The Mind of Empedocles

Empedocles is a polyhedric figure that made significant contributions to both philosophy and science. Building on the legacy of Pythagoras and Parmenides, Empedocles espouses the notion that systematic logos drives the physical world and should therefore drive the mind in building representative models of the world. The logic framework that he proposes is based on four basic principles derived from the Pythagorean tradition: unity, opposition, three-phase lifecycle, and symmetry. Also referred to as roots, physically the four principles are matched by fire, water, air, and earth. In addition, and as his main contribution, Empedocles introduces the principles of composition and decomposition, metaphorically referred to as love and strife. The dynamics attributed to the principles are prescient of Darwinian evolutionary theory, and apply to the mind as well as the world.