Talk:Classical element/Archive 2

Classical Elements and States of Matter

We're having a bit of a disagreement here and I'd like to clarify my concern. I know of no historical source (either a historical document or writing by a modern historian) that makes the identification. The sources you've presented indicate that modern scientists and science writers make the connection.

BTW, Philip Ball was trained in Chemistry and Physics; he [describes himself] as a science writer, not a historian of science.

To this historian of science the comparison sounds like the kind of anachronistic writing that tries to make the ancients sound modern. It's certainly not mainstream historiography and, lacking evidence, it shouldn't be presented at all as the view of historians of science. SteveMcCluskey (talk) 13:57, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

OK, thanks for explaining and I'm fine with the latest: switching from 'scientists' to 'science writers' and leaving out historians (it helps avoid the impression I was concerned about, that scientists are currently exercised by the concept).—Machine Elf ¹⁷³⁵ 15:27, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Four fundamental interactions as a modern representation of the Elements

The four fundamental interactions of physics, being electromagnetism, gravitation, strong nuclear force, and the weak nuclear force.

If the electromagnetic force (as defined by QED) results in the phenomenon of light and the photoelectric effect could not all of those things be understood as the classical element of Fire? In this way, the weak nuclear force is observed to be responsible for things breaking down and decaying (as in nuclear or particle decay), also being responsible for Electroweak unification. An ancient analog could be the Element Air. The rest follow quite naturally: strong nuclear force (holding particles together) = element Earth, and gravitation (bending spacetime and causing accelerations) = element Water.

There is even a school of thought in fringe particle physics that identifies the various phenomenon (electromagnetic radiation, matter, color charge, and electric charge) as the basic elements of the Universe (To see a paper from one of it's primary advocates, follow: http://www.ptep-online.com/index_files/2010/PP-21-09.PDF). I don't think we should neglect this in the Modern Views Section. Agreed?~~mdforbes500~~

For Modern Views you're suggesting: EM=Fire, Weak=Air, Strong=Earth and Gravity=Water? I think the Table of correspondences article might be better.—Machine Elf ¹⁷³⁵ 01:32, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Or better still, the Wu Xing article.—Machine Elf ¹⁷³⁵ 15:15, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Reliable sources

User:Bladesmulti recently asked on my Talk page: "What you have found actually unreliable there[1]?" This raises the issue of a basic problem with many edits to this article, especially in the section on the elements in Hinduism. There is a tendency to make claims of Hindu beliefs on the basis of citations to books that aren't scholarly studies but are popular studies of "Natural Healing" and "Vegetarian Cooking" some of which User:Spinningspark rightly deleted.

In my view, discussion of the Classical Elements in any culture should have a strong historical component, since these traditional beliefs do not correspond to modern concepts of the elements held by any culture. There are serious scholarly studies of traditional concepts of the elements in early Indian culture and these should be the basis of encyclopedic discussions of this topic. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 19:26, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

I fully agree with that and would be in favour of removing all non-compliant material. SpinningSpark 19:37, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for writing. My main objection was that your change had added a theory about the 9th century text back to the article. I had no issue with the citations that I had added before right after I had read the recent change(by Spinningspark) and the edit summary. Bladesmulti (talk) 04:20, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

The 6 Secondary Elements to Mention ?

I read somewhere that there are 6 secondary elements which are part of the original 4 (where they combine). They are steam, magma, smoke, mud, fog/cloud, and dust respectively. F,W,E, and A represent the four of fire, water, earth, and air. Thus, F+W --> steam. F+E --> magma. F+A --> smoke. W+E --> mud. W+A --> fog/cloud/mist. and E+A --> dust. ill try to locate the diagram that shows this. Gizziiusa (talk) 06:27, 15 December 2014 (UTC)gizziiusa

Is this some new wave mystic shit or is your claim that classical thinkers had a concept of "secondary elements". If the former, then it does not belong in this article, if the latter, we need a source. Clearly there was a belief that all materials were composed of the primary elements in some combination or other, but I'm not so sure that there was a definite group of secondary elements, at least not in the way that you mean. SpinningSpark 23:19, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

I have a feeling his source was Naruto - a Google image search for 'Naruto element combinations' illustrates his idea BritishWikipedian (talk) 00:53, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Cosmic Elements in Babylonia

I was suspicious of this section since I've never come across anything similar in my readings. It seems to hinge upon a paragraph in the paper referenced there, "A consideration of Babylonian astronomy within the historiography of science" by Professor Francesca Rochberg (currently at Berkley). The paragraph from the paper reads as follows: "Whereas the Babylonian cosmogonic myth represents the creation of the cosmos as an allegory involving personified cosmic elements (sea, earth, sky, wind), celestial omens as well as astronomical texts consider and seek to describe the behavior of the phenomena, regardless of their associations with deities."

