Ferella, Chiara. Reconstructing Empedocles’ Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2024, viii + 412 pp.

Chiara Ferella here offers a unitarian reconstruction of Empedocles' thought designed fully to overcome the once common division between Empedocles the rational philosopher in On Nature and Empedocles the religious mystic in the Purifications.Although her reconstruction aims to set the philosophical and religious dimensions of Empedocles' thought within a unified framework, she does not endorse the single-poem hypothesis.While respecting the ancient evidence for Empedocles having written the two major poems, she sympathizes with the proposal by David Sedley (1989,(271)(272)(273) that the Purifications was a collection of ritual oracles, words of healing, and purificatory prescriptions, as is suggested by B112 (D4).1 Ferella nevertheless presents a detailed, independent case for assigning to On Nature many fragments whose religious and purificatory themes have more standardly resulted in their being assigned to the Purifications.Her aim in doing so is to provide a solid textual basis for a unitarian reconstruction, despite the fact that the hypothesis of doctrinal unity could be employed even on a more standard allocation of fragments to the two poems.Chapter 1, "Reconstructing Empedocles' On Nature," argues not only that fragment B115 (D10) belongs to On Nature but also that it originally stood at the beginning of the poem.In this fragment, Empedocles speaks of the oracle of Necessity prescribing that long-lived or 'divinities' who pollute their limbs by murder or oath-breaking are to wander for 30 000 seasons apart from the blessed ones, during which time they are repeatedly reborn as mortal creatures of all kinds.Ferella's strongest evidence for assigning B115 (D10) to On Nature is the allusion in Strasbourg Papyrus ens.d (D 76.3-10) to its fuller account of the fallen 's guilt and punishment.Plutarch, De exilio 17.607c, where certain of its verses are quoted with the remark that Empedocles "spoke these words as a preface to his philosophy" leads her to suppose that B115 (D10) was originally the beginning of On Nature.In the fragment's final verses, Empedocles declares: "I also am now one of 1 Ferella employs an awkward system of referring to Empedoclean fragments by both their Diels-Kranz number (here B112 for 31B112 D-K) followed by a fuller reference to their numbering in the 2016 Loeb edition, which is here EMP D4 Laks-Most.It would have been more economical and less intrusive to give the Diels-Kranz fragment number followed by its counterpart in Laks-Most, prefaced by a brief explanation of the reference system employed, as is done here.