Perception and Absorption: The Place of Metaphor in Empedocles' Account of Learning

 

This paper explains the account of learning we see in Empedocles, the didactic poet and philosopher.  Empedocles presents two ways his audience should learn.  He exhorts his pupils to grasp his doctrines correctly, to play an active role in their education.  By contrast, since Empedocles also likens his audience to plants and his poetry to a pure stream, he suggests that the audience learns by absorbing his message passively.

 

The paper resolves this contradiction by showing how Empedocles uses the plant/stream metaphors to make and strengthen his philosophical argument.  The plant/stream metaphors are part of epic's long-established and authoritative tradition of imagery.  From the epic imagery of plants and streams Empedocles develops new, distinctive arguments for his own philosophical poem.  For example, Empedocles' plant/people metaphor powerfully demonstrates his physical doctrine that plant and animal species are closely connected.  The stream/poetry metaphor also helps make the poet's argument more persuasive.  Empedocles takes advantage of the authority of the epic tradition to call rival messages untrue and argue more forcefully for the truth of his philosophy.

 

The role that these metaphors play in the poem shows how Empedocles connects poetry and philosophy.