Empedocles explained cosmic and biological change through four roots moved by Love and Strife, combining physical explanation with a poetic account of purification.
Intellectual setting
His surviving hexameter fragments combine cosmology, biology, religious practice, and claims about the soul in a period of vigorous Sicilian Greek culture.
Key ideas
Four roots
Earth, water, air, and fire persist while mixtures and separations produce changing compounds.
Love and Strife
Two opposing powers account for cycles of union and separation rather than creation from nothing.
Legacy
The four-root model shaped later elemental theories and remains a key alternative to Eleatic monism and atomism.