From the book
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
Empedocles of Acragas · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordAgonos means unproductive or infertile.
- In this workThe mule dossier preserves a methodological dispute as well as a proposed cause.
- In this editionThe printed reports are not safe reproductive advice.
- A place to readChallenges the general application of one explanation to cross-kind matings.
Meaning
Agonos means unproductive or infertile. The mating phrase refers to coupling outside kinship or kind; euthybolein is to strike straight at a target. Reproductive failure is thus discussed both as a property of a kind and as a failure of a material to reach or be received by an organ.
Use in the book
The mule dossier preserves a methodological dispute as well as a proposed cause. Aristotle objects that the explanations associated with Empedocles and Democritus are too general: they are offered alike for animals mating outside their own kind. His criticism asks whether one causal account fits the full range of cases. Aëtius' anatomical notice narrows the failure to seed's route and reception in an alleged abnormal womb. These descriptions cannot be assumed to have identical scope. The fact that the doxographic account is specific to mules does not tell us exactly how Aristotle's broader argument was formulated in the omitted continuation. Infertility here is therefore a useful entry for the relationship between an explanatory generalization and a particular reproductive case, not a complete survey of Empedoclean medicine.
Places to read
- A 82 (polemical)Aristotle, On the Generation of Animals. Challenges the general application of one explanation to cross-kind matings.
- A 82 (testimony)Aëtius. Places failure in the seed's inability to enter or be received by the mule's womb.
Translation in this edition
The printed reports are not safe reproductive advice. “Outside kind” is an ancient classificatory phrase and cannot be equated automatically with a modern genetic definition of species boundaries.