Death by Philosophy: The Biographical Tradition in the Life and Death of the Archaic Philosophers Empedocles, Heraclitus, and Democritus

214 Pages·2004·1.76 MB·English

by  Democritus

DEATH BY PHILOSOPHY
8
D P
EATH BY HILOSOPHY
8
The Biographical Tradition
in the Life and Death of the
Archaic Philosophers
Empedocles, Heraclitus, and Democritus
Ava Chitwood
THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN PRESS
AnnArbor
Copyright!bytheUniversityofMichigan2004
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ACIPcatalogrecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary.
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Chitwood,Ava,1953–
Deathbyphilosophy:thebiographicaltraditioninthelifeanddeathofthearchaic
philosophersEmpedocles,Heraclitus,andDemocritus/AvaChitwood
p. cm.
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN0-472-11388-7(cloth:alk.paper)
1.Empedocles. 2.Heraclitus,ofEphesus. 3.Democritus. 4.Philosophy,Ancient.
I.Title.
B218.Z7C47 2004
182—dc22
[B] 2004048051
To my mother and my father
! ! !
θυµωιµα&’εσθαι’αλεπ,&ν!,. γα&ρα1νθε&ληι,ψυ’ηςω5νειται.
Heraclitus
Acknowledgments
8
I would like to acknowledge the help generously given by the following
people: to Mary Lefkowitz, Diskin Clay, and Robert Wagman, my first
readers, I owe more than I can say; any excellence this book achieves is
largely due to them. I am grateful to my two students, Olya Novozhilova
and Joe Coleman, for their help with research and bibliography. Mary-
Anne Eaverly was a bright and steady light through the dark days of
revision, and I am greatly in her debt. I offer sincere thanks to a remark-
ablefriendandscholar,JoanneWaugh,forherunstintingencouragement
andoptimism;thisbookwouldneverhavereachedpresswithouther,and
shecontinuestoinspiremeeveryday.
Contents
8
Introduction 1
ONE Empedocles 12
TWO Heraclitus 59
THREE Democritus 94
Conclusion 141
IndexofCitations,Fragments,
andAnecdotes 147
Notes 153
Bibliography 191
Index 201
Contents
8
Introduction 1
ONE Empedocles 12
TWO Heraclitus 59
THREE Democritus 94
Conclusion 141
IndexofCitations,Fragments,
andAnecdotes 147
Notes 153
Bibliography 191
Index 201
Introduction
8
AccordingtoDiogenesLaertius,EmpedoclesdiedbyjumpingintoEtna—
and by hanging, by drowning, by falling, by traveling, and not at all: he
simplyvanishedintothinair.Whysomanyandsuchvarieddeaths?What
connectiondothesemultipledeathshavetothelifeandworkofEmpedo-
cles,aspresentedbyDiogenesLaertiusinhisLivesofEminentPhilosophers?
Whatistheconnectionbetweenthehistoricallifeandphilosophicalwork
ofEmpedocles,andDiogenesLaertius’biographicalaccountofthem?
Thesewerethequestionsthatlaunchedthepresentwork,whichexam-
ines the biographies of three archaic philosophers, Empedocles, Hera-
clitus, and Democritus, by tracing the direct and correlative relationship
thatexistsbetweenthebiographicaldataintheworkofDiogenesLaertius
andtheextantfragmentsofthesephilosophers.Nowheredoesthecorrela-
tionbetweenbiographyandphilosophyoccurmoreclearlythanintheuse
of anecdotal material; nowhere in the anecdotal material is the correla-
tion more striking than in Diogenes Laertius’ use of various deaths to
illustrate and exemplify his subjects’ philosophy, morals, beliefs, idiosyn-
crasies,andfoibles.Thisapproachtophilosophicalbiographyyieldsthree
2 DEATH BY PHILOSOPHY
important results: a method by which to analyze and interpret the inter-
play between biography and philosophy; a suggestion that a reevaluation
of Diogenes Laertius is due; and a system by which to classify and study
themechanicsofancientbiographyingeneral.
The study of biography is not new ground for the classical scholar,
although thenotionofadirectcorrelationbetweenbiographyandlitera-
ture has not always, or even generally, been accepted. In 1981, however,
Mary R. Lefkowitz broke new ground with her book, Lives of the Greek
Poets. Her methodology yielded fresh and compelling interpretations of
both biographers and poets, winning widespread support for thenew bio-
graphicaltheory.
Lefkowitzarguesthatthepoets’livesaretakenfromtheirpoetry,which
is read by the biographers as a series of personal statements. That is, the
ancient biographer analyzes the subject’s work in an autobiographical
manner, a reading frequently aided by use of the first person (“I”) by the
