Bias was an ancient Greek philosopher and one of the Seven Sages, known for his wisdom and moral integrity.
13 Notes
492 BC - 432 BC
Acragas, Italy
"In fact, Homer and Empedocles have nothing in common except their meter; the former can be called a poet, but the latter should be termed a scientist."
"Those who assume there are several principles treat the soul as these, while those who assume there is one, treat it as this. Hence, Empedocles describes it as composed out of all the elements, but he also says that each of them is soul, speaking as follows:For by earth we see earth, and by water water, By either the divine, and by fire destructive fire, By love, and stifle by cruel strife."
Book & Page: Aristotle Metaphysics Translated by W. D. Ross p.9
#Quotes"Heraclitus that ‘It is what opposes that helps’ and ‘From different tones comes the fairest tune’ and ‘all things are produced through strife’, while Empedocles, as well as other, expresses the opposite view that like aims at like’"
Book & Page: Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics, p143
#Quotes"One might also ask the following question of Empedocles in particular, since he says that each thing exists because of a certain proportion: is the soul a proportion, or is the soul instead something else which becomes present in the parts? Further, is love the cause of any chance mixture, or is it the cause of a mixture in a proportion? And is love this proportion, or is it something else apart from the proportion?"
Book & Page: Aristotle Metaphysics Translated by W. D. Ross p.28
#Disagree"Empedocles (and anyone else who spoke this way) was wrong when he said that light undergoes locomotion and comes at some time between the earth and what surrounds it, although we do not observe it; for this is opposed to the clear confirmation of reason and the evident facts. For we might fail to observe it over a short distance, but it is too far-fetched to claim that we fail to observe it all the way from east to west."
Book & Page: Aristotle Metaphysics Translated by W. D. Ross p.28
#Disagree"Empedocles stated, ‘Sagacity grows in humans in relation to what is present to them’ and, in another text, ‘Whence it is perpetually set before them also to understand different things. (...) For they all suppose that thinking is some sort of process involving the body like perceiving and that people perceive and understand the like by means of the like, as we described in our initial discussions. (...) It is evident, therefore, that perceiving and understanding are not the same."
Book & Page: Aristotle Metaphysics Translated by W. D. Ross p.34
#Disagree"But if Empedocles is talking about breathing through the nostrils only, then he has made a big mistake; for breathing is not confined to the nostrils, but it proceeds by the passage besides the uvula where the roof of the mouth ends, and as the nostrils are joined by the passage the breath separates, part of it going this way and part of it through the mouth, both when it comes in and goes out."
Book & Page: Aristotle Metaphysics Translated by W. D. Ross p.144
#Disagree"Empedocles was incorrect when he said that creatures that possess the most heat and fire dwell in water and avoid the excess of heat in their natural constitution, so that, since they are lacking in coldness and moisture, they may be preserved by that region because they have a character contrary to its; for water is less hot than air."
Book & Page: Aristotle Metaphysics Translated by W. D. Ross p.150
#Disagree"In fact, Homer and Empedocles have nothing in common except their meter; the former can be called a poet, but the latter should be termed a scientist."
Book & Page: Aristotle, Poetics (Penguin), p.18
#Praise"Add to them to those who make the first-beginnings of things twofold, linking air to fire or earth to water, and those who think that all can grow up out of four things, fire, earth, wind, and rain. Of them in the forefront comes Empedocles 11 of Acragas; him that island n bore within the three-cornered coasts of its lands, around which flows the Ionian ocean, with many a winding inlet, splashing salt foam from its green waves, while with a narrow strait a tearing sea sunders with its waves the coasts of Italy's lands from the island-borders."
Book & Page: Lucretius pdf p.50
#Quotes"But the intellect does not receive the form in the same way; otherwise the opinion of Empedocles (De Anima i, 5, text 26) would be true, to the effect that we know earth by earth, and fire by fire. But the intelligible form is in the intellect according to the very nature of a form; for as such is it so known by the intellect. Hence, such a way of receiving is not that of matter, but of an immaterial substance."
Book & Page: Aquinas pdf p.2369
#Disagree"Lastly, Empedocles, who held the existence of our four material elements and two principles of movement, said that the soul was composed of these. Consequently, since they held that things exist in the soul materially, they maintained that all the soul's knowledge is material, thus failing to discern intellect from sense."
Book & Page: Aquinas pdf p.1731
#Disagree"The likeness of nature is not a sufficient cause of knowledge; otherwise what Empedocles said would be true ---that the soul needs to have the nature of all in order to know all. But knowledge requires that the likeness of the thing known be in the knower, as a kind of form thereof."
