Empedocles of Acragas

* a note on style: 150 fragments from 2 poems are extant

(Purifications, On Nature)

METAPHYSICS: "Systemitized"

• •Agrees with Parmenides that Being is, and that being is material
• •'wholes' being and cease to be, but they are composed of material particles which are indestructable.
• •fire, water, air, and earth are "the roots of all" They are unchangeable and form concrete objects of the world by mingling.
• •Conceived of material, physical active forces: Love & Hate
• •world-process is circular
• •the world as we know it is "halfway" between Harmony and Discord. Hate has gradually disunited, Love is graduatlly uniting the particles
• •like Parmenides, denies a void (any part of the Whole that is empty)

EPISTEMOLOGY: "Thought is Corporeal"

• •Thought is one function of the 4 roots
• •each force or root is the means by which the same force or root is perceived
• •Empedocles does not distinguish between intellection and sense cognition. because one sense cannot discern the objects of another sense