Reading that paragraph led me to the conclusion that she was not talking about the classical elements at all. I contacted her via email and she did confirm for me that she meant nothing of the sort (she specifically said she could have used the word "parts" there instead of elements). Unless someone knows of a relevant source, I suggest removing that section entirely. AuldDragon (talk) 09:48, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Drive-by tagging

I wish people (that is, User:Mqmay3) would do just a little bit of checking WP:BEFORE adding citation needed tags like this. All ten of the first page of results of a gbooks search verify the fact, and the majority of them are solid science or engineering sources. SpinningSpark 14:56, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for commenting on the citation needed tag I added, User:Spinningspark. I added it for a reason precisely underscored by your providing a link to a Google Books search results page. The issue with relating the classical elements with states of matter sounds very convenient on a superficial level, but they address very different conceptions of matter itself. Of the reliable Google Books you provided links to (e.g. not those about Kabbalah and quantum healthcare), none were capable of supporting the claim in the sentence I added the tag to. All were science textbooks. None sought to demonstrate their claim of correspondence between the classical elements and the phases of matter; the books were concerned with very different matters and needed catchy introductions. If you do find a reliable source (something a link to a Google Books search result page is not), I welcome you to delete my tag and replace it with a proper citation. Mqmay3 (talk) 17:32, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

@Mqmay3: I'm not sure what you are looking for here. We don't require reliable sources to "demonstrate" what they say. If we accept them as reliable, it is enough that they say it. For instance History of Industrial Gases (not about Kabbalah, nor quantum healthcare, but a book concerned with the history of science) says

For centuries these were accepted as the elements that made up the universe. In our day we recognize them as states of matter: solid, liquid, gas, and plasma.

That appears in chapter 2, not a catchy phrase in the introduction. It is obvious that dozens, if not hundreds, more sources can be found saying much the same thing. And no, I won't be adding a citation in order to please someone who is not only too lazy to do it for themselves, but even too lazy to take a quick look to see if sources exist. SpinningSpark 18:21, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Although a scientist might see a similarity between the classical elements and the modern concept of states of matter, we must be careful how we present that similarity. Early students of matter thought they were getting at an essential characteristic of the substances they described and it invites anachronistic misunderstandings to suggest they were merely considering changeable states of matter. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 19:01, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

You may have a point, and I would not really have a problem if the statement was removed for that reason. It does not change the fact that the idea is easily citable to many reliable sources. Perhaps the solution is to reword to make clear that the idea is a modern reinterpretation of the classical theory. SpinningSpark 19:16, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

I've reworded the passage per the above suggestion to clarify that it is a modern interpretation. If anyone has a good citation, please add it. History of Industrial Gases seems a bit marginal for this purpose. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 15:01, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Found a good source, with quotation. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 15:23, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Was there a table?

Like with corresponding stuff, colors, seasons, shapes, etc...? Not trying to revert if it was removed. Kairos (talk) 10:56, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Tables can currently be found on these pages: Bagua, Wuxing (Chinese philosophy), Flag of South Korea BritishWikipedian (talk) 20:47, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Sources

I am evaluating this article as part of a class assignment. As per the assignment, I am focusing specifically on the section of this article pertaining to Greece. I am meant to pose the following question on the talk page.

Is any information out of date? Is anything missing that could be added?

