To understand Empedocles' thought, one must view his work as a unified whole of religion and physics. Only a few interpreters, however, recognise rebirth as a positive doctrine within Empedocles' physics and attempt to reconcile its details with the cosmological account. This study shows how rebirth underlies Empedocles' cosmic system, being a structuring principle of his physics. It reconstructs the proem to his physical poem and then shows that claims to disembodied existence, individual identity and personal survival of death(s) prove central to his physics; that knowledge of the cosmos is the path to escape rebirth; that purifications are essential to comprehending the world and changing one's being, and that the cosmic cycle, with its ethical import, is the ideal backdrop for Empedocles' doctrine of rebirth. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.

Studies how religious and ethical concerns are an integral and structuring part of the physical system of Empedocles.

About the Author
CHIARA FERELLA is a research associate in the project 'Early Concepts of Humans and Nature: Universal, Specific, Interchanged' (RTG 1876) at the Institute of Ancient Studies of Johannes-Gutenberg-Universitat Mainz.


Book Information
ISBN 9781009392570
Author Chiara Ferella
Format Hardback
Page Count 412
Imprint Cambridge University Press
Publisher Cambridge University Press
Weight(grams) 774g