The Presocratics on the Origin of Evil

Abstract

This paper argues that reflections on evil and its origin formed part of philosophical inquiry already in the times of the Presocratics. It considers only those thinkers whose contribution to the issue may be characterised as noteworthy: Anaximander, the Pythagoreans, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Empedocles, and the Atomists. It is undeniable that none of the Presocratics presented an articulate theory of evil or a theodicy; therefore, the suggestions presented here are bound to remain conjectural. Still, it is my conviction that their fragments contain significant ideas related to evil’s origins. Insofar as they turned their attention to the problem of evil, the Presocratics displayed the following tendencies: (a) they declined to ascribe the existence of evil to the will of the gods. Instead, (b) the emergence of badness was seen as instigated by the disruption of the primeval harmony (Anaximander), or (c) coeval opposed principles in constant struggle for dominance were posited, one of which was the cause of good, the other of evil (Pythagoreans and Empedocles). (d) Attempts were made to make good’s existence dependent on the existence of evil or to declare the latter illusory (Heraclitus and Parmenides). (e) Emphasis was placed on the moral agents’ personal responsibility for badness (Democritus).

1. Introduction

Evil, especially in its aspects of pain, fear, and distress, is the most faithful companion of every sentient being, from cradle to grave. This is one of the main reasons why humankind has mused over its causes, and perhaps purpose, since time immemorial. It can be argued that the founders of the Hellenic, and consequently European culture, namely, the earliest Greek poets Homer and Hesiod, associated the phenomenon of evil primarily with the workings of Fate (Moira) and the will of the gods—more specifically Zeus (Dios boulē)—and only sporadically ascribed it to human wickedness (atasthalia).1 These ideas were taken up and reconsidered by authors whose works, according to scholarly consensus, fall in the domain of (proto)science and philosophy, that is, by members of a divergent group of thinkers that we nowadays conveniently, albeit imprecisely, label as Presocratics. Although they did not formulate an articulate theory of evil or a theodicy—the credit for pioneering these niches of philosophical thought goes to Plato2—some of their fragments are far from irrelevant for the subjects. This paper’s purpose is to suggest that ponderings on evil and its origin3 were already part of philosophical inquiry during the time of the first Greek philosophers and, as such, might have exerted some influence on later thinkers.4 Despite its ambitious title, it considers only a selection of the Presocratics, namely, those whose contribution to the given field of inquiry may be characterized as somewhat noteworthy: Anaximander, the Pythagoreans, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Empedocles, and Democritus. Finally, it must be emphasised that the suggestions presented in what follows are highly conjectural interpretations, formed with the benefit of hindsight from various past and present theories of evil; nevertheless, this does not imply that these conjectures are speculations with no basis in textual evidence.

Aristotle names the Presocratics physikoi, which can be translated as “physicists” or “philosophers of nature”.5 In their search for the archē of the cosmos, they developed cosmogonies, cosmologies, and explanations of natural phenomena widely different from those of the epic poets and the mystery religions. For the first time, the world is being interpreted as intelligible; it is being observed with the eye of reason, not authority and tradition. The gods are not expelled from the Presocratics’ systems, but they are largely depersonalized, and their roles and functions are substantially transformed.6

In conformity with their radically altered cosmology and theology, the Presocratics’ take on the candidates for the infamous role of the origin of evil and cause of suffering was naturally different in comparison to the Homeric–Hesiodic one. Fate, if it appears at all, is replaced by the impersonal anankē, the will of the gods as a possible reason for the existence of evil is practically non-existent, while personal responsibility accrues a much more notable status, especially for Empedocles and Democritus. There also emerge new, genuinely philosophical tendencies. Apparent is the attempt to explain evil based on a dualistic hypothesis of coeternal, antagonistic forces in constant strife for dominance, one of which is the principle of good, the other of evil (cf. Adam 1911, p. 204). The coryphaei of this opinion are the Pythagoreans and Empedocles. Of especial importance is Heraclitus’ theory of coincidentia oppositorum, with the aid of which he relativizes the question of the existence of evil to the utmost, and thus paves the way for numerous theodicies to come, which either proclaim evil to be non-existent or interpret it as an indispensable thread in the warp and weft of the universe, a factor about whose presence it may be said—after a dramatic change in perspective—that it actually increases the goodness of the whole.7

2. Anaximander

The possible genesis of the philosophical inquiry into the problem of evil and its origins may be sought in the testimonies and the few preserved fragments of the Milesian school’s second representative. Anaximander of Miletus, purportedly a disciple of Thales and master of Anaximenes, claimed that there existed an eternal, inexhaustible principle (archē) from which the sensible world had sprung and to which it would return. Anaximander also believed that the creation and dissolution kept repeating themselves in an eternal cycle. Unlike his predecessor and successor who took the substratum of the world to be water and air, respectively, he envisioned his archē, the stuff of which all things were composed, as qualitatively indeterminate and a spatially unlimited body (sōma), and named it to apeiron (the Indefinite, the Boundless, the Limitless).8 The apeiron, which contains all the worlds in a latent form, is thus what the latter tradition would call causa materialis.

According to the testimony of Hippolytus, besides the Indefinite, in the beginning “existed also the eternal movement, in which the worlds came into being”.9 The testimonies do not contain sufficient information on this eternal movement. Still, they do elucidate that it results in something evident and significant: the process of separating off (apokrisis), on account of which the opposites are differentiated from the apeiron. In the words of Simplicius, “[Anaximander] does not explain becoming by some kind of alteration of the element,10 but instead through separating of opposites due to eternal motion”.11 Still, according to the testimony of Pseudo-Plutarch, the opposites do not manifest through immediate separating off from the Indefinite; in fact, the world’s generation begins with the separation of “something capable of giving birth to the hot and the cold”.12 According to some commentators, the hot and the cold in Anaximander’s cosmology manifest in the form of fire on the one hand and the rest of the four elements on the other (see Burnet 1920, p. 42), while according to others they are represented by the flame and the dark mist from the fragment itself (see Note 12 above) (Thus Kirk and Raven 1977, p. 133; McKirahan 2010, p. 37). In brief, the creation of Anaximander’s cosmos seems to pass through the following stages: first exists to apeiron, and there is somehow an innate eternal motion somewhere in it; the eternal motion causes the separating off of the thing productive of the basic opposites (hot and cold), manifested in the form of flame and dark mist, with the former wrapped around the latter in a kind of a sphere; after the breaking up of the sphere, the further opposites13 and finally earth and the other elements come to be. Ultimately, they all merge back into the apeiron.

