Empedocles

Empedocles (c. 490–430 BCE) was a Presocratic philosopher, poet, and cosmological thinker from Acragas in Sicily. His philosophy seeks to reconcile change with permanence by proposing that all things arise from the mixture of four fundamental elements—earth, water, air, and fire—governed by two opposing cosmic forces, Love (Philia) and Strife (Neikos). Empedocles presented his doctrines in poetic form, blending cosmology, biology, ethics, and religious insight. His thought offers a unified vision of reality in which understanding nature is inseparable from the moral and spiritual purification of the soul.