6.1.1 The Earliest Reflections on Divine and Human Epistemic Potential

To look at the earliest epistemic reflections in Greek language and literature, I will now examine two of Empedocles’ precursors, Xenophanes and Alcmaeon, as well as his contemporary, the Hippocratic author of Ancient Medicine. As we shall see, they all expressed a clear and similar view on the kind of knowledge people can expect to gain about things that cannot be directly experienced, such as most of the topics concerning what we may define as natural philosophy in the sixth to fifth century BCE. Moreover, all three distinguished between divine and human potential to gain understanding; yet although acknowledging that only gods can know truly what is far beyond our experiential domain, they did not entirely deny people the possibility of having some kind of understanding of ‘divine’ matters, remaining open to the prospect of humans’ valid knowledge.

Let us first look at Xenophanes of Colophon (sixth century BCE). In his most extended fragment on knowledge, Xenophanes is concerned with divine matters and further themes he very likely explored in one of his works, such as topics related to cosmology, anthropology, biology and all those themes pertaining, more generally, to natural philosophy. In some remarkable verses, Xenophanes affirms the following:

Xenophanes claims that only gods are able to gain ‘the clear and certain truth’, τὸ σαφές (to saphes), whereas human beings can only have a δόκος (dokos), an ‘opinion’ or ‘conjecture’.Footnote ⁵ Whereas we will return to the meaning of δόκος, J. Lesher has cogently pointed out that, in epic poetry, ‘σάφα knowing (the form σαφές does not occur in Homer) is a matter of knowing the precise facts or the exact truth’.Footnote ⁶ Thus, according to Xenophanes, concerning things or phenomena that cannot be experienced first-hand,Footnote ⁷ divine and human cognitive potential is clearly distinguished: whereas gods know things as they truly are, human beings can only conjecture. Human opinions could still happen to coincide with things as they are and thus describe what has in fact been brought to pass; nonetheless, human knowledge would still be un-σαφές, as people have no assurance that their δόκος coincides with truth. It follows that σαφές knowledge must not only describe things as they truly are but also, at the same time, bring assurance of that. In other words, to attain genuine knowledge of the kind coinciding with τὸ σαφές, things must be known truly and be established as true.

Xenophanes’ comment finds an echo in the work of Alcmaeon of Croton (early fifth century BCE):

The distinction Alcmaeon establishes between divine and human knowledge rests upon two key words: σαφήνεια (saphêneia), defining gods’ wisdom, and τεκμαίρεσθαι (tekmairesthai), which delimits the human sphere of cognitive action. Like Xenophanes’ τὸ σαφές, Alcmaeon’s σαφήνεια indicates knowledge that corresponds to plain and certain truth. Concerning unseen things (ἀφανῆ) like bodily processes, plain truth remains a prerogative of the gods, whilst human beings can observe and evaluate (visible, knowable) signs, and infer from them more general theories about processes in the body they cannot see. The opposition between human inferences and god’s σαφήνεια suggests that the former cannot reach the same level of certainty belonging to divine knowledge; even though human theories may happen to be exact, they cannot ever be known to be true.

Similarly to Xenophanes’ and Alcmaeon’s ideas on human cognitive potential, the Hippocratic author of Ancient Medicine (fifth century BCE) voices the opinion that those disciplines exploring things ‘that there are on the sky or under the earth’ handle topics that ultimately are about ‘obscure and dubious matters’. In fact, they require a-priori assumptions (ὑποθέσεις) that cannot be definitively assessed as right or wrong, ‘for there is nothing to which one can refer to obtain clear and certain knowledge (εἰδέναι τὸ σαφές)’. In contrast, medicine is a techne with a long history that has accomplished many valid discoveries due to clear principles and a method that has been refined over the course of time. The Hippocratic author seems thereby to suggest that, whereas medicine can follow a clear methodology, which has been proven valid through extensive experience, natural philosophy only rests upon random assumptions which cannot be proven and thus cannot be known to be valid.Footnote ¹⁰

Thus, Xenophanes, Alcmaeon and the Hippocratic author share the traditional belief that things that escape ordinary human perceptions are known with certainty only by the gods. What kind of knowledge can humans hope to attain then with regard to these things? As we will now see, the three authors ascribe people the ability to formulate valid opinions and conjectures about them or, according to Xenophanes, δόκος δ’ ἐπὶ πᾶσι τέτυκται.Footnote ¹¹ As Lesher has pointed out, Xenophanes’ allocation of human awareness to the category of ‘opinion’ or ‘conjecture’ (δόκος) is not an intrinsically dismissive characterization. Rather, Lesher explains that ‘δόκος is neither inherently erroneous … nor fated to be only approximately correct’; on the contrary, ‘it is the best anyone can do “about the gods and what I say about all things”, since the direct observation necessary for a clear and certain knowledge of the truth about such matters is not possible’.Footnote ¹²

Thus, although truth cannot be attained, Xenophanes believes nonetheless that people could come to obtain valid knowledge if they embark on a personal enquiry:

Despite the ‘large number of alternative possible readings’ of these two lines,Footnote ¹⁵ it seems safe to argue that the fragment establishes a dichotomy between knowledge acquired through things gods may intimate (ὑπέδειξαν) to mortals,Footnote ¹⁶ and knowledge discovered (ἐφευρίσκουσιν) through human personal enquiry (ζητοῦντες). The word ἄμεινον in the final position in the verse suggests Xenophanes’ preference for personal enquiry,Footnote ¹⁷ with his own research method probably intended to provide the best exemplification of his claim. Indeed, Xenophanes’ knowledge is based on collecting all kinds of information from far off places, as is illustrated by his knowledge of different conceptions of divinity in Thrace and Ethiopia (B 16 [= XEN D 13 Laks-Most], A 13 [= XEN P 17]) and of natural phenomena typical of areas relatively distant from the place he lived (e.g., B 37 [= XEN D 44 Laks-Most], A 41 [= XEN D 34 Laks-Most], A 41a [= XEN D 35 Laks-Most], A 48 [= XEN D 45 Laks-Most]). Moreover, it is attested that he used personal observation of fossils of shells and fish in Syracuse, Paros and Malta to formulate a theory of cyclical cosmic destruction and regeneration.Footnote ¹⁸

Like Xenophanes, Alcmaeon seems also to have practised personal observation concerning human anatomy, as his discovery of the optic nerve through dissection could indicate.Footnote ¹⁹ With regard to the Hippocratic author of Ancient Medicine, moreover, the criterion according to which he distinguishes medical topics from other ‘obscure and dubious matters’ seems to rest upon the level of conviction one can reach through empirical enquiry over time, hence upon the fact that the hypotheses one formulates can or cannot be observed and verified.Footnote ²⁰ Furthermore, since, as we have seen above, the medical arts are a techne with a long history, observation and personal verification have long been conducted on similar case studies. This has contributed to forming a consolidated practice and body of knowledge that has finally developed into a tradition.

By wrapping up the investigation developed thus far, Xenophanes, Alcmaeon and the Hippocratic author of Ancient Medicine maintain that concerning non-experienced things, such as divine things or natural phenomena that cannot be directly observed, only gods know truly how things have come to pass. People in contrast can embark on serious enquiry of the physical world and even formulate valid conjectures about it. However, they remain unable to know if those conjectures are correct, as people have no σῆμα, evidence or proof, that they are accounting for things as they truly are. Thus, whereas divine knowledge is certainly and genuinely true, human knowledge, though valid, will always lack the assurance of truth.

6.1.2 The Epic Tradition on True Knowledge

Having looked at Xenophanes’, Alcmaeon’s and the Hippocratic author’s views on cognitive potential when approaching topics that are beyond the reach of human perceptions, we can now better evaluate the difference between human and divine knowledge that provided a basis from which Empedocles could work. However, within this context, it remains to clarify what makes knowledge saphes; or, in other words, what makes an opinion a clear, certain and persuading truth? Thus, to uncover the early Greek notion of true knowledge, we now need to turn to the epic tradition.

In the Homeric poems, people know sapha when they know a certain thing by direct experience.Footnote ²¹ For instance, Menelaus says to Antilochus that, since the latter has observed it for himself (αὐτὸν … εἰσορόωντα), he knows sapha that a god decided upon destruction for the Danaans and victory to the Trojans.Footnote ²² Additionally, a person knows sapha a general truth – for instance, that cowards shrink from battle.Footnote ²³ Moreover, knowledge handed down by reliable witnesses and/or developed into a tradition is generally regarded as valid. In the Iliad 20.203–5, Aeneas says to Achilles that, despite neither having directly seen (opsei, ‘by sight’) or met each other’s parents, they nonetheless know about them, ‘having heard words of mortal beings handed down by tradition’.Footnote ²⁴

It is worth noting that Homer seems to connect even gods’ sapha knowledge to ultimate, direct experience. Notably, in the famous appeal to the Muses to help the poet remember the immense Achaean naval forces involved in the Trojan battle in the second book of the Iliad, the Muses are said to know all because they saw all, as they were present when things happened: ‘you are goddesses, you are present and know everything’ (Il. 2.485: ὑμεῖς γὰρ θεαί ἐστε πάρεστέ τε ἴστέ τε πάντα). Similarly, in the first book of the Odyssey, Homer tells us that the gods took advantage of Poseidon’s temporary absence from Mount Olympus (he was in Ethiopia to attend a hecatomb) to decide about Odysseus’ return to Ithaca. Clearly, Poseidon’s absence emphasizes his unawareness: he has no knowledge of things he does not directly see and listen to, although he is a god.Footnote ²⁵

Moreover, whereas sapha knowledge – even when attributed to gods – is connected to direct experience,Footnote ²⁶ in the same famous passage of the Iliad’s second book mentioned above, ordinary human beings are contrasted to the Muses in that the former only know by hearing a report and, for this reason, they cannot be said to know anything: ‘we hear but a rumour and know nothing’, ἡμεῖς δὲ κλέος οἶον ἀκούομεν οὐδέ τι ἴδμεν (Il. 2.486).The phrase οὐδέ τι ἴδμεν indicates, on the one hand, that knowledge of the past is limited to what people hear from the gods. On the other hand, it also emphasizes that the knowledge humans obtain ultimately lacks certainty: since what they know is exclusively what they hear and without any assurance that the divine report speaks the truth, they do not really know anything truly. Moreover, since human knowledge depends on reports, the reliability and hence the truth of what they know rests solely upon the trustworthiness of the report’s source. As a consequence, knowledge derived from those who claim a share in divine wisdom, such as poets – but also seers and prophets, since they speak on behalf of the gods – is generally taken as particularly reliable.Footnote ²⁷

However, as we have seen in Chapter 2.4.1, in his Hymn to the Muse at the beginning of the Theogony Hesiod points out that a divine source is no guarantee of truth per se, since gods can deliberately deceive. Indeed, the Muses tell Hesiod that they can utter not only true things but also false stories that resemble the truth. This indicates that knowledge and communication of the truth is an exclusively divine prerogative, whereas seers, prophets and poets – to say nothing of ordinary people – are unaware of the trustworthy or deceptive nature of their source and are therefore unable to distinguish true from false things.Footnote ²⁸

This suggests that the ability to verify information is a powerful instrument of knowledge. Homer attests that clear and convincing knowledge pertains to things that have been proven true through a test or trial. The most famous example is the episode in which Penelope, to be sure that the stranger she has before her eyes is in fact her beloved husband, subjects him to a trial (Od. 23.181–204). When the stranger is found to know that which only Odysseus could know, namely that the marital bed is fixed and cannot be moved as has been suggested, Penelope has ultimate and unequivocal evidence (sêma) that the stranger is her husband and can finally know clearly.

