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Classical element
Overview
The classical elements typically refer to earth, water, fire, air, and (later) aether which were proposed to explain the nature and complexity of all matter in terms of simpler substances. Ancient cultures in Greece, Angola, Tibet, India, and Mali had similar lists which sometimes referred, in local languages, to "air" as "wind", and to "aether" as "space".
These different cultures and even individual philosophers had widely varying explanations concerning their attributes and how they related to observable phenomena as well as cosmology. Sometimes these theories overlapped with mythology and were personified in deities. Some of these interpretations included atomism (the idea of very small, indivisible portions of matter), but other interpretations considered the elements to be divisible into infinitely small pieces without changing their nature.
While the classification of the material world among the ancient Indians, Hellenistic Egyptians, and ancient Greeks into air, earth, fire, and water was more philosophical, scientists of the Middle Ages used practical, experimental observation to classify materials. In Europe, the ancient Greek concept, devised by Empedocles, evolved into the systematic classifications of Aristotle and Hippocrates. This evolved slightly into the medieval system, and eventually became the object of experimental verification in the 17th century, at the start of the Scientific Revolution.
Modern science does not support the classical elements to classify types of substances. Atomic theory classifies atoms into more than a hundred chemical elements such as oxygen, iron, and mercury, which may form chemical compounds and mixtures. The modern categories roughly corresponding to the classical elements are the states of matter produced under different temperatures and pressures. Solid, liquid, gas, and plasma share many attributes with the corresponding classical elements of earth, water, air, and fire, but these states describe the similar behaviour of different types of atoms at similar energy levels, not the characteristic behaviour of certain atoms or substances.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
Then, again, there are the numerous kinds of water which have been mingled with one another, and are distilled through plants which grow in the earth; and this whole class is called by the name of juices or saps. The unequal admixture of these fluids creates a variety of species; most of them are nameless, but four which are of a fiery nature are clearly distinguished and have names. First, there is wine, which…
Plato, Timaeus
States what Classical element is; the author is tied to Classical element in the knowledge graph.
The theory that matter consists of “atoms”, _i.e._ of little bits that cannot be divided, is due to the Greeks, but with them it was only a speculation. The evidence for what is called the atomic theory was derived from chemistry, and the theory itself, in its nineteenth-century form, was mainly due to Dalton. It was found that there were a number of “elements”, and that other substances were compounds of these…
Bertrand Russell, Philosophy
States what Classical element is; the author is tied to Classical element in the knowledge graph.
But among all those which we term fusible fluids, there is one that becomes most dense, though formed from the most subtile and equable parts, and is of an uniform character, and partaking of a lustrous yellow colour:—it is that most highly prized possession,—gold, which is produced by filtration through a rock. And a node (ὄζος) of gold, rendered by its density very hard and turned black, is called _adamant_.
Plato, The works of Plato
States what Classical element is; the author is tied to Classical element in the knowledge graph.
Philosophers who discussed Classical element
- Anaximenes of Miletus
- William of Conches
- Chrysippus
- Abu Bakr al-Razi
- Empedocles
- Theophrastus
- Aristoxenus
- Johann Chrysostom Magnenus
Related ideas
- Elementary particle
- Avicenna
- Anaximander
- Outline of ancient India
- Galen
- Harvard University Press
- Hippocrates
- Hinduism
- Heraclitus
- History of science
- Yin and yang
- Paracelsus
- Vedas
- Japan
- Edo period
- Islamic philosophy
- On Generation and Corruption
- On the Heavens
- Physics (Aristotle)
- Anaxagoras
- Anaximenes of Miletus
- Cosmology
- Middle Ages
- Majjhima Nikāya
Place in the tradition
Part of Anaximenes of Miletus.