[German version]

(στοιχεῖον/stoicheîon, Latin elementum). The primarily philosophical concept of stoicheion (originally meaning 'letter') denotes the irreducible basic components or the foundations of Being. Probably by analogy of letters with words, the concept represents an attempt to understand the bewilderingly great multiplicity of the natural world as combinations of a limited number of elements. The term stoicheion was in antiquity fundamentally linked to the classical theory, fully formulated by Empedocles [1], of the four elements earth, water, air and fi…