Wrapping up, according to the epic tradition, true knowledge generally pertains to things that are known through direct experience. For this reason, when it refers to that which people cannot directly know, such as divine matters, events of the distant past or things that are spatially remote, true knowledge generally belongs to gods who are able to experience things that are beyond ordinary human perception. However, according to the Homeric epic, people can gain valid knowledge on these things by trusting a reliable witness, such as a divine source. Yet Hesiod clarifies that the recipient of a report, even of a divine revelation, always lacks ultimate certainty that their source is telling the truth – unless the source can be put to a trial and the report proven true. In short, a consolidated tradition, whose legacy can already be found in Homer, sharply distinguishes between divine and human epistemic abilities on matters that, because they are either temporally or spatially remote, escape human direct experience. Whereas gods know these things truly, human beings lack any assurance that what they are observing or listening to corresponds to what has come to pass. For this reason, human beings do not know anything clearly.

As we have seen, the epic tradition and Empedocles’ precursors and fellow thinkers provide a glimpse of what can be considered as truth or truthful, genuine knowledge. For knowledge to be true, it must not only describe things as they have come to pass; it must also bring with it the conviction or assurance that things are in fact the way they are described. In this respect, the ability to verify the valid nature of a given assertion represents a powerful means to assess the truth of that assertion. In conclusion, true knowledge always regards things that are known to be true. Nevertheless, about things that cannot directly be experienced or for which no proof or evidence assuring their validity can be provided – that is, when we have no possibility to know that something is trueFootnote ²⁹ – central questions remain open, such as, what can persuade us of their truth? More precisely, what can convince us of the valid and genuine character of a certain explanation of the nature of things? In what follows I will consider Parmenides’ strategy to deal with these issues.

6.1.3 The Route of Parmenides

Having seen the way in which Xenophanes, Alcmaeon and the Hippocratic author of Ancient Medicine extended the epic notion of sapha knowledge to find a pathway to gain valid understanding of things beyond human ordinary experience, I will now look at how Parmenides found a workaround to the concept of clear and certain knowledge established at that time. Whereas the three authors analyzed in Section 6.1.1 acknowledged the limited human potential to know things that are temporally and spatially remote, but at the same time allowed people the faculty to achieve some most valuable, yet unproven conjectures, Parmenides proposed a twofold strategy to overcome the difficulty of an ‘un-certain’ knowledge of topics concerning natural philosophy. On the one hand, he offered apodictic criteria to judge the content of his philosophical exposition; on the other hand, he entrusts this exposition to the revelation of a goddess, thereby providing his philosophy with the mantle of truth.

In Chapter 2.4.2 we have already seen that the exposition of Parmenides’ philosophy is offered to us through the mouth of a goddess he met at the end of an extraordinary initiatory katabasis to the House of Night.Footnote ³⁰ As has been established, the narration of this superhuman experience is in service of Parmenides’ authorial and philosophical investiture. His journey to the source of wisdom ensures that his philosophy, received at the end of that journey and presented as a divine disclosure, is a genuine and truthful account of the nature of things.

However, the goddess, in two notorious passages introducing the main topics of her revelation, seems to characterize some of her propositions in a conceivably pejorative way. The first passage (B 1.28–32 [= PARM D 4.28–32]) reads as follows:

Closing the proemial lines, these verses programmatically summarize the main topics of Parmenides’ philosophy: the goddess will first reveal ‘the heart of truth’, ἀληθείης … ἦτορ (l. 29), including the account of the two pathways of enquiry (B 2 [= PARM D 6 Laks-Most] and B6 [= PARM D 7 Laks-Most]), the criteria for what really is and the complete rejection of what-is-not (B 8 [= PARM D 8 Laks-Most]). The characterization of this major thematic area is conveyed by the adjective ἀτρεκές at line 28 which qualifies it as ‘true’ or ‘exact’, namely as an account that is in compliance with things as they truly are.Footnote ³⁵ On the contrary, the second major thematic area the goddess is going to reveal, e.g., the opinions of mortals (l. 30), which basically concern topics about natural philosophy broadly intended, are qualified as something that has no assurance of truth, although these too have the goddess’s authority.

Analogously, the second passage restating the main themes Parmenides must learn (B 8.50–61 [= PARM D 8.65–66]) runs as follows:

The language employed in these lines constructs a similar dichotomy as that presented at the end of B 1 (= PARM D 4 Laks-Most). The discourse about the truth is defined as a trustworthy account and understanding, πιστὸν λόγον ἠδὲ νόημα, whereas the mortal opinions are introduced as a deceitful account, κόσμον … ἐπέων ἀπατηλόν.Footnote ³⁷ However, at lines 60–61 (= PARM D 8.65–66 Laks-Most) the goddess claims a revelation that is a διάκοσμος … πάντα ἐοικώς, an entirely appropriate and accurate arrangement as well as an explanation that accords with what has come to pass. In virtue of this, it will not be surpassed by any other mortal cosmology.Footnote ³⁸

To understand the meaning of this last claim, we need to ask why Parmenides characterizes the goddess’s revelation concerning mortal opinions – that is, concerning topics of natural philosophy – in such a peculiar way and why they are so sharply contrasted with the first part of her account.Footnote ³⁹ In what follows I am going to argue that Parmenides, through his distinction between truth and mortal opinions, wanted to convey his own conception of human cognitive potential and thus offer people a pathway through which they could be persuaded about topics regarding the nature of the physical world.

If we zoom in on the vocabulary Parmenides employed to depict the two major thematic areas of his philosophy, then we see that the goddess never characterizes topics of natural philosophy in a pejorative way or undermines them as imperfect, incorrect, incomplete or even false themes.Footnote ⁴⁰ Rather, Parmenides’ language reflects ‘the assumption that accounts pertaining to such things can describe them correctly or incorrectly and, furthermore, that the accounts advanced in the Doxa do so correctly’.Footnote ⁴¹ On the one hand, the notion that no πίστις ἀληθής pertains to the βροτῶν δόξας (B 1.30 [= PARM D 4.30 Laks-Most]) and that these therefore cannot have a trustworthy account and understanding (πιστὸν λόγον ἠδὲ νόημα at B 8.50 [= PARM D 8.55 Laks-Most]) does not mean, as Palmer clarifies, that they are incorrect or even false in contrast to the first part of the goddess’s revelation.Footnote ⁴² Rather, expressions of this sort indicate that ‘there is no genuine trustworthiness or conviction in the portion of her [i.e., of the goddess] account that will follow after her account of true reality’.Footnote ⁴³ In other words, the goddess does not say that her account in the Doxa lacks truth, but only that it lacks the certainty of truth.

On the other hand, at B 1.31–32 (= PARM D 4.31–32 Laks-Most) the goddess clarifies that Parmenides is going to learn how things that mortals resolved and accepted as valid (δοκοῦντα)Footnote ⁴⁴ were (or would have been) rightly considered as a genuine account of things that are (ὄντα).Footnote ⁴⁵ Palmer has pointed out that, like the adjective δόκιμος,Footnote ⁴⁶ ‘the corresponding adverb δοκίμως, although rare, preserves the positive connotation and has the sense of “really”, “genuinely”, or “actually”’.Footnote ⁴⁷ With this given, we can therefore assume that the goddess’s account of mortal opinions, which will follow after her discourse about the two pathways of enquiry and what-is, will be entirely trustworthy because, as the goddess herself says, it is a genuine account of things as they truly are.

An analogous conclusion could be reached from B 8.60–61 (= PARM D 8.65–66 Laks-Most), where we are told that the goddess’s διάκοσμος, or ‘arrangement’Footnote ⁴⁸ is πάντα ἐοικώς, meaning entirely appropriate and accurate; that is, it complies with what has come to pass and, in virtue of this, it will not be surpassed by any other mortal cosmology.Footnote ⁴⁹ However, how can this conclusion be reconciled with the claim the goddess makes at B 8.52 (= PARM D 8.57 Laks-Most), to offer an account of mortal opinions that is deceitful (κόσμον … ἐπέων ἀπατηλόν)? Prima facie, the word ‘deceitful’ is hardly reconcilable with the status of the goddess of truth, who promises Parmenides that he will gain a comprehensive and unsurpassable knowledge of topics of natural philosophy.Footnote ⁵⁰ However, the issue is one of the most debated questions of Parmenides’ philosophy and, given the nature of the evidence at our disposal, any attempt to answer it can only be speculative. Below I will venture a proposal to address this issue, arguing that the goddess’s deceitful discourse refers to a problem of language rather than content.

