Empedocles Case

There are a lot of great Pre-Socratic philosophers but I have chosen one who is to be important to me. The Pre-Socratic philosopher that I have chosen to write about is Empedocles. Empedocles is the source of the Classical idea that the universe is composed of four elements: Earth, Water, Air, and Fire. Believing that is was impossible for anything to come into existence out of nothing, or for existing things to go into nothing, he believed that all change was brought about by the mixing of those four elements. He had many ideas which include Nothing Comes from Nothing: Empedocles rejected the existence of empty space, saying nothing comes from nothing, Distance to the Sun: Empedocles estimated the moon was one third the distance from the earth to the sun, and Reincarnation. Part of this belief in the continuation of existence was his firm belief in reincarnation. The belief in reincarnation probably led to the stories which surround Empedocles’ death. One of the stories tells that Empedocles climbed to the summit of Mount Etna and threw himself to his death in the lava. Either he did this as a way of actually becoming a god, or to fool his followers into believing he had vanished from the Earth. Either way it is said that the volcano spat out one of his bronze sandals, revealing his death. There is evidence that he has about reincarnation that I had read about earlier. In the book Purifications, Empedocles discusses daimones (spirit entities like demons) who having shed blood are punished by exile from the other gods. They are reincarnated into various creatures until they are finally released and become gods. Eating meat is to be avoided as cannibalism. I find his belief in reincarnation really fascinating because there are some people in the world who believe in this. I have heard that once a human being dies, they come back as something else, now I believe that to be pertaining to reincarnation. This one idea was the one that has stuck out to me the most and