Abstracts
Abstract
Plato and Empedocles depict a universe that manifests beauty, goodness, reason, and bliss. This article aims to investigate why both philosophers felt it important to describe a cosmos that participates in a human emotion such as happiness. First, it will be shown how both Plato and Empedocles could not dispense with embodied human experience, including emotional experience, in the formation of cosmological concepts. Indeed, their respective cosmoi are constructed through notions derived from the conceptual domain of human agency. Second, attention will also be paid to Plato and Empedocles’ reconstruction of the notion of the happy life. The main argument advanced here is that both Plato and Empedocles conceive of their (macro)cosmos as a paradigm of behavior, so that the conception of a happy universe has a significant ethical function at the level of the microcosm, ultimately demonstrating the centrality of the concept of happiness in the doctrines of both authors.
Keywords:
- Plato,
- Timaeus,
- Empedocles,
- Joyful Cosmos,
- Sphairos,
- Happiness and Divinity
Download the article in PDF to read it.
Download
Appendices
Bibliography
- DK (See Diels and Kranz 1951)
- Bignone, E. 1916. Empedocle. Studio critico, traduzione e commento delle testimonianze e dei frammenti. Torino.
- Bollack, J. 1969. Empédocle, Les Origines. Commentaire. 3.1–2. Paris.
- Carone, R. G. 2005. Plato’s Cosmology and Its Ethical Dimension. Cambridge, UK.
- Cornford, F. M. 1937. Plato’s Cosmology: The Timaeus of Plato. Indianapolis/Cambridge, UK.
- Diels, H. 1882–1895. Simplicii in Aristotelis physicorum libri. Berlin.
- Diels, H. and W. Kranz 1951. Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker. 6th edn. 3 vols. Dublin/Zürich.
- Ferella, C. 2013. “Empedocle, il Giorno Spietato e l’Esilio dagli Dei: A proposito di alcuni frammenti demonologici”. Pp. 29–47 in R. Di Donato ed. Origini e Svolgimento del Pensiero Greco. Studi per JeanPierre Vernant. Pisa.
- Ferella, C. 2019. “Zeus’ μοῦνος and Parmenides’ What-Is”. Pp. 65–74 in M. A. Santamaría Álvarez ed. The Derveni Papyrus: Unearthing Ancient Mysteries. Leiden.
- Ferella, C. 2020. “War Steers the World: The Metaphor Domain of Conflict in Heraclitus’ and Empedocles’ Representations of the Cosmos”. AKAN – Antike Naturwissenschaft und Ihre Rezeption 30: 9–34.
- Ferella, C. 2021. “The Zoogonies of Empedocles Reconsidered”. Rhizomata 9: 1–26.
- Graf, F. and S. I. Johnston. 2007. Ritual Texts for the Afterlife: Orpheus and the Bacchic Gold Tablets. New York.
- Guthrie, W. K. C. 1965. A History of Greek Philosophy: 2. The Presocratic Tradition from Parmenides to Democritus. Cambridge, UK.
- Hershbell, J. P. 1974. “Empedoclean Influences on the Timaeus”. Phoenix 28: 145–166.
- Hett, W. S. 1975. On the Soul, Parva Naturalia, On Breath. Aristotle in TwentyThree Volumes 8. 4th edn. Cambridge, MA.
- Hladký, V. 2015. “Empedocles’ Sphairos and Its Interpretations in Antiquity, II: Plato’s Timaeus and Statesman”. Eirene: Studia Graeca et Latina 51: 71–98.
- Hladký, V. 2017. “Empedocles’ Sphairos”. Rhizomata 9: 1–24.
- Kahn, C. H. 1960. “Religion and Natural Philosophy in Empedocles’ Doctrine of the Soul”. Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 42: 3–35.
- Kamtekar, R. 2009. “Knowing by Likeness in Empedocles”. Phronesis 54: 215–238.
- Laks, A. and G. W. Most. 2016. Early Greek Philosophy. vol. 5. Cambridge, MA.
- Lesher, J. H. 1992. Xenophanes of Colophon: Fragments. Toronto/Buffalo/London.
- Lesher, J. H. 1994. “The Emergence of Philosophical Interest in Cognition”. Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 12: 1–34.
- Maehler, H. (post B. Snell). 1989. Pindari carmina cum fragmentis. pt. 2. Leipzig.
- Mansfeld, J. and O. Primavesi. 2021. Die Vorsokratiker. Griechisch/Deutsch. 2nd edn. Stuttgart.
- O’Brien, D. 1969. Empedocles’ Cosmic Cycle: A Reconstruction from the Fragments and Secondary Sources. Cambridge, UK.
- Palmer, J. A. 2009. Parmenides and Presocratic Philosophy. Oxford.
- Picot, J.-C. 2012. “Apollon et la φρὴν ἱερὴ καὶ ἀθέσφατος (Empédocle, fr. 134 DK)”. Anais de Filosofia Clássica 6: 1–31.
- Rabbås, Ø.; E. K. Emilsson; H. Fossheim; and M. Tuominen. 2015. The Quest for the Good Life: Ancient Philosophers on Happiness. Oxford.
- Rackham, H. 1975. The Nicomachean Ethics. Aristotle in TwentyThree Volumes 19. 9th edn. Cambridge, MA.
- Rangos, S. 2012. “Empedocles on Divine Nature”. Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale 75: 315–338.
- Sedley, D. 1992. “Empedocles’ Theory of Vision and Theophrastus’ De Sensibus”. Pp. 20–31 in W. Fortenbaugh and D. Gutas edd. Theophrastus: His Psychological, Doxographical, and Scientific Writings. New Brunswick/London.
- Sedley, D. 1999. “The Ideal of Godlikeness”. Pp. 309–328 in G. Fine ed. Plato 2: Ethics, Politics, Religion, and the Soul. Oxford.
- Sedley, D. 2007. Creationism and its Critics in Antiquity. Berkley/Los Angeles/London.
- Sedley, D. 2016. “Empedoclean Superorganisms”. Rhizomata 4.1: 111–125.
- Sedley, D. 2017. “Becoming Godlike”. Pp. 319–337 in C. Bobonich ed. The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Ethics. Cambridge, UK.
- Taylor, C. C. W. 2008. Pleasure, Mind and Soul: Selected Papers in Ancient Philosophy. Oxford.
- Trépanier, S. 2003. “Empedocles on the Ultimate Symmetry of the World”. Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 24: 1–57.
- Wachsmuth, C. and O. Hense. 1884–1923. Ioannis Stobaei anthologium. 5 vols. Berlin.
- Wright, M. R. 1981. Empedocles: The Extant Fragments. New Haven/London. Repr. 1995.