To this end, let us begin with B 8.53 (= PARM D 8.58 Laks-Most), where the particle γάρ connects the goddess’s κόσμον … ἐπέων ἀπατηλόν to her account of the two forms, light and night, that mortals established to name their opinions. The ensuing verses explain that mortals ἐκρίναντο, distinguished, these two forms and make them ἀντία, and χωρὶς ἀπ’ ἀλλήλων, opposite and separate from one another. On the one hand, light has been made ethereal, mild and lightweight, whereas night is dark, dense and heavy. Yet the distinction between the two principles, indeed the two principles themselves, result from a mortal error: ἐν ὧι πεπλανημένοι εἰσίν (l. 54 [= PARM D 8.59 Laks-Most]).Footnote ⁵¹

In DK 28 B 9 (= PARM D 13 Laks-Most),Footnote ⁵² moreover, the goddess argues that all visible things (in the world)Footnote ⁵³ have been named according to light and night and, specifically, according to their powers.Footnote ⁵⁴ This seems to entail that names are given to things according to their visible features in connection to the distinct characteristics of the two principles. The goddess, however, has just warned of the erroneous nature of the two forms of light and night and of their associated powers. A possible deduction is that the names of things are erroneous as well, because, being given upon incorrect conceptualizations of perceptions and experiences of the world around, they evoke faulty semantic frames.Footnote ⁵⁵

Against this background, therefore, if one is to provide an entirely accurate account of the nature of things, one is faced with two options: either rejecting human language tout court and inventing new names; or retaining human language and its names while correcting, to the best of one’s own abilities, the misleading semantic frames they evoke. By saying at DK 28 B 9.3 (= PARM D 13.3 Laks-Most) that ‘all (πᾶν) is full of light and night together and of both alike, since nothing is with neither’, the goddess seems to have a preference for the latter option. Indeed, she uses incorrect names (‘all is full of light and night’, my emphasis) but tries to elicit the unitary, full and continuous aspect of all in contrast to the basic opposition evoked by the principles of light and night.

In this respect, it is worth noting that DK 28 B 9.3 (= PARM D 13.3 Laks-Most) is highly reminiscent of a line belonging to the aletheia-part of the goddess’ revelation, namely B 8.24 (= PARM D 8.29 Laks-Most): πᾶν δ’ ἔμπλεόν ἐστιν ἐόντος, ‘all is full of what-is’. This expression, which describes what-is as a totality replete of being, is within the depiction of what-is as an undivided, full and continuous entity. The parallel between B 8.24 (= PARM D 8.29 Laks-Most) and B 9.3 (= PARM D 13.3 Laks-Most) invites the reading that the goddess wants to ascribe essential semata of what-is to her account of the natural world.Footnote ⁵⁶

A possible conclusion, then, would be the following: since the goddess’s cosmology rests and builds (by correction) on people’s incorrect notions, therefore using incorrect names, her κόσμον ἐπέων is to be considered deceptive not because of the nature of the themes and arguments it provides, but because of the language used to convey them. In other words, my proposal is to understand the divine account as ἀπατηλόν because, despite its attempt to correct mortal errors and provide a divine account of things, it exploits nonetheless human misleading concepts and names. Yet since it corrects mortal errors, the goddess’s διάκοσμος can fairly be taken as πάντα ἐοικώς (at B.60 [= PARM D 8.65 Laks-Most]), entirely appropriate and accurate, and will not be surpassed by any other mortal cosmology.Footnote ⁵⁷

The last claim can be explained with reference to the fact that Parmenides’ cosmology ultimately is not a mortal but a divine account of the physical world. Since traditionally only gods know things as they truly are, no mortal hypothesis on the nature of things will ever be a better description of the cosmos than a divine explanation. Parmenides’ divine philosophy, therefore, is not merely the best account, but the sole account of the true nature of things. It is most convincing and unsurpassable not because it is plausible, but because it is correct. And it is correct because it is divinely revealed.

We may well conclude, therefore, that not only ‘the well-rounded heart of reality’ but also the goddess’s account of mortal beliefs is entirely trustworthy, genuine and therefore true. However, the two parts of the goddess’s revelation are true in a different way. On the one hand, the discourse about what-is is true and also entirely convincing, since it is made through a dense illustration of its sêmata; namely, rationally verifiable signs of the truth the goddess is revealing.Footnote ⁵⁸ On the other hand, as we have just seen, the goddess’s explanation about mortal opinions claims to perfectly agree with things as they occur and for this reason, it coincides with true, unsurpassable knowledge of the physical world. However, it lacks ‘the objective persuasive force exerted by the arguments’ of the first part of the goddess’s revelationFootnote ⁵⁹ and thus falls short of genuine conviction or assurance that it is true, since even a divine source, such as Parmenides’ goddess, cannot provide any proofs or evidence through which one can judge and assess the correct or incorrect nature of her arguments.

If we now think back to the context I outlined in Sections 6.1.1 and 6.1.2, then we can better evaluate the contribution made by Parmenides, who was following in the wake of a well-established tradition that reflected on divine and human epistemic possibilities. According to Parmenides, the traditional notion according to which temporally and spatially remote things and phenomena cannot be known clearly by humans holds true even in those cases where someone receives a divine revelation, unless this is accompanied by evidence of the truth it discloses. For this reason, the goddess’s characterization of her own cosmological discourse possessing no pistis alêthes coincides with Parmenides’ conscious and most sincere assertion that some of the arguments contained in his poem, while genuinely valid, cannot ever be proven true.

However, Parmenides’ strategy to entrust his natural philosophy to divine revelation serves the purpose of making his divine source the ultimate criterion of the truth of his philosophical account. In other words, the divine source may be taken as a workaround to the idea that the nature of things can only be a matter of conjecture and therefore always falls short of true and profound persuasion. The divine source thus becomes the criterion for conferring certainty on the physical revelation and thus persuading the audience that things are as they are now described. Parmenides’ programme is thus evident: when there are no other rational or objective standards by which to verify the arguments of an account on natural philosophy, the poet can claim to have the authority that comes from the gods and thus make the divine source of that philosophy the criterion of its reliability.

6.2.1 The Role of Divine Revelation

As we have seen in Section 6.1.3, Parmenides has been shown to work within the understanding of knowledge developed by the epic tradition but to also modify it for his own purposes, making philosophy a divine and therefore truthful revelation. Here it will be argued that Empedocles too aimed to depict himself as a divine source of truth to give his explanation of the physical world the mantle of true knowledge. In what follows, I will build on that which we have already seen in Chapter 2.4; that is, by following inter alia Parmenides’ example, Empedocles opens his philosophical poem by claiming for himself an extraordinary nature and wisdom as well as authority on matters beyond ordinary human ken. In fact, as I will now show, there are several echoes of Parmenides’ didactic passages scattered throughout Empedocles’ verses that show that he did not aim to present himself as the new Parmenides, but rather as Parmenides’ goddess. Indeed, Empedocles, as a god reborn as a human being, claims to be the source, not the addressee, of a divine revelation.

To begin, the most remarkable Parmenidean echo in the Empedoclean fragments is at B 17.26 (= EMP D 73.257 Laks-Most): σὺ δ’ ἄκουε λόγου στόλον οὐκ ἀπατηλόν. This is an almost verbatim reminiscence of the words of Parmenides’ goddess who, as we have seen above, defined her own cosmology as a deceitful discourse: δόξας δ’ ἀπὸ τοῦδε βροτείας / μάνθανε κόσμον ἐμῶν ἐπέων ἀπατηλὸν ἀκούων (DK 28 B 8.51–52 [= PARM D 8.56–57 Laks-Most]). It is generally maintained that Empedocles, by explicitly recalling the goddess’s characterization of the opinions of mortals, intended to set his own cosmology in opposition. However, Palmer has convincingly shown that this interpretation is misleading,Footnote ⁶⁰ since the account to which Empedocles refers through his Parmenidean reminiscence (B 17.26 [= EMP D 73.257 Laks-Most]) is the claim that Love has a major role in the shape and functioning of the cosmos. Such a role is generally neglected by people, but Pausanias, by paying due attention to Empedocles’ non-deceitful account, will not fail to recognize it.

Be that as it may, Empedocles’ reminiscence of Parmenides’ line can be taken to be in service of his portrayal as a superhuman individual with divine wisdom. It is therefore a further element of authorial legitimation. By his re-use of the divine speech of Parmenides’ goddess, Empedocles aims to evoke in his audience’s mind divine advice about the correct epistemic role the disciple should have when listening to a philosophical revelation. Thereby, Empedocles indirectly aims to ascribe to himself the same authority and role as that of Parmenides’ goddess.

This conclusion is supported by several analogous echoes of Parmenides’ verses scattered throughout Empedocles’ fragments, almost all of which are made in contexts when the disciple Pausanias is directly addressed. For instance, Parmenides’ B 2.1 (= PARM D 6.1 Laks-Most), εἰ δ’ ἄγ’ ἐγὼν ἐρέω, κόμισαι δὲ σὺ μῦθον ἀκούσας, finds four different echoes in Empedocles. The first hemistich is evoked three times: in B 8.1 (= EMP D 53.1 Laks-Most) with ἄλλο δέ τοι ἐρέω, in B 23.11 (= EMP D 60.11 Laks-Most) with ἀλλὰ τορῶς ταῦτ’ ἴσθι, θεοῦ πάρα μῦθον ἀκούσας, and in B 114.3 (= EMP D 6.3 Laks-Most) with οὓς ἐγὼ ἐξερέω. Additionally, PStrasb. a(ii) 29 (= EMP D 73.299 Laks-Most) displays the same philosophical use of the verb κομίζω: ἐκ τῶν ἀψευδῆ κόμισαι φρενὶ δείγματα μ[ύθων]. Furthermore, the goddess’s address to Parmenides in B 4 (= PARM D 10 Laks-Most), λεῦσσε δ’ ὅμως ἀπεόντα νόωι παρεόντα βεβαίως, is plainly recalled by Empedocles in B 17.21 (= EMP D 73.252 Laks-Most), τὴν σὺ νόωι δέρκευ, μηδ᾿ ὄμμασιν ἧσο τεθηπώς. In particular, the adjective τεθηπότες is reminiscent of the goddess’s description about the disparagement of mortal understanding (DK 28 B 6.7 [= PARM D 7.7 Laks-Most]), whereas she directs Parmenides not to rely upon his perception, but rather his reason, to comprehend the content of her revelation. Similarly, Empedocles’ instruction to Pausanias is to observe Love with his mind (νόωι), rather than with his eyes, as sensations would lead the disciple astray. In a similar vein, B 17.21 (= EMP D 73.252 Laks-Most) also parallels the goddess’s instruction to Parmenides ‘to behold things that, while absent, are steadfastly present to mind’ (νόωι; DK 28 B 4.1 [= PARM D 10.1 Laks-Most]).Footnote ⁶¹

