Heraclitus was known even in antiquity as incredibly obscure in his writings. Born in the
Greek city of Ephesus (Located on the southwest coast of modern day turkey) around 540 B.C.E; and
who’s thought flourished around 500 B.C.E. The obscurity of his work was
often glazed with immense melancholy gaining him the nickname “The Weeping Philosopher.”
We only know him through the various fragments (115 to be exact) passed down from various
different theologians, philosophers, and historians of antiquity. These 27 individuals
range from Plato and Aristotle to Marcus Aurelius and Sextus Empiricus. The fragments ranged in
topic from political and ethical issues to mere contempt for those who lacked understanding of
what he believed to be truth. This contempt of his was widespread; he said “of all whose
discourses I have heard there is not one who attains to understand that wisdom is apart from
all.” He believed most too stupid to understand his words and even gives warning to his readers
that they will likely not understand. According to Aristotle, Ionians were
in general material monists who attributed some kind of matter as the ultimate reality,
and believed that variation in the world can be attributed to change in that particular form of
matter. Heraclitus took fire to be the “primordial element” out of which everything else had risen,
this in contrast to contemporaries Thales who claimed water and Anaximenes who claimed air.
To Heraclitus all things come from fire and fire from all things.
This fire is constantly changing and ever living, like a process instead of a substance. He regarded
the soul as a combination of fire and water, a dry soul is the wisest and best, a soul tainted
with too much water is dying or dead. Throughout antiquity and modern times
Heraclitus is best remembered by his theory of perpetual flux. He stated “on those stepping
in to rivers staying the same, other and other waters flow.” In this cryptic fragment said to
be the only genuine fragment from the book of Heraclitus regarding the river; he is thought
to be conveying that some things stay the same only by changing. This in contrast to popular
opinion believing all things are changing so that we cannot encounter them twice.
Flux according to Heraclitus is not so much the destruction of constancy,
but “a necessary condition of constancy.” To better understand this think of what defines
a river. If its waters ceased to be in motion it would be redefined as a pond, lake, or simply a
dry river bed. In this case it is the perpetual flux of water that constitutes the constancy
of the river. In the same manner if our bodies ceased to change we would cease to be a living
human beings and would eventually return to its basic elements. Despite the apparent universal
change Heraclitus proposes that there is a single unchanging force that governs these
changes. He calls this “the logos” and fire is the physical manifestation of the logos.
According to him someone who understands the logos can then unlock and obtain true knowledge.
The paradoxical inextricability of opposites is explained in “the unity of opposites.” Flux is
a special case of this doctrine, showing how things are the same and not the same
over time. Heraclitus said “the way up and the way down are one in the same.” For him
unity only results from diversity, and in strife opposites combine to produce a motion in harmony.
He gives several examples in this fragment; “the same thing is both living and dead,
and the waking and the sleeping, and the young and the old; for these things transformed are those,
and those transformed back again are these.” While these qualities are not the same simultaneously,
they are the same in the respect that they constitute a complete system. Because of
these numerous paradoxes brought about when setting forth his thought, he gained yet
another peculiar nickname, “The Riddler.” While very little is known of his life and
he is largely known through quotations, his philosophy, melancholic as it is;
is none the less profound. Without the countless hours of research done by the authors of whom
I took my information this video would not be possible, for this I am grateful. If you
would like to learn more about the philosophy of Heraclitus check in the description below for the
books and e-sources that I used to compile this video. I would also like to know which of the
pre-socratic philosophers interest you the most. Make sure you like the video and subscribe if you
want to learn more about these obscure, but immensely influential philosophers.
And as always thank you for talking philosophy with me, until next time.