My own thoughts on the question, is that the article, or at least the portion I evaluated, is largely sourced from a book published in 1995. This source is a printed book that I do not have direct access to, so I can't confirm it's veracity or neutrality, however, I feel confident that more recent sources are likely available, and even if they aren't, a more varied look at the topic may still be beneficial. Rkosi (talk) 17:03, 16 February 2018 (UTC)

Egypt

Until my edit a moment ago, the section on Egypt was the first subsection of the section about ancient times, but I object to that positioning. In a cross-cultural article like this one, it's common to put Egypt early to reflect its early position in human history, but that's really not applicable here. The pharaonic Egyptian worldview really didn't involve elements of the type described in this article, and the sole Egyptian text mentioned in this section is Kore Kosmou, which has obviously Egyptian characters but is very much a product of the kind of Greco-Egyptian cultural interaction that didn't take place until Ptolemaic times, well after the Greek theory of classical elements was established. In fact, although there's nothing in Kore Kosmou that allows us to peg it to a firm date, it's a Hermetic text. Unless the most recent studies about the origin of Hermeticism have challenged this conclusion, the first true Hermetic texts weren't written until Roman times. Therefore, the elements of Kore Kosmou are derived from a Greek tradition that had plenty of time to establish itself in Greco-Egyptian philosophical circles. Therefore, I've moved the text of this section (including the "classical elements in Egypt" anchor link) into the Greek section. I put it between Aristotle and Proclus because the Kore Kosmou was almost certainly written at some point in time between the two, but that positioning is somewhat awkward. The text may need to be adapted and shuffled around a bit to make it fit better in its context, but at least it no longer implies, by its positioning, that the Egyptians believed in elements of this kind before they picked up the Greek concept. A. Parrot (talk) 21:28, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Aristotle

@SteveMcCluskey: You reverted an edit here with the edit summary "Dijksterhuis not relevant to modern concept of elements". That may be true, but I think your deletion was uncalled for. What he had to say about Aristotle is extremely relevant to this article. It is certaily true that many incorrect ancient classical theories stayed current much longer into the modern period than they should have done due to the high esteem in which Aristotle was held in. SpinningSpark 20:36, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Although I feel that Dijksterhuis's treatment was definitely Whiggish, his point may be relevant to a discussion of classical elements. However, it certainly doesn't belong in the section of the article dealing with the modern concept of the elements. Feel free to copy it from the prior version into an appropriate location; it might fit into the discussion of Aristotle's concept of the classical elements in the section on Greece. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 21:28, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Dijksterhuis is not the only one who has made such comments. Bertrand Russell said "Ever since the beginning of the seventeenth century, almost every serious intellectual advance has had to begin with an attack on some Aristotelian doctrine." SpinningSpark 18:05, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Reverting of edits

@Brett: Why have you bulk-reverted here the edits of User:Samantha Ireland? The changes all looked perfectly reasonable to me, and you provided no intelligible edit summary. It is out of order to revert in this way without a good, stated reason. If this is about your insistence on mentioning rejection by modern science in the first sentence, then first of all, you did not need to roll back all the changes made, and secondly, I support Samantha's removal. It is unnecessary to have it there, it is already elsewhere in the lead, and the opening should describe clearly what the topic is about, not what others thinks of it. When Samantha made that edit it should have been clear to you that there were now at least two editors who did not like your edit and it was time to take it to talk rather than reverting. SpinningSpark 18:01, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

@Spinningspark: Her edits were essentially a reversion (with no explanation) of what I had previously done to make the fact that these elements are rejected by modern science more prominent.--Brett (talk) 19:09, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

No it wasn't. It was plainly a general copyedit without any reference to what you had done previously. I doubt that she was even aware of that. That should be telling you that multiple people now think your edit is not an improvement. By putting it back in yet again without bottoming it out first in discussion you are developing an edit war mindset. SpinningSpark 21:15, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

Fire/plasma/energy

IPs have twice recently tried to change the lead where it says plasma shares some attributes with the classical element fire. The change is plasma > energy. First of all, this disagrees with sourced text in the article body, so does not belong in the lead. Secondly, and more importantly, there are numerous sources that have made the comparison between the classical elements and states of matter (including plasma), for instance [2][3][4]. I have not seen any that make the fire/energy association. SpinningSpark 18:16, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Recent changes to lead by IP

Hi anonymous editor from IP 86.141.32.224. I reverted your changes - if you'd like to discuss why you want to make them, with reference to appropriate sources, this is the place to do it. Please don't continue reverting to your preferred version without establishing a consensus here. Cheers GirthSummit _(blether) 10:16, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

What counts as "classical"?

To my mind, the classical elements were those as taught by the Greek philosophers. There is a directly traceable connection from them to the usage in Medieval Europe and later. But what about the Eastern concepts that have been added to this article? India, China, Persia? Are these connected at all, or have they just been coatracked in because they sound similar? They may be connected, but are there any sources saying so? If not, we may have mashed up several things in this article that don't belong together, or at least there is no evidence that they do. We may inadvertently be promulgating some WP:OR which is not justified in the sources. SpinningSpark 17:33, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

I agree with your sentiment but it might be reasonable for this article to also include related topics without needing a cumbersome title. While I'm here, I'll add that I also agree with the revert of a recent edit which stressed that the classical elements are "rejected by modern science". The resulting text is pompous and unnecessarily hard to parse. Certainly anyone who thinks earth, water, air and fire are the elements accepted by science is unlikely to be able to read the sentence. Johnuniq (talk) 10:02, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Aether, Aristotle, and "Pre-Socratic"

This line under the heading Greece caught my attention: "The ancient Greek concept of five basic elements, these being earth (γῆ ge), water (ὕδωρ hudor), air (ἀήρ aer), fire (πῦρ pur) and aether (αἰθήρ aither), dates from pre-Socratic times...".

But in two different places in the article, it's stated that Aristotle (who was definitely not pre-Socratic) added the fifth element, aether. Only one of these has a citation (Aristotle: The Growth and Structure of His Thought) though, so which is it? Pre-Socratic, or added by Aristotle? John Gamble (talk) 21:25, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, I think the confusion arises because pre-Socratics used the term aether but did not mean by it a fifth element. It was the stuff the celestial bodies were made of and they considered it a form of fire. Aristotle thought he could prove this was a different substance because its motion was circular rather than linear. But he never called it aether, and criticised the pre-Socratics for calling it such. I've got a source for that and might write something later. SpinningSpark 21:53, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, I'd appreciate that. (Edit: or rather, thank you for already doing it). John Gamble (talk) 20:21, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Chinese - inappropriate bias towards WuXing and neglect of BaGua

This article places a lot of emphasis on the WuXing, a set of 5 elements in Chinese philosophy, which doesn't align with the classical elements from the rest of this article. Meanwhile, at the time of me writing this, the article entirely neglects the fact that Chinese philosophy has a very popular system that perfectly aligns with the classical elements featured throughout this article. It's called BaGua - the first 4 of the 8 elements in BaGua are the same 4 elements that this article focuses on (Fire, Water, Earth and Heaven/Sky/Air).

Significance of the BaGua classical elements

The BaGua is so prominent that the famous book 'I Ching' is based on it, and a major martial art (BaGuaZhang) is named after it and based on its principles, and an even more popular art (TaiJiQuan) heavily incorporates its principles. Note also that these four elements are represented as trigrams in the corners of the South Korean flag purely because they come from the Chinese BaGua - all 8 of which are seen on the older (Joseon Dynasty) flags. Notice that even the main table on the WuXing page of Wikipedia has 8 columns as it is based on the BaGua. Such is the influence of the BaGua with regards to the classical elements that this article focuses on, and beyond. So why on earth would we talk so much about the WuXing which doesn't match the rest of this article, and fail to mention the BaGua which perfectly matches the concept of this article (and extends it in so much detail)?

BaGua and WuXing in TaiJiQuan

Note that in TaiJiQuan we start with the four classical elements (Fire, Water, Earth and Heaven/Sky/Air) as our four main moves (Peng, Lu, Ji, An), which are the primary half of the BaGua 8 elements, and we often add the fifth (Void, with a move we call Sung), to these four, thus matching the full five classical elements like the Japanese GoDai and all the other cultures that have five elements in this article (try a quick Google of Sung Peng Lu Ji An for sources). The other half of the BaGua elements then represents a secondary level of techniques in TaiJiQuan. And while we use the BaGua 8 elements as hand energies, we use the WuXing 5 elements as stance movements, all working together. Many diagrams in Google show them blended, also. Thus they are not conflicting schools of thought. All of this was summed up hundreds of years ago in the TaiJiQuanJing.

