On The Use Of Stoicheion In The Sense Of ‘Element’

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Abstract Aristotle says that Empedocles is the first to name fire, air, water, and earth as the four kinds of stoicheia, or ‘elements’ (Metaph. A 4, 985a32; cf. 984a8). But it is well known that Empedocles does not call fire, air, water, and earth stoicheia; rather, he calls them the ‘roots of all things’ (31 B 6 DK). The use of the term stoicheion in the sense of ‘element’ or ‘principle of nature’ is usually believed to be a later innovation. How much later is a matter of some dispute. In a fragment preserved by Simplicius, Aristotle’s pupil Eudemus of Rhodes seems to identify Plato as the first to call the ‘elementary principles of natural and generated things’ stoicheia. Diels, in his study of the development of the term ‘element’ in Graeco-Roman philosophy, reviews the evidence for Eudemus’ claim and concludes that before Plato nobody had used the term stoicheion with reference to ‘the physical principles’. Some commentators, however, have challenged this conclusion. A common view is that the atomists were the first to use the term for the principles of things; Diels himself acknowledges this possibility, and it is repeated by Burnet. But Burnet also thinks it