The intentional re-use of the goddess’s phrases is noteworthy: it suggests that Empedocles, in his didactic role towards Pausanias, aims to imitate the goddess’s role towards Parmenides, ascribing to himself the same divine authority. Indeed, as we have seen in Chapter 3.5, Empedocles pictures himself as an incarnated god, who is a divine, benevolent guide for human beings in this world and beyond. Thus, just as the goddess is beneficial to Parmenides and reveals to him the true nature of things, Empedocles is the source of his own philosophy, which discloses to Pausanias how things truly are. In this narrative, consequently, Pausanias has the role that Parmenides ascribes to himself. Just like Parmenides, who alone among living beings visits the House of Night and is there called by the goddess her beloved kouros, Pausanias ‘turned aside (scil. from the common path)’, parting from ordinary mortals to become Empedocles’ beloved disciple (see B 2.8–9 [= EMP D 42.8–9 Laks-Most]). Moreover, just like Parmenides, who is going to learn everything from the goddess and thus become a ‘man who knows’ (εἰδὼς φώς at DK 28 B 1.3 [= PARM D 4.3 Laks-Most]),Footnote ⁶² Pausanias is promised extraordinary powers over the forces of nature (see B 111 [= EMP D 43 Laks-Most]) and a super-human wisdom at the end of his philosophical training (e.g., B 2.9 [= EMP D 42.9 Laks-Most]).

It is worth noting that the exceptional nature of Parmenides’ cognitive abilities is highlighted in contrast to ordinary human beings, as is shown in DK 28 B 6.3–9 (= EMP D 7.3–9 Laks-Most):

Here, ordinary people are described as completely deprived of understanding and their ignorance is contrasted with Parmenides’ knowledge. In fact, the depiction of ordinary mortals plays on the contrast with Parmenides’ self-representation in the prologue. Whereas we are told that mortals know nothing (βροτοὶ εἰδότες οὐδέν in B 6.4 [= PARM D 7.4 Laks-Most]), Parmenides is a man who knows (εἰδότα φῶτα B 1.3 [= PARM D 4.3 Laks-Most]). Moreover, mortals ‘wander along’ (πλάττονται at B 6.5 [= PARM D 7.5 Laks-Most]) and have a wandering understanding (πλαγκτὸν νόον at B 6.6 [= PARM D 7.6 Laks-Most]), which is directed by helplessness in their breasts (ἀμηχανίη γὰρ ἐν αὐτῶν / στήθεσιν ἰθύνει at B 6.5–6 [= PARM D 7.5–6 Laks-Most]). For this reason, people ‘are borne along, deaf and blind at once, bedazzled and undiscriminating hordes’ (at B 6.6–7 [= PARM D 7.6–7 Laks-Most]). In contrast, divine mares led by the Daughters of the Sun carry (φέρουσιν in B 1.1 [= PARM D 4.1 Laks-Most]) Parmenides along the path of the god. This leads (φέρει B 1.3 [= PARM D 4.1 Laks-Most]) to a precise destination, the House of Night, while the path of mortals ‘turns back on itself’ (παλίντροπός ἐστι κέλευθος at B 6.9 [= PARM D 6.9 Laks-Most]).

Like Parmenides, Empedocles too remarks on human cognitive poorness, for instance through the lines of fragment B 2 (= EMP D 42 Laks-Most):Footnote ⁶⁴

Ordinary people are essentially described as having insufficient means to understand; their knowing devices are narrow (στεινωποί at l. 1) and their lifetime too short to collect a satisfying amount of data enabling clear knowledge, plus they are continuously distracted by illness and unimportant concerns that dull their thoughts. For these reasons, in their attempts to know, they are driven away and fooled by their impressions.Footnote ⁶⁵ Thus, no human being can boast to have found the whole.Footnote ⁶⁶ Nor can people understand what Empedocles says in his philosophy merely by relying on their ordinary senses and minds, as these are not apt to comprehend the true nature of things.Footnote ⁶⁷

Yet Empedocles’ pessimistic view on human cognitive abilities in B 2 (= EMP D 42 Laks-Most) is almost overturned in his final claim directed to Pausanias (ll. 8–9). As we have seen in Chapter 2.5, Empedocles utters here the promise that, at the end of his philosophical training, Pausanias will go beyond his human nature and reach the highest, divine form of understanding by enlarging his tools of knowledge, increasing his attention span and, above all, prolonging the duration of his existence. To this end, Pausanias needs to part from the ordinary, human perspective and focus, instead, on Empedocles’ revelation.

In his epistemic role, which I will examine again in Section 6.4, it is demanded that Pausanias listens attentively to Empedocles’ words and observes things all around. In fact, didactic directions of this kind are scattered throughout the physical poem: Pausanias is frequently encouraged to learn by listening to the doctrine and, at the same time, by examining the environment in search of signs confirming Empedocles’ words. These directions show the importance Empedocles attributes to both his revelation and consideration of sensible data to gain valid knowledge.

Empedocles’ appeal to sensible data also parallels the kind of enquiry, practised by Xenophanes, Alcmaeon and the Hippocratic author of Ancient Medicine, as we have seen in Section 6.1.1. However, the reason Pausanias is encouraged to pursue this kind of enquiry is slightly different from these thinkers. While the collection of a wide range of sensible data constituted the basis upon which the abovementioned authors formed conjectures and constructed physical theories, Pausanias is encouraged to observe sensible data and thereby expand his range of experiences to corroborate what Empedocles is revealing and consequently be firmly convinced by this revelation. Let us consider the following lines:

These lines clearly indicate that Pausanias is constantly prompted not just passively to hear what Empedocles tells him, but actively to look around for things that he can compare to the words he is listening to: ‘Make sure that my account does not reach only as far as your ears / and as you hear me consider the truth all around’. Thereby Pausanias will be convinced that Empedocles’ discourse corresponds to truth: ‘From them preserve in your mind unerring proofs of my words’.

The notion that surrounding things provide evidence for Empedocles’ revelation shows that, unlike Ionian ἱστορίη, Pausanias’ attention to sensible data is clearly ancillary to divine revelation, which is instead essential to gain knowledge, as ordinary people are said to have minds that cannot grasp the truth or discover ‘the whole’ by themselves (see B 2 [= EMP D 42 Laks-Most]). Thus, Empedocles’ revelation of truth is the primary, crucial element in the pursuit of the understanding of the nature of things. This conclusion is reiterated with surprising clarity at the end of another fragment, B 23.9–11 (= EMP D 60.9–11 Laks-Most):

Through these lines, Empedocles states that only by hearing his divine revelationFootnote ⁶⁸ will Pausanias know beyond any reasonable doubt the true origin of mortal things.

The notion that the true nature of the physical world can only be revealed came to Empedocles by his philosophical model Parmenides who, as we have seen, entrusted his physical doctrine to the revelation of a goddess encountered at the end of a journey of initiation. However, whereas on such matters Parmenides’ goddess could promise a true account, which nonetheless lacks the assurance of truth, Empedocles assures Pausanias that he will know clearly, τορῶς (B 23.11 [= EMP D 60.11 Laks-Most]). Elsewhere, Empedocles similarly affirms that he will show Pausanias evidence in the surrounding world, which unquestionably demonstrates the truth of his own revelation. Items of evidence the disciple can discover all around are defined as ἐπιμάρτυρα, literally ‘witnesses’, of the doctrine Empedocles is revealing (B 21.1 [= EMP D 77a.1 Laks-Most]). Elsewhere they are called ‘unerring proofs’ of Empedocles’ words (ἀψευδῆ δείγματα μύθων at PStrasb. a(ii) 29–30 [= EMP D 73. 299–300 Laks-Most]) and ‘infallible truth’ (ἐό̣ντα … [ν]η̣μερτ[έα at PStrasb. a(ii) 22 [= EMP D 73.292 Laks-Most]). Expressions of this sort not only depict Empedocles’ revelation as true but also represent the level of persuasion it brings – the kind of persuasion that only a divine disclosure of truth can display. Thus, Empedocles claims that persuasion can come to Pausanias from his personal observation and experience of things all around. The inference is that things and phenomena people may experience in their life, if they are thoroughly comprehended, can corroborate beyond any doubt the true nature of Empedocles’ revelation.

Whereas in the next section we will delve into the question of who can thoroughly comprehend things that escape ordinary human knowledge, by evaluating the weight of personal observation in the process of knowing truly, let us wrap up my arguments thus far. Having now contextualized Empedocles’ concept of divine and human knowledge, locating it within a consolidated tradition stemming from Homer, I was able to show that Empedocles’ more immediate source and model Parmenides makes his philosophy a divine revelation to overcome the impasse of a knowledge of the physical world that cannot be known to be true. In contrast to Parmenides, however, Empedocles crucially switches the role of the ‘teller’ of truth from a goddess to himself. In doing so Empedocles makes himself the divine source of his own philosophy, while reserving to Pausanias the same role Parmenides claimed for himself, that of an initiate to truth.

Moreover, in contrast to Parmenides, who is told a truthful philosophy that nonetheless brings no assurance of truth, at the end of his philosophical training Pausanias will know about the physical world clearly. As we will see in the next section, this claim implies that Pausanias is promised to overcome human cognitive limitations, that is, to change his being from mortal to god. This will finally enable him to relate to the physical world in a divine way and thus know it clearly. Such a change is only made possible through Empedocles’ philosophy, whose proper reception will impact the very nature of Pausanias’ mind. Before we can draw this conclusion in Section 6.3, however, I shall first consider the weight of personal observation (αὐτοψία) of things around us within the context of Empedocles’ scientific method of enquiry.

