FATUM LIBELLORUM

We can expect Empedocles to be rated among the highest on Nietzsche’s pre-Socratic list, not only because of his inclusion in the Group of Eight, but from general considerations taking into account the fact that he is a consummate mystic, and Nietzsche loves mysticism, seeing it as a sine qua non for any philosopher. (This, by the way, explains Nietzsche’s disdain for English philosophy, which is, of course, glaringly short on mysticism!)

And indeed, Nietzsche lavishes praises on Empedocles, as comes through in this general discussion of the fatum libellorum, where Empedocles’ poetic work is deemed “wonderful,” although, admittedly, it has not come down to us in sufficient integrity to make a thorough judgment of its wonders:

“Some people presuppose a special providence for books, a fatum libellorum; such a providence, however, would at any rate be a very malicious one if it deemed it wise to withhold from us the works of Heraclitus, Empedocles’ wonderful poem, and the writings of Democritus, whom the ancients put on a par with Plato, whom he even excels as far as ingenuity goes, and as a substitute put into our hand Stoics, Epicureans and Cicero. Probably the most sublime part of Greek thought and its expression in words is lost to us.”

Concerning Empedocles’ ostentatious manner of dress and claims of divinity, Nietzsche looks at them in a favorable light too, in this discussion of the pride of Pythagoras, Heraclitus, and Empedocles:

“…Never, for example, would one be able to imagine the pride of Heraclitus as an idle possibility. In itself, every endeavor after knowledge seems by its nature to be eternally unsatisfied and unsatisfactory; therefore nobody, unless instructed by history, will like to believe in such a royal self-esteem and conviction of being the only wooer of truth. Such people live in their own solar systems; one ought to look for them there… A Pythagoras, an Empedocles, treated themselves, too, with a superhuman esteem, yeah, with almost religious awe, but the tie of sympathy united with the great conviction of the metempsychosis, and the unity of every thing living, led them back to other humans for their welfare and salvation.”

There are also several important references to Empedocles in Nietzsche’s work Schopenhauer as Educator, and here they are:

“It will always be worth knowing what Empedocles, living as he did in the midst of the most vigorous and exuberant vitality of Greek culture, had to say about existence; his verdict possesses great weight especially as it has not been contradicted by a counter-verdict from any other great philosopher of the same era… He speaks the most clearly, but essentially (that is, if we listen carefully)--they are all saying the same thing.”

Now, approaching Schopenhauer’s attitude to life with an admiring mind, Nietzsche makes this important comparison between him and Empedocles:

What is life worth as such?-- it was no longer a confused and pallid age, and its hypocritical, uncertain life, upon which he (Schopenhauer) had to pass judgment. He knew that there was something higher and purer to be found and attained on this earth than the life of his own time, and that he who knows existence only in this ugly shape and assesses it accordingly does it a grave injustice. No, genius itself is now surmounted, so that one may hear whether genius, the highest fruit of life, can perhaps justify life as such; the glorious creative human being is now to answer the question: “Do you affirm this existence in the depths of your heart? Is it sufficient for you? Would you be its advocate, its redeemer? For you have only to pronounce a single heartfelt Yes! and life, though it faces such heavy accusations, shall go free!” What answer will he give?--- The answer of Empedocles!

In Menschliches, Nietzsche talks of the Empedoclean pessimism, but, again, in a favorable light:

“In all pessimistic religions, the act of procreation is felt to be bad per se, but this feeling is by no means a general, human one; not even the judgment of all pessimists is the same on this point. Thus, Empedocles, for instance, knows nothing of shame, devil, sin in things erotic; rather, on the great meadow of calamity, he sees one single salutary and hopeful apparition: Aphrodite. For him, she is the guarantee that strife will not prevail indefinitely, but will eventually give the scepter to a gentler daemon.”

…The next entry summarizes Bertrand Russell’s opinion of Parmenides.