Chapter 5 - Changes of Form, Personal Survival and Rebirth

Summary

Chapter 5 demonstrates that Empedocles’ concept of rebirth can be reconciled within his physical system. In this regard I first show that, by drawing on the imaginary of metamorphosis tales, Empedocles conceptualizes rebirths as changes of forms that are analogous to those transformations the elements undergo when mixed in mortal bodies. Second, Empedocles’ concept of rebirth entails personal survival upon the death of the body and, indeed, upon several deaths. Third, although claims to personal survival are thought not to fit with Empedocles’ considerations on psychological and mental functions, and for this reason scholars generally do not consider rebirth as a positive, physical doctrine, here I suggest a different explanation. My argument is that the way in which Empedocles conceived of rebirth as a change of forms led him to marginalize the soul; that is, to fail a reflection on the relationship between personal survival and the self, and the role of the soul in it. Yet he had a traditional, Homeric concept of soul that can not only sustain the idea of disembodied existence, as it stands for personal survival upon death; it can also be adapted to the principles of his physics.