Heraclitus, son of Vloson, was born about 535 BCE in Ephesos, the second great Greek Ionian city. He was a man of strong and independent philosophical spirit. Unlike the Milesian philosophers whose subject was the material beginning of the world, Heraclitus focused instead on the internal rhythm of nature which moves and regulates things, namely, the Logos (Rule). Heraclitus is the philosopher of the eternal change. He expresses the notion of eternal change in terms of the continuous flow of the river which always renews itself. Heraclitus accepted only one material source of natural substances, the Pyr (Fire). This Pyr is the essence of Logos which creates an infinite and uncorrupted world, without beginning. It converts this world into various shapes as a harmony of the opposites. The composition of opposites sustains everything in nature. "Good" and "bad" are simply opposite sides of the same thing.«To God all things are beautiful and good and just, but men have supposed some things to be unjust, others just».
Diogenis Laertius (CE. c 200) in
his 8th book «Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers» notes
that «When somebody asked Heraclitus to decree some rules, he showed
no interest because the government of the city was already bad. Instead,
he went to the temple of Artemis and played dices with children. Finally
he became misanthrope, withdrew from the world , and lived in the mountains
feeding on grasses and plants. However, having fallen in this way into
dropsy he came down to town and asked the doctors in a riddle if they could
make a drought out of rainy weather. When they did not understand he buried
himself in a cow-stall, expecting that the dropsy would be evaporated by
the heat of the manure; but even so he failed to effect anything, and ended
his life at the age of sixty».
Scholars place his death at about
475 BCE.
Heraclitus is characterized in the history of philosophy as the «obscure» philosopher, because of the difficulty of his works. Timon the Fliasios (satirical poet, c. 300 CE.) called him «Eniktin», that is the one who creates enigmas. Heraclitus wrote a single book, with the title «On Nature», perhaps divided in three sections : cosmology, politics and theology. He dedicated it and placed it in the temple of Artemis, as some say, having purposely written it rather obscurely so that only those of rank and influence should have access to it, and it should not be easily despised by the populace. When Socrates read Heraclitus book said that «The concepts I understand are great, but I believe that the concepts I cant understand are great too. However, the reader needs to be an excellent swimmer like those from Dilos, so not to be drown from his book». (Diogenis Laertius, «Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers», Socrates 22)
Fragment 50, Hippolytus Ref.
Ix, 9 1 I
Listening not to me but to the
Logo's it'is wise to agree that all things are one. (1)
Fragment 1, Sextus, adv.math
VII, 132
Of the Logos which is as I describe
it men always prove to be uncomprehending, both before they have heard
it and when once they have heard it. For although all things happen according
to this Logos men are like people of no experience, even when they experience
such words and deeds as I explain, when I distinguish each things according
to its constitution and declare how it is; but the rest of the men fail
to notice what they do after they wake up just as they forget what they
do when asleep.(1)
Fragment 2, Sextus, adv.math
VII, 133
Therefore it is necessary to follow
the common; but although the Logos is common the many live as though they
had a private understanding.(1)
Everything rests by changing.(2)
Plato, Cratylus
All thing are in flux.(1)
Time is a child playing checkers, the kingly power is a child's.(2)
Fragment 126
The hot substance and the cold
form what we might call a hot-cold continuum, a single entity.(1)
Fragment 57
Night and day, which Hesiod had
made parent and child, are, and must always have been, essentially connected
and interdependent.(1)
Fragment 10, Aristotle, de mundo
5, 396b20
Things taken together are wholes
and not wholes, something is being brought together and brought apart,
which is in tune and out of tune; out of all things there comes a unity,
and out of a unity all things.(1)
The bow is called strife, but its work is death.(2)
In the circumference of a circle the beginning and the end common.(2)
Fragment 54, Hippolytus Ref IX,
9,5
An unapparent harmony is stronger
than an apparent one.(4)
Fragment 208, Themistius Or.
5,p. 69 D.
Nature loves to hide.(2)
Fragment 209, Hippolytus Ref
Ix, 9, I
They do not apprehend how being
at variance it agrees with itself: there is a palintonos (counter-stretched)
harmony, as in the bow and the lyre.(4)
Fragment 18, Clement Strom. II,
17, 4
If one does not expect the unexpected
one will not find it out, since it is not to be searched out, and is difficult
to compass.(1)
Fragment 80, Origen c. Celsum
VI 442
It is necessary to know that war
is common and right, is strife and that all things happens by strife and
necessity.(1)
Fragment 12,91 Arius Didymus
ap. Eusebium P.E xv.
Fr12: Upon those that step into
the same rivers different an different waters flow....
Fr91: They scatter and ... gather
... come together and flow away ... approach and depart.(1)
Plato Cratylus 402a
Heraclitus somewhere says that
all things are in process and nothing stays still, and likening existing
things to the stream of a river he says that you would not step twice into
the same river.(1)
Fragment 30, Clement Strom. V,
104, 1.
