HERACLITUS
Heraclitus
(535 - 475 BCE) was born in Ephesus on the West coast of modern day
Turkey. An educated child of aristocrats, Heraclitus came to an
understanding similar to that of the earlier Xenophanes and the later
Socrates: No one can ever know the truth entirely, and so we should
continue to seek truth endlessly to become wise. Diogenes Laertius, the
historian of philosopher biographies, says Heraclitus was to be king of
Ephesus but abdicated the throne to become a sage. Some scholars have
suggested that Heraclitus was in fact Buddha, and that the teachings of
Heraclitus, many similar to teachings of the Buddha, came from India
into Greece or from Greece into India. While I am a big fan of
cross-cultural transmissions, this is rather far fetched. It is
likelier that Heraclitus and Buddha are both skeptical of human
judgements, arguing all things including judgements and truth are
impermanent and changing, and this position is found accross human
cultures.
Heraclitus
was very critical of everyone, particularly the early Greek
philosophers and his fellow Ephesians. Like the Athenians killed
Socrates for questioning too much and so “inciting the youth to riot”,
Ephesus had exiled Hermadoros because was ‘worthier than average’,
presumably doing philosophy and cosmology. Heraclitus responded:
As
for the Ephesians, I would have them all go hang themselves, leaving
the city in the abler hands of children, for they banished Hermodorus,
the best man among them, saying ‘Let no one of us excel, or if he does
let him do it elsewhere among others. May wealth never leave you,
Ephesians, lest your wickedness be revealed.
Just
like many other great thinkers, Heraclitus did not like the politics of
his day and was critical of traditions of thought in general.
Heraclitus was not, however, sad or angry as much as he was a skeptic.
Heraclitus was called ‘the weeping philosopher’ by a few sources in the
ancient world, as well as ‘the dark’ and ‘the obscure’. Democritus is
called the laughing philosopher, and Heraclitus the weeping, both
disgusted by humanity. Juvenal, the Roman poet (not the American
rapper) wrote that, given the post popular prayer in temples is for
riches, it is no wonder that Democritus laughs and Heraclitus weeps. In
Raphael’s famous painting ‘The School of Athens’, Heraclitus is
portrayed looking downward with a somber expression sitting off by
himself near the bottom center, unlike other philosophers and scientists
who are enthusiastically conversing about the cosmos in groups.
Heraclitus
does seem to laugh, and many of his fragments appear playful jokes.
Despising the beliefs, traditions and politics of the day does not make
one a sad or angry person relative to others. Rather, it turns
criticism of the other into criticism of the self and one’s own
civilization. Heraclitus was convinced that wisdom and inquiring within
show us that all is one big cosmic fire, and things that unify the
community and the individual bring wholeness and true happiness.
However, he believed that humans are often foolish and let their minds
divide themselves from the whole and from each other such that their
understandings are disjointed and ignorant.
Diogenes
Laertius says Heraclitus often tired of people and would walk in the
hills by himself, similar to the later Heraclitus-influenced German
philosopher Nietzsche. Both wrote that people are apes and only the few
become wise and see things as a great individual. In his Beyond Good
and Evil, Nietzsche wrote in response to the rising German anti-semitism
of his time that a race is good for getting to six or seven great men,
and then getting around them.
Diogenes
Laertius also says that Heraclitus wrote a book ‘On Nature’ which had
three parts (the first about cosmology, the second about politics, and
the third about theology). We only have the introduction and various
fragments remaining today, known as the Fragments of Heraclitus, but his
book was famous among later ancient Greek thinkers. Heraclitus
deposited his book at the Great Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, one of the
seven wonders of the ancient world. Artemis, daughter of Zeus and twin
sister of Apollo, was the widely revered Greek goddess of hunting and
the wilderness (counterpoint to Apollo, god of agriculture and
civilization).
Heraclitus
is said by other sources to have been a doctor, and many of his
fragments do speak about the workings of physiology within the larger
frame of physics as a thinker who is immersed in ancient cosmology
would. Heraclitus believed that the soul, mind and self becomes soggy
and intoxicated when one indulges in desire and pleasure (drinking and
sex are moist by nature), and likewise when one studies with the fire of
the mind and abstains from pleasure the soul dries out. While this
could come from a physician, some fragments seem critical of physicians
and the practice of medicine just as others are critical of
philosophers, spiritual groups and politics. In one fragment he writes:
The
cosmos works by harmony of tensions, like the lyre and bow. Therefore,
good and ill are one. Good and ill to the physician must be one, since
he derives his fee from torturing the sick.
Heraclitus’
most famous idea is a memorable image: you can never step in the same
river twice. Just as a river is always flowing and changing, so is
reality always flowing and changing, such that nothing stays exactly the
same for any two moments. You step in a river, then step out, then
step back in the same river, but it is no longer ‘the same river’.
Heraclitus says this is also true of the cosmos and the human
individual. One fragment reads:
We do and do not step into the same river. We are and are not.
