Heraclitus

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus (Greek Ἡράκλειτος Herakleitos) (about 535 B.C.E. - 475 B.C.E.) is one of the most important pre-Socratic philosophers. Born in Ephesus, Asia Minor, he is known as the predecessor of the idea of dialectical movement. His words sound like those of a prophet, rather than those of a philosopher. Indeed, there is a parallel to the roughly contemporary prophets of the Old Testament, only that the focus here is the cosmos, rather than the creator God. He directed people’s sights from sensory world, which people can see and touch with physical senses, to underlying unifying principles only mind can see. Much of his appeal comes from the immediacy of his per-conceptual (or proto-conceptual) statements.

As with other pre-Socratics, his writings only survive in fragments quoted by other authors. He disagreed with Thales, Anaximander, and Pythagoras about the nature of the ultimate substance and claimed instead that everything is derived from the Greek classical element fire, rather than from air, water, or earth. This is related to his belief that change is real, and stability illusory. “Fire” here is not to be simply taken as literal, physical fire, any more than Thales’ water is to be taken as ordinary water. Fire directly relates to the notion of logos. For Heraclitus everything is "in flux", as exemplified in the famous aphorism "Panta Rhei" that has been attributed to him:

Πάντα ῥεῖ καὶ οὐδὲν μένει
Everything flows, nothing stands still

The "Book"

Heraclitus’ work, referred to as the "book" has been lost, and his entire legacy consists of a mere 130 fragments, i.e. quotes extracted from later writers (such as Aristotle and Plutarch), some of which are inevitably doubtful. All of it can be read in less than 20 minutes. (The same, of course, cannot be said of the numerous elaborations on Heraclitus' thought). The problem of reconstructing a thought based on such fragments is universally recognized. Heidegger goes further in questioning our very ability to comprehend pre-Socratic texts from our contemporary perspective without fundamentally altering their originally intended meaning. Issues of translation underline the difficulty of resurrecting these fragments even through the most careful exegesis. The various translations given by scholars to the word logos illustrate the problem.

Logos and the Dialectic

The idea of the logos is credited to Heraclitus, as he proclaims that everything originates out of the logos. Further, Heraclitus said "I am as I am not," and "He who hears not me but the logos will say: All is one." Heraclitus' use of the term logos prefigures its later "glorious" career in classical Greek thinking and in Trinitarian Christianity. However, here, its meaning is still somewhat indefinite. There is a clear hint of a reference to a supreme, pervasive, cosmic (perhaps heavenly) law, or even a supreme being; but the term could also simply mean report, account, word(s), speech, etc., and, generally, more than just simply the author's own opinion, i.e., some unspecified authority.

But Heraclitus is primarily recognized as the earliest dialectical philosopher with his acknowledgement of the universality of change and development through internal contradictions, as in his statements: "By cosmic rule, as day yields night, so winter summer, war peace, plenty famine. All things change. Fire penetrates the lump of myrrh, until the joining bodies die and rise again in smoke called incense." ; "Men do not know how that which is drawn in different directions harmonizes with itself. The harmonious structure of the world depends upon opposite tension like that of the bow and the lyre."

He is famous for expressing the notion that no man can cross the same river twice:

ποταμοῖς τοῖς αὐτοῖς ἐμβαίνομέν τε καὶ οὐκ ἐμβαίνομεν

εἶμέν τε καὶ οὐκ εἶμεν.

We both step and do not step in the same rivers.

We are and are not.

Those in the history of thought who have advocated conflict as the source of progress have always seen in Heraclitus as sort of “patron saint” of the dialectic. Hegel and Engels, in particular, have saluted Heraclitus as the founder of the dialectical method, Hegel from the perspective of his panlogistic idealism and Engels from the perspective of his dialectical materialism. Referring to Heraclitus, Hegel said "here we see land," meaning that the positive development of human thought had begun with him. As for Engels, he spoke of Heraclitus’ "primitive, naive, but intrinsically correct conception of the world" (Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, 45). But was Heraclitus really a dialectician (he apparently never used the word himself)? The answer inevitably varies according to the observer.

There is indeed something like an anticipation of Hegelian dialectic in Heraclitus' treatment of the opposites. There can be no question that Heraclitus ascribes a universal, creative quality to 'conflict,' even called 'war.' Nevertheless, there is no clear positioning of thesis, antithesis and synthesis as in Hegel and Engels. What we find in Heraclitus is a strong awareness that in the universe (including nature, man and gods), a confrontation of opposites is the norm, not an accident. What we do not find is the concept of a systematic development through a dialectical process, as Hegel sees it. Some have even suggested that Heraclitus’ thought is better summarized by the notion of “identity in difference” (Plato) or “complementarity of opposites” (e.g., male and female).

Heraclitus’ insistence that change was foundational to any theory of nature was strongly opposed by Parmenides, who argued that change is an illusion and that everything is fundamentally static. Both philosophers, though, have a key point in common: they do not see reality as something one can simply grasp. For Heraclitus, genuine reality is the ever present logos at the heart of fleeting reality. For Parmenides, it is the immutable being that lies under that illusory reality.

Parallels

One is also reminded of the old Babylonian and Canaanite creation myths, with parallels to the biblical accounts of the creation and the flood, where the outcome is not presented as the result of the God's creative power, but the good god(s)' victory over the god(s) of evil. And even more simply, one remembers the Greek mythology, which Homer and Hesiod tried to improve by introducing the notions of justice and peace as opposed to conflict, a step that Heraclitus repudiated (followed in this by Hegel, Marx and Engels).

Heraclitus appears to have taught by means of small, oracular aphorisms meant to encourage thinking based on natural law and reason. The brevity and elliptical logic of his aphorisms earned Heraclitus the epithet 'Obscure'. The technique, as well as the teaching, is somewhat reminiscent of Zen Buddhism's koans.

Moreover, the Heraclitean emphasis on the nature of things and existence as one of constant change, expressed with language of polarity, is particularly evocative of another ancient philosophical tradition, that of Taoism: the Tao (or "the Way") often refers to a space-time sequence, and is similarly expressed with seemingly-contradictory language (e.g., "The Way is like an empty vessel / that may still be drawn from / without ever needing to be filled"). Indeed, parallels may be drawn between the fundamental concepts of the logos (as it was understood during Heraclitus' time) and the Tao.

Finally, Heraclitus’ aphorisms naturally bring to mind Jesus’ similarly cryptic statements that “the first shall be the last” and that “those who want to lose their life will save it, and those who want to save it will lose it.”

Character

Heraclitus was known as the "Obscure" and Plato has said he was not quite sure he understood what his predecessor really meant. As for the character of the Ephesian, it has been described as gloomy, supercilious and even perverse. He speaks as one who offers the ultimate truth, and does so with "boundless arrogance" (Jaspers). Due to his melancholy disposition, Heraclitus is sometimes referred to as the "weeping philosopher," as opposed to Democritus, who is known as the "laughing philosopher."

References
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Heraclitus, Herakleitos and Diogenes, translated by Guy Davenport (Bolinas: Grey Fox Press, 1979. ISBN 0912516364 (Complete fragments of Heraclitus translated into English)
Martin Heidegger and Eugen Fink, Heraclitus Seminar, translated by Charles H. Seibert (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1993). ISBN 0810110679. (Transcript of seminar in which two major German philosophers engage in detailed analysis and discussion of Heraclitus texts)
Heraclitus, of Ephesus [Fragments, English & Greek] Fragments: the collected wisdom of Heraclitus / translated by Brooks Haxton; with a forward by James Hillman. Penguin Books 2003.

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Heraclitus

Heraclitus at the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Heraclitus at Washington State University
The Flux and Fire Philosophy of Heraclitus
Fragments of Heraclitus
John Burnet Early Greek Philosophy: brief analysis; the fragments

General Philosophy Sources

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