From the book
Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I
Empedocles of Acragas · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordMētis names resourceful intelligence, cunning, or practical contrivance.
- In EmpedoclesB 232 is the clearest local guide to the word.
- In this editionThe introduction says mētis is not “wisdom,” but the translation uses “wisdom” in B 2 and B 106, while B 232 has “skill.”
- A place to readMortal intelligence marks the reach of the hearer’s promised learning.
Meaning
Mētis names resourceful intelligence, cunning, or practical contrivance. The introduction stresses a craftsman's intelligence rather than a generalized virtue called wisdom. The source also prints an inflected noun in the painter simile and a related verb for contriving an action.
Use in the book
B 232 is the clearest local guide to the word. Painters are well taught in their craft through mētis: they choose and proportion pigments to produce likenesses. Their intelligence is active and productive, embodied in trained handling of materials. The simile makes that skill relevant to the explanation of how many apparent things can arise from a limited stock of constituents.
B 2 speaks of the extent to which mortal mētis has risen. Here it is a capacity of human inquiry, bounded by the limits set out in the fragment. B 106 connects its growth with what is present to human beings. The line is too brief to establish whether present experience, bodily condition, or what lies before a thinker has exclusive priority, but it clearly resists treating intelligence as completely independent of circumstances.
The related verb in B 139 provides a moral counterweight. The speaker regrets having contrived cruel acts of devouring around his lips. Resourceful activity can produce something grievously wrong. The fact that painters use mētis does not make every product of cleverness good; the act, its object, and its consequences matter.
These uses are linked by competent or inventive engagement, not by an abstract possession of timeless truths. Yet “cunning” in modern English can sound merely deceptive, whereas the painter simile carries no necessary accusation. “Practical intelligence” keeps the positive capacity visible while allowing the darker use in B 139. A lexical article must also leave room for poetic extension: Empedocles can speak of inquiry using the same resourceful vocabulary as craft without saying that all understanding is a manual trade.
Places to read
- B 2.9Mortal intelligence marks the reach of the hearer’s promised learning.
- B 23.1–4Painters possess craft acquired through resourceful intelligence.
- B 106Human mētis grows in relation to what is present.
- B 139.2A related verb describes regretted contrivance in acts of devouring.
- Introduction VI (editorial discussion)The introduction explicitly distinguishes mētis from generic wisdom.
Translation in this edition
The introduction says mētis is not “wisdom,” but the translation uses “wisdom” in B 2 and B 106, while B 232 has “skill.” This local inconsistency should be visible to the reader; the English variation is not evidence that the Greek employs unrelated concepts.