The Poem of Empedocles

by Brad Inwood, Brad Inwood (Translator)

This revised edition of The Poem of Empedocles (1992) integrates substantial new material from a recently discovered papyrus and published by A. Martin and O. Primavesi. The papyrus contains evidence of over seventy lines or part lines of poetry, of which more than fifty are both new and usable. The integration of this material into the previously known fragments has significant impact on our understanding of Empedocles, one of the most influential philosophers and poets of antiquity.

This volume provides the reader with the fullest and most accessible set of evidence for the doctrines and poetic achievement of this Presocratic philosopher. The Greek text of the fragments (with English facing page translation) has been revised to include the new material; textual notes have also been enhanced. The revised introduction orients the reader to the study of Empedocles and assesses the significance of the new material. The new papyrus fragments shed some light on the controversial question of the number of poems and provide new insight into the relationship between human beings and the material components we are composed of and into the reasons for our incarnation. Most important, the new fragments yield further confirmation that eschatological and cosmological themes were inextricably interconnected in Empedocles' philosophical poetry.

Genres: Philosophy, Classics, Poetry, Literature, Ancient, Fiction

334 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 435

About the author

Brad Inwood is a specialist in ancient philosophy with particular emphasis on Stoicism and the Presocratics. He received his BA in Classics from Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario. After an MA in Classics at the University of Toronto and a year of post-graduate research at Cambridge, he completed his doctorate in Classics at Toronto with a focus on ancient philosophy.

His career began with a Mellon postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford and he then took up a teaching post at the University of Toronto. While at Toronto he had two terms as DGS in Classics and served as chair of the Classics department and as acting chair of Philosophy, and founded Toronto’s Collaborative Program in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy (with two terms as director). He has enjoyed fellowships at the National Humanities Centre and the Centre for Advanced Study in the Behavioural Sciences and held the Canada Research Chair in Ancient Philosophy.

His research has always focused on ancient philosophy, especially in the Hellenistic and Presocratic periods. Major works include Ethics and Human Action in Early Stoicism, The Poem of Empedocles, Reading Seneca: Stoic Philosophy at Rome, Seneca: Selected Philosophical Letters, and Ethics After Aristotle. From 2007 to 2015 he was the editor of Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy and he is currently working on Later Stoicism 155 BC to AD 200: An Introduction and Collection of Sources in Translation for Cambridge University Press.

Primary appointments in both Philosophy and Classics. Ancient philosophy special interests include the Presocratics, Stoicism, moral psychology and ethics.

Reviews

[Jeremy Allan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't help but admire excellent work. This translation of Empedocles is precisely that. Brad Inwood has gathered together the extant text of this presocratic philosopher in a volume that is bound to remain the authoritative version for quite some time. What makes it so authoritative? Good organization, thorough treatment, and excessive care. On the first point, Inwood has organized the text to include Empedocles' fragments assembled together, in the contexts they inhabit in the text of early commentators (such as Aristotle and Simplicius), as well as a section of testimonia. Inwood has also taken care to examine nearly all the leading translations and commentaries available, no matter in what language they appear, and has taken care to consider them in his own treatment. He avoids taking speculative leaps in his translation (and interpretation), and thus we are given an excellent basis upon which to make our own speculations. His introduction is also thematically varied, balanced, and just thoughtful enough to provide a reasoned entry into this ancient philosophy. Altogether, this is a fabulous piece of work, and while Inwood leaves quite a bit of latitude for people to disagree with him, I think this in itself is a mark of just how good his efforts have turned out to be.

The poem and philosophy itself? Fascinating. I can't help but feel like I've been waiting most of my life to discover Empedocles. At least I can be happy that I can now live the rest of my life familiar with his ideas.

Best quote: "Wretches, utter wretches, keep your hands off beans!" That's ancient philosophy gold, right there.

[Caroline Loftus · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Love
Clinging Love”

[The Esoteric Jungle · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Suda records Empedocles was a student of Pythagoras’ son Telauges and that this great poet was born in Akragas and flourished in the 77th Olympiad (778 BC minus 77 4yr olympiad periods [308yrs later] would bring his date then to well into the 500’s BC for his birth).

[Illiterate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fragments of philosophical poetry. A speculative cyclical cosmology based on elements (earth, fire, water, air) and forces (attraction, repulsion).

[Patricia Pagina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overzichtelijk, duidelijk en prettig lezend. Weinig was ik bekend met Empedokles en zijn elementenleer, en ook al zijn de bewaarde fragmenten incompleet, toch weet Ferwerda de Oud-Griekse teksten goed te verhelderen. De teksten zelf zijn wat je zou verwachten van de Presocraten: mythologische en dichterlijke verhandelingen die het onderscheid tussen wetenschap en religie, tussen proza en poezie of tussen geschiedenis en mythologie niet maakten. Deze protowetenschappers ontwikkelden veelal een overkoepelend centraal idee, waaruit hun gehele begrip van de wereld uit voortvloeit, op alle vlakken.

Voor Empedokles was dat de vier elementen leer: Aarde, Lucht, Water en Vuur geregeerd door de samenballende kracht Liefde en de scheidende macht Haat. Hij extrapoleert de zelf-gestelde regels en effecten tot het ontstaan van de wereld, de eigenschappen van de ziel, het werken van de zintuigen etc. Hieruit concludeert hij onder meer dat de ziel een verbannen goddelijke daimon is die boete doet door een serie aan reincarnaties te ondergaan. De ziel is dus onsterfelijk en elke levend wezen is gelijk en gelijkwaardig in essentie: Empedokles pleit dan ook voor vegetarisme. Ook beredeneert hij enigzins juist de theorie dat om objecten waar te kunnen nemen er 'afschilferingen' vrij komen en de porien van ons lichaam binnentreden (geurmoleculen; lichtstralen).

Mooi is de toevoegingen van het effect van Empedokles' leer op andere schrijvers en filosofen. Vooral zijn (vrij gedramatiseerde) vermeende einde waarbij hij in de Etna springt om zo een einde aan zijn leven te maken, is een bron van inspiratie geweest bij verschillende dichters en schrijvers.

Al met al positief verrast.

Klassieken
Originele tekst vorm 4/5
Originele tekst inhoud 3/5
Vertaling en commentaar 5/5

[Audimaus · Rating 5 out of 5]

I only read the translation, not the full book.

[Otto Van · Rating 3 out of 5]

weird flex maar oke

[James Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Empedocles has much to say that later thinkers ought to have read more closely - he recognised that there is no creation merely a constant reorganisation of elements into new forms over a millennium before Aquinas built a Cosmological Argument on the causal principles of creation; Potentially his model of the daemon in all things hints towards the property dualist panpsychism of Chalmers. His model of metempsychosis is perhaps unlikely to convince though it bares comparison with various religious doctrines.

The translation in Inwood is helpful as is the Waterfield in the Oxford World Classics (which is cheaper, but lacks the parallel Greek, if that is wanted).