6.2.2 Observation and Empirical Enquiry

As we have just seen, in contrast to his model Parmenides, Empedocles claims that his revelation of the nature of things can be corroborated by proofs Pausanias can see in the environment, thanks to which the disciple can know the physical world clearly. Yet in light of a consolidated tradition that ascribes such a knowledge only to gods, a twofold question arises: how could Empedocles conceive that humans, with their cognitive limitations and too-short a life, could come to understand truth by observing the world around them? With a focus on the objects of observation, additionally, in which way could the observable phenomena that Empedocles presents to Pausanias confirm the principles of his natural philosophy? In what follows, I will show that personal observation may play a role in the understanding of the physical world in terms of both a (fallacious) confirmatory item and part of a method of enquiry resting upon inductive reasoning. By doing so, however, I will argue that, despite the more or less confirmatory character Empedocles may have attributed to personal enquiry, phenomena observed through the structure of a human mind cannot be said to prove his physical theories and thereby confirm the truth of his revelation. Thus, in order to know things truly through observation, one must relate to the observed things with a new mental structure; that is, with a divine mind.

Having already established in Section 6.2.1 that Empedocles’ divine revelation is superior to any other form of personal enquiry into the physical world, which leads to no results if it is conducted without his words, it is now worth noting that, from a methodological perspective, the foundational entities of Empedocles’ physical world, the four elements, are primarily entrusted to his revelation, for instance when he announces them for the first time through the lines of B 6 (= EMP D 57 Laks-Most): ‘Hear first the four roots of all things’, τέσσαρα γὰρ πάντων ῥιζώματα πρῶτον ἄκουε. Thus, Pausanias is first and foremost urged to hear (ἄκουε) Empedocles’ words.Footnote ⁶⁹

However, in another set of verses, by reiterating his discourse about the four elements, Empedocles adds that they can be known empirically. Indeed, he indicates where they can chiefly be observed.

Having prompted his disciple first to hear his words on the physical principles, through the above-quoted lines Empedocles now encourages Pausanias to observe (δέρκευ) evidence of his previous discourse on the four elements. By means of legal language, Empedocles calls ‘witnesses’ (ἐπιμάρτυρα) of the truthful nature of his words the phenomenal appearances of the sun, celestial bodies, rain and earth with their most traditional characteristics. Put differently, the sun is taken to show the basic element of fire, the celestial bodies the element of air,Footnote ⁷¹ rain the element of water and the terrestrial crust the element of earth.

Analogously, in B 22.1–3 (= EMP D 101.1–3 Laks-Most), by introducing a different yet related doctrine, Empedocles argues that smaller portions of the elements involved in the structure of microcosmic compounds were separated from their greatest cosmic masses constituting the sun, earth (that is, the terrestrial crust), sky and sea. Elsewhere, Empedocles affirms that the theory according to which microcosmic compounds are made out of the same elements that constitute the universe, mixed and separated by Love and Strife, can empirically be proven. In this regard, consider B 21.7–12 (= EMP D 77a.7–12 Laks-Most):

Both with regard to the four roots examined above and the microcosmic compounds made out of them, Empedocles’ teaching strategy is clear: that is, he first discloses his argument and then indicates the field of observation that could substantiate it. As we can see, the statement that the elements come together by Love and are separated by Strife to be formed into all things we can see in the physical world is followed by the clarification at lines 10–12 of what those things are: trees, human beings, beasts, birds, fish and long-lived gods. Although Empedocles does not explicitly introduce them as a field of observation of the main theory, we can therefore appreciate that he chooses a very familiar domain. Indeed, Empedocles seems to suggest that, by considering familiar things in our daily experience, we could measure the merit of his utterances about the physical principles that govern them.

Elsewhere Empedocles is even more explicit about trees, animals, men and women being the field of observation of elemental compounds. In B 20 (= EMP D 73.302–8 Laks-Most), for instance, Empedocles affirms that Pausanias can observe ‘in the glorious bulk of mortal limbs’ that Love and Strife produce mixtures and separations of elements that bring about living beings. In this respect, the lines of the papyrus I quoted in Section 6.2.1 (PStrasb. a(ii) 21–30 [= EMP D 73.291–300 Laks-Most]) sound remarkable. There, Empedocles says he is able to demonstrate to his disciple (‘I shall show you to your eyes’) that ‘the savage kinds of mountain-wandering wild beasts … the double race of human beings …, the species of root-bearing flowers and the vine-climbing grape’ represent the ‘larger body’ of observation of the coming-together and the unfolding of birth. As we will see in the next chapter, the coming-together (ξύνοδον) and the unfolding (διάπτυξιν) of birth indicate the generative action of Love and Strife upon the elements, which give rise to all forms of living beings. We are told, in other words, that by observing living beings, Pausanias will be able to derive by his mind ‘unerring proofs of my words’, δείγματα μύθων, about ‘the coming-together and the unfolding of birth’. The neuter plural δείγματα recalls ἐπιμάρτυρα used in the above-quoted lines of B 21 (= EMP D 77a Laks-Most) with reference to the cosmic masses of the sun, sea, sky and terrestrial crust as empirical items of evidence of the four elements. The expression δείγματα μύθων analogously indicates that living beings are regarded as the field of observation of natural phenomena that are otherwise impenetrable. Indeed, Pausanias is assured that he can observe with his own eyes the process of generation of living beings. More specifically, what he will see will provide evidence that Empedocles’ revelation about Love and Strife mixing and separating the four elements to form living beings corresponds to what in fact comes to pass.

However, the extant fragments do not unequivocally clarify the way in which we are supposed to take Empedocles’ assertion that things all around exhibit evidence of his theory of elemental mixtures and separations. Where exactly, in other words, are we supposed to see in living beings that they are made out of measured proportions of some or all of the four elements? Does this idea come from the fact that some organic structures seem to resemble the nature of one or more elements? In fact, we have some verses in which Empedocles claims that the most solid parts of animals’ bodies are evidence that they consist of earth: ‘in sea-grazing, heavy-backed seashells … there you will see the earth living on the highest level of skin; … indeed, of stone-skinned trumpet-shells and turtles <the carapaces, and> the ashen spears [i.e., antlers] of horned stags’.Footnote ⁷² Alternatively, as water and air enable us to breathe and live, are we supposed to infer from this that water and air must be in some way within the structure of our body? To these and similar questions Empedocles seems to have offered no answer.

Additionally, it is worth emphasizing that Empedocles’ assumption of four basic principles may have been due much more to mythological tradition than to attentive observation. And even if a simple glance at the surroundings might have suggested the relevance of some elements over others, this kind of observation displays its indisputable limits. In fact, what the observation of the sun, sky, ocean and terrestrial crust may unveil about the four elements is that they exist in some notable form in the universe – indeed, they are cosmic masses. Yet this surely does not tell us that fire, air, water and earth are fundamental principles of our universe out of which every existing thing is made.

Nevertheless, it is relevant to note that, in ancient ‘scientific’ methods of enquiry, observation is not as much a proof of the given theory as it is itself part of the design of that theory. As I. Lonie explained with regard to some Hippocratic treatises,Footnote ⁷³

It is therefore the accumulation of observable phenomena and ‘awkward facts’, put together in the same account, rather than their value as proofs of concepts, that is taken as confirmation of the truth of a certain notion or theory.

To sum up, Empedocles argues that perceptual, empirical knowledge is involved in the enquiry into the principles of the physical world. As we have seen, Empedocles maintains that the existence of four basic elements can be observed in the greatest masses of the cosmos and in the fact that some portions of them are in microcosmic things and living beings. Moreover, this point is believed to entail the fact that the elements are the very ingredients of all existing things in the world – a conclusion that is said to find a field of observation as well. However, as we have just seen, this kind of reasoning by observation is fallacious as it depends on the truth of the causal account which it is apparently intended to confirm. Indeed, it is part of the design of the same account.

Nevertheless, as we will now see, there is at least one passage in Empedocles’ extant fragments in which observation and, more generally, experience of familiar things is accounted for as part of a method of enquiry that draws general inferences and abstract universal principles by induction from comparable cases. This is the way in which Love can be known. It starts by the observation of familiar experiences and things, includes a consideration about similarities among them, reflects on the common cause behind those similarities and finally infers via abstraction universal principles that govern all comparable cases in the world.Footnote ⁷⁵ This kind of observation that leads to abstract thought and knowledge of principles is referred to by Empedocles as ‘seeing with the mind’.

Consider B 17.20–28 (= EMP D 73.249–57 Laks-Most):

Empedocles affirms that Love is a principle that cannot be observed or known directly. In contrast to the four elements, which can be observed in the cosmic masses, this indicates that there is nothing in the world that can show the concrete, material (substantial) presence of Love in things. Indeed, no mortal beings have seen her whirling among them. Accordingly, seeing her with the eyes would result in astonishment (μηδ᾿ ὄμμασιν ἧσο τεθηπώς), whereas Empedocles encourages Pausanias to observe Love with his mind (νόωι δέρκευ). In fact, even though Love is beyond the range of observation, she can nonetheless be experienced in everyday life, as she is considered familiar to people: she is innate in mortal limbs and it is because of her that people have friendly thoughts, feel fondness and love, accomplish deeds of friendship and feel joy and sexual desire.Footnote ⁷⁷

Yet what does it mean to observe Love with one’s own mind? Seeing with the mind likely indicates a process of reflection that draws general inferences and universal principles (such as Love) by induction from comparable cases one can access empirically (such as, in this case, experiences of joy, friendship, sexual desire and the like). As R. Kamtekar argues,

Thus, whereas observation applied in the analysis of the four roots as cosmic elements is used for its tendency to confirm, the process used to understand Love is an example of how to extend the power of sensation and empirical investigation for inductive, causal reasoning and abstract thinking.

An analogous reasoning seems to be applied also to infer the working of the four elements. In a series of fragments, in which Empedocles focuses on the construction of body tissues and organs, Empedocles implies that, by observing the interaction between water or watery things, earth or earthy things and fire in some local phenomena, for instance in bakery or pottery, we may learn something about invisible, more basic phenomena affecting life on earth. By a close reading of these fragments we may gain a further idea of what Empedocles meant, first, by the process of ‘seeing with the mind’. Second, what he meant by the field of observation of the workings of the four elements that, by mixing and interacting with each other, give rise to living beings.

