Empedocles’ Sphairos and its Interpretations in Antiquity, I: Aristotle and the Neoplatonists

• Authors: Hladký Vojtěch
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This article attempts to shed more light on a problem addressed in a previous work by the same authors, namely the nature of Empedocles’ Sphairos, which is taken for a structured whole and not – according to the usual interpretation – as an amorphous mixture. This article does not concentrate on the fragments of Empedocles himself, but focuses on the further reception of the Sphairos by ancient Greek writers. First, the paper attempts to show that the interpretation prevalent today is actually due to Aristotle’s equation of the Sphairos with his concept of ‘underlying matter’ conceived as an indeterminate substratum. The only ancient author who seems to hold the interpretation of the Sphere as an amorphous mixture is, however, John Philoponus, and, moreover, only in some of his commentaries on Aristotle. Philoponus’ notion of the Sphairos was then adopted by Friedrich Wilhelm Sturz, author of the first substantial modern study on Empedocles, published in 1805. The current article then examines the Neoplatonic explanation of the Sphairos, in which it is regularly equated with the intelligible word of the Forms. Although its transcendence is clearly at odds with the Empedocles’ original intentions, this interpretative approach assumes that the Sphairos is as clearly structured as the Forms are.

Keywords

EN

Empedocles; Sphairos; Aristotle; Simplicius

• Publisher: Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Eirene. Studia Graeca et Latina
• Year: 2014
• Volume: 50
• Issue: 1-2
• Pages: 149-164

Contributors

author

Hladký Vojtěch