Book & Page: Aquinas pdf p.2036
#Disagree"Some of these believed it to be composed of the elements; and this was the opinion of Empedocles, who, however, held further that the body of the firmament was not susceptible of dissolution, because its parts are, so to say, not in disunion, but in harmony."
Book & Page: Aquinas pdf p.1731
#Quites"Those who assume there are several principles treat the soul as these, while those who assume there is one, treat it as this. Hence, Empedocles describes it as composed out of all the elements, but he also says that each of them is soul, speaking as follows:For by earth we see earth, and by water water, By either the divine, and by fire destructive fire, By love, and stifle by cruel strife."
Book & Page: Aristotle Metaphysics Translated by W. D. Ross p.9
#Quotes"Heraclitus that ‘It is what opposes that helps’ and ‘From different tones comes the fairest tune’ and ‘all things are produced through strife’, while Empedocles, as well as other, expresses the opposite view that like aims at like’"
Book & Page: Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics, p143
#Quotes"Add to them to those who make the first-beginnings of things twofold, linking air to fire or earth to water, and those who think that all can grow up out of four things, fire, earth, wind, and rain. Of them in the forefront comes Empedocles 11 of Acragas; him that island n bore within the three-cornered coasts of its lands, around which flows the Ionian ocean, with many a winding inlet, splashing salt foam from its green waves, while with a narrow strait a tearing sea sunders with its waves the coasts of Italy's lands from the island-borders."
Book & Page: Lucretius pdf p.50
#Quotes"Some of these believed it to be composed of the elements; and this was the opinion of Empedocles, who, however, held further that the body of the firmament was not susceptible of dissolution, because its parts are, so to say, not in disunion, but in harmony."
Book & Page: Aquinas pdf p.1731
#Quites"One might also ask the following question of Empedocles in particular, since he says that each thing exists because of a certain proportion: is the soul a proportion, or is the soul instead something else which becomes present in the parts? Further, is love the cause of any chance mixture, or is it the cause of a mixture in a proportion? And is love this proportion, or is it something else apart from the proportion?"
Book & Page: Aristotle Metaphysics Translated by W. D. Ross p.28
#Disagree"Empedocles (and anyone else who spoke this way) was wrong when he said that light undergoes locomotion and comes at some time between the earth and what surrounds it, although we do not observe it; for this is opposed to the clear confirmation of reason and the evident facts. For we might fail to observe it over a short distance, but it is too far-fetched to claim that we fail to observe it all the way from east to west."
Book & Page: Aristotle Metaphysics Translated by W. D. Ross p.28
#Disagree"Empedocles stated, ‘Sagacity grows in humans in relation to what is present to them’ and, in another text, ‘Whence it is perpetually set before them also to understand different things. (...) For they all suppose that thinking is some sort of process involving the body like perceiving and that people perceive and understand the like by means of the like, as we described in our initial discussions. (...) It is evident, therefore, that perceiving and understanding are not the same."
Book & Page: Aristotle Metaphysics Translated by W. D. Ross p.34
#Disagree"But if Empedocles is talking about breathing through the nostrils only, then he has made a big mistake; for breathing is not confined to the nostrils, but it proceeds by the passage besides the uvula where the roof of the mouth ends, and as the nostrils are joined by the passage the breath separates, part of it going this way and part of it through the mouth, both when it comes in and goes out."
Book & Page: Aristotle Metaphysics Translated by W. D. Ross p.144
#Disagree"Empedocles was incorrect when he said that creatures that possess the most heat and fire dwell in water and avoid the excess of heat in their natural constitution, so that, since they are lacking in coldness and moisture, they may be preserved by that region because they have a character contrary to its; for water is less hot than air."
Book & Page: Aristotle Metaphysics Translated by W. D. Ross p.150
#Disagree"But the intellect does not receive the form in the same way; otherwise the opinion of Empedocles (De Anima i, 5, text 26) would be true, to the effect that we know earth by earth, and fire by fire. But the intelligible form is in the intellect according to the very nature of a form; for as such is it so known by the intellect. Hence, such a way of receiving is not that of matter, but of an immaterial substance."
Book & Page: Aquinas pdf p.2369
#Disagree"Lastly, Empedocles, who held the existence of our four material elements and two principles of movement, said that the soul was composed of these. Consequently, since they held that things exist in the soul materially, they maintained that all the soul's knowledge is material, thus failing to discern intellect from sense."
Book & Page: Aquinas pdf p.1731
#Disagree"The likeness of nature is not a sufficient cause of knowledge; otherwise what Empedocles said would be true ---that the soul needs to have the nature of all in order to know all. But knowledge requires that the likeness of the thing known be in the knower, as a kind of form thereof."
Book & Page: Aquinas pdf p.2036
#Disagree
