Empedocles of Acragas is known as philosopher, healer, excellent orator, miracle-maker, and engineer. This book shows that the careful study of extant fragments of his writings confirms that he was a multi-faceted thinker. In a period when most thinkers were monists, he was a pluralist and the first to introduce the principle of the four elements (roots, as he has named them), as well as the two motive factors (Love and Strife) closely dependent on one another. Scholars, students and specialists will find in this book a guide to new and unexplored paths of Empedocles’ revolutionary thought.

This revised edition of The Poem of Empedocles (1992) integrates substantial new material from a recently discovered papyrus containing evidence of over seventy lines or part lines of poetry, of which more than fifty are both new and usable.

The definitive scholarly edition and new translation of all three versions of Hölderlin’s poem, The Death of Empedocles, and his related theoretical essays.

Soon after its publication, Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy was hailed as the favorite to become "the 'standard' text for survey courses in ancient philosophy."* More than twenty years later that prediction has been borne out: Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy still stands as the leading anthology of its kind. It is now stronger than ever: The Fifth Edition of Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy features a completely revised Aristotle unit, with new translations, as well as a newly revised glossary. The Plato unit offers new translations of the Meno and Republic. In the latter, indirect dialogue is cast into direct dialogue for greater readability. The Presocratics unit has been re-edited and streamlined, and the pages of every unit have been completely reset. * APA Newsletter for Teaching Philosophy

Since its publication in 1994, Richard McKirahan's Philosophy Before Socrates has become the standard sourcebook in Presocratic philosophy. It provides a wide survey of Greek science, metaphysics, and moral and political philosophy, from their roots in myth to the philosophers and Sophists of the fifth century. A comprehensive selection of fragments and testimonia, translated by the author, is presented in the context of a thorough and accessible discussion. An introductory chapter deals with the sources of Presocratic and Sophistic texts and the special problems of interpretation they present. In its second edition, this work has been updated and expanded to reflect important new discoveries and the most recent scholarship. Changes and additions have been made throughout, the most significant of which are found in the chapters on the Pythagoreans, Parmenides, Zeno, Anaxagoras, and Empedocles, and the new chapter on Philolaus. The translations of some passages have been revised, as have some interpretations and discussions. A new Appendix provides translations of three Hippocratic writings and the Derveni papyrus.

This volume is the first in English to provide a full, systematic investigation into Aristotle's criticisms of earlier Greek theories of the soul from the perspective of his theory of scientific explanation. Some interpreters of the De Anima have seen Aristotle's criticisms of Presocratic, Platonic, and other views about the soul as unfair or dialectical, but Jason W. Carter argues that Aristotle's criticisms are in fact a justified attempt to test the adequacy of earlier theories in terms of the theory of scientific knowledge he advances in the Posterior Analytics. Carter proposes a new interpretation of Aristotle's confrontations with earlier psychology, showing how his reception of other Greek philosophers shaped his own hylomorphic psychology and led him to adopt a novel dualist theory of the soul–body relation. His book will be important for students and scholars of Aristotle, ancient Greek psychology, and the history of the mind–body problem.

Empedocles was a Greek pre-Socratic philosopher and a citizen of Acragas (Agrigentum), a Greek city in Sicily. Empedocles' philosophy is best known for originating the cosmogenic theory of the four classical elements. He also proposed forces he called Love and Strife which would mix as well as separate the elements. These physical speculations were part of a history of the universe which also dealt with the origin and development of life. Influenced by the Pythagoreans, Empedocles was a vegetarian who supported the doctrine of reincarnation. He is generally considered the last Greek philosopher to have recorded his ideas in verse. Some of his work survives, more than is the case for any other pre-Socratic philosopher. Empedocles' death was mythologized by ancient writers, and has been the subject of a number of literary treatments.

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This is a book for readers who are fascinated by the Moon and the earliest speculations about life on other worlds. It takes the reader on a journey from the earliest Greek poetry, philosophy and science, through Plutarch's mystical doctrines to the thrilling lunar adventures of Lucian of Samosata.

Brings to vivid life the connections between philosophy and biography by examining the spectacular--and often wildly implausible--biographies of famous pre-Socratic thinkers