Heraclitus

Heraclitus of Ephesus (; , ; c. 535 – c. 475 BC) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, and a native of the city of Ephesus, then part of the Persian Empire. He was of distinguished parentage. Little is known about his early life and education, but he regarded himself as self-taught and a pioneer of wisdom. From the lonely life he led, and still more from the apparently riddled and allegedly paradoxical nature of his philosophy and his stress upon the needless unconsciousness of humankind, he was called "The Obscure" and the "Weeping Philosopher".
Heraclitus was famous for his insistence on ever-present change as being the fundamental essence of the universe, as stated in the famous saying, "No man ever steps in the same river twice" (see panta rhei, below). This position was complemented by his stark commitment to a unity of opposites in the world, stating that "the path up and down are one and the same". Through these doctrines Heraclitus characterized all existing entities by pairs of contrary properties, whereby no entity may ever occupy a single state at a single time. This, along with his cryptic utterance that "all entities come to be in accordance with this "Logos"" (literally, "word", "reason", or "account") has been the subject of numerous interpretations.
The main source for the life of Heraclitus is Diogenes Laërtius, although some have questioned the validity of his account as ""a tissue of Hellenistic anecdotes, most of them obviously fabricated on the basis of statements in the preserved fragments"." Diogenes said that Heraclitus flourished in the 69th Olympiad, 504–501 BC. All the rest of the evidence — the people Heraclitus is said to have known, or the people who were familiar with his work — confirms the "floruit". His dates of birth and death are based on a life span of 60 years, the age at which Diogenes says he died, with the floruit in the middle.
Heraclitus was born to an aristocratic family in Ephesus, in the Persian Empire, in what is now called present-day Efes, Turkey. His father was named either Blosôn or Herakôn. Diogenes says that he abdicated the kingship ("basileia") in favor of his brother and Strabo confirms that there was a ruling family in Ephesus descended from the Ionian founder, Androclus, which still kept the title and could sit in the chief seat at the games, as well as a few other privileges. How much power the king had is another question. Ephesus had been part of the Persian Empire since 547 and was ruled by a satrap, a more distant figure, as the Great King allowed the Ionians considerable autonomy. Diogenes says that Heraclitus used to play knucklebones with the youths in the temple of Artemis and when asked to start making laws he refused saying that the constitution ("politeia") was "ponêra", which can mean either that it was fundamentally wrong or that he considered it toilsome. Two extant letters between Heraclitus and Darius I, quoted by Diogenes, are undoubtedly later forgeries.
With regard to education, Diogenes says that Heraclitus was "wondrous" ("thaumasios", which, as Plato explains in the "Theaetetus" and elsewhere, is the beginning of philosophy) from childhood. Diogenes relates that Sotion said he was a "hearer" of Xenophanes, which contradicts Heraclitus' statement (so says Diogenes) that he had taught himself by questioning himself. Burnet states in any case that "... Xenophanes left Ionia before Herakleitos was born." Diogenes relates that as a boy Heraclitus had said he "knew nothing" but later claimed to "know everything." His statement that he "heard no one" but "questioned himself," can be placed alongside his statement that "the things that can be seen, heard and learned are what I prize the most."
Diogenes relates that Heraclitus had a poor opinion of human affairs. He believed that Hesiod and Pythagoras lacked understanding though learned and that Homer and Archilochus deserved to be beaten. Laws needed to be defended as though they were city walls. Timon is said to have called him a "mob-reviler." Heraclitus hated the Athenians and his fellow Ephesians, wishing the latter wealth in punishment for their wicked ways. Says Diogenes: "Finally, he became a hater of his kind ("misanthrope") and wandered the mountains ... making his diet of grass and herbs."
Heraclitus' life as a philosopher was interrupted by dropsy. The physicians he consulted were unable to prescribe a cure. Diogenes lists various stories about Heraclitus' death: In two versions, Heraclitus was cured of the dropsy and died of another disease. In one account, however, the philosopher "buried himself in a cowshed, expecting that the noxious damp humour would be drawn out of him by the warmth of the manure", while another says he treated himself with a liniment of cow manure and, after a day prone in the sun, died and was interred in the marketplace. According to Neathes of Cyzicus, after smearing himself with dung, Heraclitus was devoured by dogs.
