Greece & Rome · c. 460–428 BCE
Pluralists
Parmenides was right that nothing comes from nothing, but the world is many unchanging elements whose mixing and separating is what we call change.
How can change be real if nothing comes from nothing?
After Parmenides, simply naming one changing stuff was no longer an option. Empedocles in Sicily and Anaxagoras, who brought philosophy to Athens, accepted the Eleatic ban on absolute coming-to-be but tried to save the visible world by multiplying the ultimate realities.
If each basic ingredient is eternal and unchanging, nothing truly comes into being or perishes; only arrangements change. Empedocles named four “roots” (earth, water, air and fire) moved by Love and Strife. Anaxagoras held that “in everything there is a portion of everything”, set in motion by Mind (nous).
- There are many eternal elements, not one.
- Change is the mixing and separating of what already exists.
- A moving cause is needed: Love and Strife, or Mind.
Empedocles’ four elements dominated European and Islamic science until the 17th century, and Anaxagoras’ cosmic Mind prompted Socrates and Plato to look for purpose in nature.
Thinkers
c. 494–434 BCEEmpedoclesSicilian poet, healer and statesman of the four rootsc. 500–428 BCEAnaxagorasFirst philosopher to settle in Athens; tried for impietyKey texts
Where it came from
Reacted againstEleatic schoolEmpedocles and Anaxagoras accepted that nothing comes from nothing but rejected the Eleatic denial of change, explaining it as the mixing of many eternal elements.Grew out of
Milesian schoolThe pluralists kept the Milesian elements, such as water, air and fire, but made them several eternal ingredients instead of one transforming stuff.
What it led to
Carried on byAtomismAtomism pushed the pluralists’ strategy, explaining change as the rearrangement of permanent units, to its limit: countless atoms differing only in shape, order and position.