In summary

It's clear that the entirety of this article except for the Chinese parts of it are focused on the primary half of the BaGua rather than the WuXing - so the Chinese parts should follow this. Therefore can someone kindly deal with the inappropriate bias towards the (almost irrelevant) WuXing when referring to Chinese elements in this article, and properly account for the (no less prominent) BaGua elements as these actually perfectly align with the rest of this article? I'm not an expert Wikipedia Editor - I would be tempted to put all of the info I've written above into the article but I am aware it needs to be written in a particular style and that is not something I'm adept in, so I'm leaving it to you guys to sort out from here, if you care enough to do so. BritishWikipedian (talk) 20:08, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

I don't know why I'm watching this article but I do know that I am ignorant of the topic and won't be any help. However, the important part about editing is to take things slowly (don't change too much in a short time) and to add references. Information should be based on secondary reliable sources, preferably academic treatments of a general nature. For example, a book enthusing about a particular idea might have too much emphasis on that idea and would not be a desirable reference. I gather you are talking about adjusting Classical element#China rather than other parts of the article? You don't need to worry much about syntax, someone will sort out any problems. Questions can be asked at WP:Teahouse. Johnuniq (talk) 21:41, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice, it seems a bit hard for me so I'm just adding a bit of expertise on the subjectmatter in order to point a more competent editor in the right direction regarding the subject. I am suggesting amendments be made to all references to China/Chinese culture on this page, including that section you mentioned as well as the box in the top right that can be found on many different pages. BritishWikipedian (talk) 21:58, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

I mentioned further up this page that I am not convinced that the Chinese elements belong in this article at all. Classical elements means the system that evolved in Ancient Greece. It is unarguable that the Medieval Europe and Ancient Roman versions derived from the Greek, and I think it is verifiable that there is a connection from Greece to Mesopotamia and Persia. Those are all interconnected ideas and form a single unified subject. It may be that all the world derived the idea from China, but so far, we have no sources saying so. The similarities may be no more than coincidence, or even made to look more similar than they really are by the expectation bias of editors here. SpinningSpark 22:22, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Are you saying that the Chinese BaGua system needs to (a) prove it evolved from, into or alongside the Greek classical element theory, or are you saying (b) so long as they are the same theory it's fine if they were discovered/devised independently of each other? I can't say how far back the oldest records of BaGua go, but I can say that the primary half of the BaGua is identical to the four elements of the Greek system, and that BaGua not only extends this system into 8 from 4 (after expanding from 2 (Yin and Yang) into 4), but it then multiplies the 8 trigams into 64 hexagrams, and then squares them to create the concept of the I Ching which is dated back to the Western Zhou period (1000–750 BC) - that's just the most obvious traceable record that comes to mind for the hyper extended version of the identical concept. BritishWikipedian (talk) 19:50, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm saying it should be split into a separate article, and what you have just said convinces me of that all the more. There is nothing like Ying and Yang in the classical elements, nor is there the idea that they can be further split into 8 then 64. The Classical elements were meant to be the fundamental substances that cannot be further divided. SpinningSpark 00:41, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

I suggest that the Greek theory is perfectly contained within, and extended by, the Chinese theory. We can agree to disagree on that though. BritishWikipedian (talk) 01:24, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

It's not a case of disagreeing. It's a matter of what do reliable sources say. Are the two related together by sources? So far, I've not seen anything. SpinningSpark 01:30, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

I just came across this discussion and thought that the comparative study of Greek and Chinese Science by G. E. R. Lloyd and Nathan Sivin, The Way and the Word: Science and Medicine in Early China and Greece (2002), might have something to say about the relation between Greek and Chinese matter theories. After a quick look I came across this interesting comment:

Greek element theories claim that things are composed of basic constituents that do not necessarily resemble what they constitute. This claim built on the idea that reality is hidden at some deeper level than human senses can apprehend. But that fundamental claim had no counterpart in China. Chinese discussed change in terms not of rearranging basic materials but of the dynamic mutation of a unitary ch'i, which they sometimes analyzed in two complementary aspects of a process in time or configuration in space (yin and yang) or sometimes as five aspects (wu-hsing, "five phases"). Wu-hsing used to be mistranslated as "five elements," but it corresponds to neither classical nor modern concepts of elements.

