Heraclitus

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Heraclitus (Template:IPAc-en; Template:Langx Template:Transliteration; Template:Floruit) was an ancient Greek pre-Socratic philosopher from the city of Ephesus, which was then part of the Persian Empire. He exerts a wide influence on Western philosophy, both ancient and modern, through the works of such authors as Plato, Aristotle, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Heidegger.

Little is known of Heraclitus's life. He wrote a single work, only fragments of which have survived. Even in ancient times, his paradoxical philosophy, appreciation for wordplay, and cryptic, oracular epigrams earned him the epithets "the dark" and "the obscure". He was considered arrogant and depressed, a misanthrope who was subject to melancholia. Consequently, he became known as "the weeping philosopher" in contrast to the ancient atomist philosopher Democritus, who was known as "the laughing philosopher".

The central ideas of Heraclitus's philosophy are the unity of opposites and the concept of change. Heraclitus saw harmony and justice in strife. He viewed the world as constantly in flux, always "becoming" but never "being". He expressed this in sayings like "Everything flows" (Template:Langx, panta rhei) and "No man ever steps in the same river twice". This insistence upon change contrasts with that of the ancient philosopher Parmenides, who believed in a reality of static "being".

Heraclitus believed fire was the arche, the fundamental stuff of the world. In choosing an arche Heraclitus followed the Milesians before him — Thales with water, Anaximander with apeiron ("boundless" or "infinite"), and Anaximenes with air. Heraclitus also thought the logos (lit. word, discourse, or reason) gave structure to the world.

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LifeEdit

File:Efes Antik Kenti Tiyatrosu.jpg

Theater in Ephesus on the coast of Asia Minor, birthplace of Heraclitus

Heraclitus, the son of Blyson, was from the Ionian city of Ephesus, a port on the Cayster River, on the western coast of Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey). In the 6th century BC, Ephesus, like other cities in Ionia, lived under the effects of both the rise of Lydia under Croesus and his overthrow by Cyrus the Great c. 547 BC.Template:Sfn Ephesus appears to have subsequently cultivated a close relationship with the Persian Empire; during the suppression of the Ionian revolt by Darius the Great in 494 BC, Ephesus was spared and emerged as the dominant Greek city in Ionia.Template:Sfn Miletus, the home to the previous philosophers, was captured and sacked.<ref>Ionian Revolt, Blackwell Encyclopedia of Ancient Battles (2011)</ref>

The main source for the life of Heraclitus is the doxographer Diogenes Laërtius.Template:Efn Although most of the information provided by Laertius is unreliable, and the ancient stories about Heraclitus are thought to be later fabrications based on interpretations of the preserved fragments; the anecdote that Heraclitus relinquished the hereditary title of "king" to his younger brother may at least imply that Heraclitus was from an aristocratic family in Ephesus.Template:Sfn Template:NoteTag Heraclitus appears to have had little sympathy for democracy or the masses.Template:Efn Template:Efn However, it is unclear whether he was "an unconditional partisan of the rich", or if, like the sage Solon, he was "withdrawn from competing factions".Template:Sfn

Since antiquity, Heraclitus has been labeled a solitary figure and an arrogant misanthrope.Template:Sfn Template:Efn The skeptic Timon of Phlius called Heraclitus a "mob-abuser" (ochloloidoros).Template:Efn Heraclitus considered himself self-taught.Template:Efn He criticized fools for being "put in a flutter by every word".Template:Efn He did not consider others incapable, but unwilling: "And though reason is common, most people live as though they had an understanding peculiar to themselves."Template:Efn Heraclitus did not seem to like the prevailing religion of the time, criticizing the popular mystery cults, blood sacrifice, and prayer to statues.Template:Sfn Template:Efn Template:Efn Template:Efn Template:NoteTag He also did not believe in funeral rites, saying "Corpses are more fit to be cast out than dung."<ref>Saxonhouse, A. W. (1995). Fear of Diversity: The Birth of Political Science in Ancient Greek Thought. United Kingdom: University of Chicago Press. p. 35</ref>Template:Efn He further criticized Homer,Template:Efn Template:Efn Hesiod,Template:Efn Pythagoras,Template:Efn Xenophanes, and Hecataeus.Template:Efn Template:Efn He endorsed the sage Bias of Priene, who is quoted as saying "Most men are bad".Template:Efn He praised a man named Hermodorus as the best among the Ephesians, who he says should all kill themselves for exiling him.Template:Efn Template:Efn Template:Notetag

Heraclitus is traditionally considered to have flourished in the 69th Olympiad (504–501 BC),Template:Sfn Template:Efn but this date may simply be based on a prior account synchronizing his life with the reign of Darius the Great.Template:Sfn Template:Notetag However, this date can be considered "roughly accurate" based on a fragment that references Pythagoras, Xenophanes, and Hecataeus as older contemporaries, placing him near the end of the sixth century BC.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn<ref>Clement, Stromateis, 1.129</ref> According to Diogenes Laertius, Heraclitus died covered in dung after failing to cure himself from dropsy. This may be to parody his doctrine that for souls it is death to become water, and that a dry soul is best.<ref>Fairweather, Janet. "The Death of Heraclitus." Greek Roman and Byzantine Studies 14 (1973): 233–239.</ref><ref>Chitwood, A. (2004). Death by Philosophy: The Biographical Tradition in the Life and Death of the Archaic Philosophers Empedocles, Heraclitus, and Democritus. United States: University of Michigan Press. pp. 85–86</ref>Template:Efn Template:Efn Template:Efn

On NatureEdit

File:Miniaturk 009.jpg

A modern reconstruction of the Ephesian Temple of Artemis, located in modern Istanbul. According to Diogenes Laertius, Heraclitus deposited his book in the temple.

Heraclitus is said to have produced a single work on papyrus,Template:Efn which has not survivedTemplate:West; however, over 100 fragments of this work survive in quotations by other authors.Template:NoteTag The title is unknown,Template:Sfn but many later writers refer to this work, and works by other pre-Socratics, as On Nature.Template:Sfn Template:Efn According to Diogenes Laërtius, Heraclitus deposited the book in the Artemision as a dedication.Template:Efn It was available at least until the 2nd century CE, when Plutarch and Clement quote directly from it, if not later.Template:Sfn Yet by the 6th-century, Simplicius of Cilicia, who mentions Heraclitus 32 times in his Commentaries on Aristotle, never quotes from him, implying that Heraclitus's work was so rare that it was apparently unavailable even to the Neoplatonist philosophers at the Platonic Academy in Athens.Template:Sfn

The opening lines are quoted by Sextus Empiricus:

Of the logos being forever do men prove to be uncomprehending, both before they hear and once they have heard it. For although all things happen according to this logos they are like the unexperienced experiencing words and deeds such as I explain when I distinguish each thing according to its nature and declare how it is. Other men are unaware of what they do when they are awake just as they are forgetful of what they do when they are asleep.Template:Efn {{#if:|{{#if:|}}
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StructureEdit

Scholar Martin Litchfield West claims that while the existing fragments do not give much of an idea of the overall structure,Template:Sfn the beginning of the discourse can probably be determined.Template:NoteTag

Diogenes Laërtius wrote that the book was divided into three parts: the universe, politics, and theology,Template:Efn but, classicists have challenged that division. Classicist John Burnet has argued that "it is not to be supposed that this division is due to [Heraclitus] himself; all we can infer is that the work fell naturally into these parts when the Stoic commentators took their editions of it in hand".Template:Sfn The Stoics divided their own philosophy into three parts: ethics, logic, and physics.<ref>see Laertius, 7.33</ref> The Stoic Cleanthes further divided philosophy into dialectics, rhetoric, ethics, politics, physics, and theology, and philologist Karl Deichgräber has argued the last three are the same as the alleged division of Heraclitus.<ref name="kyon">The Cynics by. Robert Brach Branham p. 51</ref> The philosopher Paul Schuster has argued the division came from the Pinakes.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn

StyleEdit

File:Sibyl Domenichino.jpg

Heraclitus's writing style has been compared to a sibyl, as depicted here by Domenichino.

