Empedocles

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Empedocles was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, poet, and scientist best known for proposing the four classical elements—earth, air, fire, and water—as the fundamental constituents of reality.

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Statements (48)

Predicate Object
instanceOf Ancient Greek philosopher
natural philosopher
poet
pre-Socratic philosopher
scientist
associatedWith Akragas
Magna Graecia
surface form: Sicilian Greek culture
birthPlace Akragas
Sicily
countryOfCitizenship Greek Antiquity
surface form: Ancient Greece
dateOfBirth circa 494 BCE
dateOfDeath circa 434 BCE
describedIn Aristotle's writings
Diogenes Laertius, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers
surface form: Diogenes Laërtius' Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers
era Classical Greek period
pre-Socratic philosophy
ethnicGroup Greek
influenced Aristotle
Lucretius
Plato
Renaissance natural philosophy
Stoicism
influencedBy Heraclitus
Parmenides
Pythagoras
knownFor combining Eleatic and Heraclitean ideas
formulating the doctrine of four roots (elements)
poetic presentation of philosophy
language Ancient Greek
notableIdea Love and Strife as cosmic forces
air as fundamental element
cosmic cycle of unity and separation
early theory of evolution by natural selection-like processes
earth as fundamental element
fire as fundamental element
reincarnation and transmigration of souls
theory of four classical elements
water as fundamental element
occupation philosopher
physician
poet
statesman
philosophicalSchool Pluralist school
pre-Socratic philosophy
placeOfDeath Sicily
religiousBelief belief in metempsychosis
work On Nature
Purifications

Referenced by (3)

Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.

Magna Graecia hasNotableResident Empedocles
Akragas notableCitizen Empedocles