The main purpose of this brief summary of Anaximander’s cosmogony is to point out that the theme of the opposites and their complex interrelations and generative powers—later explored extensively by numerous thinkers—enters the philosophical scene through his writings. This aspect of Anaximander’s precepts is of particular significance for the problem of evil. In his ideas concerning the interaction of opposites, one may find hidden the kernel of the first, albeit implicit, attempt to address this issue philosophically. Yet, before turning to evil, a word or two about its contrary is in order. The assumption that the principle of goodness for Anaximander is to apeiron itself does not seem groundless. Although devoid of a “goal and moral implications” (Greene 1936, p. 92), it remains the timeless, primordial, infinite fountainhead of all existence, pure and perfect in its state of equilibrium (see Vamvacas 2009, pp. 36–37). Still, for some reason, a part that is productive of the hot and the cold breaks off from this eternal substance and initiates the process of creation, as discussed above. The final product of this event, i.e., the worlds, is being actualized through the separation and differentiation of the opposites, which ultimately turn into the four elements and thus become the building blocks of the creation but also adversaries in the cosmic struggle (see Vamvacas 2009, p. 38). It is possible that the source of badness is to be sought exactly in this generative interaction of the world’s constituents. This conjecture would carry the implication that Anaximander understood the world as something bad. Although one could object that such a view is an uncorroborated overstatement, it still does not seem completely unsupported by textual evidence. Indeed, this world, in contrast to the apeiron, is caught up in a cycle of periodical generation and destruction: “Where things that are have their origin, there their perishing also occurs, according to necessity”.14 The source and resting place of generated things is to apeiron.15 During the world’s manifested phase, there occurs a further interchange of its constituents, which Anaxagoras characterizes as a conflict. During this conflict, the opposing sides, originally the hot and the cold, inflict injustice on one another, which is nevertheless rightened by the mutual payment of penalty and retribution, under the ordinance of time.16 In this way, the world is counterposed to the perfection of the Indefinite and can be understood as a kind of aberration from the latter.

Thus, while the state of being of the Indefinite is eternity, the opposites perpetrate injustice against each other and pay their respective penalties under the dictates of time, everything in its proper season: there is a time to live, and there is a time to die. Furthermore, the invocation of necessity, of that which must be (to chreōn), in Anaximander’s only surviving fragment is not inconsequential. Necessity here may be understood as the heir of the Homeric–Hesiodic Moira, or destiny,17 which had often been identified as the reason for human misfortunes (see Greene 1936, p. 92). In Anaximander, to chreōn is a fully depersonalized force, the factor that, in a sense, keeps the opposites in a state of constant war. This conflict involves injustice because the opposites cyclically threaten to destroy each other: the hot endangers and, at least partially, eliminates the cold during summer and vice versa, fire gradually dries out the moist, etc. However, unlike Moira, necessity here, coupled with time or the right season, also guarantees a proper balance in the struggle and thus perhaps represents a rudiment of the idea of cosmic moral order.18 The clash of the opposites is destructive and therefore intrinsically unjust, but Anaximander’s necessity also ensures that injustice shall not overcome.19

To recapitulate, the world arena is created out of a part of the Limitless, due to the eternal motion and the natural process of separating off. In it reigns the struggle of opposites, which is a consequence of the inherently unjust—or one could say evil—quest for dominance and destruction of the opponent. However, this global injuriousness is kept under check and within reasonable frames thanks to the intervention of the factor of necessity, which facilitates the uninterrupted unfolding of the cosmic affairs, under the auspices of time. Thus, it may be said that the teachings of Anaximander mark the beginning of the investigations into the problem of evil, the theory of opposites, and the idea of moral order independent from the gods’ will.

3. The Pythagoreans

Pythagoras’ life and teachings are shrouded in mystery. This is partly due to the fact that his students took a vow of silence and secrecy and partly to the deliberate mystification and divinization of the philosopher. In any case, the prevailing opinion among modern scholars is that he respected the oral transmission of knowledge more than the written word and, therefore, did not write any books whatsoever.20 Be that as it may, today we do not possess a single fragment that can be said to have been written by Pythagoras.21 However, there are authentic testimonies about him, some of them transmitted by his near-contemporaries. Such is Xenophanes, who speaks of Pythagoras’ belief in the immortality of the soul and of his theory of rebirth, palingenesia.22 Already in the next generation after Xenophanes, Heraclitus mockingly points to the great learning of Pythagoras, which “did not teach him wisdom”, even though no one went deeper into “scientific research” than him.23 Pythagoras is mentioned by numerous other authors, among whom Herodotus, Plato, and Aristotle are the most significant. The latter even wrote two works on the Pythagoreans—now lost—in which, among other things, he recorded numerous testimonies about alleged miracles performed by Pythagoras. However, it seems that neither Plato nor Aristotle could claim direct acquittance with his original teachings.24 Some eight hundred years after Pythagoras’ times, Porphyry, following Dicaearchus, writes that although nobody can be certain about the philosopher’s doctrines, he undoubtedly emphasized the ideas of the immortality of the soul, its transmigration, the eternal recurrence, and the universal kinship of all living beings.25

Based on this and other testimonies, as well as on the fact that Pythagoras organized his disciples into a religious brotherhood, where vows of silence and observance of strict rules and taboos were necessary, one can draw some conclusions about one major aspect26 of his intellectual activity. He, in the spirit of Orphism and other mystery religious movements, must have understood philosophical inquiry as a way of life, a process of purification, which has blessed existence as its final goal. Bearing this in mind, it would not be an exaggeration to say that Pythagoras perceived worldly life as an evil in which a wise man should implicate himself as little as possible. This is why the Pythagorean is expected to abstain from certain kinds of food and reduce sensual pleasures to the minimum. This view, which implies mild asceticism and renunciation of mundane desire as a great evil, is most suitably and succinctly expressed by Pythagoras’ fifth-century follower Philolaus: “Due to some retributions is the soul yoked to the body and it has been buried in it as if in a grave”.27 Still, Pythagoras most probably was not only a religious leader and a healer of the soul. In a preserved fragment from Aristotle’s On the Pythagoreans, one can read that Pythagoras, despite never giving up the practice of magic, primarily occupied himself with mathematics and numbers.28

Owing to such bifurcation of interests, the Pythagoreans from very early on split up into two fractions: the so-called akousmatikoi and mathēmatikoi.29 The former were devotees of the akousmata, dictums that were believed to reveal truths about the nature of things, the most appropriate use of the superlative, and the best course of action.30 The second group was represented by scientists or mathematicians who accepted only some of the akousmata and mainly focused their efforts on developing the scientific ideas of Pythagoras and on exploring the mysticism of numbers. They created intricate mathematical and cosmological theories with wide implications for later ancient science and philosophy.

As illustrated in Note 30 above, the Pythagoreans who belonged to the first group used to hold that the primary sources of evil are the soul’s contact with the body and all those things that reinforce such contact. Iamblichus adds that the basic principle of the philosophy of the akousmatikoi was turning toward God and finding the good only in him; for, just like in a monarchy, if he is the supreme ruler of everything, as he is, it is absurd to seek or petition the good from other sources.31 Mundane pursuits and goals are thus once again, this time indirectly, denounced as bad.