This world [the same of all] did
none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everliving
fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures.(1)
Fragment 31, Clement Strom. V,
104, 3.
Fire's turning: first sea, and
of sea the half is earth, the half 'burner' ... <earth> is dispersed
as sea, and is measured so as to form the same proportion as existed before
it became earth.(1)
Diogenes Laertius ix, 9-10
He does not reveal the nature of
the surrounding; it contains, however, bowls turned with their hollow side
towards us, in which the bright exhalations are collected and form flames,
which are the heavenly bodies. Brightest and hottest is the flame of the
sun ... And sun and moon are eclipsed when the bowls turn upwards; and
the monthly phases of the moon occur as is bowl is gradually turned.(1)
One day is like any other.(2)
Fragment 6, Aristotle Metro.
B2, 355a13
The sun ... is new each day.(1)
Fragment 94, Plutarch de exil.
II, 604a
Sun will not overstep he's measures;
otherwise the Erinyes, ministers of Justice, will find him out.(1)
Fragment 41, Diogenes Laertius
ix, I
The wise is one thing, to be acquainted
with true judgment, haw all things are steered through all.(1)
Fragment 16
Most hard is to apprehend the unaparent
measure of judgment, which alone holds the limits of all things.(1)
How can on hide from that which never sets?.(2)
Thales foretold an eclipse.(2)
It is the opposite which is good to us.(2)
Fragment 55, Hippolytus Ref.
IX 9,5
The things of which there is seeing
and hearing and perception, these do I prefer.(1)
Fragment 107, Sextus, adv.math
VII, 126
Evil witnesses are eyes and ears
for men, if they have souls that do not understand their language.(1)
Fragment 61, Hippolytus Ref.
IX, 10, 5.
Sea is the most pure and the most
polluted water; for fishes it is drinkable and salutary, but for men it
is undrinkable and deleterious.(1)
Fragment 60, Hippolytus Ref.
IX, 10, 4
The path up and down is one and
the same(1)
Fragment 111, Stobaeus, Anth.
III, I, 177
Disease makes health pleasant and
good, hunger satiety, weariness rest.(1)
Fragment 88, ps-Plutarh Cons.
Ad Apoll. 10, 106E
And as the same things there exists
in us living and dead and the waking and the sleeping and young and old;
for these things having changed round are those having changed round are
these.(1)
Fragment 13
Pigs like mud <but men do not>
(1)
Fragment 9
Donkeys prefer rubbish to gold
<men gold to rubbish>(1)
Dogs bark at every one they do not know.(2)
Fragment 58
Cutting and burning, which are
normally bad, call for a fee when done by a surgeon.(1)
Fragment 59
The act of writing combines straight,
in the whole line, and crooked, in the shape of each letter.(1)
Fragment 23
There would be not right without
wrong.(1)
Fragment 53,Hippolytus Ref. IX,
9, 4
War is the father of all and king
of all, and some he shows as gods, others as men; some he makes slaves,
others free.(1)
Fragment 90, Plutarch de E. 8,
388d
All thing are an equal exchange
for fire and fire for all things, as goods are for gold and gold for goods.(1)
Sextus adv. Math. VII, 129
According to Heraclitus we become
intelligent by drawing in this divine reason [logos] through breathing,
and forgetful when asleep, but we regain our senses when we wake up again.
For in sleep, when the channels of perception are shut, our mind is sundered
from its kinship with the surrounding, and breathing is the only point
of attachment to be preserved, like a kind of root; being sundered, our
mind casts off its former power of memory. But in the waking state it again
peeps out through the channels of perception as though through a kind of
window, and meeting with the surrounding it puts on its power of reason...(1)
Fragment 25, Clement Strom. IV,
49,3
For better deaths gain better portions
according to Heraclitus.(1)
Fragment 36, Hippolytus Ref.
IX, 10,6
To him, being there, they rise
up and become guardians, wakefully, of living and dead.(1)
Fragment 62, Hippolytus Ref.
Ix, 10,6
Mortal immortals, immortal mortals,
living their death and dying their life.(1)
Fragment 26, Clement. Strom.
IV,141,2
A man in the night kindles a light
for himself when his vision is extinguished; living he is in contact with
the dead, when asleep, and with the sleeper, when awake.(1)
Knowing not how to listen nor how to speak.(2)
People that love wisdom must be acquainted with very many things indeed.(2)
The straight and the crooked path of the fuller's comb is one and the same.(2)
Every beast is driven to pasture with blows.(2)
Fragment 67, Hippolytus Ref.
