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Empedocles (c. 494-434 B.C.) achieved legendary status as a philosopher, scientist, healer, poet and orator. He made important contributions to the developments of European thought with his theory of the four elements, his detailed work on perception, respiration and cognition, and his understanding in the kinship in structure and form of the hierarchy of living creatures.

Now available in paperback, this is the first full-scale edition this century of the extant fragments, which are grouped into two poems -- Physics and Katharmoi. In her Introduction, Professor Wright surveys the evidence for Empedocles’ life and writings, and gives a clear account of the main lines of thought within a framework common to the poems. The fragments are presented in their contexts in a new ordering with full critical apparatus; they are followed by a translation and commentary on each, in which the linguistic, philosophical and scientific questions relevant to the text are examined. The Index cover sources, passages cited and subject matter, as well as a comprehensive concordance of Empedocles’ vocabulary. This edition has been updated with a bibliographic commentary covering the last fifteen years of Empedoclean scholarship. This text is part of the Classic Latin and Greek texts series. ... Read more

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This revised edition of The Poem of Empedocles (1992) integrates substantial new material from a recently discovered papyrus and published by A. Martin and O. Primavesi. The papyrus contains evidence of over seventy lines or part lines of poetry, of which more than fifty are both new and usable. The integration of this material into the previously known fragments has significant impact on our understanding of Empedocles, one of the most influential philosophers and poets of antiquity.

This volume provides the reader with the fullest and most accessible set of evidence for the doctrines and poetic achievement of this Presocratic philosopher. The Greek text of the fragments (with English facing page translation) has been revised to include the new material; textual notes have also been enhanced. The revised introduction orients the reader to the study of Empedocles and assesses the significance of the new material. The new papyrus fragments shed some light on the controversial question of the number of poems and provide new insight into the relationship between human beings and the material components we are composed of and into the reasons for our incarnation. Most important, the new fragments yield further confirmation that eschatological and cosmological themes were inextricably interconnected in Empedocles' philosophical poetry. ... Read more

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This is the first book to analyze systematically crucial aspects of ancient Greek philosophy in their original context of mystery, religion, and magic. The author brings to light recently uncovered evidence about ancient Pythagoreanism and its influence on Plato, and reconstructs the fascinating esoteric transmission of Pythagorean ideas from the Greek West down to the alchemists and magicians of Egypt, and from there into the world of Islam. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

philological phenomenology
This book is important for several reasons. One of them is that Kingsley attempts to shake the ancient Greek scholarship by suggesting that Empedocles' Fragments need to be interpreted through language of thepreclassical(~500 BC; ie, Empedocles') rather than classical (ie, Pericles) period. Here Kingsley is on firm ground, displaying an impressive familiarity with the Illiad and other preclassical literature. Bringing philology back on the map he continues the basic approach by Nietzsche and Heidegger.

More importantly, PK brings philosophical inquiry into the domain of phenomenology of religion. if we wish to understand the presocratics we need primarily to understand their state of consciousness and their relationship to the spiritual sphere. While most classical scholars would argue that one canachieve such an understanding through decipheringthe language, literature, history, art and economy of a society, the alternative view (championed by PK) is thatattempts to explain Empedocles' philosophy in terms of ordinary social, political, etc. circumstance inevitably miss something that is not reducible to facts alone. It misses its essence, a foundation of Beingness where philosophy reflects the nature of human experience and its capacity to interact with the 'transpersonal' or numinous. A capacity that by no means is uniquely Greek.

This is why classical scholarship addressing ancient (Greek, Egyptian, Mesopotamian etc) consciousness should not be entrusted to 'ordinary' scholarly nitpickers alone. The historian W. Brede once said: "When religion is the subject of our work, we grow religiously." Peter Kingsley is that rare scholar (an ex-Warburg fellow, no less) who appears to have been sucked into the ancient Pythagorean texts and magical practices they describe and emerged out of his studies a changed man.

This book is a first step describing PKs beliefs about an inner meaning of Pythagoreanism (elegantly discussed in later books such as Reality) ...

The book starts with a technical reinterpretation of the theory of 4 Elements ("the 4 Roots")for which Empedocles is mainly known; then continues with a critical evaluation of classical views of Empedocles; PK claims that Aristotle purposefully distorted E.s ideas whereas Plato actually appropriated many Pythagorean concepts following his visits toPyth. communities in Southern Italy and Sicily. Appropriated and then pretended they were his own. To prove this, PK performs a detailed textual analysis of Phaedo.