As for the mathēmatikoi, what could be characterized as their treatment of the problem of evil would be a much more complex theory. Of central importance for it is Pythagorean dualism, i.e., the doctrine of the opposites and especially its application to ontological and cosmological levels. The most authoritative testimony in this regard comes from Aristotle, in Metaphysics 985b23-986b8. Therein, he explains that, according to the Pythagoreans, the elements of mathematics are principles of nature in general. The basic elements of mathematics are, of course, the numbers, which with the Pythagoreans turn into the substance of all things but also into the causes of their states and qualities. Nevertheless, this claim does not make the Pythagoreans pluralists, because all numbers proceed from the One, which is itself composed of the first principles per se, namely, the even and the odd, the former being unlimited, the latter limited (see, e.g., Burkert 1972, p. 34). Some other representatives of the school, relates Aristotle, claim that the principles are ten pairs of juxtaposed things, starting with the Limit and the Limitless.32 In any case, according to the opinions of both parties, the opposites are primeval and the ultimate principles of everything. This view is reflected in a fragment of Philolaus, transmitted by Diogenes Laertius: “Nature in the cosmos was put together by things unlimited and those who impose limit, both the cosmos as a whole and everything within it”.33

On the cosmogonical level, this idea manifests in the form of a rather extravagant theory, its rudiments preserved by Aristotle. It still fits within the frames of Milesian cosmogonical speculations, relying to some extent on the teachings of Anaximenes. More importantly for us, it also represents a kind of antithesis of Anaximander’s view. Aristotle reports that, according to the Pythagoreans, the world breathes in from the limitless air (pneuma) the empty space or the void, which has the function of separating the natures of things, i.e., the successive entities, just like it separates terms in a mathematical sequence.34 This is a puzzling testimony. The world is here the One (heis), as it is in some way composed of the Limit and the Limitless. It seems that the role of the Limit is played by the void, somehow contained in the Limitless, i.e., in the unlimited air.35 Confusing as it is, it should be mentioned that this view can be supplemented by another, more “physical” one. Many scholars from the past century point out that the Pythagoreans also used to identify limit with fire, and that, as in the second part of Parmenides’ poem, Fire (as Limit) and Night (as Limitless) are the basic principles of the manifested universe. Be that as it may, Aristotle provides a similar account in Metaphysics 1091a14-20, where he writes that the Pythagoreans do not explain how and when the world—i.e., the One—was generated, but they make it clear that immediately after having come into being, the world starts to draw into itself the nearest part of the Limitless (apeiron) and to limit it (epirrainein) with the Limit (peras) (see Burnet 1920, p. 75; Greene 1936, p. 96; Stace 1920, p. 36). Regardless of the limiting principle’s identity, in it one can discern the kernel of what Plato will later call eidos or idea and what Aristotle will further make known as the limiting and ruling principle (morphē), which informs and enlivens matter (hylē) (cf. Burkert 1972, p. 46). It is important here to note that, as if in direct opposition to Anaximander for whom to apeiron was the origin of everything that is and the summum bonum, the Pythagoreans seem to turn the Limitless into the basis of badness. For them, the good is the Limit that guarantees discreetness and form, in contrast to amorphousness, which belongs to the Limitless. They may be said to represent the principles of good and evil, respectively. The limit and the unlimited dichotomy, and consequently the dichotomy of the good and the bad, are applicable to all ontological levels and phenomena. Hence, the numbers are also susceptible to “[t]his moral distinction; even numbers, because they are capable of bisection, are mobile and unreliable and evil; odd numbers, since they resist bisection, are reliable and good”.36 Indeed, a single glance at Aristotle’s table of ten Pythagorean opposites shows that Limit, Odd and Good stand in the same column, while their contraries find their places in the opposite one. Thus, the Limit is the organizing principle and the principle of good in Pythagorean cosmology (cf. Kirk and Raven 1977, p. 241). Subsequently, the principle of evil is the Limitless.

Another significant Pythagorean contribution is the discovery of the musical intervals of the octave, the fifth, and the fourth, expressible through simple mathematical proportions: 2:1, 3:2, and 4:3. This discovery probably inspired Pythagoras to develop the theory of perfect harmony (see Kahn 2001, pp. 37–38. Cf. Gregory 2013, pp. 130–31), achievable by maintaining the right proportions and expressible in mathematical ratios. Thus, harmony in music gives rise to melody, in medicine to health, and in body to soul, while “[t]he famous doctrine of the Mean is only an application of the same idea to the problem of conduct” (Burnet 1920, p. 77). From this, yet another Pythagorean view on good and evil may be deduced: the predominance of one or the other is a matter of establishing the right proportion and harmony or the lack thereof.

In the course of this short survey of the possible Pythagorean outlooks on the origin of evil, we have noted three tendencies, all of them dualistic: (a) the ascetic renunciation of the mundane as something evil, as opposed to the good of the eschatologically directed spiritual purification, practiced by the akousmatikoi; (b) the vision of the dynamics of good and evil as represented through the generative interplay of the Limit and the Limitless; and (c) the understanding of evil not as related to either the Limitless or the Limit but as discordance between these principles, as disproportion and an absence of harmony.

4. Heraclitus

Heraclitus’ stance on evil, as cautiously formulated in this section, will prove to be radically different from that of the Pythagoreans, especially the akousmatikoi. In this respect, he was not at all “dark”—an epithet earned by him due to the intriguing nature of his thought but also his difficult style. Indeed, Heraclitus wrote aphorisms, elegantly composed but often purposefully hard to understand,37 and so the only book he had produced caused perplexities and invited many commentaries and interpretations (see Kirk and Raven 1977, pp. 186–87). Regrettably, the surviving fragments do not amount to more than 10 to 20 percent of the original work (Marcovich 1983, p. 20), which makes the reconstruction of its structure a difficult task. Fortunately, the same is not necessarily true of the most important aspects of his philosophy. Since our sources naturally used to devote most attention to Heraclitus’ central ideas, the contemporary researcher can gain a relatively solid understanding of the fundamentals of his thought.

The scope of Heraclitus’ philosophical interest is very wide: we have preserved fragments where he offers a kind of ethico-political analysis of his contemporaries’ circumstances; talks about the nature and limits of human cognitive powers; touches upon theological topics; and treats numerous cosmogonical, cosmological, and metaphysical questions. Perhaps the most significant are the fragments in which the teachings of fire as the foundation of the world, and the logos as its governing principle, are presented. These topics deserve a word or two.

