ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 2: HERACLITUS
HERACLITUS:
- enigmatic, word plays
- noble, left throne to brother, many such likely fictitious stories
- reality is self-regulating and structure-maintaining
LOGOS [Fr. 1]:
- all things happen according to it
- word, account, reason, speech, structure, proportion, ratio, law
[later - rational or lawful structure] - deep hidden structure of reality, alternating opposites
River and Sameness [Fr. 12]:
- River is same due to different rivers flowing through it
- flow is necessary for stability, identity
- this can refer to us, those who step into the river
All is One [Fr. 10]:
- unity because opposites need each other (hot & cold)
Conflict & Opposition [Fr. 51]:
- tension is required for existence (like the bow)
War [Fr. 53]:
- strife is justice, all things act due to strife and necessity
- Homer: war is common because all participate in it; Heraclitus: war is common because its the universal structure of reality
- other presoc: universal principles limit the chaos of war; Heraclitus: chaos of war is that principle
- reality is self-regulating and self-opposing
Fire:
- fire is Logos’ material aspect
- destroys, nourished by destruction, the becoming of logos, reinvention of the self
- it is, however, only logos-like, a material counterpart to it
Novelty:
- reality as cyclical becoming
- conflict justifies itself, has its own reason
[Plato - Heraclitus seeks stability, not becoming]
The Soul:
- first to speak of a P/A-like soul, the human knowledge-soul
- before everything was animated
- not immortal, river-like personal identity
- we unique have the capacity to decide upon our destiny
His Project:
- presocratics see change everywhere in nature
[Anaximander - things change because the pay the penalty of separation from Aperion]
[Pythagoreans - instability, reality is made of limit, shape number] - Reality is not justified by something self-same that subverts this changing, but is this change itself
- intrinsic order within change itself
- no need for external principles to justify change, change is principle-sufficient
- relation between opposites is the order [happiness-sadness, death-life, the world emerges from these relations]
- the Logos that goes along with the flow
- reality is not chaos, but its ordering is not transcendent