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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2020
As is well enough known, the term physis in Empedocles Fr. 8 (DK) is cited by Aristotle in the Metaphysics (Δ 4,1014b36-1015a3) as meaning the ousia of natural things, in the sense of the stable substance or form that is the terminus of generation (a10-11). This interpretation is rejected almost unanimously by commentators. The three or four attempts to defend it have not proved convincing. The case now seems officially closed. Yet there remain some loose ends. These are of the kind that would keep bothering television detectives and would cause enough loss of sleep to prompt a fresh investigation of a whole case. Is that procedure called for here?
1 For list of quoting sources, see Bollack, Jean. Empédocle(Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1965-1969), II, 25.Google Scholar On Aristotle's ὲόυτωυ in the first line, and his omission of the word at GC,I1,314b7-8, see O'Brien, Denis, Empedocles’ Cosmic Cycle (Cambridge: University Press, 1969), p. 285Google Scholar, with the explanation that the discrepancies occur “probably because he is quoting from memory.” The discrepancies do not affect the points at issue in this paper.
2 At first reading, MXG may seem to be taking physis in the fragment as “birth.” It is showing that even if genesis is nothing other than mixing and exchange, generable things can still be distinguished from eternal ones(a38-39). It sees Empedocles admitting genesis in his own sense, but saying that physis is a man- given name. Then it goes on (b14-15) to say that for him many things exist by mixture and separation, but only four, besides love and strife, by nature (physei). As the four elements do not come to be by “birth”, physis is accordingly understood by MXG as “stable nature,” which when applied to generable things is but a man-given name in this context. Similarly Simplicius (De Caelo, p. 306.3- 5) is merely saying that for Empedocles in the fragment genesis is nothing other than “mixing and exchange of what was mixed.” This is exact, but gives nothing about the meaning of physis in the text. If anything, it would allow genesis to Empedocles even in the context in which physis is rejected by him.
3 Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers (Oxford: B.Biackwell, 1948), p. 52. The Greek text, as given in Diels-Kranz, is:
ᾶλλο δέ τοι ἐρέω φύσις ούδευὸς ἔστιυ ἀπάυτωυ θυητῶυ, ούδέ τις ούλομέυου τελευτή, ἀλλὰ μόυου τε διάλλαξις τε διάλλαξίς τε μιέυτωυ ἒστι, φύσις δ' ἐπὶ ὀυομάσεται ἀυθρώπιοιυ.
On the frequent equivalence in the Greek writers of “mortal” with “man,“ and “human physis” with “mortal condition,” see Holwerda, Dowe, Commentatio de Vocis quae estGoogle Scholar ΦYΣΙΣ Vi atque Usu praesertim in Graecitate Aristotele Antiquiore (Groningen: J. B. Wolters, 1955), pp. 24–26. Aristotle, however, understands the term in the wider sense of “generable things.“
4 On the etymology, allowing as it does the meanings of both “being” and “becoming,” see Emil Boisacq, Diet. Etym. (1938). pp. 1043-1044; Hjalmar Frisk, Griech. Etym. (1970), II, 1052-1054. The extreme position that “according to an unvarying tradition” (p. 369) physis expresses the dynamic notion of process in Greek thought, was defended by Frederick Woodbridge, J. E., “The Dominant Conception of Greek Philosophy,” The Philosophical Review, 10 (1901), 359-374.CrossRefGoogle Scholar This stand was severely criticized by Lovejoy, Arthur O., “The Meaning of Φύσις in the Greek Physiologers,” The Philosophical Review, 18 (1909), 369-383.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Short summaries of the dispute may be found in the “Appendix” in Burnet's, JohnEarly Greek Philosophy, 4th ed. (London: A. & C. Black, 1930), pp. 363–364Google Scholar; Kirk, Geoffrey Stephen, Heraclitus: The Cosmic Fragments (Cambridge: University Press, 1954), pp. 228–230Google Scholar(cf. p. 395). Jaeger, Werner, The Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1947). p.20Google Scholar, stressed the philological import of the suffix -σις towards the dynamic meaning, even though it included the other and static sense of underlying reality.
5 EGP, p. 205, n. 4. More recent commentators continue to take the term in the fragment as dynamic, e.g., Biès, Jean, Empédocle d'Agrigente (Paris: Villain et Belhomme, 1969), p. 154Google Scholar; Luth, Johann Christoph, Die Struktur des Wirklichen im Empedocleischen System (Meisenheim am Glan: Anton Hain, 1970), pp.151–152.Google Scholar Biés, however, adds “bien que ce sens soit rare chez les présocratiques“ (ibid.).
6 Guthrie, W. K. C., A History of Greek Philosophy(Cambridge: University Press, 1962―), II, 140Google Scholar, n. 1. For list of others, see Holwerda, p. 111, n. 1.
7 Kahn, Charles H., Anaximander and the Origins of Greek Cosmology (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960). p. 23CrossRefGoogle Scholar (cf. p. 75).
8 See infra, n. 13. For Joachim, Harold H., Aristotle on Coming-to-be & Passingaway (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1922), p. 67Google Scholar, Aristotle correctly understands physis in the fragment to mean “coming-to-be“; on the contrary, for Zafiropulo, Jean, Empédocle d'Agrigente (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1953) p. 235Google Scholar, Aristotle “fait un contresens.“
9 See lovejoy, pp. 376-383, for list of instances that show the predominance of the static meaning in the traditional use of physis in Greek literature. A comprehensive list of the occurrences of the term may be found in Holwerda, pp. 117-135 (d. pp. 8-15), and a relevant bibliography on pp. 138-139.