While investigating the thoughts of his predecessors and their contributions to the discovery of the original causes and principles, Aristotle counts Heraclitus among the monists, such as the Milesians, and highlights that the fundamental building block of the cosmos, the causa materialis, for him is fire.38 It seems that Heraclitus postulates fire as the substance of the world, everything else being its transformation:39 “All things are equally exchanged for fire and fire for all things; just as goods are exchanged for gold and gold for goods”.40 Interestingly, “all things” mentioned in this fragment are not limited to physical entities and natural phenomena; fire is also the essence of soul41 and God. Heraclitus’ pantheistic deity is no other than pyr aeizōon, the ever-living fire, which is both the cause and the substance of the world.42

Logos is yet another principle that guarantees the world’s unity and harmony: “Listening not to me but to the logos, it is wise to agree that everything is one”.43 However, it operates on a different level. Unlike fire, which underlies everything that exists, logos is more of a metaphysical–logical law operational in all things, without exception. Since it permeates everything, the logos ties all things in an indissoluble bond of mutual relationship, fulfilling thus its unique purpose of establishing universal unity. Its principal manifestation is, it seems, the well-known coincidentia oppositorum, the unity of opposites, a relation hard to perceive, but most crucial. “The invisible harmony is better than the visible”; “They do not understand that what is at variance agrees with itself: backward-facing harmony, like of the bow and the lyre”.44 It is this “backward-facing harmony” that reveals the true structure of reality, governed by logos. The apparent tension between the two opposing forces ensures the “unity, integrity, and identity of a given thing”, (Marcovich 1983, p. 72) and a trained eye can discern its profound influence on both micro and macro levels. That is why Heraclitus can justifiably declare, “War is the father of all and king of all”.45

This concept of strife and unity of opposites is of key importance for Heraclitus’ presumed view on evil. Especially pertinent in this regard is the group or fragments approximately falling between B50 and B67, many of them transmitted by Hippolytus in his Refutatio Omnium Haeresium, as well as some of the latter’s interpretations and commentaries. Hippolytus clearly articulates what is already strongly indicated in some of the fragments he quotes;46 among the Heraclitean opposites, the pair of good and evil is included, and unlike in the Pythagorean table of opposites, in Heraclitus, they actually form a unity: “That is why Heraclitus says that neither darkness nor light, neither evil nor good are different, but one and the same”.47 If it were not like that, nobody would reward the physicians, who apparently torture their patients.48 With this insightful example, Heraclitus illustrates the fact that, even in everyday life, it is sometimes difficult to clearly distinguish between the good and the bad. While the majority would undoubtedly agree that pain and suffering are inherently evil, the cutting and cauterization performed by physicians are unhesitatingly counted among useful and good practices. This holds even more true for the hidden order of things, which, although singular and uniform, takes upon itself various names and forms, under whose influence the bewildered humanity perceives it as manifold.49

The aforesaid could be perhaps read as revealing, among other things, the first attempt at solving the problem of evil. In fact, put anachronistically, Heraclitus here does not aim at solving but instead dissolving the problem. He does this by relativizing the existence of evil so far as possible.50 According to this view, the problem of evil persists only for a confused individual in a particular circumstance. Those who succeed in recognizing the unity in the multitude, who cast off their human nature devoid of judgment and acquire a godly one,51 can perceive the world sub specie dei. They recognize that only the logos has absolute value, while everything else is random, transient, and acquires worth only because of its connection with it (see Greene 1936, p. 100). The all-pervading logos makes the apparently random and contradictory cosmos ordered and holistic, while whether it is perceived as relative or absolute depends solely on the observer’s perspective (see also Dorter 2013, p. 43). For a person of such a vision, no evil exists.52 And this is the view that Porphyry, in a scholium on the Iliad, explicitly ascribes to Heraclitus: “For god makes all things contribute to the harmony of the universe, managing it commodiously—so Heraclitus says that to god all things are fair and just but men have supposed some things just other unjust”.53 Thus, according to Heraclitus, the cause of evil would be the failure to discern the universal nature that loves to hide,54 while the solution to the problem would be attuning one’s soul to it. The knowledge of the world’s true nature and structure makes the whole difference between the enslaved and the free, between the miserable and the happy person. Consequently, on the level of human conduct and practical morality, the good person would be the one who lives in attunement with logos and nature, while the bad one would be he who lives in opposition to them: a distant foreshadowing of some aspects of Stoic moral theory.

So far, an endeavour has been made to discern in Heraclitus’ fragments a theory of evil according to which it would be declared to be a product of ignorance, i.e., objectively non-existent. In addition to this, it can be argued that Heraclitus also anticipates the closely related Aesthetic theme, i.e., the position according to which the individual exists for the sake of contributing to the greater good and improving the whole. The totality is much more important than the particular, which is, unlike the former, essentially fleeting and unstable. Thus, in B114, the philosopher writes, “Those who want to speak wisely should rely on what is common to all, as a city on its laws, and even more, because all human laws by the one divine are nourished”. Neglecting one’s personal interests, the individual should rise above the singular and recognize the universal as its own good. This is how the virtuous and law-abiding citizens of any state act: they give up on their whims and bow down to the higher, common good. By thus renouncing some personal pleasures (and every deprivation is a kind of pain, i.e., at least seemingly evil), the citizens guarantee their own, as well as the state’s prosperity. When all is said and done, the result of such apparent evil is both individual and common good; that is why one should not feel aversion to the law but rather embrace it. The ultimate manifestation of this governing principle is the strife of opposites, the outward struggle of good and evil, and happiness and misery, which nonetheless all resolve in utmost harmony. Consequently, Heraclitus states, “It should be known that war is common to all, that justice is strife, and that all things come to be through strife and necessity”.55 What the inexperienced eye perceives as injustice, as something lamentable, is really a path to the higher good. Hence, “The strife that Anaximander called injustice is after all justice and is a universal law”.56

Lastly, with B111, Heraclitus sows the seeds of yet another approach to the problem of evil. He writes, “Sickness made health pleasant and good, hunger satiety, fatigue repose”.57 In this fragment, one can find the kernel of the explanation of evil that presumes it to be the logically necessary counterpart of the good and, therefore, indispensable. Simply put, if the experience of evil were missing, sentient beings would not be able to know and recognize the good. This understanding of evil was later embraced and developed by the Stoics. Thus, Chrysippus holds that good and evil, being opposites, are mutually interdependent, two halves that cannot exist without each other. According to Plutarch’s testimony, he even claimed that vice is also useful for the whole, because without it righteousness could not be there either.58

If these interpretations of Heraclitus have any claim to plausibility, one could conclude that in the preserved fragments, when read rather generously and liberally, there are hints of three attempts to explain evil in the supposedly orderly cosmos. First, evil is being relativized so far as possible, and its origin is found in human ignorance. It is thus proclaimed objectively non-existent, and the problem is dissolved. Second, the evil in the world is explained as a factor that increases its overall goodness. Third, evil is portrayed as a necessary condition for the very existence of good. These are correlative phenomena that make little or no sense without each other.