More precisely, to illustrate Love’s construction of bones, at B 96 (= EMP D 192 Laks-Most) Empedocles employs terms that elicit, by way of a metaphor, the domain of craftmanship – in particular, of goldsmithing. Earth is said to receive water and fire in her choanoi to form bones fitted together by Love’s kollêmata. While the term choanoi properly indicates hollows in which metals were placed for melting, the word kollêmata can indicate metals and stones that are fixed together, as in a piece of jewellery. Thus, it might be inferred that the idea of elements mixing together and interacting with each other to form new things came to Empedocles from a familiar activity: as goldsmiths melt diverse metals together through fire, harden them through water and then join metals and stones to create new and diverse pieces of jewellery, so too does Love with the four elements to form all kinds of mortal compounds.

Similarly, in B 73 (= EMP D 199 Laks-Most) other departments of the domain of craftmanship are evoked in order metaphorically to depict the creative activity of Love with reference to living compounds. Love is said to soak earth with water and form shapes that she then ‘gives to swift fire’. The elicited domain is both that of pottery, where water is mixed with earth to produce clay, which is then moulded in different shapes and finally cooked by fire, or, alternatively, we may find an allusion to the activity of a baker who adds water to flour to produce a dough that becomes bread when heated.

Clearly, Empedocles’ appeal to the observation of familiar processes to deduce more general principles is guided by inferences based on analogy, which prima facie seems similar to those formulated to reason about the principle of Love. As Palmer puts it:

Moreover, analogical inference is plausible and pervasive to the human mind, and so it may seem, at first sight, that Empedocles’ method of enquiry with regard to the processes of elemental mixtures in things proceeds in ways we find intelligible. On a more attentive reading, however, the kind of observation and reasoning Empedocles requires ultimately turns out to fail its purpose. The failure rests specifically on the fact that the similarities we are prompted to recognize between {P} (tissues and organs) and {Q} (goldsmithing, pottery or bakery) are just assumed a priori. Indeed, the conceptual mappings underlying these alleged resemblances rest upon the general, a-priori assumption that the physical universe is ultimately made out of four basic elements.

On the other hand, the observation of comparable cases can lead us to infer more general principles via analytic thinking and causal reasoning. In the case of Love, in fact, Pausanias can experience different kinds of situations that seem to involve the same emotional predisposition. Because of this, they can be said to share similarities that can effectively be traced back to the same cause, love. Thus, by abstracting similarities from comparable cases and reflecting on their causal relations, we can reconstruct ‘more universal’ principles regulating many, if not all, compared instances.

To sum up, we see that observation is, for Empedocles, not only a way to confirm a given theory, but also part of a method of enquiry resting upon inductive reasoning, which enables us to gain knowledge of fundamental principles working in all areas of nature. However, since that knowledge lacks, as if it were, proofs of concepts that could conclusively and beyond any doubt confirm its validity, it remains true that, despite personal empirical research, it still takes Empedocles’ revelation to disclose the fundamental principles of the physical world as well as to explain their working. In other words, despite the more or less confirmatory character Empedocles may have attributed to personal enquiry, observable phenomena of the kind he chose as evidence for his theories are not transparent and unequivocal to us and, therefore, are not going to convince us of the truth of those theories. Rather, they leave us puzzled.

However, Pausanias is promised an authentic knowledge of the physical world, such that the observation of the surrounding things will carry the certainty and persuasion of the truth. How is it possible that the empirical evidence that Empedocles presents to us will puzzle us, whereas for Pausanias there will be a way through which he will know authentically? I would argue that the difference between us and Pausanias lies in the fact that Empedocles’ philosophy promises true knowledge to those who are initiated. By devoting himself to Empedocles’ philosophy, Pausanias is promised divine knowledge, which means that he will be able to observe the surrounding world with divine eyes. As we shall see below, by embracing Empedocles’ revelation, Pausanias will expand his cognitive potential and overcome human epistemic limitations and so attain ‘the wealth of a divine mind’, which is able genuinely to understand (indeed, clearly experience) the nature of things. It is this initiation to Empedocles’ philosophy that will enable Pausanias to finally bridge the gap between human and divine knowledge.

6.3.1 Empedocles’ Theory of Perception

In the following two sections I will reconstruct Empedocles’ theory of perception and knowledge acquisition by looking at our most important sources, above all at Theophrastus’ De Sensibus, and at several hints scattered throughout Empedocles’ own verses. This analysis will clarify the role that external inputs and bodily organs play in perceiving, thinking and knowing. In doing so, it will lay the groundwork for my main argument in Section 6.3.3, namely, that the understanding of crucial epistemic inputs – that is, those relating to the true nature of the physical world – enables the transcendence of human cognitive limitations and the change of being into a divine nature.

In his systematic treatment of the most important theories concerning perception and knowledge acquisition before Aristotle, TheophrastusFootnote ⁸⁰ reports that according to Empedocles we perceive through an adaptation (enarmotteinFootnote ⁸¹) of the perceived things to the pores (πόροι in Greek) of our sense organs. The word πόρος (poros), which originally indicates a passage over a river or a narrow part of a sea (a strait), metaphorically depicts a passage through a permeable substance such as the skin.Footnote ⁸² In Empedocles’ theory of sensation, πόροι are passages that connect the sense organs at the periphery of the body to a central, controlling body organ.Footnote ⁸³

The adaptation between sense organs and objects of perception is mediated through ἀπορροαί (aporroai), literally ‘streams’, which are continuously emanated from compounds. As Plutarch reports:Footnote ⁸⁴

Empedocles does not provide precise information about the nature of the ἀπορροαί, yet a general inference could be that they are sômata of some sort and hence they are made of (at least one of) the four elements. This is deduced from Empedocles’ ontology, which does not seem to envisage incorporeal entities and therefore requires that, like everything else, effluences too must be made of elements. The conception of ἀπορροαί as σώματα also agrees with the traditional conception of words (hence, sounds and even thoughts) as things. As Wright points out, in the Homeric poems

Furthermore, according to Plutarch’s Natural Phenomena, Empedocles considers smells and similar olfactory effluences (ἀπορροάς in Plutarch’s text), which dogs can perceive and follow, as ‘fragments of limbs’ (κέρματα … μελέων) that living beings constantly leave on the ground.Footnote ⁸⁶ By extension, we can make the general inference that any kind of sensory ἀπορροή is a σῶμα of some sort; that is, a compound of elements.

These elemental streams that things in the world emanate get in touch with sense organs and, if they fit them, they may enter the body. More precisely, adaptation between perceptual effluences and the pores of a certain sense organ and, consequently, perception only occur if two basic conditions are fulfilled: συμμετρία (symmetria) and τῷ ὁμοίῳ (tôi homoiôi ).Footnote ⁸⁷ The principle of συμμετρία, (‘symmetry’ or ‘commensurateness’) entails that, in order for the pores to be entered by, and to perceive, an effluence, the latter must be commensurate to the former. This means that, as Theophrastus specifies, when a particular effluence is too large for the pores of a certain sense organ, it cannot enter. Analogously, when an effluence is too small, it enters the pores but produces no contact. In both cases perception cannot happen. It is worth noting that particular effluences are only commensurate to specific structures of pores in particular organs. This explains why eyes cannot see sounds and ears cannot hear colours.

Regarding the second criterion of τῷ ὁμοίῳ or likeness, this is more elusive than συμμετρία and its functioning in Empedocles’ theory of perception and knowledge acquisition is not at all clear. Theophrastus (Sens. 1–2) seems to specify it in terms of the akin nature between the subject and object of perception, which is said to be Empedocles’ general condition that enables perception in the first place. On this standard, this principle works in sensation processes in such a way that each element in the architecture of a certain sense organ is able to perceive the same element in the object of sensation. The idea seems to be, in other words, that we can perceive only things that are analogous to our own nature. In this sense, Theophrastus connects the principle of likeness to the innate faculty of the elementsFootnote ⁸⁸ to be attracted by their homologous substances and indirectly relates it to the cosmologically significant power of attraction of like to(wards) like.Footnote ⁸⁹

Empedocles’ use of the principle of like by like in processes of sensation and knowledge acquisition is attested by his own words in B 109 (= EMP D 207 Laks-Most):

Aristotle quotes this fragment twice. In De Anima (404b 11–20), he mentions Empedocles among those of his predecessors who maintain that the soul is the principle that knows and perceives. These philosophers represent the soul as identical with those principles (archai) forming the physical world. Thus, by the same standard, Empedocles considers the soul to be made out of the four elements, and makes each of the elements a soul, as each perceives and knows its homologous substance: ‘by earth we see earth etc.’. Empedocles’ lines are then followed by Aristotle’s remark that Plato analogously argues in the Timaeus that the soul is made out of the principles of the universe, for the reason that like is perceived and known by like. The inference is that the principle of like by like governs processes of sensation and knowledge acquisition in Plato as well as in Empedocles. B 109 (= EMP D 207 Laks-Most) is taken as evidence for this.

Furthermore, in the Metaphysics (1000b 5), Aristotle explicitly attributes to Empedocles the view that knowing occurs by like (ἡ δὲ γνῶσις τοῦ ὁμοίου τῷ ὁμοίῳ), and corroborates his statement by quoting B 109 (= EMP D 207 Laks-Most). Moreover, Aristotle infers from this that Empedocles holds perceiving and knowing as two identical processes, as both occur according to the same principle of like by like. Theophrastus closely follows Aristotle in applying to his predecessors, hence to Empedocles, the principle of likeness in theories of perception and knowledge acquisition and sides with Aristotle in arguing that Empedocles assimilated thinking and perceiving.Footnote ⁹⁰ However, Theophrastus seems more sceptical than Aristotle in using the principle of likeness throughout consistently and systematically with reference to individual thinkers and particular sensations. Even in the case of Empedocles, for whom the principle is said to make more sense than for any other earlier philosophers, Theophrastus observes that Empedocles ultimately seems to neglect it in favour of the sole principle of συμμετρία. In fact,

As Sedley points out, here Theophrastus admits that Empedocles is silent about the compositional likeness between the objects of sensation (better, the effluences emanated by them) and the sense organs that receive them. Indeed, although Theophrastus introduces Empedocles as a likeness theorist, he recounts Empedocles’ views about perception solely in terms of effluences fitting into pores.Footnote ⁹¹

Granted thus that συμμετρία is what chiefly enables perception, does the criterion of likeness play any role at all in it? To answer this question, let us see, for instance, how the eye works. Empedocles depicts the internal structure of the eye as a compound made of fire and water.Footnote ⁹² As Theophrastus reports (Sens. 7), fire and water in the eye can perceive respectively white and black objects. Later in his treatise (at Chapter 59), Theophrastus reports that Empedocles holds the view that white is composed of fire and black of water. We could infer, therefore, that fire and water in the eye perceive respectively white and black things by likeness; namely, precisely because the white and black colours are homologous to the elements forming the structure of the eye.