poet. The biographer’s reaction to those (seemingly personal) statements
leads to the formation of a favorable or negative biographical tradition,
which is illustrated in the poet’s life by the use of anecdotes set in
schematizedpatternsandformulas.Forinstance,inthebiographicaltradi-
tion that exists for Sappho, the poet throws herself over a cliff to her
death in despair over her unrequited love for a handsome young man.
LefkowitzdemonstratesthatthestoryofSappho’ssuiciderevealsunfavor-
able reaction to her first-person lesbian references, negates those refer-
ences,andpunishesthepoetforthem.
However, Lefkowitz’s work, like most other studies of this kind, is
restricted to poetry and the poets. Fortunately, Alice S. Riginos’ 1976
Platonica: The Anecdotes concerning the Life and Writing of Plato, has gone
far in demonstrating a similar approach in the biography of Plato. In the
Platonica Riginos successfully argues that Plato’s biography, especially in
the use of anecdotal material, adheres to these reaction formations and
formulaic schema. The many anecdotes that speakof PlatoandDionysus
of Syracuse, for example, fall into a well-established category that con-
trasts “philosopher” (free, intellectual, Greek, civilized) with “tyrant”
(slavish, uneducated,barbarian, uncivilized).Itisananecdote,aswewill
see,thatexistsforalmosteveryphilosopherwhohasabiography.
The present work, then, examines the lives of three archaic philoso-
phersascompiledandwrittenbyDiogenesLaertiusinhisLivesofEminent
Philosophers. The method, the identification of anecdotes and pat-
terns that correspond to the philosophy of the subject, is a fascinating
Introduction 3
revelationoftheancientbiographicalmindatwork.Forinstancethelives
ofEmpedoclesandHeraclitus,andindeedthelivesofmanyotherphiloso-
phers,bearsomeresemblancetoeachother,giventhatancientbiography
runsalongschematizedpatternsandforms.BothHeraclitusandEmpedo-
cles,forexample,areaskedbytheirfellowcitizenstorule,andbothrefuse
to do so. But there the similarity ends. Empedocles is celebrated by the
biographers as an ardent democrat for his refusal, while Heraclitus is
denouncedasamisanthropeforhis.Obviously,therefusaltoruleisbeing
usedincompletelydifferentways:Empedoclesisglorified,Heraclitusvili-
fied. Why is the same anecdote used to such different ends in the two
lives?
To the biographers, the philosophers, like the poets and especially
thosewhowroteinthefirstperson,wereneversimplywritingphilosophy.
To be sure, the archaic philosophers were not writing philosophy in the
modern sense of writing philosophy. For modern thinkers, philosophy is
the expression not of personal beliefs but of the conclusions that any
rationalbeingwouldarriveatafterabstract,thatis,impersonalreflection.
Inwhatfollows,Iwilluse“philosophy”inthemodernsense,althoughitis
by no means clear that the ancients thought of philosophy as an “imper-
sonal,abstract”affair. Rather, especiallyforbiographerssuchasDiogenes
Laertius, philosophical works were also, and sometimes even primarily,
readasautobiography.Philosophy,likepoetry,wasseenasacollectionof
personal or autobiographical statements, to which the biographer re-
sponds in kind. For example, in the course of his philosophical work,
Heraclituscomparesmentoapesandchildren.Thebiographer,interpret-
ing these remarks as personal rather than philosophical convictions, saw
an ugly misanthropy at work and perhaps even one that applied to him
personally.Thebiographers’reactiontoHeraclitusandtohisworkwas,in
fact, generally unfavorable and manifests itself in an unusually hostile
biography; hence Heraclitus’ refusal to rule becomes another example of
the philosopher’s misanthropy. Empedocles, on the other hand, in his
workaddresseshisfellowcitizensas“friends”andsaysthatthe“bestmen”
becomepoliticalleaders.Hisphilosophicalstatementsthereforeimpressed
the biographers in a favorable manner and result in a generally favorable
biographical tradition; his refusal to rule glorifies the philosopher as a
selfless, sympathetic, and democratic fellow citizen. So within any philo-
sophical biography, a single anecdote can work in quite different ways
according to the biographical tradition that exists for the individual phi-
losopher.Thatbiographicaltradition,favorableorhostile,arisesfromthe