In light of the aforesaid, it can be argued that Heraclitus is the first author in whom one can not only detect an indication of a theory of evil but also recognize something akin to the later attempts at solving or abolishing the problem of evil.

5. Parmenides

Parmenides is a key figure not only among the Presocratics but in Ancient Greek philosophy as a whole. With his discoveries, he, in a sense, transcended the inquiries into the underlying elements and the quest for fundamental principle and entered the realm of the abstract, bringing forth the notion of Being and cementing the reputation of deductive reasoning for centuries to come. The philosopher, a native of Elea in Magna Graecia, is thus the instigator of a momentous intellectual paradigm shift.59 This section will explore some possible implications of his teaching on One Being for the problem of evil and its origin. To give a hint, it may be argued that Parmenides’ vision of reality pushes the Heraclitean deconstruction of the problem of evil to its limit, by altogether denying the very possibility of evil’s existence.

We know Parmenides’ philosophy from his remarkable poem, written in dactylic hexameter and consisting of a prologue and two sections, both imagined as recited by a mysterious goddess.60 The first one, known as the Way of Truth, contains the “revelation” regarding One Being, which is and cannot not be, and non-Being, which is not and cannot be.61 Being stands for reality, for the world as it is, and it is ungenerated and imperishable, eternal, indivisible and whole, immovable, and, perhaps somewhat oddly for a modern ear, delineated by an encompassing limit.62 These attributes of Being, among others, are established as deductions that comprise a long, uninterrupted argument. “What is” cannot have arisen from “what is not”—since nothing comes from nothing—nor from “what is”, because the latter already is; similarly, “what is” cannot pass into “what is not”, and Being cannot turn into non-Being. Therefore, it is illogical for it either to come into being or to perish.63 Furthermore, if is (estin) is the only plausible thesis, then for the One Being there is no past and no future but only the perpetual present, i.e., some kind of eternity.64 Besides being unconstrained by the passing of time, it is also not divisible, since it is homogenous—a seamless plenum—and anything that is one with itself, a complete whole, and all-alike cannot have parts it could be divided into.65 As such, it is also motionless (akinēton),66 for, Parmenides might ask, where to and for what purpose would it move, especially knowing that any motion necessarily implies change? Finally, Parmenides’ Being is also spherical, which is yet another sign of its flawlessness and wholeness: “for it is right for it to be not in any way greater or any lesser than in another”.67 As such, it is evidently encompassed by a limit (peiras), and as the philosopher puts it, even bound by it through the might of unyielding necessity.68 There is much insistence on this peiras by the end of the Way of Truth,69 and that sounds perfectly normal to a knower of the Ancient Greek conceptual framework; for, as already discussed, Limit finds its place at the top of the left-hand column of the Pythagorean Table of Opposites, where it is joined by Light and Good, among others. These notions are contrasted with Limitless, Darkness, and Evil, situated on the opposing, right-hand column. The vital correlation between limit and good on the one hand, and unlimited and evil on the other, will be upheld till the times of Late Antiquity.

It is obvious that, in Parmenides’ strictly monistic vision of reality,70 there is absolutely no room left for the existence and presence of whatever sort of evil. Of course, one may claim that the good cannot have its locus there either, because the One Being does not allow for any type of distinction within itself; however, it can be conjectured that Parmenidean Being, non-dualistic as it is, is also intrinsically good, on account of the claim that it eternally is, as well as due to the ascription of various perfection-related attributes to it. And now emerges the point that is of relevance for the purpose of this paper: the implicit denial of the possibility of evil in the world as construed by Parmenides in the Way of Truth may be read as an expression of the view that, sub specie dei, evil remains a mere appearance and a cognitive error.71 We identified a similar, albeit less assertive, approach in Heraclitus, while in later Antiquity, this outlook has been associated especially with the Stoics, whose immanent God is one with Nature and Reason that pervade it, and who, as Providence, leads all things towards the best. In such a world, where evil has no standing, no principle, and no origin, the so-called evils that seemingly befall sentient beings are either products of sheer ignorance or misinterpretations of certain states and events that in fact contribute to the overall goodness of the whole.72 This stern and perhaps unappealing thesis has remained alive until our times and can be labelled the Illusion Solution to the problem of evil (see Herman 1993, pp. 24, 37–41, 62–64).

Yet, Parmenides’ poem does not end with the account of the Way of Truth and True Being but instead transitions into its second section, the Way of Seeming,73 where the cosmological opinions of mortal men are expounded. These opinions of the mortals amount to a “proper” Presocratic natural philosophy, strongly dualistic in its essence.74 There is no need here to enter into the details of Parmenides’ “deceitful” cosmology, whose purpose seems to be to offer a likely account of the world as it appears to our imperfect senses, nonetheless better and somehow more precise than the accounts of his predecessors.75 It will suffice here to point out that the building blocks of the Parmenidean cosmos are aethereal fire (pyr, B8.56) or light (phaos, B9.4), and dark night (nyx, B8.59), “in itself the opposite”76 of the former. These sensible opposites, endowed with contrary properties, combine to give rise to the world of phenomena. Thus, fire is mild, light, and in every direction self-identical, while night is dense, heavy, and corporeal,77 and—one may suppose—consequently disproportionate within itself. How exactly they mix and fulfil their cosmogonical task, we do not need to explore now,78 for that is, once again, immaterial; what counts is that with the pair of basic contraries given, a Presocratic cosmos can be easily construed.

Now, Parmenides does not overtly ascribe any axiological properties to his fire and night. Nonetheless, some assumptions can be made. First, fire is characterised by attributes that are naturally understood as beneficial and good: it is mild, light-bearing, homogeneous, and uniform, while night possesses exactly the contrary ones. Second, going back to the Pythagorean Table of Opposites, we find Light in the left-hand column, together with Limit, One, and Good, while night’s Darkness belongs to the other column, where it is joined by the Good’s contrary. Therefore, one may conjecture that in the Parmenidean cosmos, fire or light would be the constructive, unifying element relatable to goodness, while night would be the disruptive one, associable with badness. To reiterate, there is no textual evidence in Parmenides’ fragments that confirms either the absolute exclusion of any evil from One Being or the correlation between light and goodness and between dark and badness; however, in light of the aforesaid, I trust that these are not too far-fetched suppositions to be made.

