bignone, I poeti filosofi della Grecia, E. Studio critico, Traduz. e commento delle testimonianze e dei frammenti, Torino 1916; F. Überweg, I, pp. 91-97, 48-49; W. Ziegenfuss, s. V. in Philosophen-Lexikon, I, Berlino 1940, pp. 283-84. Andrea Ferro