Egypt and ancient Greece shared a number of intellectual, philosophical and religious practices, from mathematics to the mysteries of death & rebirth (practiced in Eleusinian rituals) and the shamanic descent into the Underworld (seen in Orphic mysteries, Hermetic practices and 'funerary inscriptions' such as the Pyramid texts). Both Plato and Pythagoras spent a long time in Egypt and Empedocles, a direct heir of Pythagoras, would have been intimately aware of Egyptian religious beliefs. The circle was completed when Empedoclean texts returned to the Egyptian desert through Greek (gnostic, hermetic) communities living in the Egyptian desert. PK showsthat certain Sufi texts from Egypt and even alchemical texts from the Middle Ages directly follow E.s writings and beliefs.

There is a remarkable discussion of Pythagorean magic, initiatory rites, practice of 'incubation' and Orphic mysteries. The book is worth buying just for that third part.

"...I am a lover of learning, and trees and open country won't teach me anything, whereas men in the town do.", sez Socrates in Phaedrus, one of the most eloquent and lyrical dialogues by Plato. Kingsley's life work seems to be to show that the course our civilization took after Plato was in a sense a deviation, both from the Earth, the archetypal forces inhabiting it, and our own deepest nature. He argues a good case in thiscourageous work.

A Gripping Tale
This is one of the best books I've ever read.I'm a Classics professor, and it's one of the best Classics books I've ever read, and it's more than that; it goes beyond the trends in current scholarship (which always operates in fads) to get at what the ancient Greeks were all about and why we can still learn from them.Written with real verve, a true eye-opener.It also transcends the silly "East vs. West" thinking that still dominates today.Read Kingsley.He does nothing less than re-direct our attention and thinking.

One of few deserving 5 stars
Peter Kingsley's ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY, MYSTERY, AND MAGIC should be read by all students of western philosophy, as well as by anyone interested in thought and scholarship. Here is a work that shines a light into ancient Greek thought, and calls into question the motives and standards of ancient - and unfortunately modern - scholarship.

By itself, this makes the book worthy of wide attention. But what is more is that Kingsley brings philosophy back to its roots, helping enormously in the unpopular effort to shake us out of our current philosophical stupor and fascination with pointless 'problems.'

The book is written in a formal, academic style, unlike Kinglsey's later work. Those unfamiliar with this kind of writing may be put off (as is evidenced by some of the reviews here) by such 'intrusions' as foot and endnotes, and by the careful effort Kingsley has given to covering all the bases in order to create the most sound argument possible. Nevertheless, the book is not difficult to read by any means, especially when compared to most western philosophy today. Far from being evidence of Kingsley's wish to be pompous, or to impress colleagues, this style of writing is simply demanded by serious scholars, who were certainly among the primary targets of this book. One will not even be read by one's colleagues without writing in this established way. Had he not used this style, Kingsley would not have been taken seriously, and would have disappeared into the ranks of unpublished writers. That he was taken seriously by the elite of academia is seen by some of the reviews ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY received from them:

"A masterpiece, gripping, urgent and important: a unique pioneering work."
EUROPEAN REVIEW OF HISTORY (Oxford/Paris)

"The thesis is argued with immense learning ... courageous, original."
THE TIMES (London)

"A remarkable achievement: challenging, learned and at the same time enthralling to read."
CLASSICAL REVIEW (Oxford)

"Bold and extremely significant ... Kingsley's book may well be the most important book about Presocratic philosophy in years, and it is certainly one of the most exciting, challenging, and stimulating."
AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW (Washington DC)

"Every scholar dreams of writing a truly original book, but in reality hardly anyone ever does. A truly original book, one that can transform a whole discipline, appears at the most once in a generation. In the field of ancient philosophy, Peter Kingsley's Ancient Philosophy, Mystery and Magic is such a book."
PROF. A. A. LONG, University of California at Berkeley

My guess as to why Kinglsey wrote in the standard academic style before switching to an informal one is that he wanted to establish himself as someone who was not a crackpot, before delving into the territory that he has with his second and third books. No respected scholar with a job to keep would dare to say what Kingsley has said in these later works. The sad fact is that if he had held a distinguished position in one of the top ten universities of the world, he would have been out on the street in no time had he published IN THE DARK PLACES OF WISDOM or REALITY, and that just goes to show what a sad state academia - higher `learning' - is in.

Read this book first, then read the others. If you have an open mind, and have the creative ability to try on a new set of mental clothing, you'll be rewarded.

Interesting & worthwhile, but very academic
I was led to this book by John Opsopaus' superb "Pythagorean Tarot," wherein he mentions that Kingsley demonstrated that Empedocles was a shaman ("iatromantis," that is).Everything said about this book so far is true:It *is* an interesting and valuable read;it *is* highly technical; and Kingsley definitely takes on every other classical scholar in clearing the air, removing historical debris and cultural bias, and establishing a new standard of personal involvement in classical scholarship.My take is that one can get the gist of his conclusions in chapters 15 & 19 (and perhaps 20 & 22), without wading through all the scholarly minutae.This groundwork was probably necessary to remove the blinders from our collective eyes imposed by an earlier generation of Greek scholars overly wowed by science and strangely detached from personal experience.In the end, I look forward to reading Kingsley's "Dark Places of Wisdom."