Heraclitus
argued that the world is always in flux, as a single thing stable and
eternal but as many things in constant change and tension.
Paradoxically, constant change is the stability and being of things.
Rivers flow, fire burns, life thrives, always in motion to be stable in
what it is. If things stop moving and growing the way that they do,
they disintegrate and fall apart. In what often appears as a strange
and out-of-place fragment, Heraclitus says, “Goat cheese congeals in
wine if not well stirred”. This is an example of a motion keeping a
mixture what it is. Red wine mixed with goat cheese was a common
beverage served at gatherings.
While
his famous image is of water in a river, Heraclitus argued that fire is
the arche, the most basic element that forms and moves all things. All
things are part of the eternal fire, flowing like water, and ordered by
the word/breath/air of the cosmos itself. While Heraclitus differs
from the early Milesians in the selection of fire as his arche, he seems
to be bringing Thales (who argued all things are water), Anaximander
(who argued that all things are of the one infinite) and Anaximenes (who
argued that all things are air) into line with his own position,
agreeing yet disagreeing with them. Heraclitus wrote:
That
which always was, and is, and will be ever-living fire, the same for
all, the cosmos, made neither by god nor man, replenishes in measure as
it burns away…As all things change to fire, and fire exhausted falls
back into things, the goods are sold for gold, the gold spent on goods.
Fire is desire and satisfaction.
How, from a fire that never sinks or sets, would you escape? One thunderbolt strikes root through everything.
Fire
also flows, and individual tongues of flame rise out of the fire and
then return and integrate with the whole. Fire, like water, flows in a
consistent manner that is always self-similar but never exactly the same
twice, just as each person, wave or flame is individual and distinct.
Notice that a thunderbolt, such as that hurled as a weapon by Zeus and
which the ancient Greeks thought was made of fire, is the energy and
cause of formation for the cosmos, though Heraclitus does not mention
Zeus by name. The Zoroastrians of Persia held fire as the highest
element and identified it with their monotheistic god. It is possible
that Heraclitus is influenced by Persian Zoroastrians while taking it in
his own direction, just as he does with the work of the Milesian
school. Zoroastrians also believe that the cosmos is ordered by divine
speech, by the word and command of the cosmos. The beginning of
Heraclitus’ book, which we still have, reads:
The
word proves those first hearing it as numb to understanding as the ones
who have not heard, yet all things follow from the word. Some,
blundering with what I set before you, try in vain with empty talk to
separate the essences of things and say how each thing truly is, and all
the rest make no attempt. They no more see how they behave broad
waking than remember clearly what they did asleep. For wisdom, listen
not to me but to the word and know that all is one. Those unmindful
when they hear, for all they make of their intelligence, may be regarded
as the walking dead. People dull their wits with gibberish, and cannot
use their ears and eyes. Many fail to grasp what they have seen, and
cannot judge what they have learned, although they tell themselves they
know. Yet they lack the skill to listen or to speak. Whoever cannot
seek the unforeseen sees nothing, for the known way is an impasse.
Things keep their secrets.
The
‘word’ is ‘logos’ in ancient Greek, from which we get the word ‘logic’.
In the ancient world, the art of logic was used for debate and
persuasion. Plato and later Greek philosophers used this conception,
but it is first used by Heraclitus. It is very ironic, quite
paradoxical like the thinking of Heraclitus, that he, a serious skeptic,
was the first Greek thinker to use this word, which would later be
dominated by thinkers such as Aristotle who did not believe in
relativity and skepticism.
For
Heraclitus, the cosmos resembles the chaos yet order of the human
community centered on authority by spoken word. The LOGOS, the
word/plan/order/command, is the formative force in the cosmos, the force
of fire and light in the watery chaotic world. The cosmic fire speaks
with its ever-present Logos (fire over air) and this brings about the
firmament in the chaos (the earth rising out of the water). This
process, however, does not bring about eternal or stable beings, but
chains of beings that are in flux and interdependent, much in line with
the Buddhist concept of codependent arising.
This
goes also for laws, which Heraclitus says have to be defended as if
they were city walls. This is sometimes read that Heraclitus thought
human law was important and had to be defended, which he did, but in
fact he is also telling us that human laws, perspectives and judgements
are impermanent like walls made out of earth. They may seem eternal and
permanent, but as any former citizen or city of the Persian empire
knows, empires fall and impressive city states are overthrown and change
hands. The eternal word of the fire forever forms the cosmos, but
human speech and walls are temporary, and therefore take force and
effort to maintain.
As
a skeptic, Heraclitus believes that the divisions made by the mind are
mortal, not eternal, like the human body. Our knowledge and laws are
impermanent like mounds of dirt. Heraclitus says many things to humble
us, including pointing out our similarity to apes to put our
achievements in perspective. Notice in the opening passage that some
incorrectly try to separate the essences of things, and the rest are
completely ignorant and asleep. Heraclitus was not a fan of experts and
specialists, and he ridiculed the cultural leaders of his time. He
says that the common people are completely asleep, but far more
dangerous are the experts who have a small piece of the puzzle and say
that they know the entire truth, who have a perspective they confuse
with the objective omnipotent view. Following Xenophanes, Heraclitus
argues that we never know the complete truth about anything, which is
why we must continue endlessly to gather insights.