IX, 10, 8
God is day night, winter summer,
war peace, satiety hunger [all the opposites, this is the meaning]; he
undergoes alteration in the way that fire when it is mixed with spices,
is named according to the scent of each of them.(1)
Fragment 102, Porhyrius I Iliadem
IV 4.
To God all things are beautiful
and good and just, but men have supposed some things to be unjust, other
just.(1)
Fragment 64, Clement Strom. V,
10, 6.
Thunderbolt steers all things.(1)
Fragment 32, Clement Strom, V,
115, I
One thing, the only truly wise,
does not and does consent to be called by the name of Zeus.(1)
Fragment 5, Aristocritus Theosophia
68
They vainly purify themselves of
blood-guilty by defiling themselves with blood, as though one who had stepped
into mud were to wash with mud; he would seem to be mad, if any of men
noticed him doing this. Further, they pray to these statues, as if one
were to carry on a conversation with houses, not recognizing the true nature
of gods or demi-gods.(1)
Fragment 14 , Clement Protreptius
22
The secret rites practiced among
men are celebrated in an unholy manner.(1)
Fragment 15, Clement Protreptius
34
For if it were not to Dionysus
that they made the procession and sung the hymn to the shameful parts,
the deed would be most shameless; but Hades and Dionysus, for whom they
rave and celebrate Lenaen rites, are the same.(1)
Fragment 93, Plutarch de Pyth.
or. 21, 404E
The lord whose oracle is in Delphi
neither speaks out nor conceals, but gives a sign.(1)
Fragment 92, Plutarch de Pyth.or.
6, 397A
The Sibyl with raving mouth, according
to Heraclitus, uttering things mirthless, unadorned and unperformed, reaches
over a thousand years with her voice through the god.(1)
Fragment 36, Clement Strom. VI,
17, 2
For souls it is death to became
water, for water it is death to became earth; from earth water comes-to-be,
and from water, soul.(1)
Fragment 118, Stobaeus. Anth.
III,5,8
A dry soul is wisest and best.(1)
Fragment 117, Stobaeus. Anth.
III,5,7
A man when he is drunk is led by
an unfledged boy, stumbling and not knowing where he goes, having his soul
moist.(1)
It is pleasure to souls to become moist.(2)
Fragment 45, Diogenes Laertius
ix, 7
You could not find out the boundaries
of soul, even by traveling along every path: so deep a measure does it
have.(1)
Macrobius S. Scip. 14, 19 (DK
22A15)
Heraclitus said that the soul is
a spark of the essential substance of the stars.(1)
Fragment 136, as Epictetum, p.1xxxiii
Schenkl
Souls slain in war are purer than
those [that perish] in diseases.(1)
Fragment 85, Plutarh Coriol.
22
It is hard to fight with anger;
for what it wants it buys as the price of soul.(1)
Fragment 98
Souls using smell in Hades.(1)
Fragment 67a, According to the
scholiast on Chalcidius
Heraclitus compared the soul to
a spider which rushed to any part of its web which is damaged.(1)
Fragment 101, Plutarch adv. Colotem
20, III8c
I searched out myself, [or I investigate
myself].(1)
Fragment 119, Stobaeus Anth.
IV, 40, 23
Man's character is his daimon,
[or Man's morality is his daimon].(1)
(comm.:The etymology of the word
daimon is the daemon, the one with an
attendant power of spirit.(See Socrates' daemon). Today's meaning of this
word is the evil spirit: devil. We must see the difference between those
two ways of thought an explain these fragment.
Fragment 43, Diogenes Laertius
IX,2
Insolence is more to be extinguished
than a conflagration.(1)
Fragment 44, Diogenes Laertius
IX,2
The people must fight on behalf
of the law as though for the city wall.(1)
Fragment 114, Stabaeus Anth.
III, I, 179.
Those who speak with sense must
rely on what is common to all, as a city must rely on its law, and with
much greater reliance. For all the laws of men are nourished by one law,
the divine law; for it has as much power as it wishes and is sufficient
for all and still left over.(1)
Fragment 29, Clement Strom. V.
59, 5
Those The best choose one thing
in place of all else, 'everlasting' glory among mortals; but the majority
are glutted like cattle.(1)
Fragment 49
One man is as ten thousand for
me, if he is best.(1)
Fragment 121
... abused the Ephesians for exiling
his friend Hermodorus on the ground of his exceptional ability.(1)
Text
1. G.S.Kirk, J.E.Raven,M.Schofield., 'The Presocratic Philosophers', A Critical History with a selection of texts, Second Edition, Cambridge University Press [1995]
2. James Fieser., Text file adapted from passages in John's Burnet's <Early Greek Philosophy> [1892]
Sources
3. The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy., Cambridge University Press [1995]
Translation
4. Giannis Stamatellos., The Presocratic Philosophers.
Attension to translation
5. James Fieser., Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy