The philosophy of Heracletus today

Heraclitus is one of the greatest Ionian thinkers, who lived and flourished around the beginning of the fifth century BC, in Ephesus. His style of life has had an obvious melancholic character and his personality was characterized by honesty, gentleness, broadmind, strength and magnanimity. Although Heracletus has been one of the most creative and influential pre-Socratic philosophers, his surviving work consists of more than hundred twenty epigrammatic authentic fragments, in Ionic dialect, mentioned by his successors, philosophers and early Christian authors. Heracletus' thoughts and doctrines have a multidimensionality, since he does not know a fixed level, working in a broad spectrum of subjects, in reference to everyday. Heracletus has been influencing the philosophy and the literature for ages, from Plato, Aristotle, Stoics, Sextus Empiricus, Porphyrius to Hölderlin, Hegel, Nietzche, Heidenger,Whitehead, Jung, Eliot, Ibsen and Kafka.

2023

“His Dearest Enemy. Heraclitus in the Aristotelian Oeuvre“, in: Enrica Fantino/Ulrike Muss/Kurt Sier/Charlotte Schubert (eds.): Heraklit im Kontext, Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter 2017, 415-438., 2017

Aristotle, though not really an admirer of Heraclitus’ philosophy, did on the one hand acknowledge Heraclitus as a philosopher of nature in the Ionian tradition. On the other hand, he was highly suspicious of certain consequences derivable from Heraclitus’ thinking. His main target is not Heraclitus himself, but the use of these consequences within a sophistical/eristic context; however, he seems to blame Heraclitus for fostering these tendencies by overstating his views to the point that they seem paradoxical. “His Dearest Enemy. Heraclitus in the Aristotelian Oeuvre“, in: Enrica Fantino/Ulrike Muss/Kurt Sier/Charlotte Schubert (Hgg.): Heraklit im Kontext, Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 415-438.

Ancient Philosophy, 1984

Page 1. The art and thought of Heraclitus An edition of thefragments with ... Preface Bibliography and abbreviations General introduction 1 The man, the time and the place 2 The book 3 The doctrine: Heraclitus and his predecessors Introductory note to text and translation ...

Classical Quarterly, 2017

Among our earliest extant references to the word ‘philosophize’ is an unfamiliar one, from the mythographer Herodorus of Pontic Heraclea, whose son Bryson associated with Plato and Aristotle. A Byzantine compiler quotes Herodorus, probably from his book on Heracles, as saying that his hero ‘philosophized until death’ (φιλοσοφήσας μέχρι θανάτου, FGrHist 31 F 14). This is a surprising claim in light of the fifth/fourth century B.C. view of Heracles as long-toiling but not intellectual. The possibility of such a non-intellectual Heracles ‘philosophizing’ contradicts the scholarly consensus about the meaning of ‘philosophizing’, which is thought to have started out meaning ‘intellectual cultivation’, ‘love of wisdom’, ‘zeal for learning or understanding’, or ‘propensity to abstraction’. So Herodorus’ remark about Heracles’ philosophizing could mean one of two things. It could mean that Herodorus attributes intellectual cultivation to Heracles. This would go against the trend among Classical Greek authors, for whom Heracles typified nonintellectual self-improvement. Or it could mean that the scholarly consensus about the early meaning of ‘philosophy’ is mistaken. This paper seeks to determine which view we must prefer—an intellectual Heracles, or a not-always-intellectual philosophy. Because a complete determination raises fundamental questions, such as the relation between intellectual and moral virtues or between cosmological and psychological knowledge, the nature of self-knowledge and self-control, and the flexibility of concepts and exemplars, we can only make some preliminary suggestions. This paper suggests the second choice: a not-always-intellectual philosophy.

Medium -- The Apeiron Blog, 2021

Heraclitus (535-475 B.C.) was a pre-Socratic philosopher who held unique views on ontology (what things exist) and metaphysics (first principles of things). He is probably best known for his doctrine that everything is in the process of becoming. The Ionian famously declared that you can never step in the same river twice. All is moving. Everything is in flux.

Ancient Philosophy, 1984

2014

This chapter sets Heraclitus and his work in the historical context of the Ionian revolt (499 - 494 B.C.).The combined external evidence and the ipsissima verba of Heraclitus lead to the conclusion that the book of Heraclitus was not only a philosophical treatise, but also a program of radical political and religious reforms whose aim was the creation of a federal state of Ionian Greeks (presumably with further expansion of it into a Panhellenic state) in order to match and to surpass the military might of the Persian empire. In religious sphere the Homeric anthropomorphic polytheism had to be replaced by a monotheistic cult of Apollo the Sun (being a visible manifestation of his Father Zeus, the imperceptible «ever-living fire» imbued with mind, the creator of the Universe) who would unite the Greeks as a «common» (ξυνός) patron of the unified mega-polis. Heraclitus was an ideologue of the Ionian revolt and probably was connected with the «party of war» in Ephesus, hence his glorification of the fallen in battle who would be awarded with a «better portion» in afterlife and become commensals of gods in the Sun region, according to the neglected verbatim fragment in Zenobius Sophista (fr. 159A Lebedev). Heraclitus intentional «obscurity» and metaphorical language can be explained both as imitation of the oracular language of Apollo (whose prophet he claims to be by the prophetic formula “listening not to my logos…”) and as a conspiratorial protection against the spies of the Great king. Heraclitus’ project probably failed because of the destruction of Miletus (494 B.C.), but his Panhellenic ideas may have influenced the founders of the Delian League who made the Delian Apollo the patron of the new confederation. And his dream was finally realised in full by Alexander the Great.

2014

A summary of Heraclitus philosophy based on the new collection of fragments and a revised Greek text. Heraclitus' metaphysics and epistemology (theory of cosmic logos), philosophy of nature (cosmos abd fire), anthropology and ethics, psychology, political philosophy and theory of natural law, and philosophical theology are reconstructed on the basis of fresh textual evidence and systematic study of his metaphorical language.

Heraclitus of Ephesus remains one of the most perplexing figures not only in the archaic period but also throughout antiquity. The importance of his influence in the western tradition cannot be overstated. His works influenced the major movements in the occident beginning with Platonism, reaching his apex with the Stoics who considered him to be nothing less than a divine sage, and later affecting the philosophical evolution of Christianity. 2 He wrote a series of maxims as opposed to a systematic philosophy, which have been preserved in fragmentary form. Further, these adages are written in a way that gaining a definitive understanding of Heraclitus' meaning is exceptionally difficult, if not impossible to do. It is for this reason that he was given the distinctions of "the riddler" and "the weeping philosopher" in antiquity. 3 The unsettled aspects of his life are numerous. Information regarding his birth, life, and death did not survive apart from lively legends that have endured through biographers who wrote roughly seven centuries after Heraclitus' probable lifespan. Modern scholarship has tended to accept the ancient assertions from the biographer of thinkers, Diogenes Laertius (between 200 and 500 CE) concerning the dates of Heraclitus' philosophical prime in order to focus upon analysis of his philosophy. 4 Despite the prominence and lasting importance of his reporting, Diogenes Laertius is known to have been a poor prose writer, and since he was temporally removed from his subjects, he has certain reliability issues regarding dates. 5 The acceptance of that claim leaves an opportunity to better understand the writings of Heraclitus, but also the turbulent time in which he could have lived. It is in the spirit of providing more firm context of his life that this paper is being written.