Empedocles in Sicily (The Heritage of Western Greece)

Empedocles of Akragas (modern Agrigento) is arguably Sicily’s most important Greek intellectual. He was considered not only an influential philosopher, but also a poet, an orator, a doctor, and even a god. As a philosopher, Empedocles focused on reality, tracing it to the composition and decomposition of four immutable elements: water, air, fire, and earth, which are moved by two opposing forces, Love and Hate. He is said to have been an enemy of the aristocracy despite his noble birth, and to have died on Mount Etna after throwing himself into a crater. And yet there is no companion-style volume on Empedocles; at best, he is treated as one among many in studies of Pre-Socratic philosophers and philosophy more generally. We aim for this collection to fill that gap. The papers cover Empedocles’s philosophical ideas and understanding, his interactions with contemporary thinkers, and his reception in the hands of later Greek and Latin writers, through to the present day.