However, in Chapters 7–8, Theophrastus explains that perception of white and black things by the eye occurs because their effluences can fit into the passages of the eye: that is, by symmetry. Moreover, they may fit differently according to the different constructions of the eyes. In fact, the disposition of the elements in the eye (fire can be more or less internal) and the amount of each element in its blend play a major role in vision. For instance, according to the position of fire in the eye, certain animals see better by day, others by night. Furthermore, by day those eyes that contain less fire have an advantage, because the light within can better adapt by compensation to the light outside; however, under reverse conditions the opposite occurs. However, ‘that eye is of happiest blend and is best which is composed of <both these constituents> (that is, of both water and fire) in equal measure’. An equal measure of the components, in fact, enables the eye to be commensurate in the best possible way to most of the effluences it may encounter. In short, Theophrastus, by emphasizing the central role of the elemental mixture in the sense organs – i.e., the krasis of earth, water, air and fire in them – indicates that vision, and by extension perception more generally, occurs mainly in accordance with the principle of συμμετρία.

To sum up, perception occurs through contact via an adaptation between the effluences emanated by the object of perception and the elemental structure of the sense organ. This adaptation mainly occurs by symmetry; that is, when a given sense organ is commensurate to a certain effluence or, put differently, when effluences from the surrounding environment adapt to the pores of a sense organ. The possibility that συμμετρία is fulfilled closely depends on the elemental composition of sense organs, which, in turn, rests upon several factors. In the case of the eye, the number, size and position of its components play essential roles in vision. The analogous nature of the elemental composition of effluences and pores may well be a further factor of some importance in perceiving. However, Theophrastus’ conclusion about the best eye being composed of an equal measure of fire and water draws our attention once again to the role played by the principle of συμμετρία. According to this principle, to achieve a certain perception, the krasis of elements forming sense organs which adapts to the perceptual effluences in the best possible way, is prominent over the nature of the single element attracting its homologous substance in objects of perception. As we shall see hereafter, the krasis of elements also plays a predominant role in the acquisition of knowledge.

6.3.2 Empedocles on Knowledge Acquisition

Having seen that Empedocles’ theory on perception is argued for in terms of reception and adaptation of external elements by and within the body, we will now see that processes of thought production and knowledge acquisition are conceptualized in similar terms. As I will show, Empedocles argues for acquisition of knowledge in terms of a physiological process that exploits sensory data which, by entering the body through sensory channels, reach the mind and here are processed to form new thinking and knowledge. However, although perception is taken as the first and remarkable step in approaching and processing the things around us, as we have seen in Section 6.3.1, it is worth noting that ordinary human senses are taken as not suitable for knowing to holon. Indeed, sense organs are narrow (B 2.1 [= EMP D 42.1 Laks-Most]) and, for this reason, understanding of Empedocles’ revelation cannot be attained simply by relying on them. However, personal enquiry and experience of things all around can nonetheless gain valid elements for thinking and knowing and Pausanias is encouraged to use every sense organ in his investigation of the physical world. In fact, Empedocles does not have a wholly pejorative view concerning human senses and the epistemological power of perception. In this respect, let us consider B 3.9–13 (= EMP D 44.9–13 Laks-Most):

These verses are Empedocles’ advice to Pausanias to sharpen every sense organ and make correct use of each when exploring the physical world, with Empedocles prompting Pausanias to consider (literally, ‘to see’, ἄθρει) everything ‘in the way in which it is clear’; that is, in the way in which it shows itself (ἧι δῆλον ἕκαστον).

These lines also tell us that correct use of the sense organs requires that Pausanias should not prefer a particular sensation over another, but should consider everything with every sense organ (πάσηι παλάμηι) he has at his disposal.Footnote ⁹³ Even though sight was traditionally considered the sensation that ‘reveals many distinctions and most enables us to know’,Footnote ⁹⁴ Pausanias should use all sense organs, as each of them is ‘a passage for understanding’, πόρος ἐστὶ νοῆσαι (B 3.12 [= EMP D 44.12 Laks-Most]). Then, in the last line, in a sort of ring composition, Empedocles reiterates his advice to Pausanias to consider every existing thing in the way it is clear. However, here Empedocles uses the verb νοέω. This, in variance with the previous ἀθρέω, indicates the process of reflection and understanding that makes use of data coming from the sense organs, as the following statement that everything must be known in the way it shows itself seems to indicate.

Analogously, in the verses of the Strasbourg papyrus I already quoted in Section 6.2.1,Footnote ⁹⁵ Empedocles focuses on the notion that sensations can provide useful data for knowledge acquisition. Having remarked on the importance to observe things all around to verify and be convinced by the truth he is revealing, Empedocles first promises Pausanias that he ‘will see (ὄψει) the coming together and the unfolding of birth’, then encourages him to ‘carry away in [his] mind’ the truthful proofs of Empedocles’ words (ἀψευδῆ … δείγματα). As the proofs of Empedocles’ words coincide with the data Pausanias collects through observation, we can conclude that the passage points to the role of the mind in attaining understanding from sensory inputs.

This is an indication, consequently, that in both B 3 (= EMP D 44 Laks-Most) and the papyrus verses, Empedocles makes a claim about the physiological process of thinking; that is, that bodily process enabling our mind to receive, process, assess and use perceptual inputs. Additionally, by saying that any sensation is a passage, poros, for understanding, in B 3 (= EMP D 44 Laks-Most) Empedocles constructs his discourse about the use of perception in understanding upon the metaphorical meaning of poros.Footnote ⁹⁶ Clearly, as highlighted before, the idea is that sensations contribute to knowledge. However, we have seen above that in Empedocles’ theory of sensation, the term poroi is in specific use to denote internal channels that connect sense organs at the periphery of the body to a central organ of control. Thus, B 3.12 (= EMP D 44.12 Laks-Most) may well allude to the Empedoclean theory of pores and effluences in processes of sensation and, above all, knowledge acquisition. In other words, Empedocles may well have wanted to outline the concept that the process of acquiring knowledge makes use of both sensory inputs and body channels – that is, it exploits sensations – to produce new thoughts and understanding.

An analogous conclusion can be drawn from a further instance in B 133 (= EMP D 9 Laks-Most), which again builds upon the metaphorical value of the word poros. Here, according to Clement of Alexandria,Footnote ⁹⁷ Empedocles presents the divine (to theion) as an entity that cannot be known by the senses:

For the present study, the phrase ᾗπερ τε μεγίστη / πειθοῦς ἀνθρώποισιν ἁμαξιτὸς εἰς φρένα πίπτει is highly relevant. Here journey metaphors present eyes and hands, metonymies indicating the respective perceptions of vision and touch as entrances to a road in the body that brings persuasion to the mind.Footnote ⁹⁸ Thereby, Empedocles expresses the idea that knowledge gained from sense organs is the most persuasive form of knowledge.

Yet the metaphors employed say more than this. B 133 (= EMP D 9 Laks-Most) illustrates sense organs as ‘gates’ to a road that leads to the mind, εἰς φρένα.Footnote ⁹⁹ Again, Empedocles might be alluding to his theory of pores and effluences in sensation and knowledge acquisition. Specifically, given Empedocles speaks of bodily streams, namely effluences continuously emanating from perceptual objects – we can read B 133 (= EMP D 9 Laks-Most) as suggesting the idea that streams of perceived matter, made of elements, enter the ‘gates’ of sense organs and, through bodily channels, reach the mind. In other words, the ‘journey’ of the elements coming from external objects ends in the mind and here it produces understanding. Thus, by listening to Empedocles’ doctrine, observing things in the world, smelling, tasting or touching them and hence by experiencing as many things in the world as possible, a person receives, through their own sense organs, streams of elements which, through bodily channels or pores, reach the mind. This might well indicate, finally, that Empedocles conceived, not only of perception, but also of thinking and knowledge acquisition as physiological processes of reception and processing of external elements by and within the body.

Accordingly, Empedocles conceptualizes the mind as a container. In some lines of the Strasbourg papyrus (a[ii] 29 [= EMP D 73.299 Laks-Most]), elements coming from sensation are said to be stored in one’s own mind: ‘store up in your mind the unerring proofs of my words’, ἐκ τῶν ἀψευδῆ κόμισαι φρενὶ δείγματα μ[ύθων]. Analogously, elsewhere (B 110.1–2 [= EMP D 257.1–2 Laks-Most]) the disciple is invited to ‘press hard’ or ‘thrust’ epistemic elements in his precordia and to ‘gaze on them’Footnote ¹⁰⁰ with his ‘mind’s eye’, according to another metaphor. These passages likely indicate a process of reflection through meditation on acquired data. On a physiological level, this may well indicate that reflection and meditation concretely involve the assembly and storage in the mind of sensory and epistemic inputs; that is, elements coming from external effluences. Furthermore, B 4.3 (= EMP D 47.3 Laks-Most) claims that Empedocles’ discourse can be stored in one’s own mind (here defined as σπλάγχνα, namely ‘inward parts’, probably indicating the whole region under the breast) and should here be ‘cut through’ (διατμηθέντος).Footnote ¹⁰¹ The metaphor invites the reading that processes of reflection and critical analysis are conceived in terms of matter that is divided into its essential constituents or basic elements. The image illustrates how each elemental bit of information gained by sensations is thoroughly processed by the controlling organ in the mind.Footnote ¹⁰²

The controlling organ coincides, according to Empedocles, with pericardial blood. In De Sensibus, in the conclusion to Chapter 10, Theophrastus reports that, according to Empedocles, we think and consequently know ‘chiefly with the blood; for here the elements are more fully mingled than in any other of our limbs’. We also have some Empedoclean lines attesting to the role of blood in thought production:

The subject of the neuter participle τετραμμένα is neither explicit in the text nor can be deduced by its source. Yet in other Empedoclean passages dealing with the processes of sensation and knowledge acquisition (for instance, B 110 [= EMP D 257 Laks-Most]), terms in neuter plural refer, as we shall see below, to elemental inputs coming as effluences into the body. Returning to our fragment, the idea seems to be that, when these inputs enter the mind through the pores and are stored here, the blood ‘leaping back and forth’ makes out of them what people call thoughts. Thus, in physiological terms, thoughts are the products of blood that, by leaping back and forth around the heart, encounters and, presumably, incorporates, cuts up (διατμηθέντος in B 4.4 [= EMP D 47 Laks-Most]) and modifies, in a word, processes those elements that come from external effluences and flow into the mind.