Heraclitus's style has been compared to a Sibyl,Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Nietzsche">Nietzsche, Friedrich. Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks. United States: Skyhorse Publishing. p. 64</ref> who "with raving lips uttering things mirthless, unbedizened, and unperfumed, reaches over a thousand years with her voice, thanks to the god in her".Template:Efn Template:NoteTag

Heraclitus also seemed to pattern his style after oracles.Template:Sfn Heraclitus wrote "nature loves to hide"Template:Efn and "a hidden connection is stronger than an obvious one".Template:Efn He also wrote "The lord whose oracle is in Delphi neither speaks nor conceals, but gives a sign."<ref>The Cambridge Companion to Archaic Greece. (2007). United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. p. 183</ref>Template:Efn Heraclitus is the earliest known literary reference for the Delphic maxim to know thyself.<ref name="robb">Template:Cite journal</ref>Template:Efn

Kahn characterized the main features of Heraclitus's writing as "linguistic density", meaning that single words and phrases have multiple meanings, and "resonance", meaning that expressions evoke one another.Template:Sfn Heraclitus used literary devices like alliteration and chiasmus.Template:Sfn

The ObscureEdit

Aristotle quotes part of the opening line of Heraclitus's work in the Rhetoric to outline the difficulty in punctuating Heraclitus without ambiguity; he debated whether "forever" applied to "being" or to "prove".Template:Sfn Template:Efn Aristotle's successor at the lyceum Theophrastus says about Heraclitus that "some parts of his work [are] half-finished, while other parts [made] a strange medley".Template:Efn Theophrastus thought an inability to finish the work showed Heraclitus was melancholic.Template:Efn

Diogenes Laërtius relays the story that the playwright Euripides gave Socrates a copy of Heraclitus's work and asked for his opinion. Socrates replied: "The part I understand is excellent, and so too is, I dare say, the part I do not understand; but it needs a Delian diver to get to the bottom of it."<ref>Laërtius 2.5</ref>

Also according to Diogenes Laërtius, Timon of Phlius called Heraclitus "the Riddler" ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}; Template:Transliteration).Template:NoteTag Timon said Heraclitus wrote his book "rather unclearly" ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}; Template:Transliteration); according to Timon, this was intended to allow only the "capable" to attempt it.Template:Efn

By the time of the pseudo-Aristotelian treatise De Mundo, this epithet became in Greek "The Dark" ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}; Template:Transliteration).<ref>De Mundo, 396b</ref> In Latin this became "The Obscure". According to Cicero, Heraclitus had spoken nimis obscurē ("too obscurely") concerning nature and had done so deliberately in order to be misunderstood.<ref>Cicero, De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum, Chapter 2, Section 15.</ref>Template:Sfn According to Plotinus, it was "probably with the idea that it is for us to seek within ourselves, as he sought for himself and found".<ref>Plotinus, Enneads, IV, 8th Tractate</ref>Template:Efn

PhilosophyEdit

Heraclitus has been the subject of numerous interpretations. According to scholar Daniel W. Graham, Heraclitus has been seen as a "material monist or a process philosopher; a scientific cosmologist, a metaphysician and a religious thinker; an empiricist, a rationalist, a mystic; a conventional thinker and a revolutionary; a developer of logic – one who denied the law of non-contradiction; the first genuine philosopher and an anti-intellectual obscurantist".Template:Sfn

Unity of opposites and fluxEdit

The hallmarks of Heraclitus's philosophy are the unity of opposites and change, or flux.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn According to Aristotle, Heraclitus was a dialetheist, or one who denies the law of noncontradiction (a law of thought or logical principle which states that something cannot be true and false at the same time).<ref>Vieira, Celso. "Heraclitus, Change and Objective Contradictions in Aristotle's Metaphysics Γ" Rhizomata, vol. 10, no. 2, 2022, pp. 183–214. https://doi.org/10.1515/rhiz-2022-0012</ref><ref name=dliar/>Template:Efn Also according to Aristotle, Heraclitus was a materialist.<ref name="metaxii">Aristotle. "M". Metaphysics 1078b</ref> Attempting to follow Aristotle's hylomorphic interpretation, scholar W. K. C. Guthrie interprets the distinction between flux and stability as one between matter and form. On this view, Heraclitus is a flux theorist because he is a materialist who believes matter always changes.<ref name="W" /> There are no unchanging forms like with Plato or Aristotle. As one author puts it, "Plato took flux as the greatest warning against materialism".<ref>Zhang, J. (2011). One and Many: A Comparative Study of Plato's Philosophy and Daoism Represented by Ge Hong. Germany: University of Hawaii Press. p. 38</ref>

Several fragments seem to relate to the unity of opposites.Template:Sfn For example: "The straight and the crooked path of the fuller's comb is one and the same";Template:Efn "The way up is the way down";Template:Efn "Beginning and end, on a circle's circumference, are common";Template:Efn and "Thou shouldst unite things whole and things not whole, that which tends to unite and that which tends to separate, the harmonious and the discordant; from all things arises the one, and from the one all things."Template:Efn

Over time, the opposites change into each other:Template:Sfn Template:Sfn "Mortals are immortals and immortals are mortals, the one living the others' death and dying the others' life";Template:Efn "As the same thing in us is living and dead, waking and sleeping, young and old. For these things having changed around are those, and those in turn having changed around are these";Template:Efn and "Cold things warm up, the hot cools off, wet becomes dry, dry becomes wet."Template:Efn

It also seems they change into each other depending on one's point of view, a case of relativism or perspectivism.Template:Sfn<ref>Nakamura, H. (1992). A Comparative History of Ideas. India: Motilal Banarsidass. p. 170</ref> Heraclitus states: "Disease makes health sweet and good; hunger, satiety; toil, rest."Template:Efn While men drink and wash with water, fish prefer to drink saltwater, pigs prefer to wash in mud, and fowls prefer to wash in dust.Template:Efn Template:Efn Template:Efn "Oxen are happy when they find bitter vetches to eat"Template:Efn and "asses would rather have refuse than gold."Template:Efn

Panta rheiEdit

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Diogenes Laërtius summarizes Heraclitus's philosophy as follows: "All things come into being by conflict of opposites, and the sum of things ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}} ta hola ('the whole')) flows like a stream."Template:Efn Classicist Jonathan Barnes states that "Panta rhei, 'everything flows' is probably the most familiar of Heraclitus's sayings, yet few modern scholars think he said it".Template:Sfn Barnes observes that although the exact phrase was not ascribed to Heraclitus until the 6th century by Simplicius, a similar saying expressing the same idea,Template:Sfn panta chorei, or "everything moves" is ascribed to Heraclitus by Plato in the Cratylus.Template:Efn

You cannot step into the same river twiceEdit

File:Kızılırmak River from Kapıkaya Köyü.jpg

The Halys River, Turkey's longest. Heraclitus's theory of flux has been associated with the metaphor of a flowing river.

Since Plato, Heraclitus's theory of flux has been associated with the metaphor of a flowing river, which cannot be stepped into twice.Template:Sfn Template:Efn This fragment from Heraclitus's writings has survived in three different forms:Template:Sfn

"On those who step into the same rivers, different and different waters flow" – Arius Didymus, quoted in Stobaeus Template:Efn
"We both step and do not step into the same river, we both are and are not" – Heraclitus Homericus, Homeric AllegoriesTemplate:Efn
"It is not possible to step into the same river twice" – Plutarch, On the E at DelphiTemplate:Efn

The classicist Karl Reinhardt identified the first river quote as the genuine one.Template:Sfn The river fragments (especially the second "we both are and are not") seem to suggest not only is the river constantly changing, but we do as well, perhaps commenting on existential questions about humanity and personhood.Template:Sfn

Scholars such as Reinhardt also interpreted the metaphor as illustrating what is stable, rather than the usual interpretation of illustrating change.<ref>Parmenides, 206–207</ref> Classicist Template:Ill has said: "You will not find anything, in which the river remains constant ... Just the fact, that there is a particular river bed, that there is a source and an estuary etc. is something, that stays identical. And this is ... the concept of a river."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> According to American philosopher W. V. O. Quine, the river parable illustrates that the river is a process through time. One cannot step twice into the same river-stage.<ref>Quine, W. V. (1950). Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis. The Journal of Philosophy, 47(22), 621. {{#invoke:doi|main}}</ref>

Professor M. M. McCabe has argued that the three statements on rivers should all be read as fragments from a discourse. McCabe suggests reading them as though they arose in succession. The three fragments "could be retained, and arranged in an argumentative sequence".Template:Sfn In McCabe's reading of the fragments, Heraclitus can be read as a philosopher capable of sustained argument, rather than just aphorism.Template:Sfn

Strife is justiceEdit

File:AstraeaVSH.JPG

Dike depicted on the Vermont state house. Heraclitus considered strife fundamental to a just world.