10 Cherniss, Harold, Aristotle's Criticism of Presocratic Philosophy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1935), p. 244Google Scholar, n. 114; Guthrie, II, 140, n. 1. Bollack, III, 90, agrees with lovejoy that one could not say there is no death for mortals, and that therefore the genitive is subjective. Bollack, however, sees no opposition between “end of death” in this sense and the meaning of “birth” for physis in the Empedoclean fragment. He accordingly translates physis in the fragment as “naissance,” even with “of death” taken as a subjective genitive.
11 EGP, p. 206, n. 4. Guthrie, II, 140, n. 1, writes that Aristotle himself unfortunately seems to have changed his opinion in the Metaphysics, after having given a dynamic interpretation of the Empedoclean physis in GC.
12 Ross, W.D., Aristotle's Metaphysics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924), I, 298.Google Scholar
13 Gustav Adolf Seeck, “Empedocles B 17, 9-13 (=26, 8-12), B 8, B 100 bei Aristoteles,” Hermes, 95 (1967), 28-53, esp. pp. 36-39. Seeck, p. 36, takes for granted that the dynamic sense of physis in the fragment is universally accepted today.
14 On the function of naming in this context, see Woodbury, Leonard, “Parmenides on Names,” Harv. Stud. in Class. Philol., 63 (1956), 145-160Google Scholar, and my study “Naming in Parmenides,” in Kephalaion (to Vogel, C.J. De), ed. Mansfeld, J. and Rijk, L. M. de (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1975), pp. 16-25.Google Scholar
15 Metaph., A 10,993a19-24 (Oxford trans.). On Empedocles Fr. 96, see O'Brien, p. 336, n. 1. Cf. Aristotle, De An., I 4,408a18-23.
16 On Aristotle's “assumption of a qualitative change” in Empedocles, see Heidel, W. A., “Qualitative Change in Pre-Socratic Philosophy,” AGP, 19 (1906), 367.Google Scholar Empedocles asserts the “genesis of mortal things” in Fr. 17, relegates it to the order of naming in Fr. 9, and in Frs. 11 and 12 maintains that it cannot come from non-being.
17 See supra, n. 9-12. Cf. Biés remark, supra, n. 5.
18 Physis “ n'a pas Ia mort pour contra ire” —Bollack, III, 90. See supra, n. 10.
19 The most notable example of the two senses, dynamic and static, for words with the -σις suffix is physis itself. See supra, n. 4. Mixis in the static sense of “mixture” may be seen applied to the stable nature of the good in Plato's Philebus, 64DE. Diallaxis is more difficult to instantiate. See Ross, I, 298, for the way it was understood. At GC,II6,333b10-16, Aristotle seems to understand both notions in a static sense, for in assessing Empedocles he is arguing that the ousia of each thing and not just the mixis and diallaxis makes it the kind of thing it is, and is its logos. Plutarch (1112AB) too finds Empedocles’ mixture a set unity.
20 The dative of agent (“by men”, “by mankind”.) with the present, though rare, is acceptable (Smyth, no. 1490). Bollack, II, 24, makes it a dative of interest: “Naissance est son nom pour les hommes.“
21 On the real world as the referent in Parmenides for the names instituted by mortal men, see Woodbury, p. 149, and my article “The Physical World of Parmenides,” in Essays in Honour of Anton Charles Pegis, ed. O'Donnell, J. Reginald (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1974, pp. 378- 395).Google Scholar The tmesis construction for the last line of Empedocles Fr. 8 was suggested to me by Professor James Sheridan. It might at first sight seem to be the way Joachim, p. 235, takes it: “but it is called coming-to-be amongst men,“ claiming as he does that Aristotle (GC II 6, 33b15-16) “has entirely altered the construction and the meaning.” Aristotle is certainly taking epi (b15) as a preposition governing the things named, in accord with the regular Greek construction in which it refers to that to which the name is given. For a discussion of the Greek syntax of naming, see Mourelatos, Alexander P. D., The Route of Parmenides (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970), pp.183–184.Google Scholar Aristotle could of course be understanding the original in a tmesis construction, but change to the simple verb , ὀυομάςεται (b15-16) in his own discussion, and add a new ἐπἰ τουτοῖς to refer to the objects named. But the simpler explanation would be that he is taking the words as he understood them to be used in the line of Empedocles. Since Joachim claims that Aristotle is altering both the construction and the meaning, he could mean that the original construction was a tmesis, with the τοις going with ἀυθρώποιοιυ. However, the translation “amongst men” would require explanation, probably by way of a dative of interest.
22 Physis is used by Empedocles in Frs. 63and 110. In both instances Woodbridge, p. 367, takes it to mean “origin.” Lovejoy, p. 374, finds the use in Fr. 63 “entirely indecisive” in regard to the meaning. Yet as Aristotle (GA,I18,722b10-13) cites the line, and as it is explained by Philoponos (De Gen. Anim., p. 166.24-34), it seems to refer rather to the stable nature of the parts of the body as received from each parent-see Bollack, II, 245-247. Bollack, however, translates it “naissance.” In Fr. 110 the term seems beyond doubt to have a static meaning. It is translated “Natur” in DK, “force” in Bollack, and with considerable hesitation is understood by Holwerda (p. 37) in the sense of the character given by education, as in Democritus Fr. 33.
23 See supra, n. 13.
24 The philosophical situation is paralleled today by the question whether life or consciousness can be fully accounted for in “physicalist” terms, or whether something over and above is required. Aristotle's answer, however, is not dualistic, since for him the matter and the vital or sentient or rational form constitute but the one being (De An., II 1, 412b6-8).
