From the book
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
Empedocles of Acragas · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordSyngenēs means kindred, oikeios one's own or congenial, and anoikeios alien or uncongenial.
- In this workAëtius describes pleasure as arising from what is proper to an animal through blends of akin and like things.
- In this editionThe verb ἠλλοτριῶσθαι in A95 is an editorial correction, and the final ἀνοικείου lies in a supplied clause.
- A place to readUses things grown together as a counterexample to tactile pleasure from kinship.
Meaning
Syngenēs means kindred, oikeios one's own or congenial, and anoikeios alien or uncongenial. Symphyta denotes things grown together. These expressions extend the vocabulary of likeness while introducing relations of belonging and bodily association.
Use in the book
Aëtius describes pleasure as arising from what is proper to an animal through blends of akin and like things. Differing composition and elemental blending make things alien to one another and explain pain. The metaphors of kinship and belonging thus have a physical role; they need not describe social relations or conscious hostility between particles.
Theophrastus tests the tactile version by pointing to things naturally grown together. If maximal kinship produces maximal pleasure and perception, their permanent association ought to give them these experiences most of all. The counterexample distinguishes constitutive togetherness from a perceptual encounter. It also warns against simply equating “kindred,” “like in size,” “like in element,” and “fitting.” The witness's criticism asks which relation actually does explanatory work.
Places to read
- A 86 §§ 16–17 (polemical)Theophrastus, On the Senses 16. Uses things grown together as a counterexample to tactile pleasure from kinship.
- A 95 (testimony)Aëtius. Opposes congenial and kindred blending to alien elemental composition.
Translation in this edition
The verb ἠλλοτριῶσθαι in A95 is an editorial correction, and the final ἀνοικείου lies in a supplied clause. The edition's coherent kinship/alienness opposition partly rests on these textual decisions.