Heraclitus said "strife is justice"Template:Efn and "all things take place by strife".Template:Efn He called the opposites in conflict {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (Template:Transliteration), "strife", and theorized that the apparently unitary state, {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (Template:Transliteration), "justice", results in "the most beautiful harmony",Template:Efn in contrast to Anaximander, who described the same as injustice.<ref name="Nietzsche" />Template:Sfn<ref>Michael Gagarin (1974). Dike in Archaic Greek Thought. Classical Philology, 69(3), 186–197. {{#invoke:doi|main}}</ref>

Aristotle said Heraclitus disagreed with Homer because Homer wished that strife would leave the world, which according to Heraclitus would destroy the world; "there would be no harmony without high and low notes, and no animals without male and female, which are opposites".Template:Efn It may also explain why he disagreed with the Pythagorean emphasis on harmony, but not on strife.<ref name="W">W. K. C. Guthrie "Pre-Socratic Philosophy" Cambridge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1961) p. 443</ref>

Heraclitus suggests that the world and its various parts are kept together through the tension produced by the unity of opposites, like the string of a bow or a lyre.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>Template:Efn On one account, this is the earliest use of the concept of force.<ref name="Cambridge Encyclopedia of Philosophy">Cambridge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Force, by M. Jammer (1961)</ref> A quote about the bow shows his appreciation for wordplay: "The bow's name is life, but its work is death."Template:Efn Template:NoteTag Each substance contains its opposite, making for a continual circular exchange of generation, destruction, and motion that results in the stability of the world.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn This can be illustrated by the quote "Even the kykeon separates if it is not stirred."Template:Efn

According to Abraham Schoener: "War is the central principle in Heraclitus' thought."<ref>Schoener, Abraham (1993). Heraclitus on War. Dissertation, University of Toronto (Canada)</ref> Another of Heraclitus's famous sayings highlights the idea that the unity of opposites is also a conflict of opposites: "War is father of all and king of all; and some he manifested as gods, some as men; some he made slaves, some free";Template:Efn war is a creative tension that brings things into existence.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Heraclitus says further "Gods and men honour those slain in war";Template:Efn "Greater deaths gain greater portions";Template:Efn and "Every beast is tended by blows."Template:Efn

LogosEdit

File:Logos.svg

Greek spelling of logos

A core concept for Heraclitus is logos, an ancient Greek word literally meaning "word, speech, discourse, or meaning". For Heraclitus, the logos seems to designate the rational structure or ordered composition of the world.<ref name="Hoffman">Hoffman, David. (2006). Structural Logos in Heraclitus and the Sophists. Advances in the History of Rhetoric. 9. 1–32. {{#invoke:doi|main}}.</ref>Template:Sfn As well as the opening quote of his book, one fragment reads: "Listening not to me but to the logos, it is wise to agree (homologein) that all things are one."Template:Efn Another fragment reads: "[hoi polloi] ... do not know how to listen [to Logos] or how to speak [the truth]."Template:Sfnm Template:Efn

The word logos has a wide variety of other uses, such that Heraclitus might have a different meaning of the word for each usage in his book. Kahn has argued that Heraclitus used the word in multiple senses,Template:Sfn whereas Guthrie has argued that there is no evidence Heraclitus used it in a way that was significantly different from that in which it was used by contemporaneous speakers of Greek.Template:Sfn

Professor Michael Stokes interprets Heraclitus's use of logos as a public fact like a proposition or formula; like Guthrie, he views Heraclitus as a materialist, so he grants Heraclitus would not have considered these as abstract objects or immaterial things.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Another possibility is the logos referred to the truth, or to the book itself.<ref>Olof Gigon, Untersuchungen Zu Heraklit, p. 4</ref>Template:Sfn Classicist Walther Kranz translated it as "sense".Template:Sfn

Heraclitus's logos doctrine may also be the origin of the doctrine of natural law.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>Template:Sfn Heraclitus stated "People ought to fight to keep their law as to defend the city walls. For all human laws get nourishment from the one divine law."Template:Efn "Far from arguing like the latter Sophists, that the human law, because it is a conventional law, deserves to be abandoned in favor of the law of nature, Herakleitos argued that the human law partakes of the law of nature, which is at the same time a divine law."<ref>R. D. Ranade, 'Herakleitos' in Philosophical and Other Essays (Jamkhandi, 1956), 19–22.</ref>

Fire as the archeEdit

Template:See also

File:DancingFlames.jpg

Heraclitus believed the cosmos "no god nor man did create, but it ever was and is and will be: ever-living fire".

The Milesians before Heraclitus had a view called material monism which conceived of certain elements as the arche – Thales with water, Anaximander with apeiron, and Anaximenes with air. Since antiquity, philosophers have concluded that Heraclitus construed of fire as the arche, the ultimate reality or the fundamental element that gave rise to the other elements.Template:Sfn Template:Efn Template:Efn Pre-Socratic scholar Eduard Zeller has argued that Heraclitus believed that heat in general and dry exhalation in particular, rather than visible fire, was the arche.<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> In one fragment, Heraclitus writes:

This world-order (kosmos), the same for all, no god nor man did create, but it ever was and is and will be: ever-living fire, kindling in measures and being quenched in measures.Template:Efn{{#if:|{{#if:|}}
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This is the oldest extant quote using kosmos, or order, to mean the world.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Heraclitus seems to say fire is the one thing eternal in the universe.Template:Sfn From fire all things originate and all things return again in a process of never-ending cycles.Template:Sfn Plato and Aristotle attribute to Heraclitus a periodic destruction of the world by a great conflagration, known as ekpyrosis, which happens every Great Year – according to Plato, every 36,000 years.<ref name=ekpyro>Mondolfo, Rodolfo, and D. J. Allan. "Evidence of Plato and Aristotle Relating to the Ekpyrosis in Heraclitus." Phronesis, vol. 3, no. 2, 1958, pp. 75–82. Template:JSTOR. Accessed 30 May 2024.</ref>

Heraclitus more than once describes the transformations to and from fire:

Fire lives the death of earth, and air lives the death of fire; water lives the death of air, and earth that of water.Template:Efn{{#if:|{{#if:|}}
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The turnings of fire: first sea, and of sea half is earth, half fireburst. [Earth] is liquefied as sea and measured into the same proportion as it had before it became earth.Template:Efn{{#if:|{{#if:|}}
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Fire as symbolicEdit

However, it is also argued by many that Heraclitus never identified fire as the arche; rather, he only used fire to explain his notion of flux, as the basic stuff which changes or moves the most.Template:Sfn Others conclude he used it as the physical form of logos.Template:Sfn

On yet another interpretation, Heraclitus is not a material monist explicating flux nor stability, but a revolutionary process philosopher who chooses fire in an attempt to say there is no arche. Fire is a symbol or metaphor for change, rather than the basic stuff which changes the most.Template:Sfn Perspectives of this sort emphasize his statements on change such as "The way up is the way down",Template:Sfn Template:Efn as well as the quote "All things are an exchange for Fire, and Fire for all things, even as wares for gold and gold for wares",Template:Efn which has been understood as stating that while all can be transformed into fire, not everything comes from fire, just as not everything comes from gold.Template:Sfn

CosmologyEdit

While considered an ancient cosmologist,<ref>Wiggins D. "Heraclitus' conceptions of flux, fire and material persistence." In: Schofield M, Nussbaum MC, eds. Language and Logos: Studies in Ancient Greek Philosophy Presented to G. E. L. Owen. Cambridge University Press; 1982:1–32.</ref> Heraclitus did not seem as interested in astronomy, meteorology, or mathematics as his predecessors.Template:Sfn It is surmised Heraclitus believed that the earth was flat and extended infinitely in all directions.Template:Sfn

Heraclitus held all things occur according to fate.Template:Sfn Template:Efn He said "Time (Aion) is a child playing draughts, the kingly power is a child's."Template:Efn It is disputed whether this means time and life is determined by rules like a game, by conflict like a game, or by arbitrary whims of the gods like a child plays.<ref>Nagel, M. (2002). Masking the Abject: A Genealogy of Play. United Kingdom: Lexington Books. p. 18</ref>

SunEdit

Similar to his views on rivers, Heraclitus believed "the Sun is new each day."Template:Sfn Template:Efn He also said the Sun never sets.<ref>Oudemans, Th C. W. (1992). De nooit ondergaande zon (Summary: The Never Setting Sun), p. 456. Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 54 (3):424.</ref>Template:Efn According to Bertrand Russell, this was "obviously inspired by scientific reflection, and no doubt seemed to him to obviate the difficulty of understanding how the sun can work its way underground from west to east during the night".<ref name=mystic/> The physician Galen explains: "Heraclitus says that the sun is a burning mass, kindled at its rising, and quenched at its setting."<ref name="ancast">Lewis, G. C. (1862). An Historical Survey of the Astronomy of the Ancients. Kiribati: Parker, Son, and Bourn. p. 96-97</ref><ref>Galen, Historia philosopha 62</ref><ref>Fairbanks, A. (1898). The First Philosophers of Greece; an Edition and Translation of the Remaining Fragments of the Pre-Sokratic Philosophers, Together with a Translation of the More Important Accounts of Their Opinions Contained in the Early Epitomes of Their Works. United Kingdom: K. Paul, Trench, Trübner & Company, Limited. p. 61</ref>

File:Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 3710, col. ii 43-47 - fragment Heraclitus.jpg

Heraclitus (named outlined in red) in a fragment of Oxyrhynchus Papyri discusses the Moon.

Heraclitus also believed that the Sun is as large as it looks,Template:Sfn Template:Notetag and said Hesiod "did not know night and day, for they are one."Template:Efn However, he also explained the phenomenon of day and night by if the Sun "oversteps his measures", then "Erinyes, the ministers of Justice, will find him out".<ref>Studies on the Derveni Papyrus pp. 176–178</ref>Template:Efn Heraclitus further wrote the Sun is in charge of the seasons.Template:Efn

MoonEdit

On one account, Heraclitus believed the Sun and Moon were bowls containing fire, with lunar phases explained by the turning of the bowl.Template:Sfn<ref name="ancast" />Template:Efn His study of the moon near the end of the month is contained in one of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, a group of manuscripts found in an ancient landfill.<ref>Oxyrhynchus Papyri LIII 3710 ii. 43–47 and iii. 7–11</ref> This is the best evidence of Heraclitean astronomy.Template:Sfn

GodEdit

File:Jupiter Smyrna Louvre Ma13.jpg

Zeus hurls a thunderbolt.

