Empedocles Summary

Empedocles 492?-432 B.C. Greek philosopher who gained fame as a physician, statesman, theologian, mystic, and democratic reformer. Only fragments of his long poem, On Nature, have survived. Galen call... Read more

Empedocles of Acragas, (Ca. 492 B.c.-Ca. 432 B.c.) Greek philosopher, poet, and politician A philosopher, poet, politician, and visionary, Empedocles of Acragas developed radical new ideas about the n... Read more

Empedocles [addendum] The philosophy of Empedocles remains the subject of widely diverging interpretations. This is so despite the discovery of important new evidence, which, far from dousing old deba... Read more

A philosopher, poet, politician, and visionary, Empedocles of Acragas developed radical new ideas about the nature of the universe. His philosophy of the four elements in the universe and the definiti... Read more

In the following essay, Van Der Ben comments on certain aspects of a recently discovered Empedoclean papyrus and on how it may enable scholars to better resolve problematic areas of previously known E... Read more

In the following excerpt, Lombardo provides an overview of Empedocles's subject matter in his poetry. Homer and Empedocles have nothing in common except for their meter. If the one is to be ... Read more

In the following excerpt, Inwood examines controversies concerning Empedocles's life and works and offers a broad summary of his philosophy. 1.1 Text and Translation The principal aim of thi... Read more

In the following excerpt, Kingsley argues that prior evaluations of Empedocles, particularly those based on Aristotle or Theophrastus, should be discarded in favor of new, less problematic perspective... Read more

In the following essay, Woolford interprets Matthew Arnold's Empedocles on Etna as a philosophical debate between Arnold and Empedocles. Much of Empedocles on Etna is spent defining Empedocl... Read more