From the book
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
Empedocles of Acragas · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordTheophrastus is the principal named witness in the long A 862345678910111213 dossier on perception.
- In this workThe chapter’s initial distinction between accounts that explain perception through likeness and accounts that explain it through opposition provides a comparative framework.
- In this editionThe edition calls the dossier an entire chapter, but its printed numbering jumps from §§ 1–2 to §§ 7–8 because it supplies the relevant Empedoclean selection within a wider work.
- A place to readPlaces Empedocles within a comparative division of theories by likeness and opposition.
Meaning
Theophrastus is the principal named witness in the long A 862345678910111213 dossier on perception. His account alternates exposition with examination. The terminology of his questions about a faculty, an instrument, explanation or contradiction belongs to this critical inquiry and is not automatically the vocabulary of Empedocles’ poem.
Use in the book
The chapter’s initial distinction between accounts that explain perception through likeness and accounts that explain it through opposition provides a comparative framework. The description of pores, visual arrangements and blood mixture must be read within that framework, but later objections do not simply repeat it. Theophrastus asks what the proposed mechanism explains, why only particular organs perceive, how a sense relates to pleasure, and whether the account can accommodate its own differences between people or conditions. These questions deserve separate lexical treatment because they identify distinct explanatory burdens. A single entry on perception would otherwise conceal most of the chapter’s work. His account also supplies unusually differentiated descriptions of intellectual disposition: slowness, quickness, precision and local aptitude are related to differences of bodily mixture without being identical categories. That structure is preserved here without treating it as a modern physiology or endorsing every objection as a final refutation.
Places to read
- A 86 §§ 1–2 (testimony)Theophrastus, On the Senses 1–2. Places Empedocles within a comparative division of theories by likeness and opposition.
- A 86 §§ 10–11 (testimony)Theophrastus, On the Senses 10–11. Develops the account of thought, blood mixture and differing aptitudes.
- A 86 §§ 20–21 (polemical)2Theophrastus, On the Senses 20–21. Examines what the proposed conditions of sensing can and cannot explain.
- A 86 §§ 22–23 (polemical)Theophrastus, On the Senses 22–23. Tests consequences for parts such as bone and hair, not merely the broad principle of likeness.
Translation in this edition
The edition calls the dossier an entire chapter, but its printed numbering jumps from §§ 1–2 to §§ 7–8 because it supplies the relevant Empedoclean selection within a wider work. The section labels, rather than a claim of uninterrupted numbering, govern citations.