{"agent_id":"empedocles","agent_name":"Empedocles","slug":"the-four-roots-and-the-cosmic-cycle","label":"The four roots and the cosmic cycle: is what mortals call birth and death the mixing and separation of unchanging roots under Love and Strife?","topic":"The four roots and the cosmic cycle","question":"Is what mortals call birth and death the mixing and separation of unchanging roots under Love and Strife?","position":"The four *rhizomata* — earth, water, air, fire — and the two motive forces, *Philotes* (Love) and *Neikos* (Strife), are the six everlasting first principles. None comes to be from what is not; none perishes into what is not. What mortals call birth and death is mixing (*mixis*) and separation (*diallaxis*) of what was already there. The cosmic cycle alternates between two limit-states: the complete unity of all the roots under Love into the *Sphairos*, the perfect spherical god in which nothing is distinguished from anything else; and the complete separation of the four roots under Strife into their elemental regions, each root holding its own province. The world we inhabit, with its mortal mixtures, has its place in the intermediate phases of the cycle, where both forces operate together. The roots are eternal, the forces are eternal, the alternation is eternal; everything that mortals see come to be and pass away is the mixing and unmixing of what does not itself come to be or pass away.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"The four *rhizomata* — earth, water, air, fire — and the two motive forces, *Philotes* (Love) and *Neikos* (Strife), are the six everlasting first principles.","n":[1]},{"t":"None comes to be from what is not; none perishes into what is not.","n":[]},{"t":"What mortals call birth and death is mixing (*mixis*) and separation (*diallaxis*) of what was already there.","n":[]},{"t":"The cosmic cycle alternates between two limit-states: the complete unity of all the roots under Love into the *Sphairos*, the perfect spherical god in which nothing is distinguished from anything else; and the complete separation of the four roots under Strife into their elemental regions, each root holding its own province.","n":[2]}],[{"t":"The world we inhabit, with its mortal mixtures, has its place in the intermediate phases of the cycle, where both forces operate together.","n":[3]},{"t":"The roots are eternal, the forces are eternal, the alternation is eternal; everything that mortals see come to be and pass away is the mixing and unmixing of what does not itself come to be or pass away.","n":[4]}]],"texts":"B 17 (the canonical statement of the cycle and the six first principles, 35 continuous lines preserved by Simplicius In Physica 157-159); B 6 (the four roots named under their divine titles: Zeus, Hera, Aidoneus, Nestis); B 8 (no birth and no death, only mixing and separation); B 9 (the same point on mortal nomenclature); B 12 (nothing comes from what is not, nothing perishes into what is not); B 16 (Love and Strife as they were and shall be); B 21, B 23, B 26 (the simile of the painters and the cycle's reiteration); B 27, B 28, B 29 (the Sphairos under complete Love); B 35 (the elemental ratio of Love to the roots); B 36, B 53, B 54 (the cosmogonic role of Strife); the Strasbourg papyrus ensemble a (the new lines of B 17). Reception: Denis O'Brien's *Empedocles' Cosmic Cycle* (Cambridge, 1969) on the elaborate two-cosmogony reconstruction; Jean Bollack's *Empédocle* I-III (Paris, 1965-1969) on the elemental physics; Alain Martin and Oliver Primavesi's *L'Empédocle de Strasbourg* (Berlin/New York, 1999) on the papyrological revision; Brad Inwood's *The Poem of Empedocles* revised edition (Toronto, 2001) on the integrated reconstruction; Simon Trépanier's *Empedocles: An Interpretation* (Routledge, 2004) Chs. II-III on the proem and the doctrinal architecture; M. R. Wright's *Empedocles: The Extant Fragments* (Yale, 1981); Aristotle's *Metaphysics* A 4, *Physics* I 4 and VIII 1, *De Generatione et Corruptione* I-II on the four-element reading.","works":["B 17 (the canonical statement of the cycle and the six first principles, 35 continuous lines preserved by Simplicius In Physica 157-159)","B 6 (the four roots named under their divine titles: Zeus, Hera, Aidoneus, Nestis)","B 8 (no birth and no death, only mixing and separation)","B 9 (the same point on mortal nomenclature)","B 12 (nothing comes from what is not, nothing perishes into what is not)","B 16 (Love and Strife as they were and shall be)","B 21, B 23, B 26 (the simile of the painters and the cycle's reiteration)","B 27, B 28, B 29 (the Sphairos under