I leave it to those who know more about Chinese science to deal with how this interpretation by two noted historians of Greek (Lloyd) and Chinese science (Sivin) relates to the place of Chinese theory in this article. I would recommend considering what Lloyd has to say about Chinese science here and in his later works. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 03:15, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Lloyd and Sivin are not alone in the opinion that interpreting the Chinese system as "elements" is misconstrued or a mistranslation. Keekok Lee in Warp and Weft, Chinese Language and Culture and Hung Sying Jing and Allen Batteau in The Dragon in the Cockpit both say that the Chinese "elements" are not elements, but features or characteristics. They have nothing to do with fundamental substances. SpinningSpark 08:51, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

In Chinese language, terms like 'elements' and 'energies' are often used interchangeably. The Bagua are often called powers or energies, and the Wuxing are often called phases. This does not mean they are not also material elements. So we need to be careful not to be thrown by the Chinese to English translation issue - similar to how Dao can confusingly mean both God and Religion, because they are considered the same thing in Daoist theory, or how Tian can mean Heaven or Sky or Day, which in English would be distinctly different words and concepts but in Chinese it's like one deep concept of inter-related subconcepts. In fact, while speaking on material vs energy, I believe even modern western physics would consider energy the most basic form of matter, such that energy can become more tangible matter through nuclear fission, and the reverse process can happen through fusion, if I'm not mistaken. Similarly, for the Chinese to deepen the Greek 4 elements concept while retaining it in tact as a piece of their own theory, it is not necessarily a conflict or disagreement that divorces the relation between these two theories (unless the original Greek theorists explicitly declared that their elements could not be divided into Yin & Yang (positive & negative genders/charges) or expanded into statuses & changes etc, and had clear consensus about this).

To clarify Taiji/Bagua creation theory: first there is nothing (Wuji), then there is oneness (Taiji) which divides into two genders (Yin & Yang) then into 4 core energies (matching the four in this article), then 8 energies including primary and secondary energies (collectively the Bagua trigrams), then 8^2 = 64 statuses (the hexagrams of the Yijing), then 64^2 = 4096 changes in the Yijing.

Hopefully that helps someone to understand what's going on with the Chinese theory, and what my case is for modifying this article. By all means have Bagua in its own article, I'm just asking for a correction of reference - demoting reference to Wuxing which is barely related to the Greek concept, and promoting a reference to Bagua (which perfectly contains and then greatly extends the theory of the same four elements, thus is surely worth a mention even if it doesn't say much before linking out). BritishWikipedian (talk) 23:59, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Aristotle on elements (broadly defined)

@JKeck: Two recent edits have incorporated lengthy direct quotations of Aristotle's general discussions of elements (broadly defined) from his De caelo and Metaphysics into an article focused on the elements of matter. While these discussion may be related to what Aristotle and others have to say about the material elements, standing as they do with no discussion from secondary sources, they are not positive contributions to this article. The issues Aristotle raises may be relevant, but at the moment there is nothing to show what they contribute to the Greek concepts of material elements. Some further research into the secondary literature on Greek science (or natural philosophy if your prefer) seems called for in order to justify the inclusion of these passages. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 17:47, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

I think the quotations are justified because they illuminate the context of a discussion of elements: it's not as if "element" is some sort of thing that people have plucked out of thin air. The De Caelo quotation is directly applicable to matter and in fact applies to any definition of element in any tradition. The Metaphysics quotation shows how "element" is used in contexts apart from matter and the second version shows how people apply "element" even to atoms. I might grant you that since these quotations have broader applicability even beyond the Greek tradition they might go elsewhere in the article, say in the introduction. But I think the passages belong somewhere in the article in some form. JKeck (talk) 20:37, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

The problem I have is that the quotations are presented as unproblematic statements, without showing how they relate to the classical concept of the material elements, which is the subject of this article. Under Wikipedia's No Original Research policy, such an interpretation would require a citation of secondary published sources supporting your implicit claim that Aristotle's concept of the four (or five) elements is in some way related to these two cited passages. Lacking an explicit connection to the material elements, their connection to the subject of this article is tenuous. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 02:28, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

I think the first quotation is ok. It relates directly to the subject in hand and Aristotle is one of, if not the primary, source of our understanding of the classical elements. The second one is going way off topic. It is a discussion of the usage of the word element in different fields, not at all related to the subject here. That comes under WP:OFFTOPIC and possibly also WP:UNDUE and WP:NOTDIC. SpinningSpark 09:15, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

I see your distinction between the two quotations; I've removed the second one as off topic. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 01:03, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Wind or air?