Kingsley's first and best
This was Kingsley's first book, written before he went a little mad and started telling stories about how shamanism is actually the root of Greek and therefore Western culture (the last I checked, Tibetan and Native American shamans didn't know too much about, oh, geometry or logic or mathematics or science or any of that silly stuff Kingsley seems to think is a relatively trivial aspect of Western civilization). If the Greeks stole their culture from anywhere, and I am not sure they did, it was Egypt; and if the Egyptians stole it, it was probably from Northern Europe (there are stones representing the "Platonic" solids from Scotland, older by far than the pyramids, as is Stonehenge; and check out Jurgen Spanuth for the history of the invasion of Greece from the North that started the first Greek dark age).
In retrospect this is his best book; certainly the only one in which he actually tries to make a case for what he writes. The later books are little more than fantasy novels aimed at new agers, and I am sure therefore far more popular than this one. ... Read more

Product Description
The cosmic cycle described in the surviving fragments of Empedocles' poem is the alternation, in endless succession, of Love and Strife. Love is the cause of happiness and unity; Strife the cause of separation and misery. These forces rule in turn as they cause the One and the Many. Love makes the elements into a blissful whole, the Sphere; Strife breaks into the Sphere and causes movement and division - the condition of the world, according to Empedocles, in which we now live. Dr O'Brien's book is primarily an analysis of this elaborate system. It seeks to determine the positions which Love and Strife occupy in the world at different times, the processes involved in becoming one and becoming many and the duration of being one and being many. It examines such associated themes as Empedocles' view of the nature of the soul and his use of the traditional motif 'like to like'. Finally, Dr O'Brien considers Empedocles; place in the subsequent development of Greek philosophy. He sees Empedocles' work as a primitive anticipation of Plato, a significant union of spiritual other-worldliness with the philosophical and scientific traditions of the Presocratics. ... Read more

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Publisher: Chicago The Open court publishing companyPublication date: 1908Notes: This is an OCR reprint. There may be typos or missing text. There are no illustrations or indexes.When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. You can also preview the book there. ... Read more

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This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University Library's preservation reformatting program. The Library seeks to preserve the intellectual content of items in a manner that facilitates and promotes a variety of uses. The digital reformatting process results in an electronic version of the text that can both be accessed online and used to create new print copies. This book and thousands of others can be found in the digital collections of the University of Michigan Library. The University Library also understands and values the utility of print, and makes reprints available through its Scholarly Publishing Office. ... Read more

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Parmenides and Empedocles, along with Heraclitus, were at the same time among the greatest poets of the ancient world. Their work is rarely treatedâ€" and still more rarely translatedâ€" in its original form as poetry. The complete extant fragments of Parmenides and Empedocles are collected here for the first time in a translation responsive to the original verse texts.

Parmenides' philosophical fragments are here given as the poetic remains of the thinker from Elea in Southern Italy whom Socrates wondered at and Plato held in awe. What emerges from the poetry is at once an uncompromising vision of absolute Being and a compassionate understanding of the human cosmos.

The poetry of Empedoclesâ€" reincarnationist, naturalist, cosmologist, religous leader, physiologist, and metaphysicianâ€" is presented here in the personal idiom of the fifth-century Sicilian who has been called the last of the Greek shamans.

"Lombardo's translations of hard Greek into sound and lucid English is an enviable example of the translator's art. He translates well because he writes well; he writes well because he knows the tone, texture, and weight of words, how to keep English idiomatic and natural, how to build a phrase and sentence." â€" Guy Davenport ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

The Most Poetic Translations of the Epitome of All Philosophic Thought
When I found out about these translations by Stanley Lombardo, I absolutely had to get them!I am a huge Lombardo fan and have all his translations.

This one is his early masterpiece.He takes Paremenides' and Empedocles' fragments and creates a recognizable unity among them, making of them a comprehensive and organic whole.

Those that say the Greeks weren't aware of re-incarnation (Resurrection), sublime humility and compassion, enlightenment, and well versed in the doctrines of the paths of knowledge and self-knowledge (Initiation) well before Buddhism and Christianity ever came into being should read Parmenides and Empedocles, as well as the fragments of Heraclitus.

The poetry in these philosophic verses are rendered by Lombardo to such beauty and extraordinary power that one feels in sheer awe of the two Ancient Greek Masters.

Psychedelic Poetry from Ancient Greece
Just when you thought the ancient Greeks invented practically everything, you discover they invented even more.I mean, we all know they gave us democracy and philosophy and basically the bedrock of our entire scientific and mathematical understanding, but who would've guessed they also gave us psychedelic poetry that's almost zenlike in its message of meditation and inner travel?Well, they did, and Stanley Lombardo has done a fantastic job translating the surviving work of two of these psychedelic poets of ancient Greece, Parmenides and Empedocles.

Published in 1982, this was Lombardo's first translation (the Parmenides section however first appeared in a scholarly journal in 1979).All of the elements he's now known for are already in place: the lines are supple, sparse, and strong, and they reward reading aloud.He has his critics, but Lombardo is my favorite translator of ancient poetry.He has a love for the poetic form, and brings that love into every piece he's translated.As a scholar he also has an assured grasp on the background and history of the works and the environment in which they were produced.

Parmenides' work is presented as "Fragments," which is how the work has come down to us.Regardless of it's damaged state, it still has a logical flow.The impact of this work on me was (and continues to be) enormous.Simply put, one could devise an entire spiritual worldview from this poem.Here Parmenides takes us on a metaphysical journey to the depths of space, where he is given a lesson from an unnamed goddess.The imagery Parmenides renders is cutting-edge psychedelia in Lombardo's skilled hands.The lesson Parmenides relates can be broken down to: IT will always be and IT ISN'T can never be.It's all very zenlike and not dry in the least.This isn't stuffy lecturing from some haggard Greek philosopher; it is, as Lombardo insists, a near-shamanistic revelation from the soul's core.And what with the apocalyptic aspect of the flaming chariots carrying Parmenides into the sky where he's given a message by a celestial being, one can't help but draw comparisons to the so-called "Revelation of John."Further proof that the early Christians drew so much from their "pagan" predecessors.

Empedocles is a different affair.We have more of his work, but less of an idea of its order.It seems he wrote two long works, each around 3,000 lines, the first titled "On Nature" and the second "Purifications."Only 450 lines survive from both works, and it's debatable which lines are from which poem."On Nature" is a cosmological look at the world, relating the One and the Many; it seems to be modeled on Parmenides' work, but I find it much less affecting.This of course is due to its lesser state, but still, despite Lombardo's incredible translation I find myself struggling to appreciate the full of "On Nature."The ancients appreciated it, though - Lucretius even modeled and named his own "On Nature" after it.Empedocles' second poem is another matter."Purifications" is a Pythagorean expose on the transmigration of souls, filled with esoteric lore which Empedocles apparently got in trouble for revealing.There seems to be less material from this poem than "On Nature," unfortunately, but what's left is fantastic.I wish there was more.

Lombardo's skill is in how he chooses just the right word and phrase."Praxis," "plenum," "precise equipoise," etc.Words that convey the otherness of Parmenides' and Empedocles' shamanistic teaching.Those who know Lombardo from his later Homer translations will be surprised to find him in a more Poundian mode here; lines break up across the page, the text presented as a work of art itself.In some ways I prefer this - the entire book comes off like a collection of zen koans, translated by some hermetic beatnik, only it's material written millennia ago by two ancient Greek philosophers.

Lombardo provides a brief introduction where he relates the two philosopher/poets and their milieu, but I would have appreciated a little more information.I understand this was Lombardo's intent, though: this is presented as a book of poetry, so he didn't want to cloud it up with a bunch of scholarly digressions.Still, I wanted a little more detail on how these fragments were transmitted down to us over the centuries.Also, Lombardo doesn't give as much information as he could: Parmenides references obscure gods like Ananke and Themis in his poem, none of whom are much known these days; Lombardo could have let his less mythology-inclined readers know who they are in his introduction.And there's a mysterious reference to "beans" in Empedocles' "Purifications," which might confuse the average reader; Lombardo doesn't mention that the Pythagoreans believed souls were transmitted through beans, and as such they forbade the eating of them.On the positive side, Lombardo does guide us through all three of the poems, expounding on their meaning (integral to an understanding of Empedocles), sharing his theories on what they meant for their original readers.

This is one of my favorite books of ancient poetry.Highly recommended for anyone who has enjoyed Lombardo's more recent translations or anyone with an interest in ancient philosophy.Upon finishing this book I turned back to the first page for an immediate re-read; that's how good it is.
... Read more

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Offers the first complete reinterpretation of Empedocles – one of the founding figures of Western philosophy – since the publication of the Strasbourg papyrus in 1999 brought new fragments of his lost work to light.

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This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

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THIS 52 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: The Poems of Matthew Arnold 1840 to 1867, by Matthew Arnold. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 141792778X. ... Read more

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With an introduction by William Sharp.This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1896 edition by Walter Scott, Ltd., London. ... Read more

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This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process.We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

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This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

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Hailed as one of the greatest lyric voices of modern Germany, this collection of essays on Brecht's poetry includes seminal contributions and translations by major British poets. ... Read more