Heraclitus said "thunderbolt steers all things",Template:Efn a rare comment on meteorology and likely a reference to Zeus as the supreme being.Template:Sfn Even his theology proves contradictory: "One being, the only wise one, would and would not be called by the name of Zeus."Template:Sfn Template:Efn He invokes relativism with the divine too: God sees man the same way man sees children and apes;Template:Sfn Template:Efn Template:Efn and he seems to give a theodicy, "for god all things are fair and good and just, but men suppose that some are unjust and others just".Template:Sfn Template:Efn Yet another interpretation for Heraclitus's use of fire is it refers to the sun god, Apollo;<ref>Tor S. Heraclitus on Apollo’s Signs and his own: Contemplating oracles and philosophical inquiry. In: Eidinow E, Kindt J, Osborne R, eds. Theologies of Ancient Greek Religion. Cambridge Classical Studies. Cambridge University Press; 2016:89-116.</ref><ref name=":0" /> "The lord whose oracle is in Delphi."Template:Efn

According to one writer, "When Heraclitus speaks of "God" he does not mean a single deity as an omnipotent and omniscient or God as Creator, the universe being eternal; he meant the divine as opposed to human, the immortal as opposed to the mortal, and the cyclical as opposed to the transient. Thus, it is arguably more accurate to speak of "the Divine" and not of "God".Template:Sfn

In Parts of Animals, Aristotle relays this story: "Heraclitus, when the strangers who came to visit him found him warming himself at the furnace in the kitchen and hesitated to go in, reported to have bidden them not to be afraid to enter, as even in that kitchen divinities were present, so we should venture on the study of every kind of animal without distaste; for each and all will reveal to us something natural and something beautiful."<ref>Gregoric, Pavel (2001). The Heraclitus Anecdote. Ancient Philosophy 21 (1):73–85.</ref>Template:Efn Template:Notetag

The phrase ἦθος ἀνθρώπῳ δαίμων (ethos anthropoi daimon) is attributed to Heraclitus. It is variously translated as "a man's character is his fate", "character is destiny", or perhaps most literally as "a man's character is his guardian divinity."<ref>Plato's Symposium: A Reader's Guide Template:Webarchive by. Thomas L Cooksey, p. 69</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Darcus, Shirley. "'Daimon' as a Force Shaping 'Ethos' in Heraclitus." Phoenix, vol. 28, no. 4, 1974, pp. 390–407. {{#invoke:doi|main}}. Accessed 12 June 2024.</ref>Template:NoteTag The word ethos means "character", while daimon has various meanings, one of which being "the power controlling the destiny of individuals: hence, one's lot or fortune."<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

The SoulEdit

Heraclitus believed the soul (psyche) was complex, stating: "The limits of the soul you could not discover, though traversing every path."<ref>Betegh, Gabor. The Limits of the Soul: Heraclitus B45. Its text and interpretation E. Hülsz (ed.), Nuevos ensayos sobre Heráclito, Mexico City, 2009, 391–414.</ref>Template:Efn Heraclitus regarded the soul as a mixture of fire and water, and believed that fire was the noble part of the soul and water the ignoble part.Template:Efn He considered mastery of one's worldly desires to be a noble pursuit that purified the soul's fire,Template:Sfn while drunkenness damages the soul by causing it to be moist.Template:Efn Template:Efn Template:Efn Heraclitus seems to advise against anger: "It is hard to fight with anger, for what it wants it buys at the price of the soul."<ref>Mansfeld, J. (1992). Heraclitus FR. B 85 DK. Mnemosyne, 45(1), 9–18. {{#invoke:doi|main}}</ref>Template:Efn

Heraclitus associates being awake with comprehension;<ref name=robb /> as Sextus Empiricus explains "It is by drawing in this divine reason in respiration that we become endowed with mind and in sleep we become forgetful, but in waking we regain our senses. For in sleep the passages of perception are shut, and hence the mind ... the only thing preserved is the connection through breathing."<ref>Betegh, Gábor. "On the Physical Aspect of Heraclitus' Psychology." Phronesis, vol. 52, no. 1, 2007, pp. 3–32. Template:JSTOR. Accessed 8 June 2024.</ref>Template:Efn Heraclitus stated: "If all things should become smoke, then perception would be by the nostrils".Template:Efn

File:A classic circular form spider's web.jpg

Heraclitus compares the soul to a spider and the body to the web.

Heraclitus compares the soul to a spider and the body to the web.Template:Efn Heraclitus believed the soul is what unifies the body and also what grants linguistic understanding, departing from Homer's conception of it as merely the breath of life.<ref>Martha C. Nussbaum (1972). ΨΥΧΗ in Heraclitus, I. Phronesis, 17(1), 1–16.</ref><ref name="Nussbaum">Nussbaum, Martha C. "ΨΥΧΗ in Heraclitus, II." Phronesis, vol. 17, no. 2, 1972, pp. 153–170. Template:JSTOR. Accessed 18 June 2023.</ref> Heraclitus ridicules Homer's conception of souls in the afterlife as shades by saying "Souls smell in Hades".Template:Efn Template:NoteTag His own views on the afterlife remain unclear,Template:Sfn but Heraclitus did state: "There await men after they are dead things which they do not expect or imagine."Template:Efn

The Aristotelian tradition is responsible for a great part of the transmission of Heraclitus's physical conception of the soul.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Aristotle wrote in De Anima: "Heraclitus too says that the first principle—the 'warm exhalation' of which, according to him, everything else is composed—is soul; further, that this exhalation is most incorporeal and in ceaseless flux".Template:Efn

Foreign influenceEdit

Heraclitus's originality and placement near the beginning of Greek philosophy has resulted in several writers looking for possible influence from the surrounding nations.

PersiaEdit

File:Zoroastrian Fire Temple, Yazd (2).jpg

An eternal flame from a Zoroastrian fire temple in Yazd, Iran. The role of fire in Heraclitean philosophy has been compared with fire worship in Zoroastrianism, the state religion of the Persian Empire during Heraclitus's life.

The Persian Empire had a close connection with Ephesus and Zoroastrianism was the state religion of the Persian Empire. Heraclitus's emphasis on fire has been investigated for influence from Zoroastrian fire worship and specifically the concept of Atar.Template:Sfn While many of the doctrines of Zoroastrian fire do not match exactly with those of Heraclitus, such as the relation of fire to earth, it is still argued he may have taken some inspiration from them.Template:Sfn Zoroastrian parallels to Heraclitus are often difficult to identify specifically due to a lack of surviving Zoroastrian literature from the period and mutual influence with Greek philosophy.Template:Notetag

IndiaEdit

The interchange of other elements with fire has parallels in Vedic literature from the same time period, such as the Upanishads.<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad states that "Death is fire and the food of water" and the Taittiriya Upanishad states "from wind fire, from fire water, from water earth."<ref>BU 3.2.10, and TU 2.1, translated by Zaehner in Hindu Scriptures and quoted in Template:Harvnb</ref> Heraclitus may have also been influenced by a Vedic meditation known as the "Doctrine of the Five Fires."Template:Sfn West however stresses that these doctrines of the interchange of elements were common throughout written works on philosophy that have survived from that period; so Heraclitus's doctrine of fire can not be definitively said to have been influenced by any other particular Iranian or Indian influence, but may have been part of a mutual interchange of influence over time across the Ancient Near East.Template:Sfn

EgyptEdit

Philosopher Gustav Teichmüller sought to prove Heraclitus was influenced by the Egyptians,Template:Sfn<ref name="C. H. A. Bjerregaard-1896">Template:Cite journal</ref> either directly, by reading the Book of the Dead, or indirectly through the Greek mystery cults.Template:Sfn "As the sun of Heraclitus was daily generated from water, so Horus, as Ra of the sun, daily proceeded from Lotus the water."Template:Sfn Paul Tannery took up Teichmüller's interpretation.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> They both thought Heraclitus's book was an offering to the temple to be read only by few initiates, rather than deposited in the temple to the public for safe-keeping.Template:Sfn Edmund Pfleiderer argued that Heraclitus was influenced by the mystery cults. He interprets Heraclitus's apparent condemning of the mystery cultsTemplate:Efn Template:Efn as the condemning of abuses rather than the idea itself.Template:Sfn

LegacyEdit

File:Heraklit Berlin Pfad der Visionäre a.jpg

Plaque on Path of Visionaries

Heraclitus's writings have exerted a wide influence on Western philosophy, including the works of Plato and Aristotle, who interpreted him in terms of their own doctrines.Template:Sfn

His influence also extends into art, literature, and even medicine, as writings in the Hippocratic corpus show signs of Heraclitean themes.Template:Efn Template:Efn Heraclitus is also considered a potential source for understanding the Ancient Greek religion since the discovery of the Derveni papyrus, an Orphic poem which contains two fragments of Heraclitus.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Vassallo, Christian (2019). Presocratics and Papyrological Tradition (A Philosophical Reappraisal of the Sources.Proceedings of the International Workshop held at the University of Trier (22–24 September 2016)) || 8. Column IV of the Derveni Papyrus: A New Analysis of the Text and the Quotation of Heraclitus, 10.1515/9783110666106(), 179–220.{{#invoke:doi|main}}</ref>Template:Sfn Template:Efn Template:Efn