6. Empedocles

Empedocles is the philosopher with the most complex professional profile among the Presocratics: political reformer, mystic, and religious leader (inspired by Orphism and possibly a Pythagorean dissident); founder of rhetoric (probably the teacher of Gorgias); and founder of the Italian medical school. As a scientist and philosopher, he is responsible for yet another significant switch in the way of thinking. His philosophy is sometimes characterized as an attempt to mediate between Parmenides and the senses (see Burnet 1920, p. 163); in other words, his intention was to somehow reconcile the change and motion so obvious in the phenomenal word with the eternity and immutability of what is.79 According to Empedocles, Parmenides’ Being exists, but it is subject to (non-qualitative) change because change does not necessarily entail coming into being of something from nothing,80 as Parmenides argued; change is, in fact, reorganization, more specifically, mixing and separating of the unchangeable elements.81 Furthermore, Being is not one but a set of several principles that alternately unite and break away. While the rest of the Presocratics (with the exception of the Pythagoreans)82 tried to explain the world processes through a single principle, Empedocles, in his Peri physeōs, resorted to the four “roots” (rizōmata)83 or elements (stoicheia)—namely, fire, air, water, and earth—and two contesting forces, Love and Strife.84 He can thus be credited with the discovery of the theory of the four elements, whose role in the later speculations concerning natural philosophy cannot be overestimated.

The roots or elements of Empedocles are eternal, not susceptible to generation or destruction, while the world of phenomena comes to be and dissolves on account of their periodical mixing and separating. These processes take place due to the workings of the powers of Love and Strife.85 The result of their interaction is (most probably) the fourfold never-ending cosmic cycle. Provisionally speaking, it begins with the state of unity and oneness (absolute domination of Love),86 followed by the break-up of the Sphere and the first phase of creation, the current state of a fully differentiated world (increasing influence of Strife); then comes the complete separation of the elements and forces (absolute domination of Strife) and finally the mixing of the elements and the second phase of creation (Love gradually takes over), which leads to the restoration of the Sphere and completion of the cycle.87 Unlike Parmenides’, Empedocles’ unity or One is not simple and uniform, but composite; it is constituted of the four roots, plus Love and Strife. Nonetheless, in the period of total domination of Love, the elements are undifferentiated and shaped into a perfect Sphere (sphairos) that “rejoices in its circular solitude”.88 The process of manifesting perceptible diversity begins in the second phase, when Strife appears on the cosmic scene. The powers of Love and Strife are in a state of constant conflict and continuously vie for dominance, while the manifested world is “the result of a gigantic cosmic battle of inimical forces, instigated by Strife” (Mitevski 2006, p. 107). The cause of the primeval unity’s disruption is Strife, the factor of discord. It is thus easy to conclude that Empedocles perceives Love as something excellent and noble, while Strife is something bad and adverse.89 With this, the division of jurisdictions over good and evil is clearly established: Love causes and supervises the good on the one hand, and Strife is responsible for all evil and suffering on the other. Aristotle had little doubt as to the veracity of this claim, and so in Metaphysics 984b32-985a10 he wrote the following:

Because it was obvious that in nature also exist the opposites of the good thing—not only order and the noble, but also disorder and the shameful—as well as that more numerous are the evil things than the good, and mean than the noble ones, in this way someone else introduced Love and Strife, each one of the two being the cause of each of those two classes. For, if someone would follow and grasp the intention of what Empedocles is saying, and not his indistinct expressions, he shall find out Love to be the cause of the good, while Strife of the bad things; therefore, if someone would say that Empedocles, in a way, speaks of—and is the first one to speak of—the evil and the good as principles, and perhaps he would be speaking well, if indeed the good itself is the cause of all good things and the evil of all evil ones.90

In this interpretative passage, Aristotle ascribes to Empedocles, like to no other of the earlier physikoi, a sort of theory of good and evil. He unambiguously claims that Love and Strife are the causes of good and evil, but also promotes them to the level of principles (archai) and identifies them with the Good itself and the Evil itself. Still, it appears that the works of Love and Strife sometimes overlap, and Aristotle notes this seeming inconsistency in Empedocles only a few lines later: Love, which is supposed to combine, sometimes separates, and the same, mutatis mutandis, goes for the destructive Strife.91 The interplay of Empedocles’ principles of good and evil is subjected to further criticism in Met. 1000a24-1000b17. Aristotle warns that, although Strife had been envisaged by Empedocles as the principle responsible for destruction, it is on its account that everything becomes, except for the Sphere (which Aristotle calls God). That is to say that the manifested cosmos exists due to Strife’s intervention, without which all things would be one. From this, it follows that evil prevails in the manifested world of diversity and that it is infested with badness, whereas the good is embodied in the perfect Sphere. If so, Empedocles’ summum bonum would closely resemble a kind of Buddhist nirvāṇa: a pure, homogenous existence in which the distinction between subject and object, and thus any cognitive activity, is completely abolished. It is understandable that Aristotle, whose divinity is the self-thinking Intellect, would not be exceedingly supportive of such a non-cognitive God of undifferentiated being. He objects that Empedocles’ God, untouched by Strife, is less wise than the sentient beings, on account of not knowing the elements, for like is known by like: “With earth we see earth, with water—water, with ether divine ether, with fire destructive fire, with Love—Love, and with Strife mournful Strife”.92 This is to say that while God, or the Sphere, exists in its perfect state and Strife is completely inactive, there is no possibility for the elements to be differentiated and thus perceived and known, while in the world, when Strife predominates, they are both distinct and knowable. Therefore, Empedocles’ universe is superior to his God.

Of course, the fact that a certain position seems absurd and inacceptable to one thinker does not mean that it must be such to everyone. Empedocles need not have been troubled by Aristotle’s worries. In any case, leaving theological and epistemological issues aside and focusing on the theory of good and evil, it is far from contradictory, or even problematic, to suppose that, for Empedocles, the present phenomenal world of multiplicity (where Strife reigns) falls under the domain of badness and evil,93 while the highest good is embodied in the form of the inactive Sphere, ruled by Love. And this should suffice as far as Empedocles’ metaphysics of evil in Peri physeōs is concerned.

It has been presumed that Empedocles also authored another book, namely, Purifications (Katharmoi). The Pythagorean influences become clearly visible in Purifications, especially through the promulgation of the teaching of metempsychosis94 and the insistence on a vegetarian lifestyle. From it, not a philosopher of nature and scientist, but a prophet and a priest speaks out, relating the cosmic saga of “the original fall” of the once blessed daimon, or soul,95 of its wandering and the punishments it suffers in the cycle of birth and death. Now, there is no longer any doubt that the world we live in, the creation of Strife, is the receptacle of badness: fragments B118,96 B120, B121,97 B124,98 B125, etc., are unambiguous in this regard.