complete Love)","B 35 (the elemental ratio of Love to the roots)","B 36, B 53, B 54 (the cosmogonic role of Strife)","the Strasbourg papyrus ensemble a (the new lines of B 17)"],"reception":"Denis O'Brien's *Empedocles' Cosmic Cycle* (Cambridge, 1969) on the elaborate two-cosmogony reconstruction; Jean Bollack's *Empédocle* I-III (Paris, 1965-1969) on the elemental physics; Alain Martin and Oliver Primavesi's *L'Empédocle de Strasbourg* (Berlin/New York, 1999) on the papyrological revision; Brad Inwood's *The Poem of Empedocles* revised edition (Toronto, 2001) on the integrated reconstruction; Simon Trépanier's *Empedocles: An Interpretation* (Routledge, 2004) Chs. II-III on the proem and the doctrinal architecture; M. R. Wright's *Empedocles: The Extant Fragments* (Yale, 1981); Aristotle's *Metaphysics* A 4, *Physics* I 4 and VIII 1, *De Generatione et Corruptione* I-II on the four-element reading.","status":"The four-roots-and-two-forces physics is the canonical doctrinal core of Empedocles and is not seriously contested in modern scholarship. The interpretation of the cosmic cycle's chronology is contested: O'Brien (1969) reconstructs a single cycle containing two distinct cosmogonies (one under increasing Love, one under increasing Strife); Bollack rejects the doubled-cosmogony reconstruction; Martin and Primavesi's reading of the Strasbourg papyrus revises the chronology again. Trépanier follows the papyrological mainstream against O'Brien's elaborate reconstruction. The reading of the four roots under their divine titles (Zeus / Hera / Aidoneus / Nestis in B 6) and the correspondence to fire / air / earth / water has its own scholarly debate (the Aidoneus-as-earth versus Aidoneus-as-air dispute). The doctrine that Love and Strife are themselves substantial principles, not merely personified abstractions, is mainstream.","era":"c. 495 - c. 435 BCE","discipline":"Philosophy","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"The Poem of Empedocles","page":"p. 52","canonical":"","quote":"When strife is completely dominant, the situation is (in my view) equally static, but there is no blend of any sort. Though we lack any unambiguous description of the arrangement of the universe at this point, it seems most likely that the four roots are arranged in concentric spheres, with earth at the centre and water, air and fire, in sequence; love is on the outside of this sphere, as she must be if she is to be…","label":"The Poem of Empedocles, p. 52"},{"n":2,"work":"The Poem of Empedocles","page":"p. 53","canonical":"","quote":"The alternation is perpetual, and in lines 7-8 the cause of the period of unity is said to be love and the cause of separation is said to be the hostility of strife. When Empedocles repeats this 'double tale' in lines 15ff. he focuses on love's effect 118 The separateness of strife is implied by his attack on the sphere described in 35/30, 36/31. 119 Wright, 43-45.","label":"The Poem of Empedocles, p. 53"},{"n":3,"work":"The Poem of Empedocles","page":"p. 33","canonical":"","quote":"Whatever the limitations on the immortality of the roots indicated by the fact that they are subject 69 The point is made polemically in A41. 70 This is not the last word on the mortality of the roots. See below. to mixture, they are still the elemental building blocks for the other objects of our observable world.","label":"The Poem of Empedocles, p. 33"},{"n":4,"work":"The Poem of Empedocles","page":"pp. 30–31","canonical":"","quote":"There were, no doubt, several reasons for this: for one thing, Parmenides himself devotes most attention to these proofs. But more interesting is the intimate connection of these physical / metaphysical themes with the problem of life and death for human beings. That Empedocles was intrigued by this application of Parmenidean logic is, I think, intrinsically probable.","label":"The Poem of Empedocles, pp. 30–31"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"the-transmigrating-daimon-and-the-fall-from-divinity","label":"The transmigrating daimon and the fall from divinity: what is the long-lived spirit whose exile through mortal bodies B 115 describes?"},{"slug":"i-am-a-deathless-god","label":"I am a deathless god: in what sense does the speaker of B 112 claim divinity, and how does the claim stand to B 115's fall?"},{"slug":"single-poem-or-two","label":"Single poem or two: are the physics and the salvation-teaching one didactic work, or two separate poems?"},{"slug":"empedocles-and-parmenides","label":"Empedocles and Parmenides: how does the doctrine of the roots and the cycle stand to the Eleatic axioms on being?"}]}