AncientEdit

Pre-SocraticsEdit

It is unknown whether or not Heraclitus had any students in his lifetime.Template:Sfn Diogenes Laertius states Heraclitus's book "won so great a fame that there arose followers of him called Heracliteans."Template:Efn Scholars took this to mean Heraclitus had no disciples and became renowned only after his death.Template:Sfn According to one author, "The school of disciples founded by Heraclitus flourished for long after his death".Template:Sfn According to another, "there were no doubt other Heracliteans whose names are now lost to us".Template:Sfn

In his dialogue Cratylus, Plato presented Cratylus as a Heraclitean and as a linguistic naturalist who believed that names must apply naturally to their objects.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> According to Aristotle, Cratylus went a step beyond his master's doctrine and said that one cannot step into the same river once. He took the view that nothing can be said about the ever-changing world and "ended by thinking that one need not say anything, and only moved his finger".<ref name="Aristotle">Template:Cite book</ref> To explain both characterizations by Plato and Aristotle, Cratylus may have thought continuous change warrants skepticism because one cannot define a thing that does not have a permanent nature.<ref>Logic by Wilfrid Hodges, p. 13</ref> Diogenes Laertius also lists an otherwise historically obscure Antisthenes who wrote a commentary on Heraclitus.Template:NoteTag

The Pythagorean and comic writer Epicharmus of Kos has fragments which seem to reproduce the thought of Heraclitus, and wrote a play titled Heraclitus.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

EleaticsEdit

File:Busto di Parmenide (cropped).jpg

Parmenides, a contemporary who espoused a doctrine of unchanging Being, has been contrasted with Heraclitus and his doctrine of constant change.

Parmenides of Elea, a philosopher and near-contemporary, proposed a doctrine of changelessness, in contrast to the doctrine of flux put forth by Heraclitus.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn He is generally agreed to either have influenced or been influenced by Heraclitus.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Different philosophers have argued that either one of them may have substantially influenced each other, some taking Heraclitus to be responding to Parmenides, but more often Parmenides is seen as responding to Heraclitus.Template:Sfn<ref>Popper, Karl (2012). The World of Parmenides: Essays on the Presocratic Enlightenment. (n.p.): Taylor & Francis. p. 249</ref> Some also argue that any direct chain of influence between the two is impossible to determine.Template:Sfn Although Heraclitus refers to older figures such as Pythagoras,Template:Efn Template:Efn neither Parmenides or Heraclitus refer to each other by name in any surviving fragments, so any speculation on influence must be based on interpretation.Template:Sfn

Pluralists and atomistsEdit

The surviving fragments of several other pre-Socratic philosophers show Heraclitean themes.Template:Sfn Diogenes of Apollonia thought the action of one thing on another meant they were made of one substance.Template:Sfn The pluralists may have been influenced by Heraclitus. The philosopher Anaxagoras refuses to separate the opposites in the "one cosmos".Template:Sfn Empedocles has forces (arguably the first since Heraclitus's tension)<ref name="Cambridge Encyclopedia of Philosophy" /> which are in opposition, known as Love and Hate, or more accurately, Harmony and Strife.Template:Sfn Democritus and the atomists were also influenced by Heraclitus.Template:Sfn The atomists and Heraclitus both believed that everything was in motion.<ref>Aristotle, Physics Book 8</ref><ref>Early Greek Philosophy. (2013). United States: Catholic University of America Press. p. 44</ref>Template:Efn On one interpretation: "Essentially what the atomists did was try to find a middle-way between the contradictory philosophical schemes of Heraclitus and Parmenides."<ref>Oldroyd, D. R. (1996). Thinking about the earth: a history of ideas in geology. London: Harvard University Press. p. 13</ref>

SophistsEdit

The sophists, including Protagoras of Abdera and Gorgias of Leontini, may also have been influenced by Heraclitus. Sophists in general seemed to share Heraclitus's conception of the logos.<ref name="Hoffman" /> One tradition associated the sophists' concern with politics and preventing party strife with Heraclitus.<ref name="reread" /><ref>Liberal Temper in Greek Politics, by Eric Havelock, p. 290</ref>

File:Plato Silanion Musei Capitolini MC1377.jpg

Plato's Theory of Forms was a result of reconciling Heraclitus and Parmenides.

Heraclitus and others used "measure" to mean the balance and order of nature; hence Protagoras' famous statement "man is the measure of all things".<ref>Schiappa, E. (2013). Protagoras and Logos: A Study in Greek Philosophy and Rhetoric. United States: University of South Carolina Press. p. 119</ref> In Plato's dialogue Theaetetus, Socrates sees Protagoras's "man is the measure" doctrine and Theaetetus' hypothesis that "knowledge is perception" as justified by Heraclitean flux.<ref>Reshotko, Naomi. "Heracleitean Flux in Plato's 'Theaetetus.'" History of Philosophy Quarterly, vol. 11, no. 2, 1994, pp. 139–61. Template:JSTOR. Accessed 25 May 2024.</ref>

Gorgias seems to have been influenced by the logos, when he argued in his work On Non-Being, possibly parodying the Eleatics, that being cannot exist or be communicated. According to one author, Gorgias "in a sense ... completes Heraclitus."<ref name="reread">Rereading the Sophists by Susan Jarratt p. 44</ref>

Classical and Hellenistic philosophyEdit

Plato knew of the teachings of Heraclitus through the Heraclitean philosopher Cratylus.<ref name="Aristotle" /> Plato held that for Heraclitus knowledge is made impossible by the flux of sensible objects, and thus the need for the imperceptible Forms as objects of knowledge.<ref name="metaxii" /><ref>Robinson, T. M. (1991). Heraclitus and Plato on the Language of the Real. The Monist, 74(4), 481–490. Template:JSTOR</ref>

Scythinus of Teos, a contemporary of Plato, wrote out Heraclitus's philosophy in verse.<ref>Ross, W., & Rusten, J. (2016, March 07). Scythinus, of Teos. Oxford Classical Dictionary. Retrieved 13 Jun. 2024, from https://oxfordre.com/classics/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.001.0001/acrefore-9780199381135-e-5772.</ref><ref name=":0">Sironi, Francesco, "Heraclitus in Verse: The Poetic Fragments of Scythinus of Teos," Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 59 (2019): 551–57.</ref>Template:Efn A four-volume work on Heraclitus was written by the academic Heraclides Ponticus, but has not survived.<ref>Laertius 5.58</ref> Plutarch also wrote a lost treatise on Heraclitus.<ref>Hershbell, Jackson P. "Plutarch and Heraclitus." Hermes, vol. 105, no. 2, 1977, pp. 179–201. Template:JSTOR. Accessed 3 June 2024.</ref> The Neoplatonists were influenced by Heraclitus on the topic of the One; quoting Plotinus "Heraclitus, with his sense of bodily forms as things of ceaseless process and passage, knows the One as eternal and intellectual."<ref>Enneads V.1.9.3–5</ref>Template:Sfn

Aristotle accused Heraclitus of denying the law of noncontradiction, and charges that he thereby failed in his reasoning.Template:Efn However, Aristotle's material monist and world conflagration (ekpyrosis) interpretation of Heraclitus influenced the Stoics.<ref name=ekpyro/>Template:Sfn Template:Sfn

StoicsEdit

File:Cleanthes from L. Annaei Senecae philosophi Opera, 1605, title page detail.png

The Stoic Cleanthes wrote a lost, four-volume Interpretation of Heraclitus. (1605 engraving)

The Stoics believed major tenets of their philosophy derived from the thought of Heraclitus; especially the logos, used to support their belief that rational law governs the universe.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Scholar A. A. Long concludes the earliest Stoic fragments are "modifications of Heraclitus".Template:Sfn According to philosopher Philip Hallie, "Heraclitus of Ephesus was the father of Stoic physics."<ref>"Stoicism" by Philip Halle, Cambridge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1961)</ref>

A four-volume work titled Interpretation of Heraclitus was written by the Stoic philosopher Cleanthes, but has not survived.Template:Sfn<ref>Diogenes Laertius 7.174</ref>Template:Efn In surviving stoic writings, Heraclitean influence is most evident in the writings of Marcus Aurelius.Template:Sfn Marcus Aurelius understood the Logos as "the account which governs everything".<ref>Stephens, W. O. (2012). Marcus Aurelius: A Guide for the Perplexed. United Kingdom: Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 46–48</ref>Template:Efn Heraclitus also states, "We should not act and speak like children of our parents", which Marcus Aurelius interpreted to mean one should not simply accept what others believe.Template:Sfn Template:Efn

Many of the later Stoics interpreted the logos as the arche, as a creative fire that ran through all things due to sunlight;<ref name=":0" />Template:Sfn West observes that Plato, Aristotle, Theophrastus, and Sextus Empiricus all make no mention of this doctrine, and concludes that the language and thought are "obviously Stoic" and not attributable to Heraclitus.Template:Sfn Burnet cautions that these Stoic modifications of Heraclitus make it harder to interpret Heraclitus himself, as the Stoics ascribed their own interpretations of terms like logos and ekpyrosis to Heraclitus.Template:Sfn

CynicsEdit

The Cynics were influenced by Heraclitus, such as by his condemnation of the mystery cults.<ref name=kyon/><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Efn According to one source, "the Cynic affinity with Heraclitus lies not so much in his philosophy as in his cultural criticism and (idealised) lifestyle."<ref>Bosman, P.R., "Traces of Cynic Monothesism in the Early Roman Empire" Acta Classica, vol. 51, 2008, pp. 1–20. Template:JSTOR. Accessed 2 Jan. 2024.</ref> The Cynics attributed several of the later Cynic epistles to his authorship.<ref name=kindst>J. F. Kindstrand, "The Cynics and Heraclitus", Eranos 82 (1984), 149–178</ref> Heraclitus is sometimes even depicted as a cynic.