Diogenes states that Heraclitus' work was "a continuous treatise "On Nature", but was divided into three discourses, one on the universe, another on politics, and a third on theology." Theophrastus says (in Diogenes) "...some parts of his work [are] half-finished, while other parts [made] a strange medley."
Diogenes also tells us that Heraclitus deposited his book as a dedication in the great temple of Artemis, the Artemisium, one of the largest temples of the 6th century BC and one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Ancient temples were regularly used for storing treasures, and were open to private individuals under exceptional circumstances; furthermore, many subsequent philosophers in this period refer to the work. Says Kahn: "Down to the time of Plutarch and Clement, if not later, the little book of Heraclitus was available in its original form to any reader who chose to seek it out." Diogenes says: "the book acquired such fame that it produced partisans of his philosophy who were called Heracliteans."
As with other pre-Socratics, his writings survive now only in quoted by other authors.
At some time in antiquity he acquired this epithet denoting that his major sayings were difficult to understand. According to Diogenes Laërtius, Timon of Phlius called him "the riddler" ( "ainiktēs"), and explained that Heraclitus wrote his book "rather unclearly" ("asaphesteron") so that only the "capable" should attempt it. By the time of Cicero he had become "the dark" ( — ) because he had spoken "nimis obscurē", "too obscurely", concerning nature and had done so deliberately in order to be misunderstood. The customary English translation of follows the Latin, "the Obscure."
Diogenes Laërtius ascribes the theory that Heraclitus did not complete some of his works because of melancholia to Theophrastus. Later he was referred to as the "weeping philosopher," as opposed to Democritus, who is known as the "laughing philosopher." If Stobaeus writes correctly, Sotion in the early 1st century CE was already combining the two in the imaginative duo of weeping and laughing philosophers: "Among the wise, instead of anger, Heraclitus was overtaken by tears, Democritus by laughter." The view is expressed by the satirist Juvenal:
The motif was also adopted by Lucian of Samosata in his "Sale of Creeds," in which the duo is sold together as a complementary product in the satirical auction of philosophers. Subsequently they were considered an indispensable feature of philosophic landscapes. Montaigne proposed two archetypical views of human affairs based on them, selecting Democritus' for himself. The weeping philosopher may have been mentioned in William Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice". Donato Bramante painted a fresco, "Democritus and Heraclitus," in Casa Panigarola in Milan.
"The idea that all things come to pass in accordance with this "Logos"" and "the "Logos" is common," is expressed in two famous but obscure fragments:
This "Logos" holds always but humans always prove unable to understand it, both before hearing it and when they have first heard it. For though all things come to be in accordance with this "Logos", humans are like the inexperienced when they experience such words and deeds as I set out, distinguishing each in accordance with its nature and saying how it is. But other people fail to notice what they do when awake, just as they forget what they do while asleep. (DK 22B1)
For this reason it is necessary to follow what is common. But although the "Logos" is common, most people live as if they had their own private understanding. (DK 22B2)
The meaning of "Logos" also is subject to interpretation: "word", "account", "principle", "plan", "formula", "measure", "proportion", "reckoning." Though Heraclitus "quite deliberately plays on the various meanings of "logos"", there is no compelling reason to suppose that he used it in a special technical sense, significantly different from the way it was used in ordinary Greek of his time.
The later Stoics understood it as "the account which governs everything," and Hippolytus, in the 3rd century CE, identified it as meaning the Christian "Word of God".
The phrase ("panta rhei") "everything flows" either was spoken by Heraclitus or survived as a quotation of his. This famous aphorism used to characterize Heraclitus' thought comes from Simplicius, a neoplatonist, and from Plato's "Cratylus". The word "rhei" (cf. rheology) is the Greek word for "to stream", and is etymologically related to Rhea according to Plato's "Cratylus".
The philosophy of Heraclitus is summed up in his cryptic utterance: