Empedocles the Wandering Daimōn and Trusting in Mad Strife

What is it about?

Empedocles of Acragas (5th century BCE) developed a cosmology based on four elements (fire, air, earth and water) and the two universal forces of Love and Strife. Notoriously, Empedocles also identified himself as a divinity (a daimōn), exiled from his fellow divinities for his crimes and sentenced to undergo a series of incarnations as different mortal forms of life before he can return to the gods. The daimōn’s transmigrations take him through many areas and periods of the cosmos, as well as through a variety of life-forms (human, animal and vegetal). This article explores how, through the daimōn’s wandering in the cosmos, Empedocles raises and negotiates central problems of self-conception, agency, responsibility and authority. Its starting point is Empedocles’ description of himself as a daimonic exile ‘trusting in mad Strife’. This remark turns out to be more puzzling and challenging than scholars recognise. The article argues that Empedocles’ trust in Strife is not, as standardly assumed, merely a past failure. Rather, trust in Strife still, and to his own lament, infects Empedocles’ mind and informs his life. This detail then offers a fresh perspective on how, through the daimōn’s cosmic peregrinations, Empedocles pursues questions of agency and responsibility. It also sheds new light on how Empedocles sees himself and his own ethical standing: common assumptions to the contrary notwithstanding, Empedocles does not see himself as an unqualifiedly perfect embodiment of his own ideals.

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