From the book
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
Empedocles of Acragas · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordKatapsyxis and psyxis denote cooling; the apparatus gives both formulations for the sleep notice.
- In this workCooling produces different outcomes according to context and degree.
- In this editionThe variant cooling phrases and corrected adjective for complete cooling mark the dependence on editorial choices.
- A place to readDerives nails from sinew chilled at its contact with air.
Meaning
Katapsyxis and psyxis denote cooling; the apparatus gives both formulations for the sleep notice. Peripsychesthai describes the chilling of sinew where it encounters air. The process is an alteration of a body's thermal condition, not simply the static quality cold.
Use in the book
Cooling produces different outcomes according to context and degree. In A782, contact with air chills sinew and produces nails. In A85, moderate cooling of blood's heat gives sleep and complete cooling gives death. The comparison shows that cooling can participate in formation as well as in the diminution of activity. It is therefore misleading to assign it one universal destructive role. The second A85 notice uses a different vocabulary, the separation of fiery material, which may help interpret cooling but should not replace it without argument. The reports do not quantify thermal change or provide a common scale linking the formation of nails to the transition between waking and sleeping. They offer local material explanations whose shared process-word deserves comparison without forced systematization.
Places to read
- A 78 (testimony)2Aëtius. Derives nails from sinew chilled at its contact with air.
- A 85 (testimony)Aëtius, first notice. Distinguishes sleep and death through moderate and complete cooling of heat in blood.
- A 85 (testimony)Aëtius, second notice. Offers separation of the fiery as a related but differently expressed explanation.
Translation in this edition
The variant cooling phrases and corrected adjective for complete cooling mark the dependence on editorial choices. No modern clinical threshold or treatment follows from these historical theories.