======================================================= Administration AboutPresident's OfficeDivisionsCourse CatalogAcademic CalendarAbout Saas-FeeVisitor Information Arts, Health & Society AboutProgramsProspective StudentsSummer ResidenciesResearch Database Media & Communication AboutM.A. in CommunicationM.A. CurriculumPh.D. in CommunicationPh.D. CurriculumSummer ResidenciesTuition & Scholarships Admission Online ApplicationQuestions & AnswersAccreditationScholarship/Financial AidAdmission CounselorsTransfer Students Students OverviewStudent EmailStudent NewsEvent CalendarStudent DirectoryStudents GatewayRequest Documents Faculty Faculty OverviewFaculty NewsEvent CalendarVideo LecturesJobs and Positions Admission» Application & Deadlines» Tuition & Scholarships» Questions & Answers» Financial Aid» AccreditationStudents» Overview» Student Email» Student News» Event Calendar» Student Directory» Students Gateway» Request DocumentsAlumni» Overview» Alumni Association» Alumni Directory» Alumni News» Event Calendar» Request Transcripts» Giving to EGSFaculty» Faculty Overview» Faculty News» Event Calendar» Video Lectures» Jobs and PositionsMedia» EGS Publications» EGS on Facebook» EGS on YouTube» EGS on Google+» EGS on Flickr» EGS on Twitter» Conferences & Festivals» Library / Encyclopedia» Research DatabaseResources» News» Event Calendar» Information Technology» Health Services» A-Z Index» Sitemap» Contacts Heraclitus (540 BCE - 480 BCE) is certainly the most important and influential pre-Socratic philosopher. His significance is undisputable even though all we have of his work is a few more than a hundred sentences. This relative scarcity and fragmentation of material in no way consigns his thoughts to a mere collection of unconnected and tangent ideas. Heraclitus philosophy has a clear essence and focus. That everything is flux, that all things are one, and the unification of opposites, are the fundamental and lasting ideas of Heraclitus, as well as the very heart of his philosophy of dynamic equilibrium. Heraclitus argued that there was an objective truth about everything, an underlying current flowing across a time, and on to the next one. This constancy he called Logos, which was not a personal subjective thought of his, rather, he thought of himself as merely conduit of it. Logos, for Heraclitus, was the worlds rationale, its determining formula, the truth, and thus the key to everythings nature. Logos, as such, was accessible because it was within everything, even that derogatorily called common or public. The gap between realizing Logos and raveling in the banality of opinions was not a matter of something other, but of a different perspective on the same common reality. Heraclitus, therefore, was understandably opposed to the naïve empiricism of his time, and pleaded that men come to discover the depth of the souls own logos. The obscurity and ambiguity of Heraclitus style is widely acknowledged as intentional, that is, it is believed that Heraclitus style was intended to provoke his audience to discover the logos in and by themselves. What the exact topic of Heraclitus philosophy is, is a question debated since his contemporaries, and a question which has seemingly found no decision to this day. Claims range from saying that he was a moralist, a psychologist, an ontologist, a critic of society, cosmologist, or that his philosophy concerned itself with everything from the universe to theology to politics. The central idea of Heraclitus thought is undoubtedly the unity of opposites. Moreover, Heraclitus claimed that all things are one. This unity of all things is based on the fact that there is a common formula, i.e. logos, which is at work in everything to which we attribute temporal and spatial identity and continuity. Heraclitus should not be misunderstood as denying the phenomenal difference between day and night, hot and cold, up and down, and even death and life, rather, his claim is that each opposite is inseparable from its other, and that they depend on one another for their own identity. In other words, if one of the pair is removed the other immediately disappears. Heraclitus famous phrase that you cant step in the same river twice should be understood as the claim that things which seem to have a stable identity, in fact depend upon a continual interchange or succession of their constitutive parts, or outright antagonistic forces, for their identity. The statement that all things are one, has two particular consequences: first, from a divine perspective, the contrary evaluations accorded to sets of opposites are transcended, and second, that human discrimination between pairs of opposites are ultimately arbitrary. The first of these consequences was certainly endorsed by Heraclitus, the second however, was held only with qualification, namely, that the point is that humans must adjust those of their views which are purely subjective, and bring them into accord with the objective truth of the way things are. In short, people must come to realize the dynamic interplay of opposing forces as the essence of all things, both natural and cultural. Moreover, conflicting forces as the structure of the world, and our awareness of them as constitutive of all things, is essential to both order and balance. Although Heraclitus, as judging from the fragments, did not focus on cosmology, many of his ancient interprets, including Aristotle, claimed that this was his main focus. The basis for such a reading of Heraclitus is in virtue of his repeated reference to fire, for example All things are an exchange for fire, and fire for all things, as goods for gold and gold for goods, or ever-living fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. In short, Heraclitus continually refers to an ever-living fire which is not only transformative of all else, but functions almost like a universal currency. From such pronouncements, interpreters have induced that Heraclitus proposed the following doctrines: that fire is the underlying principle of everything, i.e. all things; or, that the world as a whole is a endlessly repeating process of temporal cycles, all of which begin from and end in fire; or, that particular phenomena are both constituted by and determined into fire by condensation or rarefaction. Regardless of which of these, if any, are correct inductions of Heraclitus thought, it is next to impossible to deny that fire held the dominant position in Heraclitus thought, as the primary principle or element, or the most explanatory phenomenon. Fire, for Heraclitus is not only the most dynamic element, but also the most self-regulating one. It consumes all the material surrounding it, and by consuming it, it also changes it. As such we can say that fire lives by destroying another, or that it destroys itself in creating something else. Fire, as such, is therefore more than a river the most emblematic example of both all things are one and everything is in flux, but also perhaps of logos and the unity of opposites. The question which often arises regarding Heraclitus is whether he identified fire with the god he occasionally referred to, and moreover, whether either or both of these were material manifestations of Logos. The Stoics believed that Heraclitus both identified fire with god, and saw them as manifestations of logos. Consequently, we can think of Heraclitus as perhaps the first to think the universe as an automatic field of counterbalancing forces, and yet still affirm the existence of some teleology. Prior to Socrates and Plato, Heraclitus proposed that cultivation of the psyche was the prerequisite for the good life; where psyche is understood as not merely as the life of human being, but as signifying mind and intelligence. To live authentically, Heraclitus taught, one must interpret empirical phenomena correctly, namely, as an expression of logos. Moreover, the full use of the psyches capacity involved that one also inquires into oneself. Therefore, for Heraclitus there was an inside-outside relationship between logos and psyche, that is, there was an intimate relationship of identity between the formula of natures processes and the minds thinking through and understanding that formula. Heraclitus forges a relation between these two manifestations of logos, by referring to fire in his comments on the psyche. While fire and dryness are related to life, excellence and intelligence, death and drunkenness are related to water and moisture, as he states: it is death for souls to be come water, while a drunk has a soul that is moist. He, therefore, again arrives at the conclusion that fire is most the constitutive of nature and understanding. The vitality of life, moreover, is also drawn from the ever-living fire, and a soul of fire contributes not mere life to humanity, but light and intelligence. Heraclitus aim is, as mentioned before, to awaken drunken souls and entice them to rethink their beliefs about religion, society, death and life. He also makes a firm distinction between those who seek and attain immortal fame, and those who revel in mindless satisfactions. Heraclitus also stresses man general inability to come to terms with his own mortality, that is, with death. In accordance with these diagnoses, Heraclitus prescribes the realization that men are intelligent but mortal instances of the cosmic life of ever-lasting and ever-changing fire. The influence of Heraclitus though is rather extensive, especially in, but not restricted to, the ancient world. His influence is felt in Parmenides, Cratylus, Plato, Aristotle, and even the Stoics. In more recent times, perhaps the greatest influence of Heraclitus can be found in the Young Hegelians of the 19th century. » Giorgio Agamben» Pierre Alferi» Hubertus von Amelunxen» Alisa Andrasek» Alain Badiou» Judith Balso» Jason Barker» Jean Baudrillard» Philippe Beck» Geoffrey Bennington» Robert Bramkamp» Benjamin Bratton» Catherine Breillat» Judith Butler» Eduardo Cadava» Hélène Cixous» Simon Critchley» Diane Davis» Claire Denis» Manthia Diawara» Suzanne Doppelt» Anne Dufourmantelle» Elie During» Atom Egoyan» Bracha Ettinger» Mike Figgis» Alessandro De Francesco» John Frazer» Christopher Fynsk» Heiner Goebbels» Antony Gormley» Peter Greenaway» Boris Groys» Werner Hamacher» Barbara Hammer» Graham Harman» Michael Hardt» Martin Hielscher» Brian Holmes» Mitchell Joachim» Tom Kalin» Friedrich Kittler» Chris Kraus» Manuel De Landa» Katarzyna Lazari-Radek» Neil Leach» Sylvère Lotringer» Geert Lovink» Catherine Malabou» Lev Manovich» Elissa Marder» Clem Marshall » Colum McCann» Achim Menges» Jean-Luc Nancy» François Noudelmann» Mathieu Potte-Bonneville» Peter Price» Stephen & Timothy Quay» Jacques Rancière» Laurence Arthur Rickels» Denise Riley» Avital Ronell» Wolfgang Schirmacher» Volker Schlöndorff» Michael Schmidt» Patrik Schumacher» Peter Singer» DJ Spooky - Paul Miller» Bruce Sterling» Caspar Stracke» Elia Suleiman» Leslie Thornton» Ilija Trojanow» Margarethe von Trotta» Agnès Varda» Paul Virilio» Victor Vitanza» Samuel Weber» Klaus Wyborny» Caveh Zahedi» Siegfried Zielinski» Slavoj Zizek» Thomas Zummer» Alenka Zupancic AdministrationAboutPresident's OfficeDivisionsCourse CatalogAcademic CalendarAbout Saas-FeeVisitor InformationMedia & CommunicationAboutM.A. in CommunicationM.A. CurriculumPh.D. in CommunicationPh.D. CurriculumSummer ResidenciesTuition & ScholarshipsAdmissionOnline ApplicationQuestions & AnswersAccreditationScholarship/Financial AidAdmission CounselorsTransfer StudentsStudentsOverviewStudent EmailStudent NewsEvent CalendarStudent DirectoryStudents GatewayRequest DocumentsAlumniOverviewAlumni AssociationAlumni DirectoryAlumni NewsEvent CalendarRequest TranscriptsGiving to EGSFacultyFaculty OverviewFaculty NewsEvent CalendarVideo LecturesJobs and PositionsResourcesNewsEvent CalendarInformation TechnologyHealth ServicesA-Z IndexSitemapContactsMediaEGS PublicationsEGS on FacebookEGS on YouTubeEGS on Google+EGS on FlickrEGS on TwitterConferences & FestivalsLibrary / EncyclopediaResearch Database ======================================================= Heraclitus by Johannes Moreelse. The image depicts him as "the weeping philosopher" wringing his hands over the world, and as "the obscure" dressed in dark clothing—both traditional motifs. Not considered to belong to any school of thought, but later subscribers to the philosophy were "Heracliteans". Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle, Hegel, Engels, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Whitehead, Oswald Spengler, Karl Popper, Terence McKenna, Walter Pater Heraclitus of Ephesus (/ˌhɛrəˈklaɪtəs/;[1] Greek: Ἡράκλειτος ὁ Ἐφέσιος, Hērákleitos ho Ephésios; c. 535 – c. 475 BCE) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, a native of the Greek city Ephesus, Ionia, on the coast of Asia Minor. He was of distinguished parentage. Little is known about his early life and education, but he regarded himself as self-taught and a pioneer of wisdom. From the lonely life he led, and still more from the riddling nature of his philosophy and his contempt for humankind in general, he was called "The Obscure" and the "Weeping Philosopher". Heraclitus is famous for his insistence on ever-present change in the universe, as stated in the famous saying, "No man ever steps in the same river twice"[2] (see panta rhei, below). He believed in the unity of opposites, stating that "the path up and down are one and the same", all existing entities being characterized by pairs of contrary properties. His cryptic utterance that "all entities come to be in accordance with this Logos" (literally, "word", "reason", or "account") has been the subject of numerous interpretations. The main source for the life of Heraclitus is Diogenes Laërtius, although some have questioned the validity of his account as "a tissue of Hellenistic anecdotes, most of them obviously fabricated on the basis of statements in the preserved fragments."[3] Diogenes said that Heraclitus flourished in the 69th Olympiad,[4] 504-501 BCE. All the rest of the evidence – the people Heraclitus is said to have known, or the people who were familiar with his work – confirms the floruit. His dates of birth and death are based on a life span of 60 years, the age at which Diogenes says he died,[5] with the floruit in the middle. Heraclitus was born to an aristocratic family in Ephesus, Anatolia, in what is now called present-day Efes, Turkey. His father was named either Blosôn or Herakôn.[4] Diogenes says that he abdicated the kingship (basileia) in favor of his brother[6] and Strabo confirms that there was a ruling family in Ephesus descended from the Ionian founder, Androclus, which still kept the title and could sit in the chief seat at the games, as well as a few other privileges.[7] How much power the king had is another question. Ephesus had been part of the Persian Empire since 547 and was ruled by a satrap, a more distant figure, as the Great King allowed the Ionians considerable autonomy. Diogenes says that Heraclitus used to play knucklebones with the youths in the temple of Artemis and when asked to start making laws he refused saying that the constitution (politeia) was ponêra,[8] which can mean either that it was fundamentally wrong or that he considered it toilsome. Two extant letters between Heraclitus and Darius I, quoted by Diogenes, are undoubtedly later forgeries.[9] With regard to education, Diogenes says that Heraclitus was "wondrous" (thaumasios, which, as Plato explains in the Theaetetus and elsewhere, is the beginning of philosophy) from childhood. Diogenes relates that Sotion said he was a "hearer" of Xenophanes, which contradicts Heraclitus' statement (so says Diogenes) that he had taught himself by questioning himself. Burnet states in any case that "... Xenophanes left Ionia before Herakleitos was born."[10] Diogenes relates that as a boy Heraclitus had said he "knew nothing" but later claimed to "know everything."[11] His statement that he "heard no one" but "questioned himself," can be placed alongside his statement that "the things that can be seen, heard and learned are what I prize the most."[12] Diogenes relates that Heraclitus had a poor opinion of human affairs.[4] He believed that Hesiod and Pythagoras lacked understanding though learned[13] and that Homer and Archilochus deserved to be beaten.[14] Laws needed to be defended as though they were city walls.[15] Timon is said to have called him a "mob-reviler." Heraclitus hated the Athenians and his fellow Ephesians, wishing the latter wealth in punishment for their wicked ways.[16] Says Diogenes: "Finally, he became a hater of his kind (misanthrope) and wandered the mountains ... making his diet of grass and herbs." Heraclitus' life as a philosopher was interrupted by dropsy. The physicians he consulted were unable to prescribe a cure. He treated himself with a liniment of cow manure and baking in the sun, believing that this method would remove the fluid. After a day of treatment he died and was interred in the marketplace.[17] Heraclitus (figured by Michelangelo) sits apart from the other philosophers in Raphael's School of Athens Diogenes states that Heraclitus' work was "a continuous treatise On Nature, but was divided into three discourses, one on the universe, another on politics, and a third on theology." Theophrastus says (in Diogenes) "...some parts of his work are half-finished, while other parts make a strange medley."[6] Diogenes also tells us that Heraclitus deposited his book as a dedication in the great temple of Artemis, the Artemisium, one of the largest temples of the 6th century BCE and one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Ancient temples were regularly used for storing treasures, and were open to private individuals under exceptional circumstances; furthermore, many subsequent philosophers in this period refer to the work. Says Kahn:[3] "Down to the time of Plutarch and Clement, if not later, the little book of Heraclitus was available in its original form to any reader who chose to seek it out." Diogenes says:[6] "the book acquired such fame that it produced partisans of his philosophy who were called Heracliteans." At some time in antiquity he acquired this epithet denoting that his major sayings were difficult to understand. According to Diogenes Laërtius,[6] Timon of Phlius called him "the riddler" (ainiktēs), and explained that Heraclitus wrote his book "rather unclearly" (asaphesteron) so that only the "capable" should attempt it. By the time of Cicero he had become "the dark" (Ancient Greek ὁ Σκοτεινός — ho Skoteinós)[18] because he had spoken nimis obscurē, "too obscurely", concerning nature and had done so deliberately in order to be misunderstood. The customary English translation of ὁ Σκοτεινός follows the Latin, "the Obscure." Diogenes Laërtius ascribes the theory that Heraclitus did not complete some of his works because of melancholia to Theophrastus.[6] Later he was referred to as the "weeping philosopher," as opposed to Democritus, who is known as the "laughing philosopher."[19] If Stobaeus[20] writes correctly, Sotion in the early 1st century CE was already combining the two in the imaginative duo of weeping and laughing philosophers: "Among the wise, instead of anger, Heraclitus was overtaken by tears, Democritus by laughter." The view is expressed by the satirist Juvenal:[21] The first of prayers, best known at all the temples, is mostly for riches... Seeing this then do you not commend the one sage Democritus for laughing... and the master of the other school Heraclitus for his tears? The motif was also adopted by Lucian of Samosata in his "Sale of Creeds," in which the duo is sold together as a complementary product in the satirical auction of philosophers. Subsequently they were considered an indispensable feature of philosophic landscapes. Montaigne proposed two archetypical views of human affairs based on them, selecting Democritus' for himself.[22] The weeping philosopher may have been mentioned in William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.[23] Donato Bramante painted a fresco, "Democritus and Heraclitus," in Casa Panigarola in Milan.[24] "The idea that all things come to pass in accordance with this Logos"[25] and "the Logos is common,"[26] is expressed in two famous but obscure fragments: This Logos holds always but humans always prove unable to understand it, both before hearing it and when they have first heard it. For though all things come to be in accordance with this Logos, humans are like the inexperienced when they experience such words and deeds as I set out, distinguishing each in accordance with its nature and saying how it is. But other people fail to notice what they do when awake, just as they forget what they do while asleep. (DK 22B1) For this reason it is necessary to follow what is common. But although the Logos is common, most people live as if they had their own private understanding. (DK 22B2) The meaning of Logos also is subject to interpretation: "word", "account", "principle", "plan", "formula", "measure", "proportion", "reckoning."[27] Though Heraclitus "quite deliberately plays on the various meanings of logos",[28] there is no compelling reason to suppose that he used it in a special technical sense, significantly different from the way it was used in ordinary Greek of his time.[29] The later Stoics understood it as "the account which governs everything,"[30] and Hippolytus, in the 3rd century CE, identified it as meaning the Christian Word of God.[31] Πάντα ῥεῖ (panta rhei) "everything flows" either was not spoken by Heraclitus or did not survive as a quotation of his [32]. This famous aphorism used to characterize Heraclitus' thought comes from Simplicius,[33] a neoplatonist, and from Plato's Cratylus. The word rhei (cf. rheology) is the Greek word for "to stream", and to the etymology of Rhea according to Plato's Cratylus.[34] ποταμοῖσι τοῖσιν αὐτοῖσιν ἐμϐαίνουσιν, ἕτερα καὶ ἕτερα ὕδατα ἐπιρρεῖ. "πάντα χωρεῖ καὶ οὐδὲν μένει" καὶ "δὶς ἐς τὸν αὐτὸν ποταμὸν οὐκ ἂν ἐμβαίης" "Everything changes and nothing remains still ... and ... you cannot step twice into the same stream"[38] Ποταμοῖς τοῖς αὐτοῖς ἐμβαίνομέν τε καὶ οὐκ ἐμβαίνομεν, εἶμέν τε καὶ οὐκ εἶμεν. Compare with the Latin adages Omnia mutantur and Tempora mutantur (8 CE) and the Japanese tale Hōjōki, (1200 CE) which contains the same image of the changing river, and the central Buddhist doctrine of impermanence. In ὁδὸς ἄνω κάτω[40] the structure anō katō is more accurately[original research?] translated as a hyphenated word: "the upward-downward path." They go on simultaneously and instantaneously and result in "hidden harmony".[41] A way is a series of transformations: the πυρὸς τροπαὶ, "turnings of fire,"[42] first into sea, then half of sea to earth and half to rarefied air. The transformation is a replacement of one element by another: "The death of fire is the birth of air, and the death of air is the birth of water."[43] This world, which is the same for all, no one of gods or men has made. But it always was and will be: an ever-living fire, with measures of it kindling, and measures going out.[44] All things are an interchange for fire, and fire for all things, just like goods for gold and gold for goods.[45] Heraclitus considered fire as the most fundamental element. He believed fire gave rise to the other elements and thus to all things. He regarded the soul as being a mixture of fire and water, with fire being the noble part of the soul, and water the ignoble part. A soul should therefore aim toward becoming more full of fire and less full of water: a "dry" soul was best. According to Heraclitus, worldly pleasures made the soul "moist", and he considered mastering one's worldly desires to be a noble pursuit which purified the soul's fire.[46] Norman Melchert interpreted Heraclitus as using "fire" metaphorically, in lieu of Logos, as the origin of all things.[47] If objects are new from moment to moment so that one can never touch the same object twice, then each object must dissolve and be generated continually momentarily and an object is a harmony between a building up and a tearing down. Heraclitus calls the oppositional processes ἔρις eris, "strife", and hypothesizes that the apparently stable state, δίκη dikê, or "justice," is a harmony of it:[48] We must know that war (πόλεμος polemos) is common to all and strife is justice, and that all things come into being through strife necessarily. All things come into being by conflict of opposites, and the sum of things (τὰ ὅλα ta hola, "the whole") flows like a stream. In the bow metaphor Heraclitus compares the resultant to a strung bow held in shape by an equilibrium of the string tension and spring action of the bow:[50] There is a harmony in the bending back (παλίντροπος palintropos) as in the case of the bow and the lyre. People must "follow the common" (ἕπεσθαι τῷ κοινῷ hepesthai tō koinō)[51] and not live having "their own judgement (phronēsis)". He distinguishes between human laws and divine law (τοῦ θείου tou theiou "of God").[52] By "God" Heraclitus does not mean the Judeo-Christian version of a single God as primum mobile of all things, God as Creator, but the divine as opposed the human, the immortal (which we tend to confuse with the "eternal") as opposed to the mortal, the cyclical as opposed to the transient. It is more accurate to speak of "the god" and not of "God". He removes the human sense of justice from his concept of God; i.e., humanity is not the image of God: "To God all things are fair and good and just, but people hold some things wrong and some right."[53] God's custom has wisdom but human custom does not,[54] and yet both humans and God are childish (inexperienced): "human opinions are children's toys"[55] and "Eternity is a child moving counters in a game; the kingly power is a child's."[56] Wisdom is "to know the thought by which all things are steered through all things",[57] which must not imply that people are or can be wise. Only Zeus is wise.[58] To some degree then Heraclitus seems to be in the mystic's position of urging people to follow God's plan without much of an idea what that may be. In fact there is a note of despair: "The fairest universe (κάλλιστος κόσμος kallistos kosmos) is but a heap of rubbish (σάρμα sarma, sweepings) piled up (κεχυμένον kechumenon, i.e. "poured out") at random (εἰκῇ eikê, "aimlessly")."[59] This influential quote by Heraclitus "ἦθος ἀνθρώπῳ δαίμων" (DK 22B119) has led to numerous interpretations. Whether in this context, "daimon" can indeed be translated to mean "fate" is disputed, however, it lends much sense to Heraclitus' observations and conclusions about human nature in general. While the translation with "fate" is generally accepted as in Kahn's "a man's character is his divinity", in some cases, it may also stand for the soul of the departed.[60] In Heraclitus a perceived object is a harmony between two fundamental units of change, a waxing and a waning. He typically uses the ordinary word "to become" (gignesthai or ginesthai, root sense of being born), which led to his being characterized as the philosopher of becoming rather than of being. He recognizes the changing of objects with the flow of time. How can that be a real thing which is never in the same state? ... for at the moment that the observer approaches, then they become other ... so that you cannot get any further in knowing their nature or state .... but if that which knows and that which is known exist ever ... then I do not think they can resemble a process or flux .... In Plato one experienced unit is a state, or object existing, which can be observed. The time parameter is set at "ever"; that is, the state is to be presumed present between observations. Change is to be deduced by comparing observations, but no matter how many of those you are able to make, you cannot get through the mysterious gap between them to account for the change that must be occurring there. Stoicism was a philosophical school which flourished between the 3rd century BCE and about the 3rd century CE. It began among the Greeks and became the major philosophy of the Roman Empire before declining with the rise of Christianity in the 3rd century. Throughout their long tenure the Stoics believed that the major tenets of their philosophy derived from the thought of Heraclitus.[62] According to Long, "the importance of Heraclitus to later Stoics is evident most plainly in Marcus Aurelius."[63] Explicit connections of the earliest Stoics to Heraclitus showing how they arrived at their interpretation are missing but they can be inferred from the Stoic fragments. Long concludes to "modifications of Heraclitus."[64] The Stoics were interested in Heraclitus' treatment of fire. In addition to seeing it as the most fundamental of the four elements and the one that is quantified and determines the quantity (logos) of the other three, he presents fire as the cosmos, which was not made by any of the gods or men, but "was and is and ever shall be ever-living fire."[65] Fire is both a substance and a motivator of change, it is active in altering other things quantitatively and performing an activity Heraclitus describes as "the judging and convicting of all things."[66] It is "the thunderbolt that steers the course of all things."[67] There is no reason to interpret the judgement, which is actually "to separate" (κρίνειν krinein), as outside of the context of "strife is justice" (see subsection above). The earliest surviving Stoic work, the Hymn to Zeus of Cleanthes,[68] though not explicitly referencing Heraclitus, adopts what appears to be the Heraclitean logos modified. Zeus rules the universe with law (nomos) wielding on its behalf the "forked servant", the "fire" of the "ever-living lightning." So far nothing has been said that differs from the Zeus of Homer. But then, says Cleanthes, Zeus uses the fire to "straighten out the common logos" that travels about (phoitan, "to frequent") mixing with the greater and lesser lights (heavenly bodies). This is Heraclitus' logos, but now it is confused with the "common nomos", which Zeus uses to "make the wrong (perissa, left or odd) right (artia, right or even)" and "order (kosmein) the disordered (akosma)."[69] The Stoic modification of Heraclitus' idea of the Logos was also influential on Jewish philosophers such as Philo of Alexandria, who connected it to "Wisdom personified" as God's creative principle. Philo uses the term Logos throughout his treatises on Hebrew Scripture in a manner clearly influenced by the Stoics. The church fathers were the leaders of the early Christian Church during its first five centuries of existence, roughly contemporaneous to Stoicism under the Roman Empire. The works of dozens of writers in hundreds of pages have survived. All of them had something to say about the Christian form of the Logos. The Catholic Church found it necessary to distinguish between the Christian logos and that of Heraclitus as part of its ideological distancing from paganism. The necessity to convert by defeating paganism was of paramount importance. Hippolytus of Rome therefore identifies Heraclitus along with the other Pre-Socratics (and Academics) as sources of heresy. Church use of the methods and conclusions of ancient philosophy as such was as yet far in the future, even though many were converted philosophers. In Refutation of All Heresies[70] Hippolytus says: "What the blasphemous folly is of Noetus, and that he devoted himself to the tenets of Heraclitus the Obscure, not to those of Christ." Hippolytus then goes on to present the inscrutable DK B67: "God (theos) is day and night, winter and summer, ... but he takes various shapes, just as fire, when it is mingled with spices, is named according to the savor of each." The fragment seems to support pantheism if taken literally. German physicist and philosopher Max Bernard Weinstein classed these views with pandeism.[71] Hippolytus condemns the obscurity of it. He cannot accuse Heraclitus of being a heretic so he says instead: "Did not (Heraclitus) the Obscure anticipate Noetus in framing a system ...?" The apparent pantheist deity of Heraclitus (if that is what DK B67 means) must be equal to the union of opposites and therefore must be corporeal and incorporeal, divine and not-divine, dead and alive, etc., and the Trinity can only be reached by some sort of illusory shape-shifting.[72] The Apologist Justin Martyr, however, took a much more positive view of him. In his First Apology, he said both Socrates and Heraclitus were Christians before Christ: "those who lived reasonably are Christians, even though they have been thought atheists; as, among the Greeks, Socrates and Heraclitus, and men like them." [73] The following articles on other topics contain non-trivial information that relates to Heraclitus in some way. Botten, Mick. (2012). Herakleitos – Logos Made Manifest, Upfront Publishing. ISBN 978-1-78035-064-6 All fragments, in Greek and English, with commentary and appendices. Davenport, Guy (translator) (1979). Herakleitos and Diogenes. Bolinas: Grey Fox Press. ISBN 0-912516-36-4. Complete fragments of Heraclitus in English. Heraclitus; Haxton (translator), Brooks; Hillman (Forward), James (2001). Fragments: The Collected Wisdom of Heraclitus. New York: Viking (The Penguin Group, Penguin Putnam, Inc.). ISBN 0-670-89195-9. . Parallel Greek & English. Kahn, Charles H. (1979). The Art and Thought of Heraclitus. An Edition of the Fragments with Translation and Commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-21883-7. Marcovich, Miroslav (2001). Heraclitus. Greek Text with a Short Commentary. Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag. ISBN 3-89665-171-4. First edition: Heraclitus, editio maior. Mérida, Venezuela, 1967. Patrick, G.T.W. (1889,2010). Heraclitus of Ephesus: The Fragments. Check date values in: |date= (help) Robinson, T.M. (1987). Heraclitus: Fragments: A Text and Translation with a Commentary. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-6913-4. Sallis, John; Maly, Kenneth, eds. (1980). Heraclitean fragments. University: University of Alabama Press. ISBN 0-8173-0027-9. Wright, M.R. (1985). The Presocratics: The main Fragments in Greek with Introduction, Commentary and Appendix Containing Text and Translation of Aristotle on the Presocratics. Bristol: Bristol Classical Press. ISBN 0-86292-079-5. Bakalis, Nikolaos (2005). Handbook of Greek Philosophy: From Thales to the Stoics: Analysis and Fragments. Trafford Publishing. pp. 26–45 under Heraclitus. ISBN 1-4120-4843-5. Barnes, Jonathan (1982). The Presocratic Philosophers [Revised Edition]. London & New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group. ISBN 0-415-05079-0. Burnet, John (2003). Early Greek Philosophy. Kessinger Publishing. ISBN 0-7661-2826-1. First published in 1892, this book has had dozens of editions and has been used as a textbook for decades. The first edition is downloadable from Google Books. Graham, D. W. "Heraclitus and Parmenides". In Caston, V.; Graham, D. W. Presocratic Philosophy: Essays in Honour of Alexander Mourelatos. Aldershot: Ashgate. pp. 27–44. ISBN 0-7546-0502-7. Graham, D. W. (2008). "Heraclitus: Flux, Order, and Knowledge". In Curd, P.; Graham, D. W. The Oxford Handbook of Presocratic Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 169–188. ISBN 978-0-19-514687-5. Guthrie, W.K.C. (1962). A History of Greek Philosophy: The Earlier Presocratics and the Pythagoreans 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Heidegger, Martin; Fink, Eugen; Seibert (translator), Charles H. (1993). Heraclitus Seminar. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. ISBN 0-8101-1067-9. . Transcript of seminar in which two German philosophers analyze and discuss Heraclitus' texts. Kirk, G.S.; J.E. Raven (1957). The Pre-Socratic Philosophers: A Critical History with a Selection of Texts (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lavine, T.Z. (1984). From Socrates to Sartre: The Philosophic Quest. New York, New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. (Bantam Books). Chapter 2: Shadow and Substance; Section: Plato's Sources: The Pre–SocraticPhilosophers: Heraclitus and Parmenides. ISBN 0-553-25161-9. Luchte, James (2011). Early Greek Thought: Before the Dawn. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-0567353313. Magnus, Magus; Fuchs, Wolfgang (introduction) (2010). Heraclitean Pride. Towson: Furniture Press Books. ISBN 978-0-9826299-2-5. Creative re-creation of Heraclitus' lost book, from the fragments. McKirahan, R. D. (2011). Philosophy before Socrates, An Introduction With Text and Commentary. Indianapolis: Hackett. ISBN 978-1-60384-183-2. Mourelatos, Alexander, ed. (1993). The Pre-Socratics : a collection of critical essays (Rev. ed.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-02088-4. Pyle, C. M. (1997). 'Democritus and Heracleitus: An Excursus on the Cover of this Book,' Milan and Lombardy in the Renaissance. Essays in Cultural History. Rome, La Fenice. (Istituto di Filologia Moderna, Università di Parma: Testi e Studi, Nuova Serie: Studi 1.) (Fortuna of the Laughing and Weeping Philosophers topos) Rodziewicz, A. (2011). "Heraclitus historicus politicus". Studia Antyczne i Mediewistyczne 44: 5–35. ISSN 0039-3231. Schofield, Malcolm; Nussbaum, Martha Craven, eds. (1982). Language and logos : studies in ancient Greek philosophy presented to G.E.L. Owen. Cambridge: Cambridge U.P. ISBN 0-521-23640-1. Taylor, C. C. W (ed.), Routledge History of Philosophy: From the Beginning to Plato, Vol. I, pp. 80 – 117. ISBN 0-203-02721-3 Master e-book ISBN, ISBN 0-203-05752-X (Adobe eReader Format) and ISBN 0-415-06272-1 (Print Edition). Vlastos, G. (1955). "On Heraclitus". American Journal of Philology 76 (4): 337–378. doi:10.2307/292270. Laertius, Diogenes. Lives of the Eminent Philosophers. . Life of Heraclitus, translated by Robert Drew Hicks (1925).. Elpenor. "Heraclitus: The Word is Common". The Greek Word: Three Millennia of Greek Literature. Elpenor. Retrieved 2007-10-10. Heraclitus bilingual anthology from DK in Greek and English, side by side, the translations being provided by the organization, Elpenor. Graham, Daniel W. (2006). "Heraclitus". The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The editors. Retrieved 2007-10-09. Graham, Daniel W. (2011). "Heraclitus". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The editors. Retrieved 2013-08-25. Harris, William, translator (1994). "Heraclitus: The Complete Fragments: Translation and Commentary and The Greek Text" (PDF). Humanities and the Liberal Arts: Greek Language and Literature: Text and Commentary. Middlebury College. Retrieved 2007-10-09. Greek and English with DK numbers and commentary. "Heraclitus the Obscure: The Father of the Doctrine of Flux and the Unity of Opposites". Archimedes' Laboratory. Retrieved 2007-11-09. Text and selected aphorisms in Greek, English, Italian and French. Hooker, Richard (1996). "Heraclitus". World Civilizations: An Internet Classroom and Anthology: Greek Philosophy. Washington State University. Retrieved 2007-10-11. Selected fragments translated by Hooker. Hoyt, Randy (2002). "The Fragments of Heraclitus". Retrieved 2007-10-09. The fragments also cited in DK in Greek (Unicode) with the English translations of John Burnet (see Bibliography). June, Daniel (2012). "The Logos: a Modern Adapted Translation of the Complete Fragments of Heraclitus". Retrieved 2013-11-22. Knierim, Thomas (2007). "Heraclitus: (Ephesus, around 500 BC)". thebigview.com. Essay on the flux and fire philosophy of Heraclitus. Lancereau, M. Daniel; M. Samuel Béreau (2007). "Heraclitus". Philoctetes: ΦΙΛΟΚΤΗΤΗΣ. Retrieved 2007-10-10. Site with links to pdf's containing the fragments of DK in Greek (Unicode) with the English translations of John Burnet (see Bibliography) and translations into French, either in parallel columns or interlinear, with links on the lexical items to Perseus dictionaries. Includes also Heraclitus article from Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition. Trix. "Heraclitus' Epistemological Views". sym•pos•i•a: σψμποσια: the online philosophy journal. Archived from the original on 2007-09-29. Retrieved 2007-10-10. "Heraclitus Series". Heraclitus' fragments rendered into the language of deductive logic on Triple Canopy (online magazine). Heraclitus the Ephesian; Heraclitus of Ephebes; Heraclitus the Obscure; Ἡράκλειτος ὁ Ἐφέσιος - Herákleitos ho Ephésios Categories: 535 BC births475 BC deaths6th-century BC Greek people5th-century BC Greek people6th-century BC philosophers5th-century BC philosophers6th-century BC writers5th-century BC writersNatural philosophersAncient Greek philosophersAncient Greek physicistsAncient EphesiansDeaths from edemaOntologistsPhilosophers of ancient IoniaPresocratic philosophersHeraclitusHidden categories: Pages containing cite templates with deprecated parametersInfobox philosopher maintenanceArticles containing Greek-language textArticles containing Ancient Greek-language textAll articles that may contain original researchArticles that may contain original research from February 2013Articles with Greek-language external linksCS1 errors: datesCommons category template with no category setCommons category with page title same as on Wikidata additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. ======================================================= A Greek philosopher of the late 6th century BCE, Heraclitus criticizes his predecessors and contemporaries for their failure to see the unity in experience. He claims to announce an everlasting Word (Logos) according to which all things are one, in some sense. Opposites are necessary for life, but they are unified in a system of balanced exchanges. The world itself consists of a law-like interchange of elements, symbolized by fire. Thus the world is not to be identified with any particular substance, but rather with an ongoing process governed by a law of change. The underlying law of nature also manifests itself as a moral law for human beings. Heraclitus is the first Western philosopher to go beyond physical theory in search of metaphysical foundations and moral applications. Heraclitus lived in Ephesus, an important city on the Ionian coast of Asia Minor, not far from Miletus, the birthplace of philosophy. We know nothing about his life other than what can be gleaned from his own statements, for all ancient biographies of him consist of nothing more than inferences or imaginary constructions based on his sayings. Although Plato thought he wrote after Parmenides, it is more likely he wrote before Parmenides. For he criticizes by name important thinkers and writers with whom he disagrees, and he does not mention Parmenides. On the other hand, Parmenides in his poem arguably echoes the words of Heraclitus. Heraclitus criticizes the mythographers Homer and Hesiod, as well as the philosophers Pythagoras and Xenophanes and the historian Hecataeus. All of these figures flourished in the 6th century BCE or earlier, suggesting a date for Heraclitus in the late 6th century. Although he does not speak in detail of his political views in the extant fragments, Heraclitus seems to reflect an aristocratic disdain for the masses and favor the rule of a few wise men, for instance when he recommends that his fellow-citizens hang themselves because they have banished their most prominent leader (DK22B121 in the Diels-Kranz collection of Presocratic sources). Of this Word’s being forever do men prove to be uncomprehending, both before they hear and once they have heard it. For although all things happen according to this Word they are like the unexperienced experiencing words and deeds such as I explain when I distinguish each thing according to its nature and declare how it is. Other men are unaware of what they do when they are awake just as they are forgetful of what they do when they are asleep. (DK22B1) Most people sleep-walk through life, not understanding what is going on about them. Yet experience of words and deeds can enlighten those who are receptive to their meaning. (The opening sentence is ambiguous: does the ‘forever’ go with the preceding or the following words? Heraclitus prefigures the semantic complexity of his message.) On the one hand, Heraclitus commends sense experience: “The things of which there is sight, hearing, experience, I prefer” (DK22B55). On the other hand, “Poor witnesses for men are their eyes and ears if they have barbarian souls” (DK22B107). A barbarian is one who does not speak the Greek language. Thus while sense experience seems necessary for understanding, if we do not know the right language, we cannot interpret the information the senses provide. Heraclitus does not give a detailed and systematic account of the respective roles of experience and reason in knowledge. But we can learn something from his manner of expression. Describing the practice of religious prophets, Heraclitus says, “The Lord whose oracle is at Delphi neither reveals nor conceals, but gives a sign” (DK22B93). Similarly, Heraclitus does not reveal or conceal, but produces complex expressions that have encoded in them multiple messages for those who can interpret them. He uses puns, paradoxes, antitheses, parallels, and various rhetorical and literary devices to construct expressions that have meanings beyond the obvious. This practice, together with his emphasis on the Word (Logos) as an ordering principle of the world, suggests that he sees his own expressions as imitations of the world with its structural and semantic complexity. To read Heraclitus the reader must solve verbal puzzles, and to learn to solve these puzzles is to learn to read the signs of the world. Heraclitus stresses the inductive rather than the deductive method of grasping the world, a world that is rationally structured, if we can but discern its shape. For those who can discern it, the Word has an overriding message to impart: “Listening not to me but to the Word it is wise to agree that all things are one” (DK22B50). It is perhaps Heraclitus’s chief project to explain in what sense all things are one. According to both Plato and Aristotle, Heraclitus held extreme views that led to logical incoherence. For he held that (1) everything is constantly changing and (2) opposite things are identical, so that (3) everything is and is not at the same time. In other words, Universal Flux and the Identity of Opposites entail a denial of the Law of Non-Contradiction. Plato indicates the source of the flux doctrine: “Heraclitus, I believe, says that all things go and nothing stays, and comparing existents to the flow of a river, he says you could not step twice into the same river” (Cratylus 402a = DK22A6). There is an antithesis between ‘same’ and ‘other.’ The sentence says that different waters flow in rivers staying the same. In other words, though the waters are always changing, the rivers stay the same. Indeed, it must be precisely because the waters are always changing that there are rivers at all, rather than lakes or ponds. The message is that rivers can stay the same over time even though, or indeed because, the waters change. The point, then, is not that everything is changing, but that the fact that some things change makes possible the continued existence of other things. Perhaps more generally, the change in elements or constituents supports the constancy of higher-level structures.As for the alleged doctrine of the Identity of Opposites, Heraclitus does believe in some kind of unity of opposites. For instance, “God is day night, winter summer, war peace, satiety hunger . . .” (DK22B67). But if we look closer, we see that the unity in question is not identity: As the same thing in us is living and dead, waking and sleeping, young and old. For these things having changed around are those, and conversely those having changed around are these. (DK22B88) The second sentence in B88 gives the explanation for the first. If F is the same as G because F turns into G, then the two are not identical. And Heraclitus insists on the common-sense truth of change: “Cold things warm up, the hot cools off, wet becomes dry, dry becomes wet” (DK22B126). This sort of mutual change presupposes the non-identity of the terms. What Heraclitus wishes to maintain is not the identity of opposites but the fact that they replace each other in a series of transformations: they are interchangeable or transformationally equivalent. Thus, Heraclitus does not hold Universal Flux, but recognizes a lawlike flux of elements; and he does not hold the Identity of Opposites, but the Transformational Equivalence of Opposites. The views that he does hold do not, jointly or separately, entail a denial of the Law of Non-Contradiction. Heraclitus does, to be sure, make paradoxical statements, but his views are no more self-contradictory than are the paradoxical claims of Socrates. They are, presumably, meant to wake us up from our dogmatic slumbers. Heraclitus’ theory can be understood as a response to the philosophy of his Ionian predecessors. The philosophers of the city of Miletus (near Ephesus), Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes, believed some original material turns into all other things. The world as we know it is the orderly articulation of different stuffs produced out of the original stuff. For the Milesians, to explain the world and its phenomena was just to show how everything came from the original stuff, such as Thales’ water or Anaximenes’ air. Heraclitus seems to follow this pattern of explanation when he refers to the world as “everliving fire” (DK22B30, quoted in full in next section) and makes statements such as “Thunderbolt steers all things,” alluding to the directive power of fire (DK22B64). But fire is a strange stuff to make the origin of all things, for it is the most inconstant and changeable. It is, indeed, a symbol of change and process. Heraclitus observes, All things are an exchange for fire, and fire for all things, as goods for gold and gold for goods. (DK22B90) We can measure all things against fire as a standard; there is an equivalence between all things and gold, but all things are not identical to gold. Similarly, fire provides a standard of value for other stuffs, but it is not identical to them. Fire plays an important role in Heraclitus’ system, but it is not the unique source of all things, because all stuffs are equivalent. Ultimately, fire may be more important as a symbol than as a stuff. Fire is constantly changing-but so is every other stuff. One thing is transformed into another in a cycle of changes. What is constant is not some stuff, but the overall process of change itself. There is a constant law of transformations, which is, perhaps, to be identified with the Logos. Heraclitus may be saying that the Milesians correctly saw that one stuff turns into another in a series, but they incorrectly inferred from this that some one stuff is the source of everything else. But if A is the source of B and B of C, and C turns back into B and then A, then B is likewise the source of A and C, and C is the source of A and B. There is no particular reason to promote one stuff at the expense of the others. What is important about the stuffs is that they change into others. The one constant in the whole process is the law of change by which there is an order and sequence to the changes. If this is what Heraclitus has in mind, he goes beyond the physical theory of his early predecessors to arrive at something like a process philosophy with a sophisticated understanding of metaphysics. Heraclitus’ criticisms and metaphysical speculations are grounded in a physical theory. He expresses the principles of his cosmology in a single sentence: This world-order, the same of all, no god nor man did create, but it ever was and is and will be: everliving fire, kindling in measures and being quenched in measures. (DK22B30) This passage contains the earliest extant philosophical use of the word kosmos, “world-order,” denoting the organized world in which we live, with earth, sea, atmosphere, and heavens. While ancient sources understand Heraclitus as saying the world comes to be and then perishes in a fiery holocaust, only to be born again (DK22A10), the present passage seems to contradict this reading: the world itself does not have a beginning or end. Parts of it are being consumed by fire at any given time, but the whole remains. Almost all other early cosmologists before and after Heraclitus explained the existence of the ordered world by recounting its origin out of elemental stuffs. Some also predicted the extinction of the world. But Heraclitus, the philosopher of flux, believes that as the stuffs turn into one another, the world itself remains stable. How can that be? The turnings of fire: first sea, and of sea, half is earth, half firewind (prêstêr: some sort of fiery meteorological phenomenon). (DK22B31a) Fire is transformed into water (“sea”) of which half turns back into fire (“firewind”) and half into earth. Thus there is a sequence of stuffs: fire, water, earth, which are interconnected. When earth turns back into sea, it occupies the same volume as it had before it turned into earth. Thus we can recognize a primitive law of conservation-not precisely conservation of matter, at least the identity of the matter is not conserved, nor of mass, but at least an equivalence of matter is maintained. Although the fragments do not give detailed information about Heraclitus’ physics, it seems likely that the amount of water that evaporates each day is balanced by the amount of stuff that precipitates as water, and so on, so that a balance of stuffs is maintained even though portions of stuff are constantly changing their identity. Heraclitus criticizes the poet who said, ‘would that strife might perish from among gods and men’ [Homer Iliad 18.107]‘ for there would not be harmony without high and low notes, nor living things without female and male, which are opposites. (DK22A22) We must recognize that war is common and strife is justice, and all things happen according to strife and necessity. (DK22B80) War is the father of all and king of all, who manifested some as gods and some as men, who made some slaves and some freemen. (DK22B53) In a tacit criticism of Anaximander, Heraclitus rejects the view that cosmic justice is designed to punish one opposite for its transgressions against another. If it were not for the constant conflict of opposites, there would be no alternations of day and night, hot and cold, summer and winter, even life and death. Indeed, if some things did not die, others would not be born. Conflict does not interfere with life, but rather is a precondition of life. As we have seen, for Heraclitus fire changes into water and then into earth; earth changes into water and then into fire. At the level of either cosmic bodies (in which sea turns into fiery storms on the one hand and earth on the other) or domestic activities (in which, for instance, water boils out of a pot), there is constant flux among opposites. To maintain the balance of the world, we must posit an equal and opposite reaction to every change. Heraclitus observes, Here again we find a unity of opposites, but no contradiction. One road is used to pursue two different routes. Daily traffic carries some travelers out of the city, while it brings some back in. The image applies equally to physical theory: as earth changes to fire, fire changes to earth. And it may apply to psychology and other domains as well. There has been some debate as to whether Heraclitus is chiefly a philosopher of nature (a view championed by G. S. Kirk) or a philosopher concerned with the human condition (C. H. Kahn). The opening words of Heraclitus’ book (DK22B1, quoted above) seem to indicate that he will expound the nature of things in a way that will have profound implications for human life. In other words, he seems to see the theory of nature and the human condition as intimately connected. In fact, recently discovered papyri have shown that Heraclitus is concerned with technical questions of astronomy, not only with general theory. There is no reason, then, to think of him as solely a humanist or moral philosopher. On the other hand, it would be wrong to think of him as a straightforward natural philosopher in the manner of other Ionian philosophers, for he is deeply concerned with the moral implications of physical theory. To souls it is death to become water, to water death to become earth, but from earth water is born, and from water soul. (DK22B36) If you went in search of it, you would not find the boundaries of the soul, though you traveled every road-so deep is its measure [logos]. (DK22B45) Drunkenness damages the soul by causing it to be moist, while a virtuous life keeps the soul dry and intelligent. Souls seem to be able to survive death and to fare according to their character. Speaking with sense we must rely on a common sense of all things, as a city relies on its wall, and much more reliably. For all human laws are nourished by the one divine law. For it prevails as far as it will and suffices for all and overflows. (DK22B114) The laws provide a defense for a city and its way of life. But the laws are not merely of local interest: they derive their force from a divine law. Here we see the notion of a law of nature that informs human society as well as nature. There is a human cosmos that like the natural cosmos reflects an underlying order. The laws by which human societies are governed are not mere conventions, but are grounded in the ultimate nature of things. One cannot break a human law with impunity. The notion of a law-like order in nature has antecedents in the theory of Anaximander, and the notion of an inherent moral law influences the Stoics in the 3rd century BCE. Heraclitus recognizes a divine unity behind the cosmos, one that is difficult to identify and perhaps impossible to separate from the processes of the cosmos: God is day night, winter summer, war peace, satiety hunger, and it alters just as when it is mixed with incense is named according to the aroma of each. (DK22B67) Evidently the world either is god, or is a manifestation of the activity of god, which is somehow to be identified with the underlying order of things. God can be thought of as fire, but fire, as we have seen, is constantly changing, symbolic of transformation and process. Divinity is present in the world, but not as a conventional anthropomorphic being such as the Greeks worshiped. Heraclitus goes beyond the natural philosophy of the other Ionian philosophers to make profound criticisms and develop far-reaching implications of those criticisms. He suggests the first metaphysical foundation for philosophical speculation, anticipating process philosophy. And he makes human values a central concern of philosophy for the first time. His aphoristic manner of expression and his manner of propounding general truths through concrete examples remained unique. Heraclitus’s paradoxical exposition may have spurred Parmenides’ rejection of Ionian philosophy. Empedocles and some medical writers echoed Heraclitean themes of alteration and ongoing process, while Democritus imitated his ethical observations. Influenced by the teachings of the Heraclitean Cratylus, Plato saw the sensible world as exemplifying a Heraclitean flux. Plato and Aristotle both criticized Heraclitus for a radical theory that led to a denial of the Law of Non-Contradiction. The Stoics adopted Heraclitus’s physical principles as the basis for their theories. Barnes, Jonathan. The Presocratic Philosophers. