There’s an earlier report in Plato’s Timaeus. The elements in PlatoĪristotle isn’t our earliest source on Empedocles’ elements. On mountain-tops the air is thinner, and you find yourself above the clouds: that’s supposedly where you get close to the aether. For example in Homer, thick misty Air ( aēr) is at ground level, and clear, bright Aether ( aithēr) is above it, filling the heavens. He talks of stars being generated there: that is, Cicero is actually thinking of ‘the aether’ as a place occupied by Fire, but only very sparsely, until it generates stars.Īether isn’t a distinct element: it’s a hangover from archaic flat-earth cosmologies. He refers to ‘the aetherial region’ ( aetherium locum) as a location, not a substance. And even Cicero doesn’t cast aether as the fifth member of a set of five. Various modern scholars have taken that as meaning that Aristotle, too, linked aether to the usual four elements. For he says that none of the elements can emerge from another, but that everything is made of these but at the same time, once he gathers all of nature (except Strife) into the One, he says that each of the elements is derived from the One.Ĭicero, On the nature of the gods 2.41–42Ĭicero (our source) goes on to talk about how the ‘stars occupy the aetherial region, which is extremely thin’. So Empedocles evidently contradicts the observed phenomena, and contradicts himself too. Empedocles’ elements are supposed to be distinct, fundamental substances yet Water evaporates into Air, condensation from Air produces Water. He even calls Empedocles’ model self-contradictory. And nowhere does he declare a canon of five elements, with aether as the fifth. His theory of matter is about four physical properties, not about four substances. But that’s no excuse for misrepresenting Aristotle. Atoms are real natural motion isn’t a thing, but buoyancy is it’s the earth that’s rotating, not the sky.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |