Heraclitus

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It is amazing that, at the same time when Lao Tzu and his followers developed their world view, the essential features of this Taoist view were taught also in Greece, by a man whose teachings are known to us only in fragments and who was, and still is, very often misunderstood. This Greek "Taoist" was Heraclitus of Ephesus. He shared with Lao Tzu not only the emphasis on continuous change, which he expressed in his famous saying "Everything flows," but also the notion that all changes are cyclic. - Fritjof Capra

Heraclitus (540-480 BCE), along with Parmenides, is probably the most significant philosopher of ancient Greece until Socrates and Plato; in fact, Heraclitus's philosophy is perhaps even more fundamental in the formation of the European mind than any other thinker in European history, including Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Why? Heraclitus, like Parmenides, postulated a model of nature and the universe which created the foundation for all other speculation on physics and metaphysics. The ideas that the universe is in constant change and that there is an underlying order or reason to this change—the Logos—form the essential foundation of the European world view. Everytime you walk into a science, economics, or political science course, to some extent everything you do in that class originates with Heraclitus's speculations on change and the Logos.  Despite all this, and despite the fact that the ancient Greeks considered Heraclitus one of their principal philosophers, precious little remains of his writings. All we have are a few fragments, quoted willy-nilly in other Greek writers, that give us only a small taste of his arguments.

He criticized 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.  

As interpreted by the later Greek philosophical tradition, Heraclitus stands primarily for the radical thesis that 'Everything is in flux', like the constant flow of a river. Although it is likely that he took this thesis to be true, universal flux is too simple a phrase to identify his philosophy. His focus shifts continually between two perspectives – the objective and everlasting processes of nature on the one hand and ordinary human beliefs and values on the other. He challenges people to come to terms, theoretically and practically, with the fact that they are living in a world 'that no god or human has made', a world he describes as 'an ever-living fire kindling in measures and going out in measures'. His great truth is that 'All things are one', but this unity, far from excluding difference, opposition and change, actually depends on them, since the universe is in a continuous state of dynamic equilibrium. Day and night, up and down, living and dying, heating and cooling – such pairings of apparent opposites all conform to the everlastingly rational formula (logos) that unity consists of opposites; remove day, and night goes too, just as a river will lose its identity if it ceases to flow.

Heraclitus requires his audience to try to think away their purely personal concerns and view the world from this more detached perspective. By the use of telling examples he highlights the relativity of value judgments. The implication is that unless people reflect on their experience and examine themselves, they are condemned to live a dream-like existence and to remain out of touch with the formula that governs and explains the nature of things. This formula is connected (symbolically and literally) with 'ever-living fire', whose incessant 'transformations' are not only the basic operation of the universe but also essential to the cycle of life and death. Fire constitutes and symbolizes both the processes of nature in general and also the light of intelligence. As the source of life and thought, a 'fiery' soul equips people to look into themselves, to discover the formula of nature and to live accordingly.

Logos

FRAGMENT 1

Men have no comprehension of the Logos, as I've described it, just as much after they hear about it as they did before they heard about it. Even though all things occur according to the Logos, men seem to have no experience whatsoever, even when they experience the words and deeds which I use to explain physis, of how the Logos applies to each thing, and what it is. The rest of mankind are just as unconscious of what they do while awake as they are of what they do while they sleep. (quoted in Sextus Empiricus, Against the Mathematicians )

FRAGMENT 50

Listening to the Logos rather than to me, it is wise to agree that all things are in reality one thing and one thing only. (quoted in Hippolytus, Refutations )

FRAGMENT 10

Things which are put together ¹are both whole and not whole, brought together and taken apart, in harmony and out of harmony; one thing arises from all things, and all things arise from one thing.  (quoted in Aristotle, On the World )

FRAGMENT 88

As a single, unified thing there exists in us both life and death, waking and sleeping, youth and old age, because the former things having changed are now the latter, and when those latter things change, they become the former. (quoted in pseudo-Plutarch, Consolation to Apollo )

FRAGMENT 51

They do not understand that what differs agrees with itself; it is a back-stretched connection such as the bow or the lyre.  (quoted in Hippolytus, Refutations )

FRAGMENT 54

The unapparent connection is more powerful than the apparent one.  (quoted in Hippolytus, Refutations )

FRAGMENT 67

God is day and night, winter and summer, war and peace, fullness and hunger; he changes the way fire does when mixed with spices and is named according to each spice. (quoted in Hippolytus, Refutations )

 

Change

FRAGMENT 12

On those who step in the same river, different and different waters flow . . .  (quoted in Arius Didymus, )

FRAGMENT 80

It is necessary to understand that war is common, strife is customary, and all things happen because of strife and necessity.   (quoted in Origen, Against Celsus )

 

Human Wisdom and Law

FRAGMENT 41

Wisdom is one thing: to understand with true judgment how all things are steered through all.  (quoted in Diogenes Laertius, Book IX)

FRAGMENT 44

It is necessary for those who speak sensibly to rely on what is common to all, just as a city must rely on its law, but even more so; all human laws are nourished by a single divine law ; for it rules as far as it wishes and is sufficient for all and is still left over.  (quoted in Stobaeus, Anthology )

Translated from the Greek by Richard Hooker ©1995

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