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He maintained that all matter is made up of four classical elements (which he called roots): water, earth, air and fire. In addition to these, he postulated something called Love (philia) to explain the attraction of different forms of matter, and of something called Strife (neikos) to account for their separation. He considered these to be distinct substances, with the four elements in solution with them. This theory was endorsed by Aristotle and remained in place until the RenaissanceLeonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man, an example of the blend of art and science during the Renaissance The Renaissance was a great cultural movement which brought about a period of scientific revolution and artistic transformation, at the dawn of modern Eur.

Empedocles was also a mystic and a poet, and some consider him the inventor of the study of rhetoricRhetoric (from Greek ρητωρ, rhetor "orator") is one of the three original liberal arts or trivium (the other members are dialectic and grammar). While it has meant many different things during its 2500-year history, it is generally d. GorgiasGorgias (Person) Gorgias (c. 483- 375 BC), Greek sophist and rhetorician, was a native of Leontini in Sicily. In 427 he was sent by his fellow-citizens at the head of an embassy to ask Athenian protection against the aggression of the Syracusans. He subse of Leontini was his student, and it is probably from Empedocles that Gorgias developed the notion of rhetoric as magic.

As a person he was somewhat arrogant, dressing himself in purple and claiming that by the virtue of the knowledge he possessed he had become divine and could perform miracles. Yet his actions and teaching betrayed an egalitarian streak, he fought to preserve Greek democracyA democracy is a form of government under which the power to alter the laws and structures of government lies with the voting citizenry (referred to as "the people", because in modern times it usually consists of all people over 18 years of age), and all and allowed that through his teaching others could also become divine. He even went so far to suggest that all living things were on the same spiritual plane, indicating he was influenced by Pythagorean spirituality.

Empedocles is considered the last Greek philosopher to write in verse and the surviving fragments of his teaching are from his two poems, Purifications and On Nature.

References

M R Wright, Empedocles: The Extant Fragments, 1995

Peter Kingsley, Ancient Philosophy, Mystery and Magic: Empedocles and Pythagorean Tradition,1986

Anthony Gottlieb, The Dream of Reason: A History of Philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance , 2001