I'd love to read more about whether the element is wind or air, and the different ways different languages reffer to it. Mateussf (talk) 00:50, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

Irrelevant images

Fludd

Wolffort

@Johnbod: @Neoclassicism Enthusiast: You have added two images [[5]] [[6]] which are artistically decorative but did not contribute to or illustrate the ideas of the article. Since the article seems somewhat heavy on illustrations and these in particular seem to go beyond the criteria set forth in MOS:IMAGERELEVANCE, I recommend removing them from the article.

I look forward to comments. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 02:21, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Steve, both your links go to the same edit inserting the Chelsea porcelain image. On the face of it, we have too many images of personification of the elements. There is also the paintings by Giuseppe Arcimboldo and Artus Wolffort. What is interesting here though, is I don't believe the Greeks personified the elements. They are not listed in Who's Who in Classical Mythology despite the Greeks beng fond of personifying almost every concept under the sun. It would be good if we could establish when personification became a thing and then one of these images could illustrate it. SpinningSpark 09:48, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't agree at all. To my mind the dubious image is the Fludd one, which is not explained, & I imagine illustrates some perhaps personal Renaissance Neoplatonic idea that I suspect would not have rung any bells with ancient Greeks. No doubt the Greeks personified the elements the way they personified everything else - by imagining a deity. That could certainly be added. The article is not heavily illustrated, & while more could be said about later personifications, that we have (fairly self-explanatory) pictures pictures but no text, is an an argument for keeping them, not removing them. Johnbod (talk) 10:33, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Where is the evidence that the Greeks personified the elements? The Wolffort painting is suggestive of Hephaestus. My Who's Who in Classical Mythology says the Roman equivalent, Vulcan, was sometimes considered the personification of fire. By implication, the Greeks didn't do it since this is stated in Hephaestus's entry and why call out the Romans explicitly if it was a general thing? SpinningSpark 11:47, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Allegories of the Classical elemnts, by Giuseppe Arcimboldo. From left to right: air, fire, earth and water

Sorry for my error in pasting the link; here's the link to the second edit which introduced the collection of Giuseppe Arcimboldo's Allegories of the Classical elements [[7]]. The point I was making was that neither the Chelsea Porcelain image, nor Arcimboldo's Allegories of the Classical elements do anything to contribute to the understanding of the classical elements during the period (say before Lavoisier) when they provided an acceptable scientific model.

Of the two other illustrations mentioned here, the Fludd one does provide a neoplatonic model of the place of the elements in the cosmic scheme of things, so does say something about the elements and is appropriate here. Probably it's caption could be improved.

The Wolfort painting struck me as pushing the limits, but given its antique theme, I didn't want to push things by proposing its removal. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 17:10, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

"...would not have rung any bells with ancient Greeks". I'm pretty sure Ancient Greeks would have had no trouble identifying the characters in the FluddWolffort painting. I think they are, left-to-right, Hephaestus, HermesApollo, Poseidon, and Demeter, representing respectively fire, air, water and earth. But just because they are the god(esse)s of something does not make them that thing personified. For example, Hades is the god of the Underworld but that does not make him death personified. That would be Thanatos. Ares is the god of war, but strife personified is Eris. SpinningSpark 17:49, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Very likely; it was the Fludd I said would have puzzled them. No doubt you are right about what Greeks would have made of the Wolffort, but whether the artist intended his image to be read that way is more doubtful. He would certainly have been thinking of the Roman deities, if he thought that way at all, and they mostly don't really have their normal attributes. One would have to see what he might have found in emblem books. Johnbod (talk) 18:14, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Yes, sorry, I was looking at the Wolffort, not FluddArcimboldo. You are right, FluddArcimboldo is much more obscure in an ancient context. And not much better in a modern one. That's got my vote for the chop. SpinningSpark 20:19, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

The Fludd diagram is the diagram of the elements within the neoplatonic model in the cosmic order, labeled De musica mundana, which I make "on the music of the world", or more loosely "on the harmonies of the universe". I think you're not referring to the Fludd diagram but to the four personifications by Giuseppe Arcimboldo.