File:IONIA, Ephesus. Severus Alexander. AD 222-235. 22mm philosopher Heraclitus (the obscure).jpg

Coin from Template:Circa AD 230 depicting Heraclitus as a Cynic, with club and raised hand

Heraclitus' idea that most people live as if in a deep state of sleep resembles what the Cynics said about a cloud of mist or fog shrouding all of existence.<ref>Diogenes the Cynic: The War Against the World p. 124, Luis E. Navia · 2005</ref>

Heraclitus wrote: "Dogs bark at every one they do not know."Template:Efn Similarly, Diogenes the Cynic, when asked by Alexander why he considered himself a dog, responded that he "barks at those who give me nothing".<ref>Diogenes Laertius Book 6</ref><ref>The Philosophy of Cynicism, Luis Navia, p. 27</ref>

PyrrhonistsEdit

The skeptical philosophers known as Pyrrhonists were also influenced by Heraclitus. He may be the predecessor to Pyrrho's relativistic doctrine "No More This than That ", that nothing is one way rather than another way.Template:Sfn According to Pyrrhonist Sextus Empiricus, Aenesidemus, one of the major ancient Pyrrhonist philosophers, claimed in a now-lost work that Pyrrhonism was a way to Heraclitean philosophy because Pyrrhonist practice helps one to see how opposites appear to be the case about the same thing, leading to the Heraclitean view that opposites actually are true about the same thing.Template:Sfn<ref name="Sextus Empiricus Outlines of Pyrrhonism Book I" /> Sextus Empiricus disagreed, arguing opposites appearing to be the case about the same thing is not a dogma of the Pyrrhonists but a matter occurring to the Pyrrhonists, to the other philosophers, and to all of humanity.<ref name="Sextus Empiricus Outlines of Pyrrhonism Book I">Sextus Empiricus Outlines of Pyrrhonism Book I, Chapter 29, Sections 210–211</ref>

Early ChristianityEdit

File:John 1.jpg

John 1:1 in the page showing the first chapter of John in the King James Bible

Hippolytus of Rome, one of the early Church Fathers of the Christian Church, identified Heraclitus along with the other pre-Socratics and Academics as a source of heresy, in Heraclitus's case namely the heresy of Noetus.Template:Sfn

The Christian apologist Justin Martyr took a more positive view of Heraclitus.Template:Sfn In his First Apology, he said both Socrates and Heraclitus were Christians before Christ: "those who lived reasonably are Christians, even though they have been thought atheists; as, among the Greeks, Socrates and Heraclitus, and men like them."<ref>First Apology, Chapter 46</ref> He was among those who interpreted the logos as meaning the Christian "Word of God", such as in John 1:1: "In the beginning was the Word (logos) and the Word was God."<ref>History of Philosophy, by Friedrich Ueberweg, p. 293</ref>

Modern scholars such as John Burnet have viewed the relationship between Heraclitean logos and Johannine logos as fallacious, saying; "the Johannine doctrine of the logos has nothing to do with Herakleitos or with anything at all in Greek philosophy, but comes from the Hebrew Wisdom literature".Template:Sfn

The Christian Clement of Alexandria notes Heraclitus's similarity to the Christian prophets, and is cited as a source for more Heraclitus fragments than any other author.<ref>Dinan, Andrew. "Clement of Alexandria's Predication of the Verb μαντευομαι of Heraclitus." Journal of Early Christian Studies, vol. 16 no. 1, 2008, pp. 31–60. Project MUSE, {{#invoke:doi|main}}.</ref><ref>Andrew C. Dinan Fragments in Context: Clement of Alexandria's Use of Quotations from Heraclitus (Philo of Alexandria, Plutarch, Greece) 2005. DAI-A 65/11 (May 2005), p. 4184.</ref>

Weeping philosopherEdit

File:Bramante heracleitus and democritus.jpeg

Donato Bramante painted Heraclitus and Democritus as the weeping and laughing philosopher.

Heraclitus's influence also extends outside of philosophy. A motif found in art and literature is Heraclitus as the "weeping philosopher" and Democritus as the "laughing philosopher", which may have originated with the Cynic philosopher Menippus,<ref>Lepage, J.L. (2012). Laughing and Weeping Melancholy: Democritus and Heraclitus as Emblems. In: The Revival of Antique Philosophy in the Renaissance. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137316660_3</ref> and generally references their reactions to the folly of mankind.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="George Coffin Taylor-1928" />

File:Raphael School of Athens Michelangelo.jpg

Heraclitus in School of Athens

For example, in Lucian of Samosata's "Philosophies for Sale", Heraclitus is auctioned off as the "weeping philosopher" and Democritus as the "laughing philosopher".Template:Efn The Roman poet Juvenal wrote: "Heraclitus, weep at life much more than you did while alive, for now life is more pitiable."<ref>Juvenal and the Satiric Emotions p. 125</ref>

The Renaissance saw a revived interest in ancient philosophy and its depiction in art. A fresco on the wall of Marsilio Ficino's Platonic Academy in Florence depicted Heraclitus and Democritus.<ref>Doel, M. v. d. (2021). Ficino and Fantasy: Imagination in Renaissance Art and Theory from Botticelli to Michelangelo. Netherlands: Brill. pp. 13–14</ref>

Donato Bramante painted Heraclitus and Democritus (1486) as the weeping and laughing philosopher, and may have depicted Heraclitus as Leonardo da Vinci.<ref>Kiang, Dawson. "Bramante's 'Heraclitus and Democritus': The Frieze." Zeitschrift Für Kunstgeschichte, vol. 51, no. 2, 1988, pp. 262–268. {{#invoke:doi|main}}. Accessed 30 Apr. 2024.</ref> Heraclitus appears in painter Raphael's School of Athens (1511), in which he is represented by Michelangelo, since they shared a "sour temper and bitter scorn for all rivals".<ref>Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling By Ross King, p. 234</ref>

ModernEdit

Modern interest in early Greek philosophy can be traced back to 1573, when French printer Henri Estienne (also known as Henricus Stephanus) collected a number of pre-Socratic fragments, including some forty of those of Heraclitus, and published them in Latin in Poesis philosophica.<ref>Giannis Stamatellos, Introduction to Presocratics: A Thematic Approach to Early Greek Philosophy with Key Readings. Wiley-Blackwell, 2012, p. 7</ref> Renaissance skeptic Michel de Montaigne's essay On Democritus and Heraclitus, in which he sided with the laughing philosopher over the weeping philosopher, was probably written soon after.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>de Montaigne, M. S. (1685). Of Democritus and Heroclitus (P. Coste, Ed.). In M. S. de Montaigne & P. Coste (Ed.) & C. Cotton (Trans.), The essays of Michael Seigneur de Montaigne, in 3 Vols (8th ed., pp. 380–384). J Pote, E Ballard, C Bathurst, T Davies, T Payne, J F and C Rivington, S Crowder T Longman. https://doi.org/10.1037/11798-050</ref><ref>Lutz, Cora E. "Democritus and Heraclitus." The Classical Journal, vol. 49, no. 7, 1954, pp. 309–314. Template:JSTOR. Accessed 29 May 2024.</ref> Heraclitus also influenced French poets Michel d'Ambroise and Etienne Forcadel.<ref>Joukovsky, Françoise (2015). Feu et le Fleuve : Héraclite et la Renaissance française (le). Librairie Droz.</ref> Huguenot minister Pierre du Moulin wrote Heraclitus, or, Meditations vpon the vanity & misery of humane life in 1609.<ref>Pierce, H. (2008). Unseemly pictures : graphic satire and politics in early modern England. United Kingdom: Yale University Press for The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art. p. 165</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

English playwright William Shakespeare may have known of Heraclitus through Montaigne.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The Merchant of Venice (1598) features the melancholic character of Antonio, who some critics contend is modeled after Heraclitus.<ref name="George Coffin Taylor-1928">Template:Cite journal</ref> Additionally, in one scene of the play Portia assesses her potential suitors, and says of one County Palatine: "I fear he will prove the weeping philosopher when he grows old".<ref>The Merchant of Venice, 1.2.49</ref><ref>Shakespeare, W. (1885). Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice: With Introduction, and Notes Explanatory and Critical. For Use in Schools and Classes. United States: Ginn. p. 90</ref>

