Better us than others. Empedocles in first plural

Abstract

This study evaluates and discusses the modification of Empedocles’ Fragment 17 proposed by A. Martin and O. Primavesi, specifically the introduction of a first—person— plural verb, in accordance with the Strasbourg Papyrus. This variable allows to see fundamental relationships between two of the greatest poems of the presocratic philosopher, to redefine the participation of daimons into the processes of nature, and to understand the responsibility each daimon has in the stage of disaggregation that they live in the known human history. In light of this, the ethical scopes proposed by the Empedoclean texts are evaluated in relation to what it is called the epoch of «Anthropocene» and its terrible consequences.