heraclitus of ephesus ~540-480. temple of artemis at ephesus
TRANSCRIPT
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