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982, vol. 1, ch. 4. Uses modern arguments to defend the traditional view, going back to Plato and Aristotle, that Heraclitus’ commitment to the flux doctrine and the identity of opposites results in an incoherent theory. Graham, Daniel W. “Heraclitus’ Criticism of Ionian Philosophy.” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 15 (1997): 1-50. Defends Heraclitus against the traditional view held by Barnes and others, and argues that his theory can be understood as a coherent criticism of earlier Ionian philosophy. Hussey, Edward. “Epistemology and Meaning in Heraclitus.” Language and Logos. Ed. M. Schofield and M. C. Nussbaum. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1982. 33-59. An important reassessment of Heraclitus that recognizes the literary complexity of his language as a key to interpreting his message. Focuses on Heraclitus as a philosopher of the human condition. Marcovich, Miroslav. Heraclitus: Greek Text with a Short Commentary. Merida, Venezuela: U. of the Andes, 1967. A very thorough edition of Heraclitus, which effectively sorts out fragments from reports and reactions. Mourelatos, Alexander P. D. “Heraclitus, Parmenides, and the Naive Metaphysics of Things.” Exegesis and Argument. Ed. E. N. Lee et al. Assen: Van Gorcum, 1973. 16-48. Vlastos, Gregory. “On Heraclitus.” American Journal of Philology 76 (1955): 337-68. Reprinted in G. Vlastos, Studies in Greek Philosophy, vol. 1, Princeton: Princeton U. Pr., 1995. ======================================================= ul.multicol2,ul.multicol3 {float:left;width:100%;margin:0;padding:0;list-style:none;text-align:center} HeraclitusPhilosopherBorn: c. 540 B.C.Died: c. 480 B.C.Birthplace: Ephesus, Asia Minor (now Turkey)Best known as: Greek philosopher who said all is in constant fluxHeraclitus (sometimes Heracleitus) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher whose obscure brand of metaphysics has been boiled down to the tidy maxim "you can never step in the same river twice." He is known for proposing that the universe is a balance of opposing forces constantly in flux, and for calling the basic universal constituent "fire." What little is known about Heraclitus comes from later writers, including Plato and Aristotle, who characterized his philosophy as contradictory. According to early biographers, Heraclitus was melancholic and cryptic, earning him the nicknames "The Weeping Philosopher' and "The Riddler." One of the earliest metaphysicians, he is considered an influence on modern ideas such as relativity and process theology.Copyright © 1998-2014 by Who2?, LLC. All rights reserved.More on Heraclitus from Infoplease: Heraclitus: meaning and definitions - Heraclitus: Definition and PronunciationHeraclitus - Heraclitus Heraclitus , c.535–c.475 B.C., Greek philosopher of Ephesus, of noble birth. ...Heraclitus - Biography of Heraclitus, Greek philosopher who said all is in constant fluxSuggestions for spelling of encyclopedia/heraclitus - The Infoplease spelling checker combines spelling help with our dictionary and thesaurusHeraclitean: meaning and definitions - Heraclitean: Definition and Pronunciation Warning: fsockopen(): php_network_getaddresses: getaddrinfo failed: Name or service not known in /site/html/include/amazon.php on line 71 Warning: fsockopen(): unable to connect to :3128 (php_network_getaddresses: getaddrinfo failed: Name or service not known) in /site/html/include/amazon.php on line 71 Additional search results provided by HighBeam Research, LLC. © Copyright 2005. All rights reserved. ======================================================= HERACLITUS (c. 540-480B.C.) Heraclituswas born in Ephesus, of an aristocratic family(possibly a descendant of Androculs, founder of Ephesus), butturned his back on political life and resigned his 'kingship' tohis brother (this entitled him to certain privileges such asfront seats at the games). He was the last of the great Ionianphilosophers. He was often referred to as "the riddler"or "the obscure one", due to the cryptic nature of hiswritings, as well as "the mocker" or "the revilerof the mob", due to his contempt for those who were notenlightened. (In return, philosophers referred to him as"the weeping philosopher", a humorous reference to hisclaim that all things flow like rivers. Furthermore, there is astory that his riddling with his doctors when he had dropsy("change a rainstorm to a drought") had the result thatthey did not help him.) He was certainly familiar with the ideasof Pythagoras and Xenophanes. He wrote a book, and we have whatappears to be a fragment from its introduction, in Ionian style;and he may have placed it in the temple of Artemis. However, whatviews of his we have may stem from a collection of his sayingsput together by his followers. He himself seems to have hadlittle faith in the ability of others to understand him -- heonce compared what he said to the riddles of the Oracle atDelphi. He did preach that one ought to live in accordance withNature, which became the doctrine of the later Stoicphilosophers. BiographicalFragments 1."Heraclitus son of Bloson (or, according to some, of Herakon) ofEphesus. The man was in his prime [acme] in the 69thOlympiad. He grew up to be exceptionally haughty andsupercilious, as is clear also from his book, in which he says:"Learning of many things does not teach intelligence; if so itwould have taught Hesiod and Pythagoras, and again Xenophanes and Hecataeus." ... Finally he became a misanthrope, withdrew from the world, and lived in the mountains feeing on grasses and plants. However, having fallen in this way into a dropsy he came down to town and asked the doctors in a riddle if they could make a drought out of rainy weather. When they did not understand he buried himself in a cow-stall, expecting that the dropsy would be evaporated off by the heat of the manure; but even so he failed to effect anything, and ended his life at the age of sixty." -- Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers (9.1) 2."Antisthenes in his Successions quotes as a sign of his [Heraclitus's] arrogance that he resigned the hereditary 'kingship' to his brother." -- Diogenes Laertius, Lives of thePhilosophers (9.6) 3. "riddler" -- Timon of Phlius, 3rd century B.C. satirist 4. "obscurus" -- Cicero, (106-43 B.C.) De Finibus Bonorum etMalorum 5."The book said to be his is called "On Nature", from its chief content, and is divided into three discourses: On the Universe, Politics, Theology. He dedicated it and placed it in the temple of Artemis, as some say, having purposely written it rather obscurely so that only those of rank and influence should have access to it, and it should not be easily despised by the populace..." -- Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers (9.5) Logos 1. "Of the Logos which is as I describe it men always prove to be uncomprehending, both before they have heard it and when once they have heard it. For although all things happen according to this Logos men are like people of no experience, even when they experience such words and deeds as I explain, when I distinguish each thing according to its constitution and declare how it is; but the rest of men fail to notice what they do after they wake up just as they forget what they do when asleep." -- SextusEmpiricus, Against the Mathematicians (7.132) 2. "For this reason it is necessary to follow what is common. But although the logos is common, most people live as if they had their own private understanding." -- Sextus Empiricus, Againstthe Mathematicians (7.133) Contempt for the Many 1."The best renounce all for one thing, the eternal fame of mortals, but the many stuff themselves like cattle." -- Clement, Miscellanies(5.59.4) 2."They are at odds with the logos, with which above all they are in continuous contact, and the things they meet every day appear strange to them." -- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (4.46) 3. 'What understanding or intelligence have they? They put their trust in popular bards and take the mob for their teacher, unaware that most people are bad, and few are good.' -- Proclus, Commentaryon Plato's Alcibiades I (p. 117) 4.'A fool is excited by every word [logos].' -- Plutarch,Listening to Lectures (40f-41a) 5.'Of all those who accounts [logoi] I have heard, no one reaches the point of recognizing that that which is wise is set apart from all.' -- Stobaeus, Selections (3.1.174) Contempt for Predecessors 1.'Much learning does not teach insight. Otherwise it would havetaught Hesiod and Pythagoras, and moreover Xenophanes andHecataeus.' -- Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers(9.1) 2.'Heraclitus said that Homer deserved to be expelled from thecontests and flogged, and Archilochus likewise.' -- Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers (9.1) Road to Understanding 1. 'All that can be seen, heard, experienced -- these are what I prefer.' -- Hippolytus, Refutation (9.9.5) 2. 'Eyes and ears are bad witnesses to people if they have barbarian souls.' -- Sextus Empiricus, Against the Mathematicians(7.126) 3.'Uncomprehending when they have heard, they are like the deaf.The saying describes them: though present they are absent.' -- Clement, Miscellanies (5.115.3) 4.'One ought not to act and speak like people asleep.' -- MarcusAurelius, Meditations (4.46) 5. 'Human nature has no insight, but divine nature has it.' -- Origen,Against Celsus (6.12) 6. 'A man is called infantile by a divinity as a child is by a man.' -- Origen, Against Celsus (6.12) 7. 'It belongs to all people to know themselves and to think rightly.' -- Stobaeus, Selections (3.5.6) 8.'I searched myself.' -- Plutarch, Against Colotes (1118c) 9.'Men who are lovers of wisdom must be inquirers into many thingsindeed.' -- Clement, Miscellanies (5.140.5) 10.'Unless he hopes for the unhoped for, he will not find it, sinceit is not to be hunted out and is impassable.' -- Clement, Miscellanies(2.17.4) 11."Those who seek gold dig up much earth but find little." --- ClementMiscellanies (4.4.2) 12. "Right thinking is the greatest excellence, and wisdom is to speak the truth and act in accordance with nature, while paying attention to it." -- Stobaeus, Selections (3.1.178) 13.'Wisdom is one thing, to be skilled in true judgment, how allthings are steered through all things.' -- Diogenes Laertius, Livesof the Philosophers (9.1) 'All Things are One' 1. "Listening not to me but to the Logos it is wise to agree that all things are one." -- Hippolytus,Refutation (9.9.1) 2."Things taken together are whole and not whole, <somethingwhich is> being brought together and brought apart, in tuneand out of tune; out of all things there comes a unity; and outof a unity all things." -- Aristotle, On the World (5.396b20) 'Unity of Opposites' = same things have opposite qualities (a) Same thing produces oppositeeffects 1. 'The sea is the purest and most polluted water: to fishes drinkable and bringing safety, to humans undrinkable and destructive.' -- Hippolytus, Refutation (9.10.5) 2.'Pigs rejoice in mud more than pure water.' -- Clement,Miscellanies (1.2.2) 3.'It seems that each animal has its own pleasure... The pleasuresof horses, dogs and men are different -- so Heraclitus says thatdonkeys would prefer rubbish to gold (for food is more pleasingto donkeys than gold).' -- Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics(10.5 1176a7) (b) Different aspects of thesame thing justify opposite descriptions 1. 'Physicians who cut and burn complain that they receive no worthy pay, although they do these things.' -- Hippolytus, Refutation(9.10.3) 2. 'The track of writing is straight and crooked.' -- Hippolytus, Refutation(9.10.3) 3. 'The road up and the road down are one and the same.' -- Hippolytus, Refutation (9.10.3) 4. 'Upon those who step into the same rivers, different and again different waters flow.' -- Arius Didymus (Fr. 39.2) [ most likely original ] 5.'[It is not possible to step twice into the same river] ... Itscatters and again comes together, and approaches and recedes.' -- Plutarch, On the E at Delphi (392b) 6. "We step into and we do not step into the same rivers. We are and we are not." -- Heraclitus, Homeric Questions 24 Oelmann(Schleiermacher, fr. 72)) 7.'The beginning and the end are common on the circumference of acircle.' -- Porphyry, Notes on Homer (On Iliad 24.200)) 8.'The name of the bow [bios] is life [bios], butits work is death.' -- EtymologicumMagnum, sv bios = 22b48) (c) Things are possibleonly because of their opposites 1."Disease makes health pleasant and good, hunger satiety, waeriness rest." -- Stobaeus, Selections (3.1.178) (d) Certain opposites areconnected because they succeed each other 1."Cold things grow hot, a hot thing cold, a moist thing withers, a parched thing is wetted." -- John Tzetzes, Notes on the Iliad (p. 126) 2.'The same thing is both living and dead, and the waking and thesleeping, and young and old; for these things transformed arethose, and those transformed back again are these.' -- pseudo-Plutarch, Consolation to Apollonius (106e) 3.'Most men's teacher is Hesiod. They are sure he knew most things a man who could not recognize day and night; for they are one.' -- Hippolytus, Refutation 9.10.2 One 1. "God is day and night, winter and summer, war and peace, satiety and hunger, but changes the way <fire> when mingled with perfumes, is named according to the scent of each." -- Hippolytus, Refutation(9.10.8) The Unity is Hidden 1. 'An unapparent connection is stronger than an apparent one.' -- Hippolytus, Refutation (9.9.5) 2. 'Nature loves to hide.' -- Themistius, Orations (5.69b) 3.'The Lord whose oracle is at Delphi neither speaks nor conceals,but gives a sign.' -- Plutarch, On the Pythian Oracle 404d Opposite Tensions Ensure ThisCoherence, Unity, Balance 1.'They do not understand how, though at variance with itself, itagrees with itself. It is a backwards-turning attunement likethat of the bow and lyre.' -- Hippolytus,Refutation (9.9.2) There Needs to Be Tensionsbetween Opposites -- 'strife' 1. 'It is necessary to know that war is common and justice is strife and that all things happen in accordance with strife and necessity.' -- Origen, Against Celsus (6.42) 2. 'War is the father of all and king of all, and some he shows as gods, others as humans; some he makes slaves, others free.' -- Hippolytus, Refutation (9.9.4) 3.'It is law, too, to obey the counsel of one.' -- Clement, Miscellanies (5.155.2) 4. 'Thunderbolt steers all things.' -- Hippolytus, Refutation(9.10.7) 5. 'To God all things are beautiful and good and just, but humans have supposed some unjust and others just.' -- Porphry, Noteson Homer (On Iliad 4.4)) 6.'Heraclitus rebukes the author of the line 'Would that strifemight be destroyed from among gods and men': for there would beno musical scale unless high and low existed, nor livingcreatures without female and male, which are opposite.' -- Aristotle, Eudemian Ethics (1235a25) 7. 'It is not good for men to get all that they want. Sickness makes health sweet and good, hunger plenty, weariness rest.' -- Stobaeus, Selections (3.1.176) Fire 1.'The cosmos, the same for all, none of the gods nor of humans hasmade, but it was always and is and shall be: an ever-lasting firebeing kindled in measures and being extinguished in measures.' -- Clement, Miscellanies (5.103.6) 2.'All things are an exchange for fire and fire for all things, asgoods for gold and gold for goods.' -- Plutarch, On the E atDelphi (338d-e) 3. 'Fire lives the death of earth and air lives the death of fire, water lives the death of air, and earth that of water.' --Maximusof Tyre (41.4) Summary 1.There is a single logos ('account', 'word', and 'reason')to which everyone should listen, although most are not able tounderstand this logos. This logos is an account ofreality, the reason for things being the way that theyare, the fundamental principle of the world. 2.Heraclitus has access to this all-important truth about theconstitution of the world of which men are a part, and is tryingvainly to propagate it. The great majority fail to recognize thistruth, which is 'common', that is, it is valid for all things andaccessible to all people, if only they use their observation andunderstanding. 3.The logos is the unifying formula of all things, or theproportionate method of arrangement of all things: theirstructural plan both individual and in sum. 4.The effect of the arrangement of all things according to a commonplan or measure is that all things, although apparently pluraland discrete, are really united in a coherent complex ofwhich men themselves are part. 5.Comprehension of this (4) is necessary for the adequate enactmentof one's own life. 6.There are four different kinds of connection between evidentopposites (the 'Unity of Opposites'): (a)The same thing produces opposite effects (water: fish & men = life vs. death) (b)Different aspects of the same thing justify opposite descriptions(stairs: up and down; cutting: good and bad) (c)Good things are possible only because of bad things (health andsickness, satiety and hunger, rest and weariness) (d)Opposites are stages in a single invariable process (waking andsleeping; young and old; night and day) Whatthese different connections between opposites show is that thereis never any absolute division of opposite from opposite. If you were to remove something's (e.g., health, life) opposite (i.e., disease, death), then you would not actually have it (i.e., health, life) any longer. 7. Each pair of opposites thus forms a unity as well as a plurality. So 'things taken together' are described in one sense as 'wholes', that is forming one continuum, and in another sense as 'not wholes', as single components. 8.Every opposite can be expressed in terms of god, which is eitherimminent in all things or is the sum total of all things. Justbecause peace is divine it does not follow that war is notequally divine, is not equally permeated by the directive andunifying constituent which is on occasions equated with the wholeordered cosmos. 9.God is not essentially different from the Logos. 10.The Logos is, among other things, the constituent of things thatmakes them opposed, and which ensures that the change betweenopposites will be proportional and balanced overall. God is thenthe common connecting element in all extremes, just as fire isthe common element of different vapors (they were conceived as acompound of fire with different kinds of measure.) 11.While each separate pair of opposites forms a single continuum,the several continua, also, are connected with each other, thoughin a different manner. Thus the total plurality of things forms asingle, coherent, determinable complex -- a unity. 12.This unity is hidden. The unseen unity of opposites is in factstronger than other more obvious types of connection. 13.This unity depends upon a balanced reaction between opposites.There is a connection, or means of joining, through oppositetensions, which ensures this coherence: just as the tension ofthe strings is balanced by the tension of the arms of the lyre,and there is a coherent, unified, stable and efficient complex. 14.If this balance was not maintained, then the unity and coherenceof the world would cease (just as if the tension of the arms ofthe the lyre exceeded the tension of the strings, the lyre wouldbe destroyed). 15.The total balance in the universe can only be maintained ifchange in one direction eventually leads to change in another,that is, if there is 'strife' or 'war' between opposites, i.e.action and reaction between opposites. 16.The river is a metaphor for the kind of unity that depends on thepreservation of measure and balance in change. The meaning is notthat every single thing must be like a river, but rather that acomplex whole, like the world, might remain 'the same' while itsconstituent parts are for ever changing. The unity of the riveras a whole is dependent upon the regularity of the flux of itsconstituent waters. It is a metaphor for the balance ofconstituents in the world. 17.The world is an ever-living or eternal fire, parts of which arealways extinguished to form the two other main world-masses, seaand earth. Changes between fire, sea and earth balance eachother; pure, or etherial, fire has a directive capacity. (Note:no coming-into-being of the world, it is eternal). 18.Pure cosmic fire, or ether, is the brilliant fiery stuff whichfills the shining sky and surrounds the world. It has a directivecapacity. All fire, by the regularity with which it absorbs fueland emits smoke, while maintaining a kind of stability betweenthem, patently embodies the rule of measure in change whichinheres in the world process. It is the very constituent ofthings that actively determines their structure and behavior --which ensures not only the opposition of opposites, but alsotheir unity through strife. 19.The cosmos consists, broadly, of the masses of earth, and sea,surrounded by fire or ether. The fire is the motive point of thecosmological processes. From the fire comes rain, which nourishesthe sea, and is replenished by the evaporation ascending fromthe sea. 20.The heavenly bodies are bowls of fire, nourished by exhalationsfrom the sea; astronomical events, too, have their measures. 21.Wisdom consists in understanding the way the world works. 22.The soul is composed of fire: it comes from, and turns into,moisture, total absorption by which is death for it. Thesoul-fire is related to the world-fire. 23.Waking, sleeping and death are related to the degree of fierinessin the soul. In sleep the soul is partly cut off from theworld-fire, and so decreases in activity. 