# The Pluralists: Empedocles and Anaxagoras Philosophy I · Ancient Philosophy: From the Milesians to Plato · https://tryals.app/learn/philosophy-i/the-pluralists-empedocles-and-anaxagoras ## Many Things, None of Them New Parmenides had shown that nothing can come from nothing. The pluralists accepted that entirely, and then asked whether change could be saved by giving up **unity** instead. The strategy is the same in both: keep a plurality of things that are themselves ungenerated and imperishable, and explain all apparent change as **rearrangement**. Nothing new comes into being; things only mix and separate. Parmenides is satisfied, and so is observation. **Empedocles** proposed four **roots** — earth, water, air and fire — each eternal and unchanging, plus two cosmic forces, **Love** which combines and **Strife** which separates. Six principles in total, and the cosmos passes through cycles as one force dominates and then the other. A bone or a leaf is a particular ratio of the four roots, so qualitative difference reduces to proportion, and nothing has to be created. He also gave the first recognisable theory of natural selection: creatures arose with limbs combined at random, and only the viable combinations survived. The mechanism is wrong in detail and the structure, variation plus differential survival, is startlingly modern. **Anaxagoras** went further and stranger. He held that "in everything there is a portion of everything": matter is **infinitely divisible**, and every portion however small contains some of every kind of stuff. Bread can become flesh and bone because bread already contains flesh and bone, in small proportion. A thing appears to be what predominates in it, not what is exclusively in it. Ordering the mixture requires something outside it, and Anaxagoras introduced **nous**, mind, as the first cause of motion: unmixed, infinite, and the only thing that is purely itself. This is the first appearance in Western philosophy of an ordering intelligence distinct from matter. Socrates records his disappointment on reading Anaxagoras: nous is invoked to start the cosmic rotation and then never used to explain why anything is arranged *well*. > **Common pitfall:** treating Empedocles' four elements as a naive guess. They were a considered response to a specific argument, the point is not the number four but the strategy: unchanging plural principles plus mixing, which satisfies Parmenides while saving appearances. ## Practice questions 7 of this lesson's 11 practice questions, with answers. The full set is in the app. ### 1. Empedocles needs forces as well as roots, because roots alone would never combine. How many fundamental principles does his system contain in total? **Answer:** 6 **Why:** **Six**: earth, water, air and fire, plus Love and Strife. The forces are as fundamental as the roots, since without them the roots would never combine or separate and no change would occur. Page: https://tryals.app/practice/philosophy-i/the-pluralists-empedocles-and-anaxagoras/empedocles-needs-forces-as-well-as-roots-because-roots-alone-would ### 2. Parmenides insisted that nothing can come from nothing, yet everyday experience exhibits change. If the pluralist resolution succeeds, what follows for the status of macroscopic objects like bone or flesh? A. They are genuine substances produced when elemental roots fuse B. They are mere temporary proportions of eternal constituents C. They are fleeting illusions with no underlying physical reality D. They are novel entities emerging from mind-directed mixtures **Answer:** B. They are mere temporary proportions of eternal constituents **Why:** Pluralism denies genuine generation: macroscopic objects are neither emerging entities nor complete illusions, but observable rearrangements of enduring ingredients. This distinction between fundamental ontology and sensible appearance laid the foundation for mechanistic physics. Page: https://tryals.app/practice/philosophy-i/the-pluralists-empedocles-and-anaxagoras/parmenides-insisted-that-nothing-can-come-from-nothing-yet-everyday ### 3. Which features of Empedocles’ account satisfy Parmenides’ requirements? A. Apparent change is rearrangement rather than creation B. The roots are ungenerated and imperishable C. What exists is single and indivisible D. Nothing comes to be from what-is-not **Answer:** A. Apparent change is rearrangement rather than creation; B. The roots are ungenerated and imperishable; D. Nothing comes to be from what-is-not **Why:** Empedocles keeps everything except unity. The roots never come to be or perish, and change is only mixing, but there are four of them plus two forces, which is precisely the Parmenidean premise he sacrifices. Page: https://tryals.app/practice/philosophy-i/the-pluralists-empedocles-and-anaxagoras/which-features-of-empedocles-account-satisfy-parmenides ### 4. Sort each claim by which pluralist holds it. **Answer:** - Empedocles: There are exactly four eternal roots, Love and Strife drive cosmic cycles, Creatures arose by random combination and differential survival - Anaxagoras: In everything there is a portion of everything, Mind is unmixed and initiates the cosmic rotation **Why:** Empedocles is the more economical and Anaxagoras the stranger: infinite divisibility with everything in everything, ordered by a mind that is the one unmixed thing. Both satisfy Parmenides on coming-to-be. Page: https://tryals.app/practice/philosophy-i/the-pluralists-empedocles-and-anaxagoras/sort-each-claim-by-which-pluralist-holds-it ### 5. Match each thinker or idea to what it anticipates in later thought. **Answer:** - Empedocles on random limbs and survival → Variation with differential survival - Empedocles on compounds as ratios → Chemical composition by proportion - Anaxagoras on nous → An ordering intelligence distinct from matter - Anaxagoras on infinite divisibility → Matter with no smallest part **Why:** The anticipations are structural rather than substantive. Empedocles has the *shape* of natural selection without the mechanism, and Anaxagoras’ infinite divisibility is precisely the position atomism was formulated against. Page: https://tryals.app/practice/philosophy-i/the-pluralists-empedocles-and-anaxagoras/match-each-thinker-or-idea-to-what-it-anticipates-in-later-thought ### 6. Arrange the steps of the pluralist strategy in logical order. **Answer:** 1. Accept that nothing can come to be from what-is-not 2. Reject the claim that what-is must be single 3. Posit many eternal, unchanging principles 4. Explain apparent change as their mixing and separating 5. Recover the observable world without violating the ban **Why:** Concede the strongest premise, reject the weaker one, and rebuild. It is a model of how philosophical positions actually respond to arguments they cannot refute, locate the least costly premise and give that up. Page: https://tryals.app/practice/philosophy-i/the-pluralists-empedocles-and-anaxagoras/arrange-the-steps-of-the-pluralist-strategy-in-logical-order ### 7. Socrates reports his disappointment that Anaxagoras invokes nous to start the cosmic rotation and then explains nothing else by it. Set the number of further phenomena Anaxagoras explains by appeal to mind, on Socrates’ report. **Answer:** 0 (within ±1) **Why:** **None**, on Socrates’ account. Nous starts the rotation and is then never used to explain why anything is arranged *well*, the complaint recorded in the *Phaedo*, and an early instance of a philosopher criticising another for failing to use his own best idea. Page: https://tryals.app/practice/philosophy-i/the-pluralists-empedocles-and-anaxagoras/socrates-reports-his-disappointment-that-anaxagoras-invokes-nous-to