Empedocles and the Atamus

Parmenides looms large over empedocles philosophy, as it does for all the philosophers we have been talking about in recent episodes. The power of emp ocles imagery is in part due to the way he wrote,. namely in hexameter poetry, following the lead of parmenides. In another fragment, he describes the father who raises up his own son in prayer before brutally slaying the child heedless of his screams. It's one of the only two images from presocratic philosophy that would be right at home in a horror movie.