11 - All You Need is Love, and Five Other Things: Empedocles
Peter discusses the Presocratic philosopher Empedocles and his principles: Love, Strife, and the four “roots,” or elements.
Themes:
P. Curd, “A New Empedocles? Implications of the Strasburg Fragments for Presocratic Philosophy,” Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy 17 (2001), 27-50.
X. Gheerbrant, Empédocle: une poétique philosphique (Paris: 2017).
D.W. Graham, “Symmetry in the Empedoclean Cycle,” Classical Quarterly 38 (1988), 297-312.
B. Inwood, The Poem of Empedocles (Toronto: 1992).
A. Martin and O. Primavesi, L'Empédocle de Strasbourg (Berlin: 1999).
D. O’Brien, Empedocles’ Cosmic Cycle (Cambridge: 1969).
D. O’Brien, “Empedocles Revisited,” Ancient Philosophy 15 (1995), 403–470.
O. Primavesi, “The Structure of Empedocles’ Cosmic Cycle: Aristotle and the Byzantine Anonymous,” in A.L. Pierris (ed.), The Empedoclean Kosmos: Structure, Process and the Question of Cyclicity (Patras: Institute for Philosophical Research, 2005), 245-64.
S. Trépanier, Empedocles: an Interpretation (New York: 2004).
M.R. Wright, Empedocles: the Extant Fragments (New Haven: 1981).
Comments
Very Bosch
As in Hieronymus.
How cool to have discovered the original work. Call me a geek, but I got chills.
Good reference for book nerds- all about how our brains had to develop to read and the inventions that helped us do it (and shaped society as a result). And science still has no clue how we do it!
A History of Reading, Alberto Manguel
Is there a reference for the paintings you use? I recognize some.
In reply to Very Bosch by Renee Vaughn
images
I get pretty much all the images off of Wikicommons, which makes free-to-use material available (they have music and other media too).
Giraffes
Are you trying to include a reference to giraffes in every podcast? Thank you for a great series.
In reply to Giraffes by Hawa
Giraffes
No, actually there are quite a few episodes where giraffes don't get mentioned. But they do come up a lot, I suppose because of the long necks.
Philosophers, ancient and not so!
Dear Peter,
I am absolutely in awe and transfixed by what you have done/are trying to achieve with your wonderful website!
Could I possibly be so bold as to suggest you have a read of a 'modern day philosopher' from Australia called Jeremy Griffith. He has written a wonderful (in my opinion) book called 'Freedom - The End of the Human Condition' as yet to be published but available for free on the website. He is a thinker at the highest level and I hope you can make a connection with his work.
With kind regards and respect for what you have done with your website!
Gus
In reply to Philosophers, ancient and not so! by Gus
Griffith
Hi Gus,
Thanks for the tip! And glad you like the podcast.
Peter
Empedocles, father & son
Hello Prof. Adamson,
Am making my way through your excellent podcast series. Thanks very much. G8 joy.
On the episode about Empedocles you told the story about the father slaying his son, with the idea of incarnation as an animal sacrificed on the altar.
During the Jewish high Holidays, it is customary to read or refer to the story of the binding of Issac. The similarity between these stories, including the ram that saved Issac is obvious.
Do you know of any study into this question?
Many thanks,
Ron
In reply to Empedocles, father & son by Ron
Ron, I had the same thought
So we have the binding of Isaac, and then within Empedocles's own lifetime, assertions that he could raise people from the dead. It seems like in ancient times there was a ton of mythology floating around, waiting to be stuck together randomly into new forms.
Hold on, we shouldn’t eat…
Hold on, we shouldn’t eat meat because a loved one could come back as an animal? Well, if Empedocles was once a bush, shouldn’t that mean your loved ones could also come back as fruits and vegetables?
In reply to Hold on, we shouldn’t eat… by Omar
Loved ones as plants
Yes, good point! Maybe the thought is that if the loved one is a plant, it can't experience being eaten?
Actually Porphyry, in his late ancient treatise on vegetarianism, raises the question why we should even eat plants since that still involves killing, and answers that to refrain from eating entirely would be suicide, which is a worse sin. So he takes the issue seriously.
Is the link broken?
Just heard episode 10 and had to skip to episode 12. Looks like this one is not working.
In reply to Is the link broken? by Louis
Link
Seems ok to me, are you still having trouble with it? You mean the streaming link here on the website, right? Sometimes these seem to stop working temporarily but then fix themselves, which is rather mysterious.
Oxen mating with Oxen??
I'm enjoying the podcast. Just want to point out that oxen are male cattle used for work so they're almost always castrated. This makes it doubly impossible for oxen to mate with oxen. Thanks again for your good work.
In reply to Oxen mating with Oxen?? by Joanna Sheldon
Oxen and oxen
Oh dear, good point. I wonder if you are the first person to notice this! The podcast episode has been out there for more than a decade...
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