The realm from which the soul fell99 into this sorrowful meadow and became “fugitive from the gods and wanderer, faithful to raging Strife,”100 is also hinted at. What Empedocles and the rest of us have abandoned to become cosmic wanderers is the Sphere, God, “the One and its unity in which it existed before being torn away by Strife and being born among those many here, in the rule of Strife”.101 The soul cast into this world has to endure unspeakable torment and transmigrate from body to body, separated from the souls of the blessed and far away from the unity and homogeneity of the kingdom of Love. Empedocles finds the escape from this frightening condition in a life of repentance and redemption. Such a life consists mainly of abstention from animal food,102 respecting different taboos,103 and fostering self-control and chastity. All activities contrary to these make a person a collaborator in the enterprise of Strife, while the result of such a righteous and holy life is deliverance from evil and a return to the state of blissful existence.104

It seems that the stance on evil that could only be hypothesized from the fragments of On Nature receives its full confirmation in Purifications. Both texts apparently share the same theory: the origins of good and evil are Love and Strife, whose ultimate manifestations are the unity of the Sphere and the complete separation of the principles, respectively. Although creation occurs during the rule of Love as well, the distressful phase we live through, as described by Empedocles, begins with the break-up of the Sphere and the beginning of the reign of Strife. This teaching carries strong ethical implications and imbues Empedocles’ philosophy with an almost soteriological directedness. The meaning of human existence is purification, its goal is the return to the primordial unity. What remains unclear are the questions of individual culpability or responsibility, and the fruitfulness of the moral effort. If Love and Strife “reign in turn in revolving time”,105 i.e., if their cyclic alteration unfolds by necessity, how is it even possible to speak of the soul’s “fall”? How can there be any alternative to it? The same goes for the reverse process as well. Is it that those who do not accept and follow Empedocles’ advice somehow fail to be absorbed in the perfect unity? The world, after all, is one, but during Love’s absolute domination, it assumes the form of the undifferentiated Sphere, while presently, when Strife predominates, it assumes the shape of the plural cosmos. Then, is there anything that a person can do in order not to fall, and is the renunciation of the virtuous not, in a sense, redundant? No answer to this query can be found in the preserved fragments. It is clear, however, that Empedocles’ devotee has solid chances of attaining good life, even within the realm of Strife. Taking the doctrine of transmigration into consideration, it is indubitable that the just will enjoy greater privileges and honour, while the vile and ignorant will live in miserable bodies. Nevertheless, it remains questionable whether immortal happiness, promised by Empedocles to his followers in B147, will ever be possible. For the aim of moral purification is to re-enter the unity of the Sphere; still, this accomplishment will necessarily and spontaneously occur with the passing of time, and the unity of the Sphere will inevitably get corrupted by Strife once again.

These problems arise because, for our purposes, it has been assumed that the fall represents a kind of exile from the Sphere and that the daimon or soul that survives death and reincarnates is immortal, like in Plato. There are, however, other approaches that somewhat mitigate, albeit do not solve, the issues. Thus, Inwood holds that Empedocles’ reincarnating daimon is not immortal but “long-lived”106 and exists only during one phase of the cosmic cycle, e.g., the present one.107 Sedley offers a novel interpretation of the cycle, and argues that, within a single phase of the differentiated world, there are oscillating alternations of Love’s and Strife’s rule and that the stages of complete unity and total separation are very distant from one another (Sedley 2007, pp. 33–40, 67–70). According to this picture, there are numerous repetitions of eras of Strife and Love, during which time a single daimon or soul gets many chances for moral improvement through the reincarnation process.108 Finally, it may be said that the fact that Empedocles did not differentiate personal responsibility and external necessary compulsion is probably just a reflection of “the state of the art” of his times.

The aforementioned apparent incongruences, grave as they appear to the modern mind, still do not diminish Empedocles’ importance for the investigations into the problem of evil. On the cosmic level, in Empedocles—as in none of his predecessors—we find a clear delineation of the principles of good and bad, along with a precise separation of their respective spheres of influence. Love and Strife are depicted as eternally antagonistic forces engaged in a bitter struggle for dominance, an idea that will remain alive in numerous later religious systems. On the microcosmic level, Empedocles unambiguously isolates certain human practices and declares them evil, while at the same time elevating virtuous and compassioned life to the level of a universal law.109

7. The Atomists

Leucippus’ and Democritus’ Atomism can also be seen as a sort of reaction to Parmenides’ philosophy of Being.110 At a certain point, these disparate approaches to reality do coincide: both for the Eleatics and the Atomists, Being is an indivisible plenum, uncreated, eternal, and indestructible. However, Parmenides’ Being is one and immovable, while non-Being is so unreal that it cannot even be spoken of. On the other hand, for the Atomists, what is is composed of countless units in constant motion, and what is not is as real as Being, because both factors are necessary for the world to be shaped. Leucippus’ and Democritus’ Being, or rather Beings, are, of course, the atoms. These are very small particles, not liable to further division, devoid of qualitative determinations, except for shape, arrangement, and position.111 The purpose of the atom’s shapes is to allow them, when they come in contact, to connect and thus form our bodies and the bodies of the objects that surround us. Non-Being, the void, or “the empty” is the entity that enables the movement of atoms and consequently the emergence of the world.112 This is exactly why the Atomists elevated the void to the same status as Being, a step hardly acceptable to their predecessors and contemporaries, with the exception, perhaps, of the Pythagoreans.

While searching for some indications of a theory of evil in the philosophy of the Atomists, one must take into account their determinism. Indeed, the only preserved fragment from Leucippus’ Peri nou is dedicated to necessity: “No thing comes to be at random, but for a reason and by necessity”.113 The Atomists’ determinism is undoubtedly ontologically grounded, as it is most clearly visible in their doctrine of motion. For Leucippus and Democritus, motion is lifeless, mechanistic, and automatic. Although the compulsory linear downward motion of the atoms is a contribution of Epicurus,114 the early Atomists also considered motion to be necessary, even compulsory, claiming that the atoms move in the infinite void by force.115 Leucippus and Democritus did not feel the need to assume (like Empedocles) some kind of specific power behind the phenomenon but instead made it a natural, innate occurrence. As already mentioned, their ontology accommodated both atoms and the empty space where the former moved inevitably and effortlessly, being caught up in the cosmic vortex. Larger atoms group towards the centre and smaller ones on the periphery.116 According to Diogenes Laertius, Democritus used to identify necessity exactly with this whirl,117 which confirms the relation between the Atomistic notions of motion and determinism.

As far as the origin of evil is concerned, it is hard to speak of anything similar in a strongly deterministic (and non-compatibilist) cosmos. The universal law of necessity does not allow the good and the beautiful to be valued higher than their opposites, for it is blind to moral considerations. The autocracy of necessity is so firm that, in the face of it, the very notions of good and evil fade away and lose their meaning. If things are such as they simply must be, then one really has no right to characterize them as bad or the contrary.