If we want to include artistic works like Arcimaboldo's or the Chelsea porcelains, we probably should open a new section under Modern history labled something like influences on art to make it clear were not dealing with the early scientific / philosophical concept. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 18:25, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

(Deep sigh) I know what I'm referring to, thank you! I said "To my mind the dubious image is the Fludd one, which is not explained, & I imagine illustrates some perhaps personal Renaissance Neoplatonic idea that I suspect would not have rung any bells with ancient Greeks." It appears I was right. The Fludd diagram (like anything Neoplatonic) needs a good deal of explanation to convey anything to the reader. Splendid though it is as a diagram, it probably belongs in another article. It has very little, or nothing, to do with any text currently in the article. The elements were not "influences on art", they were a subject that was depicted. Is there much "Modern history" to write about? You'd know better than I - none of the images are "modern". What we could really do with is images illustrating the non-Western sets. Johnbod (talk) 19:58, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Ok, I'm confused by the previous exchanges, & may have misread who was talking about who! Johnbod (talk) 12:48, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

If I can clarify my approach, I feel that the purely artistic depictions, inspired by the concept of the four elements, are peripheral to the discussion of the elements themselves. Let me consider four different kinds of illustrations.

1. The Fludd diagram and the "Seventeenth Century alchemical emblem" both illustrate historical understandings of the nature of the four elements.
2. A series of modern diagrams illustrate the Aristotelian and (neo)Platonic understandings of the elements in terms of sensible qualites.
3. A captioned photograph illustrates the relationships among the elements in the process of burning wood.
4. The Chelsea Porcelains, the four paintings by Giuseppe Arcimbaldo, and the Wolfort painting of the four elements are inspired by the concept of the four elements but do not depict the elements themselves.

From this perspective the artworks in groups 1-3 all depict various aspects of the elements themselves, most of which are discussed in the body of the article. In contrast, the artworks in item 4 are all inspired by the four elements but do not depict the elements themselves; they can easily be deleted (if you agree with me that the article is heavy on illustrations). If you feel these are important, they can be discussed and displayed in a separate section dealing with "cultural influences" of the four elements (to use a standard Wikipedia section title). --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 19:34, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Yes, you've pretty much said all that, and I've responded above. No, I don't agree with you that the article is "heavy on illustrations", and the only thing there is a a measure of agreement on here is that the Fludd is the most dispensable image. That the artworks "do not depict the elements themselves" is rather questionable, especially under the Renaissance Neoplatonism that certainly gives the context for the Archimboldos. "Cultural influences" may be "a standard Wikipedia section title", but it would be really inappropriate here. Johnbod (talk) 21:49, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

OK, we'll continue to disagree. I particularly don't agree that the Fludd is the most dispensable image, as it clearly illustrates his neoplatonic image of the mundane harmonies binding the four elements. I've edited the caption to clarify that the figure is about how the elements are bound by mundane harmonies (Compare Plato, Timaeus, 32^b-c).

Where do we go next? As to the relevance of images, I would follow MOS:PERTINENCE, which says "Images must be significant and relevant in the topic's context, not primarily decorative. They are often an important illustrative aid to understanding.… However, not every article needs images, and too many can be distracting." I don't see any of the three artistic works as being illustrative aids to understanding the nature of the four elements, which are an important topic in ancient, medieval, and Renaissance science. I would need a cited source that supports the claim that these artistic works depict the elements themselves in anything other than a symbolic / allegorical / metaphorical way to convince the reader of that assertion. Since the four paintings by Archimboldo are labeled "Allegories of the Four Elements", there's little basis for claiming they depict the elements themselves. If a consensus finally emerges to keep these images somewhere, since you don't like the standard section on "Cultural influences", how about "Allegorical representations" as a place for these art works. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 16:05, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

I'd leave the art-historical terminiology alone really. You think there are too many images, I don't. Spinningspark and I agree that the Fludd is the least useful. Sounds like no consensus to me. I can add something on artistic depictions, if it makes you feel any happier. Johnbod (talk) 16:32, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

No I don't, I got the artist names horribly confused. The one I thought should go is Arcimboldo. I don't know about Fludd, I can't make much sense of it, but if it represents something beyond the artist's own personal ideas, and can be explained in the text, then it may be ok. SpinningSpark 18:41, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for offering to provide something on the artistic depictions; you certainly know something about them. Since this article is about a historical topic, the Classical Elements, I don't see any reason to avoid historical terminology (whether art-historical, history of philosopny, or whatever). --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 16:52, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

• Just noting that I caused enormous confusion by getting the names of the artists mixed up. My apologies. I have now struck the names where I wrongly referred to them. SpinningSpark 16:12, 27 August 2020 (UTC)