Trust and persuasion · Lexicon

From the book

Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I

Empedocles of Acragas · Diotimos Editions · 2026

Orientation

At a Glance

The wordPistis is trust, confidence, or conviction; the source prints several inflected forms.
In EmpedoclesTrust in Empedocles is a task of discrimination.
In this editionThis edition uses “trust,” “belief,” “pledges,” “persuasion,” and “conviction” in different contexts.
A place to readTrust is assigned among bodily avenues to understanding.

Meaning

Pistis is trust, confidence, or conviction; the source prints several inflected forms. Pistōmata are pledges or assurances. Peithous is the inflected form of persuasion in B 133. These words describe both the reliability ascribed to evidence and the listener's response to an account.

Use in the book

Trust in Empedocles is a task of discrimination. B 32 tells the hearer how to distribute it among the faculties: neither an exaltation of sight nor distrust of every bodily avenue is appropriate. In B 4 the assurances of the Muse accompany an argument that has to be sifted inwardly. The divine guarantee does not remove the listener's work of receiving and assessing speech.

B 712 describes belief that might still be wanting in substance about how forms and colours arise from mixed constituents. The teacher anticipates incomplete conviction and resumes explanation. It is revealing that inadequate belief is figured in material terms: instruction must supply what the listener's grasp lacks. B 114 presents a stronger conflict. The speaker knows truth to be in his words, yet the movement of conviction into men's minds is hard and unwelcome. Difficulty of acceptance is not the same as obscurity of the claim to the speaker.

B 133 supplies a spatial image for persuasion: a highway entering the human mind through seeing and touching. The divine object under discussion cannot be reached by those ordinary means. Persuasion therefore depends on the relation between subject matter and available access, not on one universally sufficient kind of proof.

These several uses caution against translating pistis with the modern opposition between “faith” and “reason.” The word can accompany sense evidence, instruction, Muse-supported speech, and resistance to truth. Moreover, trust can be misplaced: B 1152 describes reliance on raving Strife. Confidence has no automatic moral or cognitive value apart from what it is directed toward.

Places to read

B 3.9–13Trust is assigned among bodily avenues to understanding.
B 4Pledges of the Muse accompany an inwardly sifted account.
B 71.1–42The teacher addresses belief still lacking substance.
B 114Truthful words meet resistance to conviction.
B 133Sight and touch form the ordinary highway of persuasion.

Translation in this edition

This edition uses “trust,” “belief,” “pledges,” “persuasion,” and “conviction” in different contexts. The differences illuminate the range of the Greek rather than identify unrelated doctrines. The subject and circumstances of B 4 remain fragmentary; “those who prevail” should not be made into a securely identified social group.