File:Rijksmuseum.amsterdam (66) (15195464645).jpg

Heraclitus painted as the weeping philosopher by Hendrik ter Brugghen (1628)

Several baroque artists such as Peter Paul Rubens, Hendrik ter Brugghen, and Johannes Moreelse painted Heraclitus and Democritus. Rubens' Heraclitus and Democritus (1603) was painted for the Duke of Lerma.<ref>Huemer, Frances. "Ruben's 'Democritus and Heraclitus'" Source: Notes in the History of Art, vol. 28, no. 3, 2009, pp. 24–28. Template:JSTOR</ref>

RationalismEdit

File:Utrecht Moreelse Heraclite.JPG

Heraclitus painted as the weeping philosopher by Johannes Moreelse Template:Circa

French rationalist philosopher René Descartes read Montaigne and wrote in The Passions of the Soul that indignation can be joined by pity or derision, "So the laughter of Democritus and the tears of Heraclitus could have come from the same cause".<ref>Descartes, R. (1989). Passions of the Soul. United States: Hackett Publishing Company, Incorporated. p. 124</ref><ref>Paulson, M. G. (1988). The Possible Influence of Montaigne's Essais on Descartes' Treatise on the Passions. United Kingdom: University Press of America.</ref>

Kahn suggests Spinoza may have been influenced by Heraclitus via the Stoics.Template:Sfn According to one author "What Heraclitus really meant by the common was...nothing different from what by Spinoza was expressed by "sub specie aeternitatis".Template:Sfn According to German poet Heinrich Blücher, "If you read the whole system of Spinoza, it is nothing but the changed system of Heraclitus."<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz stated in The Monadology "all bodies are in a state of perpetual flux like rivers."<ref>The Monadology, 71</ref><ref>Rescher, N. (2014). G.W. Leibniz's Monadology. United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis. p. 235</ref>

British empiricismEdit

Bishop and empiricist philosopher George Berkeley claimed Sir Isaac Newton's alchemy was influenced by Heraclitus. He remarked in Siris: "In Plutarch we find it was the opinion of Heraclitus, that the death of fire was a birth to air, and the death of air a birth to water.Template:Efn This opinion is also maintained by Sir Isaac Newton."<ref>Siris: A Chain of Philosophical Reflexions and Inquiries Concerning the Virtues of Tar-Water, p. 418</ref> Scottish skeptic David Hume seems to recapitulate Heraclitus while discussing personal identity: "Thus as the nature of a river consists in the motion and change of parts; tho' in less than four and twenty hours these be totally alter'd; this hinders not the river from continuing the same during several ages."<ref>Treatise of Human Nature, 1. 4. 6. 14</ref>Template:Sfn<ref>Flage, D. E. (2019). David Hume's Theory of Mind. United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis. p. 139</ref>

Common senseEdit

File:1831 Schlesinger Philosoph Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel anagoria.JPG

Hegel said "there is no proposition of Heraclitus which I have not adopted in my Logic."

While Heraclitus seems to criticize people in general, at other times he also seems to support common sense.<ref>The Cambridge Companion to Common-Sense Philosophy. (2020). India: Cambridge University Press. pp. 21–22</ref> On Scottish common sense philosopher Thomas Reid's account, Heraclitus was one of the first to extol a common sense philosophy with such quotes as "And though reason is common, most people live as though they had an understanding peculiar to themselves;"Template:Efn and "understanding is common to all".<ref>Reid, T. (1863). The Works of Thomas Reid ... Sixth Edition. United Kingdom: (n.p.). §VI: The Universality of the philosophy of Common sense. 770</ref>Template:Efn

Post-KantianismEdit

Ever since German philosopher Immanuel Kant, philosophers have sometimes been divided into rationalists and empiricists.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Heraclitus has been considered each by different scholars.Template:Sfn For rationalism,Template:Sfn<ref>Moyal, Georges J.D. "The Unexpressed Rationalism of Heraclitus." Revue de Philosophie Ancienne, vol. 7, no. 2, 1989, pp. 185–198. Template:JSTOR. Accessed 2 Jan. 2024.</ref> philosophers cite fragments like "Poor witnesses for men are the eyes and ears of those who have barbarian souls."Template:Efn Template:Efn For empiricism,Template:Sfn they cite fragments like "The things that can be seen, heard, and learned are what I prize the most."Template:Efn Gottlob Mayer has argued that the philosophical pessimism of Arthur Schopenhauer recapitulated the thought of Heraclitus.<ref>Heraklit von Ephesus und Arthur Schopenhauer; eine historisch-philosophische Parallele, Carl Winter's Universitätsbuchhandlung, Heidelberg, 1886</ref>Template:Sfn

The impression of Heraclitus on German idealist G. W. F. Hegel was so profound that he remarked in his Lectures on the History of Philosophy: "there is no proposition of Heraclitus which I have not adopted in my Logic."<ref>Hegel, G. W. F. (1995). Lectures on the History of Philosophy: Greek philosophy to Plato. United Kingdom: University of Nebraska Press. p. 279</ref> Hegel interpreted Heraclitus as a dialetheist and as a process philosopher, seeing the flux or "becoming" in Heraclitus as a natural result of the ontology of "being" and "non-being" in Parmenides.Template:Sfn He also doubted the world conflagration (ekpyrosis) interpretation, which had been popular since Aristotle.Template:Sfn

Heraclitean studiesEdit

File:Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher 2.jpg

Schleiermacher was "the pioneer of Heraclitean studies".

The German theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher was one of the first to collect the fragments of Heraclitus specifically and write them out in his native tongue, the "pioneer of Heraclitean studies".<ref>Schleiermacher, F. 1839. "Herakleitos Der Dunkle von Ephesos, Dargestellt Aus Den Trümmern Seines Werkes Und Den Zeugnissen Der Alten." In Sämtliche Werke, Berlin, 1–146</ref><ref name="Roberts-2009">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Sfn Schleiermacher was also one of the first to posit Persian influence upon Heraclitus, a question taken up by succeeding scholars Friedrich Creuzer and August Gladisch.<ref name=Ueberweg /><ref name="Roberts-2009" />

The Young Hegelian and socialist Ferdinand Lassalle wrote a book on Heraclitus.Template:Sfn "Lassalle follows Hegel in styling the doctrine of Heraclitus 'the philosophy of the logical law of the identity of contradictories."<ref name=Ueberweg>History of Philosophy, by Friedrich Ueberweg, p. 39</ref>Template:Sfn Lassalle also thought Persian theology influenced Heraclitus.<ref name="C. H. A. Bjerregaard-1896" />Template:Sfn<ref name="Conspectus of Lassalle" /> Fellow Young Hegelian Karl Marx compared Lasalle's work to that of "a schoolboy"<ref>"Letter to Friedrich Engels, February 1, 1858" Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 40, p. 258</ref> and Vladimir Lenin accused him of "sheer plagiarism".<ref name="Conspectus of Lassalle">"Conspectus of Lassalle's Book The Philospohy of Heraclitus the Obscure of Ephesus" Lenin's Collected Works, 4th Edition, Moscow, 1976, Volume 38, pp. 337–353</ref>

Classical philologist Jakob Bernays also wrote a work on Heraclitus.<ref name=Ueberweg /> Inspired by Bernays, the English scholar Ingram Bywater collected all fragments of Heraclitus in a critical edition, Heracliti Ephesii Reliquiae (1877).<ref name="Jackson-1917">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Hermann Diels wrote "Bywater's book has come to be accounted ... as the only reliable collection of the remains of that philosopher."<ref name="Jackson-1917" />

Diels-KranzEdit

Diels published the first edition of the authoritative Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (The Fragments of the Pre-Socratics) in 1903, later revised and expanded three times, and finally revised in two subsequent editions by Walther Kranz. Diels–Kranz is used in academia to cite pre-Socratic philosophers. In Diels–Kranz, each ancient personality and each passage is assigned a number to uniquely identify it; Heraclitus is traditionally catalogued as pre-Socratic philosopher number 22.<ref name="DKranz">Template:Cite book</ref>

ContinentalEdit

File:Heidegger 2 (1960).jpg

Heidegger believed that the thinking of Heraclitus and Parmenides was the origin of philosophy.