To sum up, like perception, thought production and knowledge acquisition are described as physiological processes that involve reception and elaboration of elements within the body. These processes occur when epistemic inputs coming from the outside and entering the body reach the mind and are here stored, pressed hard, thrust, cut up and gazed upon in order to produce thinking and understanding. Moreover, the organ responsible for the processing of sensory data, production of thought and acquisition of knowledge is blood, by virtue of its fully mingled elemental blend (its krasis). Thus, the balanced krasis of elements in our bodily organs, and especially in blood, is essential to the quality of our perceptions and thinking and, as we shall now see, can be improved to the point of being able to process the highest epistemic inputs.

6.3.3 Blood and Its krasis

Having looked at Empedocles’ theories of sensation and knowledge acquisition, we can appreciate the central function played by the interrelation between external inputs and the elemental composition of the body. My primary aim throughout this section is to show that this interrelation, which characterizes the physiology of perceiving, thinking and knowing, is behind the process through which we can climb the ranking of living beings, transcend our mortal nature and become divine. In this respect, I will first demonstrate that the environment and consequently the external inputs we incorporate through sense organs affect our corporeal constitution. Second, that exposure to the right environment, hence the confrontation and incorporation of the most important external inputs can improve our mind’s potential, enabling it to perceive, think and know like a divine mind. More specifically, these two lines of argument will be conducted by looking more closely at Empedocles’ controlling organ, blood, and at the function its elemental blend plays with reference to a person’s cognitive abilities.

Blood is made of a blend of elements that is more harmonious than that of any other limbs and, as Theophrastus tells us, this is why it can produce thought and knowledge. In general terms, the blend of elements in human blood is balanced because the four elements are mixed in equal proportion:Footnote ¹⁰⁴

The term ἴση (B 98.1 [= EMP D 190.1 Laks-Most]) indicates that Love forms blood by mixing the same quantity of earth, fire (Hephaestus), water (rain) and ether. The mixture of blood is such that the ratio of its elements is always 1:1:1:1, which makes it particularly harmonious and consequently extremely suitable for thinking.

However, in Chapter 11, Theophrastus adds that even though the ratio of elements in the krasis of blood stays constant, the composition of blood can nonetheless vary from person to person and Empedocles classified rational beings along a scale based on the kraseis of elements in their blood.

According to Theophrastus’ report, Empedocles attributes discrepancies in the elemental mixture of blood to three factors: the amount of each element in the mixture, their arrangement and their size. The best blend of blood belongs to those whose kraseis are made of elemental particles in identical or very similar amounts, of a median size and of the right distance from one another. People with this blood mixture are those who perceive and know best. Other people are intelligent and keen of sense according to the degree to which they approach this ideal mixture. In contrast, a mixture of the opposite conditions produces people who are the least intelligent.

As we can also infer from Theophrastus’ account, the composition of the elements in blood affects the way it runs within the body. Differences in speed result in different personalities and we can therefore have slow or very impulsive people. By a similar standard, the more or less harmonious blend of elements also serves as a criterion for explaining why certain people have a particular inclination or a specific talent. For instance, good orators owe their talent to a particularly well-balanced krasis in their tongue, while artisans are artistically inclined because of an extremely harmonious blend of elements in their hands.Footnote ¹⁰⁶ In sum, Theophrastus’ report is a strong indication of the close relationship between intelligence (or talent) and the harmonious krasis of elements in a given (part of the) body.

Although each person receives their own krasis of blood at birth, this is not fixed. Indeed, as Aristotle and Theophrastus report, Empedocles argues that the quality of one’s own krasis is influenced by, and continuously changes according to, the environment. Specifically, Aristotle (Metaph. 1009b 16Footnote ¹⁰⁷) reports that Empedocles shares with his predecessors and especially with Parmenides the view that, just like sensation, knowledge acquisition changes in respect to what is present. In fact, one’s own thinking is influenced by environmental modifications:

According to Aristotle, Empedocles, by arguing for external conditions affecting the internal structure of our mind, and so the quality and quantity of the individual thinking, de facto identified sense perception and cognition. In Aristotle’s interpretation, Empedocles’ lines assert that thinking and understanding are ‘nothing more than unwilled and uncontrolled reactions to one’s own physiological state and surroundings’.Footnote ¹⁰⁹ However, that Aristotle’s reading is an oversimplification of Empedocles’ verses and theories of perceiving, thinking and knowledge is evidenced by the fact that, as we have already seen, Empedocles distinguished between a superficial perceptual cognition and an understanding of things that makes use of perceptual inputs but goes beyond them. Indeed, Empedocles developed elaborate reflections on how sensation may or may not elicit intellectual cognition on both perceptual and non-perceptual things. In B 2 (= EMP D 42 Laks-Most) mere perceptual cognition is explicitly contrasted to a kind of understanding that, going beyond it, can know the whole of physical reality. Similarly, in B 3 (= EMP D 44 Laks-Most) the process of knowing is opposed to mere superficial perception, as it makes use of perceptual data for intellectual reflection. Thus, human beings who only rely on superficial perceptions, acquired through narrow knowing devices, are unable to gain genuine knowledge of the things Empedocles is revealing and even of things they come across. In contrast Pausanias, who is prompted to pay attention to perceptual data while receiving Empedocles’ revelation, will know matters beyond the reach of ordinary human perception.

More plausibly, B 106 (= EMP D 243 Laks-Most) and B 108 (= EMP D 244a Laks-Most) express the idea that the range of things we experience in our surroundings increase and expand our ability to think and know. Specifically, B 106 (= EMP D 243 Laks-Most) affirms that our ‘cunning intelligence’ (mêtis), increases in relation to what is present to us. Moreover, B 108 (= EMP D 244a Laks-Most) conveys the idea that changes in our constitution lead to changes in awareness and cognition or, more precisely, ‘to changes in what is available for us to experience and register’Footnote ¹¹⁰ and this represents an opportunity to expand our repertoire of experiences upon which our judgement, thought and cognition can rest. Thus, what the two Empedoclean quotations imply is the importance of the quality of the environment we experience, hence of the epistemic inputs we incorporate, for thought production and knowledge acquisition. The second quotation seems to hint at external affections producing a change in our internal mixture, which in turn yields a change in our thinking. As M. M. Sassi has highlighted:

Thus, the quality of the environment plays a central role both in perception and knowledge acquisition, since the effluences emanated from it, once added to the blend of elements in the body, influence and change the mixture of our sense organs and mind. As the human mind is affected by what comes to pass, it follows that, when confronted with the right external conditions, people can improve their krasis. Indeed, Empedocles’ belief in a specific process that enables the disciple, rebirth after rebirth, to climb the ranking of living beings and become a god must be in consonance with the idea of a mind that can be ‘sharpened’ and accordingly changed and attuned to what is divine.

By analogy with sensation, we may assume that a process of adaptation analogous to that involving the eye in vision is at work when people want to improve the krasis of their minds.Footnote ¹¹² As we have seen above, according to Empedocles, a different mixture of elements in the sense organ is able to adapt differently to the effluences of a perceptual environment: thus some animals see best by night and others by day. Moreover, the perceiving kraseis in sense organs can be improved: they can be trained to adapt to specific effluences. For instance, although, in general terms, we see better by day than night, it is a common experience that our vision can progressively adapt to a dark environment and improve its ability to see. Therefore, not only does the environment play a fundamental role in structuring our eyes and the resultant vision, but also the elemental structure of sensory pores in the eye can be trained to adapt to the environment to improve its perceptive ability. If we apply what we have learned for vision to other perceptions, we could assume that, by analogous standards, we can train our sense of smell to perceive more prominently certain odours rather than others, our hearing to recognize different sounds and tones and our taste to distinguish diverse flavours in food and drinks. We can conclude, therefore, that though ordinary sense organs are congenitally ‘narrow’ (see B 2.1 [= EMP D 42 Laks-Most]), they can be trained ad hoc to expand or sharpen their range and power.

In analogy with sense organs, the blend of blood and, consequently, its epistemic range and power can be trained so that, by processing the external effluences coming from objects, it converts them into epistemic elements. Thus, just as most human eyes have regular vision but can be trained to see more sharply, most human minds are able to know in a standard human way, presumably by just processing basic elements of knowledge, easily accessible through sensations. Yet, given that, as we just saw above, the quality of the environment, hence of the epistemic inputs we incorporate, can affect our mind and change its cognitive potential, the inference is that the right inputs, indeed the most important epistemic notions, such as the nature of things that Empedocles explains in his philosophy, can enable our mind’s potential to expand to incorporate them and, thereby, to produce thinking and understanding worthy of a divine mind. In the next section I will further explore the way in which, according to Empedocles, the human mind can be trained to direct its attention to the right concerns, attune in this way to divine wisdom and, by virtue of this, change its mortal nature into a divine one. Therewith we will finally see that genuine understanding of the physical world is presented by Empedocles as a way – if not the way – to climb the rankings of living, rational beings and become divine.