24.Virtuous souls do not become water on the death of the body, butsurvive to join, eventually, the cosmic fire. 25.The uses of conventional religion are foolish and illogical,although on occasion they accidentally point to the truth. Sources: ThePresocratic Philosophers, G. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven and M.Schofield (2nd ed., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). 'AncientGreek Philosophy I: The Pre-Socratics and Plato', ChristopherJanaway, in Philosophy 1: A Guide Through the Subject, ed.A. C. Grayling (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p.336-397. 'Heraclitus',Catherine Osborne, in Routledge History of Philosophy, Vol. I:From the Beginning to Plato, ed. C. C. W. Taylor (London andNY: Routledge, 1997) ======================================================= Pythagoras' doctrine of the transmigration of souls (see Pythagoras). His cosmology is both indebted to and a ======================================================= The Greek philosopher Heraclitus (ca. 540-ca. 480 BC) attempted to explain the nature of the universe by assuming the existence of the logos, that is, order or reason, as the unifying principle which guides all things and by specifying fire as the basic substance which underlies physical reality.Heraclitus was born in the lonian city of Ephesus and is said to have renounced the privileges to which his social rank entitled him (perhaps the kingship) in favor of his brother. The available evidence for his life is too scanty for a clear picture to emerge. He is a solitary figure who claims to have sought the truth within himself, and although his work shows familiarity with the writings of other philosophers, particularly those of Anaximander, both his unique ideas and his peculiar literary style set him apart.Many fragments of Heraclitus's work, commonly known as On the Nature of the...(read more) Heraclitus from Gale. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved. ======================================================= Important Note (September, 2012) - I have submitted an essay to a competition on the foundations of physical reality. It explains how matter and fields are just two different ways that space vibrates. It is very simple and obvious once understood, has profound consequences for humanity, our sense of self in the universe knowing that we vibrate with everything around us. Please read it, rate it, and I will reply to all comments. Thanks, Geoff haselhurst (11th Sept. 2012) Given we all experience many minds and many material things, but always in one common Space, we are thus required to connect them in space and time. This was always just a mathematical solution which never explained how matter was connected across the universe. not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings.' This harmony arises from a Wave Structure of Matter in Space (we are all so we just need a bit of help to get in the top five. Given the Censorship in Physics / Philosophy of Science Journals (founded on the You are welcome to use images and text, but please reference them with a link to relevant web page on this site. Thanks! ======================================================= The Greek philosopher Heraclitus was born in Ephesus around 535BC into an aristocratic family. His enigmatic style and the difficulty of his works led him to be characterized as 'the obscure' and 'the riddler', and his unpopularity and misanthropy resulted in his being called the dark or weeping philosopher. Only fragments remain of his great work, On Nature, and these only survive as quotations and attributions by later authors. Heraclitus postulated a universal principle, the Logos (Greek for 'reason'), through which all things are interrelated and all natural manifestations occur. He also proposed that the essence of everything is fire, and he wrote that the world is an 'eternally living fire, kindling in measures and being extinguished in measures.'In a close parallel with Taoist philosophy, he believed that all things, even the most apparently stable, are in a state of flux maintained by a dynamic equilibrium between opposites, and that these opposites have an underlying connection through the Logos. He made sense of the divergent and confused nature of the world by seeing an underlying and coherent unity in which all things have a hidden link to each other, every change is ultimately balanced by a corresponding change in the opposite direction, and in which those things which seem to be 'tending apart' are in reality 'being brought together.' Heraclitus expressed his ideas of eternal change most famously using the analogy of a river: 'You can never step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing on to you.' To Heraclitus, 'good' and 'evil' were simply different sides of the same coin, and he wrote: 'To God all things are beautiful and good and just, but men have supposed some things to be unjust, others just.' A single entity can be understood in various ways depending on viewpoint, he recognized, and he gave the example of seawater: 'Sea is the most pure and the most polluted water; for fishes it is drinkable and salutary, but for men it is undrinkable and deleterious.'Heraclitus also stated the importance of people living together in social harmony, holding that each individual should submit himself to the laws of the universal harmony of the Logos. He considered, however, that most men failed to understand the Logos and so lived like dreamers with a false view of the world. He also attacked the beliefs and observances of the popular religion of his day. Heraclitus eventually withdrew from the world and went to live a solitary existence in the mountains. He died around 475BC.Though out of favor in his lifetime and often frowned-upon subsequently, Heraclitus' ideas have been influential. Hegel cited him as a source of inspiration, and Heraclitus' distinction between appearance and reality, that reality can be known only through reason, has proved to be a cornerstone of philosophical thought - 'Eyes and ears are bad witnesses to men if they have souls that do not understand their language.' Carl Gustav Jung subscribed to the idea that Heraclitus called enantiodromia (literally, 'running counter to'), namely that everything has an intrinsic tendency to turn into its opposite. Click the Amazon logo to find books by or about Heraclitus or the Bing logo to search the web for more information. MysticalTarotSymbolsKabbalahBiographyAstrologyScriptoriumSearchSite MapLegal noticesPrivacy policyContactTopCopyright © Robert Mills 1999-2014. All rights reserved.Note: we recommend that you view the Byzant website in a script-enabled browser ======================================================= HeraclitusBorn: c. 540 BCBirthplace: Ephesus, AnatoliaDied: c. 480 BCLocation of death: Ephesus, AnatoliaCause of death: unspecifiedGender: MaleRace or Ethnicity: WhiteOccupation: PhilosopherNationality: Ancient GreeceExecutive summary: Fire-centric theory of the universeGreek philosopher, born at Ephesus of distinguished parentage. Of his early life and education we know nothing; from the contempt with which he spoke of all his fellow philosophers and of his fellow citizens as a whole we may gather that he regarded himself as self-taught and a pioneer of wisdom. So intensely aristocratic was his temperament that he declined to exercise the regal-hieratic office which was hereditary in his family, and presented it to his brother. It is probable, however, that he did occasionally intervene in the affairs of the city at the period when the rule of Persia had given place to autonomy; it is said that he compelled the usurper Melancomas to abdicate. From the lonely life he led, and still more from the extreme profundity of his philosophy and his contempt for mankind in general, he was called the "Dark Philosopher", or the "Weeping Philosopher", in contrast to Democritus, the "Laughing Philosopher." Heraclitus is in a real sense the founder of metaphysics. Starting from the physical standpoint of the Ionian physicists, he accepted their general idea of the unity of nature, but entirely denied their theory of being. The fundamental uniform fact in nature is constant change; everything both is and is not at the same time. He thus arrives at the principle of Relativity; harmony and unity consist in diversity and multiplicity. The senses are bad witnesses; only the wise man can obtain knowledge. To appreciate the significance of the doctrines of Heraclitus, it must be borne in mind that to Greek philosophy the sharp distinction between subject and object which pervades modern thought was foreign, a consideration which suggests the conclusion that, while it is a great mistake to reckon Heraclitus with the materialistic cosmologists of the Ionic schools, it is, on the other hand, going too far to treat his theory, with Hegel and Lassalle, as one of pure Panlogism. Accordingly, when he denies the reality of Being, and declares Becoming, or eternal flux and change, to be the sole actuality, Heraclitus must be understood to enunciate not only the unreality of the abstract notion of being, except as the correlative of that of not-being, but also the physical doctrine that all phenomena are in a state of continuous transition from non-existence to existence, and vice versa, without either distinguishing these propositions or qualifying them by any reference to the relation of thought to experience. "Every thing is and is not"; all things are, and nothing remains. So far he is in general agreement with Anaximander, but he differs from him in the solution of the problem, disliking, as a poet and a mystic, the primary matter which satisfied the patient researcher, and demanding a more vivid and picturesque element. Naturally he selects fire, according to him the most complete embodiment of the process of Becoming, as the principle of empirical existence, out of which all things, including even the soul, grow by way of a quasi condensation, and into which all things must in course of time be again resolved. But this primordial fire is in itself that divine rational process, the harmony of which constitutes the law of the universe. Real knowledge consists in comprehending this all-pervading harmony as embodied in the manifold of perception, and the senses are "bad-witnesses", because they apprehend phenomena not as its manifestation, but as "stiff and dead." In like manner real virtue consists in the subordination of the individual to the laws of this harmony as the universal reason wherein alone true freedom is to be found. "The law of things is a law of Reason Universal, but most men live as though they had a wisdom of their own." Ethics here stands to sociology in a close relation, similar, in many respects, to that which we find in Hegel and in Auguste Comte. For Heraclitus the soul approaches most nearly to perfection when it is most akin to the fiery vapor out of which it was originally created, and as this is most so in death, "while we live our souls are dead in us, but when we die our souls are restored to life." The doctrine of immortality comes prominently forward in his ethics, but whether this must not be reckoned with the figurative accommodation to the popular theology of Greece which pervades his ethical teaching, is very doubtful. The school of disciples founded by Heraclitus flourished for long after his death, the chief exponent of his teaching being Cratylus. A good deal of the information in regard to his doctrines has been gathered from the later Greek philosophy, which was deeply influenced by it. 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