The continental existentialist and philologist Friedrich Nietzsche preferred Heraclitus above all the other pre-Socratics.<ref name="Nietzsche" /><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Schrift, A. (2014). Nietzsche and the Question of Interpretation. United States: Taylor & Francis. p. 64</ref> Nietzsche saw the philosophers before Plato as "pure types" and Heraclitus as the proud, lonely truth-finder.<ref>de Jong, Johan. "The Senses of Nietzsche's "Complete Irresponsibility"" Nietzsche-Studien, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1515/nietzstu-2022-0030</ref><ref>see also On the Pathos of Truth</ref> The nationalist philosopher of history Oswald Spengler wrote his (failed) dissertation on Heraclitus.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Farrenkopf, J. (2001). Prophet of Decline: Spengler on World History and Politics. United States: LSU Press. pp. 14–15</ref>

Phenomenologist Edmund Husserl wrote that consciousness is "the realm of Heraclitean flux."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Existentialist and phenomenologist Martin Heidegger was also influenced by Heraclitus, as seen in his Introduction to Metaphysics. Heidegger believed that the thinking of Heraclitus and Parmenides was the origin of philosophy and misunderstood by Plato and Aristotle, leading all of Western philosophy astray.<ref>W. Julian Korab-Karpowicz, The Presocratics in the Thought of Martin Heidegger (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2016), page 58.</ref><ref>see also Heraclitus: The Inception of Occidental Thinking and Logic: Heraclitus's Doctrine of the Logos by Martin Heidegger</ref>

French philosophers Jacques Derrida and Gilles Deleuze's "differential ontology" is influenced by Heraclitus.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>O'Connell, E. (2005). Heraclitus and Derrida: Presocratic Deconstruction. Austria: P. Lang.</ref> According to Deleuze, Michel Foucault was a Heraclitean.<ref>Foucault's Heraclitism and the Concept of History the Heraclitean River in Foucault's Works: Philosophical Image of the Becoming by HR Cardoso Jr</ref><ref>Roth, M. S. (2019). Knowing and History: Appropriations of Hegel in Twentieth-Century France. United States: Cornell University Press. p. 218</ref> The idea that war produces order through strife is similar to Foucault's notion that power is a force dispersed through social relations.<ref>Attwell, D. (1993). J.M. Coetzee: South Africa and the Politics of Writing. South Africa: University of California Press. p. 95</ref>

In the 1950s, a term originating with Heraclitus, "idios kosmos", meaning "private world" as distinguished from the "common world" (Template:Em) was adopted by phenomenological and existential psychologists, such as Ludwig Binswanger and Rollo May, to refer to the experience of people with delusions.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> It was an important part of novelist Philip K. Dick's views on schizophrenia.<ref>Dick, P. K. (1987). Schizophrenia and the book of changes. United States: (n.p.).</ref> Those thinkers have relied on Heraclitus's statement that "The waking have one common world, but the sleeping turn aside each into a world of his own."Template:Efn

The Irish author and classicist Oscar Wilde was influenced by art critic Walter Pater, a friend of Bywater's whose "pre-Socratic hero" was Heraclitus.<ref>Ostermark-Johansen, L. (2017). Walter Pater and the Language of Sculpture. (n.p.): Taylor & Francis.</ref><ref>Hext, Kate, 'Burning with a 'hard, gem-like flame': Heraclitus and Hedonism in Wilde's Writing', in Kathleen Riley, Alastair J. L. Blanshard, and Iarla Manny (eds), Oscar Wilde and Classical Antiquity (Oxford, 2017; online edn, Oxford Academic, 21 Sept. 2017), {{#invoke:doi|main}}, accessed 21 May 2024.</ref><ref>Pater the Classicist: Classical Scholarship, Reception, and Aestheticism. (2017). United Kingdom: Oxford University Press., p.263</ref> Harold Bloom noted that "Pater praises Plato for Classic correctness, for a conservative centripetal impulse, against his [Pater's] own Heraclitean Romanticism."<ref>Template:Citation.</ref> Wilde is credited with the saying "expect the unexpected", though Heraclitus said "If you do not expect the unexpected, you will not find it; for it is hard to be sought out and difficult."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Efn

AnalyticEdit

The British process philosopher A. N. Whitehead has been identified as a representative of the tradition of Heraclitus.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Rescher, N. (1996). Process Metaphysics: An Introduction to Process Philosophy. United States: State University of New York Press. p. 1</ref><ref>Lowe, V. (2020). Alfred North Whitehead: The Man and His Work. United States: Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 137</ref> In Bertrand Russell's essay Mysticism and Logic, he contends Heraclitus proves himself a metaphysician by his blending of mystical and scientific impulses.<ref name=mystic>Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays, by Bertrand Russell, pp. 1–3</ref>

WittgensteinEdit

Scholar Edward Hussey sees parallels between Heraclitus, the logos, and the early Ludwig Wittgenstein's linguistic philosophy in the Tractatus (1922).Template:Sfn Wittgenstein was known to read Plato<ref>Kienzler, W. (2013). "Wittgenstein Reads Plato". In: Perissinotto, L., Cámara, B.R. (eds) Wittgenstein and Plato. Palgrave Macmillan, London. {{#invoke:doi|main}}</ref> and in his return to philosophy in 1929 he made several remarks resembling those of Heraclitus: "The fundamental thing expressed grammatically: What about the sentence: One cannot step into the same river twice?"<ref>Zettel, Wittgenstein, #459</ref> He then seemed to make a dramatic shift by 1931, saying one can step twice into the same river.<ref>Stern, David G. (1991). Heraclitus' and Wittgenstein's River Images: Stepping Twice into the Same River. The Monist 74 (4):579–604.</ref>

Wittgenstein also uses a river image in On Certainty (1950) to say even the river-bed may change as foundational logical principles might: "The mythology may change back into a state of flux, the river-bed of thoughts may shift ... And the bank of that river consists partly of hard rock, subject to no alteration or only to an imperceptible one, partly of sand, which now in one place now in another gets washed away or deposited."<ref>Wittgenstein, L. (1972). On Certainty. United Kingdom: HarperCollins. 97, 99</ref><ref>Shiner, Roger. (1974). Wittgenstein and Heraclitus: Two River-Images. Philosophy. 49. 191–197. {{#invoke:doi|main}}.</ref>

ContradictionEdit

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Graham Priest is a dialetheist.

Aristotle's arguments for the law of non-contradiction, which he saw as refuting the position started by Heraclitus,<ref>Priest, G., Sylvan, R., Norman, J., Arruda, A. I. (1989). Paraconsistent Logic: Essays on the Inconsistent. Austria: Philosophia. p .5</ref> used to be considered authoritative, but have been in doubt ever since their criticism by Polish logician Jan Łukasiewicz, and the invention of many-valued and paraconsistent logics.<ref>Lukasiewicz, Jan & Wedin, Vernon (1971). On the Principle of Contradiction in Aristotle. Review of Metaphysics 24 (3):485–509.</ref><ref>Karabey, R. (2019). Back to The Contradictions: Łukasiewicz's Objection. Archives of Philosophy, 0(51), 139–151. {{#invoke:doi|main}}</ref>

Some philosophers such as Graham Priest and Jc Beall follow Heraclitus in advocating true contradictions or dialetheism,<ref name=dliar>Priest, Graham, 'Aristotle on the Law of Non-Contradiction', Doubt Truth to be a Liar (Oxford, 2005; online edn, Oxford Academic, 1 May 2006), https://doi.org/10.1093/0199263280.003.0002,</ref> seeing it as the most natural response to the liar paradox.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Priest, Graham. "Contradiction, Belief and Rationality." Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, vol. 86, 1985, pp. 99–116. Template:JSTOR. Accessed 30 May 2024.</ref>Template:Sfn Template:Notetag Jc Beall, together with Greg Restall, is a pioneer of a widely discussed version of logical pluralism.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Philosophy of ReligionEdit

Beall argues for a contradictory account of Jesus Christ as both man and divine.<ref>Beall, Jc; Pawl, Timothy; McCall, Thomas; Cotnoir, A. J. & Uckelman, Sara L. (2019). Complete Symposium on Jc Beall's Christ – A Contradiction: A Defense of Contradictory Christology. Journal of Analytic Theology 7 (1):400–577.</ref> The philosopher Peter Geach was inspired by Heraclitus's comments on the river to formulate his idea of relative identity,<ref>Cartwright, Helen Morris. "Heraclitus and the Bath Water." The Philosophical Review 74, no. 4 (1965): 466–485. {{#invoke:doi|main}}.</ref><ref>Instantiation, Identity and Constitution, by E. J. Lowe, Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition, Vol. 44, No. 1 (Jul. 1983), pp. 45–59</ref> which he used to defend the coherence of the Trinity.<ref>P. T. Geach, Reference and Generality, pp. 150–151</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Philosophy of TimeEdit

File:English Grammar Time Simple Present.png

Presentism is seen as a Heraclitean view.

The British idealist J. M. E. McTaggart is best known for his paper "The Unreality of Time" (1908), in which he argues that time is unreal. What he calls the "A theory", also known as "temporal becoming", and closely related to presentism, which conceptualizes of time as tensed (i.e., having the properties of being past, present, or future), is a view which has been seen as beginning with Heraclitus.<ref>Craig, W. (2013). The Tensed Theory of Time: A Critical Examination. Germany: Springer Netherlands. p. 218</ref><ref>Craig, William Lane (1999). Temporal Becoming and the Direction of Time. Philosophy and Theology 11 (2):349–366.</ref><ref>Reichenbach, H. (2012). The Direction of Time. United States: Dover Publications. pp. 6–8</ref> By contrast, his " "B theory", under which time is tenseless (i.e., earlier than, simultaneous to, or later than), has similarly been seen as beginning with Parmenides.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Sfn

NotesEdit

ReferencesEdit

Ancient sourcesEdit

This article uses the Diels–Kranz numbering system from Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (The Fragments of the Pre-Socratics) for testimony (labeled A), fragments (labeled B), and imitation (labeled C).