Taking the aforesaid into account, the Atomists’, or, from now on, Democritus’,118 thoughts on moral philosophy come as a bit of a surprise. In the moral sphere, cosmological mechanicism abdicates in favour of humanistic ethics with a developed sense of personal responsibility, which almost presupposes freedom of choice.119 In other words, a good or bad life now becomes a question of personal choice. The essence of a good life is cheerfulness, contentment, or wellbeing of the soul (euthymia), which in turn depends on the cultivation of the four “traditional” virtues: courage,120 justice,121 temperance,122 and, above all, wisdom.123

Wisdom is the power by virtue of which one can choose between the good and the bad, and those devoid of it are bound to perpetrate and experience evil. And if they do, no one else is to blame but themselves, certainly not the gods. According to Stobaeus, this is what Democritus thought and wrote, thus not only linking evil with human folly but also setting the scene for all free-will theodicies to come, from Plato up to the present day: “It is the gods124 who give to men all things good, both in times of old and now. However, as far as things evil and harmful and useless are concerned, the gods do not bestow those upon men, neither in times of old nor now, but they themselves run into these due to blindness of mind and lack of sense”.125

Therefore, one can conclude that the escape from unwanted states, even the solution to the problem of evil, lies in wisdom and in true knowledge. Somewhat like Heraclitus, Democritus taught that no external thing is good or bad in itself: a reservoir of water can both save and take a life. The factor that makes the difference is knowledge only, and so Democritus advises us: Learn to swim and you shall escape evil!126 Wisdom is, thus, the cure for all miseries. Its seat, of course, is the soul, and therefore, “True happiness and unhappiness belong to the soul”.127 Those who seek or try to avoid them through the senses are perplexed and mistaken, because they, just like the water reservoir, are neutral objects, whose usage and appliance can be either good or bad.

The aforesaid may be of some help in acquiring a picture of what Democritus took to be the good life and in discerning the pathways leading to his euthymia: these are wisdom and action in accordance with it, complemented by the related virtues (like justice and temperance). Concerning the origin of evil, as already mentioned in passing, it should be sought in the human soul, when it is infected with folly or ignorance. Furthermore, Democritus’ ethical fragments leave little room for doubt that ignorance is closely related to, instigated by, and even identifiable with sensual cravings and passions, which blind the soul to oblivion. While serenity and contentment with what is easily available is good, high expectations and indulging in sensuality give rise to numerous evils.128 It is not hard, says the philosopher, to cater to the bodily needs; what makes life miserable and wretched is the failure, or aimlessness, of judgment (hē tēs gnōmēs kakothigiē), which makes us crave woe-producing sensual pleasures.129 Democritus gets even more categorical, to the point of proclaiming (the quest for) pleasure to be the root cause of evil: “Indulgence (eupeteia) is the worst of all things with regard to the education of the youth; for it is this which gives birth to the pleasures from which badness originates”.130 Ignorance, or failure of judgment, and sensuality are thus strongly intertwined and interdependent, but it appears that, according to Democritus, the former comes first, and then, the latter further aggravates the soul’s disease. The carnal cravings not only force the individual to neglect the wellbeing of their bodies but also prevent them from attaining euthymia. The human body is, by its nature, already a storehouse of ailment and suffering,131 and the yearning for pleasure, prompted by ignorance, makes men slaves of their passions and greatly increases their distress. Such passions are present in every living entity’s heart, but the duty and privilege of a human being is to accept the guidance of wisdom, to tread the path of virtue, and thus conquer evil, caused by ignorance-fuelled desire.

This brief survey of the Atomists’ physics and ethics identified a certain incongruity between them, at least as far as the problem of evil is concerned. On the one hand, the insistence on strong causal determinism in their theory of physics and cosmology makes the question of the existence of evil redundant and the individual autonomy impossible. On the other, the implicit acknowledgement of freedom of choice and personal responsibility in moral philosophy relates evil to failure of judgment, bad choices, and ultimately ignorance that give rise to passions. However, this inconsistency is a minor matter, considering the very early stage of the philosophical and conceptual development at which they were active. Of course, the idea that the source of evil is the desire for immoderate enjoyment prompted by ignorance nowadays does not sound very revolutionary, but in Democritus’ times, it did represent a considerable breakthrough. In his fragments, we witness how the problem of evil and its origins becomes sharply detached from the cosmological sphere and located exclusively in the realm of personal choice. Human action in accordance with reason leads to a good life, the opposite to a bad one. This, and other Democritean ethical but also theodicean ideas, will become fully articulated and further developed by the later philosophers, most significantly by Plato.

8. Recapitulation

As far as we know today, none of the Presocratics contrived a full theory of evil or even explicitly inquired into its origin, let alone proposed a solution to the problem of evil. However, perhaps this view is due to the highly fragmented nature of the available textual evidence, or perhaps we need to become more adept at reading between the lines. Maybe Plato actually had Democritus’ moral philosophy in mind when—in the Myth of Er—he identified the moral agent’s free but misguided and misinformed choice as one of the sources of evil. Could it be that the Stoics based their conclusion that evil somehow contributes to the overall goodness of the whole on Heraclitean premises? These ideas are, of course, impossible to prove, but that is also unnecessary for the purposes of this paper. Indeed, its main objective was more modest: to establish the thesis that some important and rather interesting ideas related to the ontology of evil can be deduced from the preserved fragments of the Presocratics and that they might have been recognized as such by later philosophers. My hope is that the conjectural reconstruction of their theories of evil expounded in the preceding pages testifies to the validity of my thesis and the related suppositions. If so, it also leaves open the possibility mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph, namely, that the Presocratics’ role in the study of evil might have been more significant than is generally assumed. Let me now conclude this investigation with an outline of its main results.

Anaximander perceived the disruption of the equilibrium of the Indefinite and the clash of the opposites as a bad thing. Therein laid the origin of evil for him. The Pythagoreans saw evil in the Limitless, in the lack of proportion and absence of harmony, as well as in all mundane pursuits and sensual desires, more precisely in the union of the soul with the body, with corporeality. Heraclitus was the first thinker who, at least implicitly, offered a solution to the problem. He attempted to deny the hard reality of evil and looked for a way to fit it into the big picture, by searching for its purpose and value as a component of the world. Parmenides, perhaps, excluded the very possibility of the existence of evil in his vision of reality as an eternal, unchangeable, perfect One Being. On the other hand, in the apparent reality of the ignorant, evil might have been represented by the principle of Darkness, as opposed to the principle of Light. Empedocles located evil in the power of Strife, the enemy of peace and unity. Following the Pythagorean akousmatikoi, he also condemned worldly pleasures and gave his ethics almost a soteriological focus. The Atomists, negating it on the metaphysical, established the problem of evil on an anthropological level and proclaimed ignorance-fuelled desire to be the evil’s source. Democritus’ special contribution to the study of the problem of evil and theodicy was his insistence on the moral agents’ personal responsibility for the tribulations they undergo and the injustices they inflict upon others.

It is perhaps also interesting to reiterate that, from the fragments of Anaximander, the Pythagoreans, and Empedocles, a tendency to interpret the phenomenal world as something negative is detectable. Even Heraclitus and the Atomists have issues with the world, inasmuch as its seductiveness inspires bad conduct and neglect of virtue and causes failure of understanding. This approach will be embraced by the Cynics, for example, and will receive its full philosophical articulation in the works of Plato and the later Platonists.