From the book
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
Empedocles of Acragas · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordA pseudonymous or dubiously attributed work circulates under a name whose authorship is not accepted or is explicitly qualified.
- In this workThe volume contains school compilations and later accounts whose headings preserve this distinction.
- In this editionThe qualifications here follow the supplied headings and apparatus.
- A place to readThe physical questions belong to the qualified attribution printed by this edition.
Meaning
A pseudonymous or dubiously attributed work circulates under a name whose authorship is not accepted or is explicitly qualified. The prefix Pseudo in the supplied edition is an attribution warning. It does not mean that the reported doctrine is necessarily invented, nor does it license citation as the securely named author.
Use in the book
The volume contains school compilations and later accounts whose headings preserve this distinction. A collection of problems printed under Aristotle’s name, a treatise on breath, and a report under Galen’s name do not all acquire the same date, intellectual setting or authority merely because those names appear in their transmission. Their lexical evidence remains useful when its immediate context is identified. The difficulty is especially visible in a long grouped dossier: a nearby authentic Aristotelian passage may be followed by a Pseudo-Aristotelian one, and the change of heading changes the source of the claim. The lexicon therefore retains the qualified witness names rather than assimilating everything in the dossier to its most famous author. A title cited inside a commentary must also be distinguished from the title of Empedocles’ own work; the reference to On Coming-to-be and Passing-away in A 872 belongs to the commentator’s Aristotelian context.
Places to read
- A 69 (testimony)Pseudo-Aristotle, Problems. The physical questions belong to the qualified attribution printed by this edition.
- A 77 (testimony)Pseudo-Galen, Medical Definitions. The report on bodily processes is not silently reassigned to a securely authored work of Galen.
- A 78 (polemical)2Pseudo-Aristotle, On Breath. A challenge involving mixture ratios and different animals is distinct from the authentic Aristotelian passages gathered nearby.
- A 87 (testimony)2Pseudo-Philoponus, On the Generation of Animals. The commentary context and its reference to an Aristotelian work must not create a new Empedoclean book title.
Translation in this edition
The qualifications here follow the supplied headings and apparatus. They are not an independent authentication of the works, and the absence of a Pseudo prefix elsewhere is not proof of secure authorship.