Heraclitus

of

Ephesus

~540-480

Temple of Artemis at Ephesus

Question:

•What was Heraclitus’ great contribution to Greek philosophy?

Claim: Heraclitus was the first “metaphysician”—the

first to think on the question of the unity of being, and to discover many questions later philosophers would have about

– relativity of perception

– ambiguity of language

– identity of objects over time

– human self-knowledge

Logos: Double Meanings• Listening not to me, but

to the Logos, it is wise to agree: all things are one.

• This Logos holds always but humans prove unable to grasp it.

• The Lord whose oracle is at Delphi neither speaks nor conceals, but gives a sign…

Harmony-in-tension in Nature

• They do not understand how, at variance with itself, it agrees with itself, a backwards-turning attunement.

• Together whole and divided, accordant and discordant, coming together in one, dividing into all things.

• God is day and night, winter and summer, war and peace, satiety and hunger.

What is Heraclitus’ ‘Fire’?• Matter: Fire lives the death

of earth and air the death of fire, water lives the death of air, earth that of water.

• Universal Process: This cosmos, the same for all, none of the gods nor humans has made, but it was always and is and shall be: an ever-living fire being kindled in measures and extinguished in measures.

• Being itself: All things are an exchange for fire…

Two Fragments

• This kosmos, the same for all, none of the gods nor humans has made, but it was always and is and shall be: an ever-living fire being kindled in measures and extinguished in measures.

• To God all things are beautiful and just and good; but humans have supposed some unjust and other just.

Relativity

• The sun’s breadth is the length of a [human] foot.

• The sea is the purest [to fishes] and most polluted water [to humans]

• The most beautiful ape is ugly [to a human]; the wisest human is an ape [to a god]

: the Doctrine of Flux

• Upon those who step into the same rivers, different and different waters flow.

• It is not possible to step twice into the same river.

• We step and do not step into the same rivers. We are and we are not.

“All things flow.” 4 types

• What is the flow or change of physical elements?

• The flow or change of individuals?

• The flow of social or natural laws?

• The flow of concepts?

Cratylus the Heraclitean

• You cannot step into the same river even once.

• Nouns are all a lie and should be replaced by gerunds. A tree is not a thing; it is a treeing.

• Things seem to be, but in reality, they are all in motion, on fire.

Identity over time

• Theseus, sailing ship A to Crete, replaces plank by plank of his ship.

• Scavenger, following in ship B, picks them from the sea and replaces all the parts of his own ship, before they make land.

• Is Theseus still sailing the same ship?

• Or is Scavenger now sailing ship A?

Identity over time

• Component Parts Theory (CPT)– if any part is taken away, no

longer the same• Spatio-Temporal Continuity

Theory (STC)– if broken down & reassembled,

not be the same• Ownership Theory (OT)

– as long as Theseus owns it, it is the same

• Essential Properties Theory (EPT)– some properties essential, some

not

Self-Knowledge

• It belongs to all people to know themselves and to think rightly.

• I searched myself.

• The soul has a self-increasing logos.

Ethics: meanings = ?

• A man when drunk is led by a boy.

• Whatever anger wants it buys at the cost of soul.

• Character [is] fate.

Law (Nomos)

• The people must fight for the law as for the city wall.

Heraclitean Frame of Meaning

• Nature = Logos = changing framework of physical & intellectual world, but

• “Nature loves to hide”

• Humans must discover [and re-discover] the Logos to overcome delusion

The aeon (unending time) is a child playing, playing checkers; the kingdom belongs to a child.

(Curd #109)

Aesthetic View of Life

Just as the child and the artist play, the eternally living fire plays, builds up and destroy-- this is the game the Aeon (God, Nature) plays with himself.

Who will demand from such a philosophy a moral vindication of life? Heraclitus is not compelled to prove this is the best of all possible worlds, as if he were Christian: it is enough for Heraclitus that the world is the beautiful, innocent play of the Aeon.

It is not for the mere human to judge the world; it is for him to share in it, as a creator himself.

--Nietzsche