Many
often ask, “Why, then, should I listen to Heraclitus, since he is
simply an expert?”. Heraclitus replies as most skeptics do: don’t take
my word for it, but look into the world and within yourself and you will
find that it is true.
Of
all the words yet spoken, none comes quite as far as wisdom, which is
the action of the mind beyond all things that may be said. Wisdom is
the oneness of mind that guides and permeates all things.
People
need not act and speak as if they were asleep. The waking have one
world in common. Sleepers meanwhile turn aside, each into a darkness of
his own.
Many who have learned from Hesiod the countless names of gods and monsters never understand that night and day are one.
We should not be children of our parents.
Heraclitus
does not advocate pessimistic nihilism but continuous pursuit of
knowledge and wisdom. All things change, but this gives us more to
know, not less. It is sad news only if one wants unchanging truths.
Experts who try to separate things from the great flow to know them
permanently and in isolation are ignorant of the single unchanging and
unified truth: all things are one and all things change constantly. For
Heraclitus, fire is water, day is night, peace is war, and stability is
change. It is good to find the origin of things in their opposites, as
this is the last place most would look.
From the strain of binding opposites comes harmony. The harmony past knowing sounds more deeply than the known.
From
tension and strain come harmony, just as the tension in the strings of
an instrument allow harmonious and pleasing notes to be played. We have
already heard that satisfaction itself is a form of energy and tension.
The harmony past knowing, the wisdom to see that things are united
beyond the distinctions of knowledge and concepts, is more deeply in
tune with the universe than partial understandings.
Without injustices, the name of justice would mean what?
The way up is the way back. The beginning is the end.
As
the world works in cycles, we advance to both leave and return from the
starting point. While the starting point is never the same twice, just
like a river, to go forward and change is the same as to return and
remain what one is. Some translate the first line here as “The road up
is the road down”, which is true of any mountain road: the same road
leads both up and down, depending on which way one is facing.
While
Heraclitus seems to be an elitist, arguing that only the few are wise
and the rest are asleep, he seems to share a similar picture to
Confucius in China and earlier Egyptian wisdom proverbs. While
excellent thinking is rare, no one can obtain all wisdom and so one
should remember that everyone has some thought and wisdom. A fragment
reads:
Thinking is common to all.
Even
so, all human judgements are like child’s toys. In a passage that
sounds very much like Zhuangzi the Daoist patriarch from China, who we
will cover next week, using animal perspectives to show that what we
value and desire is relative, Heraclitus says:
The
language of a grown man, to the cosmic powers, sounds like baby-talk to
men. To a god the wisdom of the wisest man sounds apish. Beauty in a
human face looks apish too. In everything we have achieved the
excellence of apes. The ape apes find most beautiful looks apish to
non-apes.
The
sea is both pure and tainted, healthy and good haven to the fish, to
humans undrinkable and deadly. Poultry bathe in dust and ashes, swine
in mud. Donkeys would choose trash over gold.
Two made one are never one. Arguing the same we disagree. Singing together we compete.
Dogs bark at everyone they do not know.
The
whole is not only a site of conflict, but is also characterized by
Heraclitus as playful, like a child playing with its toys, our mortal
selves and our perspectives. Parallel to this, the developmental
psychologist Vygotsky, who did work in the 1930s and 40s in Soviet
Russia, noticed that children narrate their world out loud to give form
to their thoughts and world, and that later this speech splits into
vocal speech to others and inner speech to oneself. Heraclitus asks us
to look within, and that the cosmos and our thoughts are given form
through speech.
PYRRHO AND SEXTUS EMPIRICUS
Sextus
is supposed to have lived sometime around 200 CE, 700 years after
Heraclitus. He is thought by scholars to have been from Alexandria in
Egypt. He might be Libyan, from North Africa, but it has been assumed
that he was Greek living in Egypt or Rome. It is thought that he was a
doctor because he mentions medical cases to show how sometimes things
are good but then surprisingly bad in other cases or vice versa, just
like Heraclitus.
Sextus
is the first Pyrrhoian Skeptic, quite similar to the Jains and
Buddhists of India. Agnosticism of all judgment and plurality of
perspective and truth are staples for both. When Alexander fought his
way to the border of India, to try to conquer the rich and fertile area,
he brought the philosopher Pyrrho with him around 300 BCE. Pyrrho met
with some ‘gymnosophists’ in the historian’s texts, and scholars argue
whether these were Buddhists, Jains or if either existed yet in formal
groups at the time. Pyrrho witnessed the yoga and extreme penances of
the sages, had discussions, then came home and refused to write anything
or live in society. People would come to visit him on the edges of
town, where he would argue that everything is true and not true, that
every perspective is true but also false. His thinking sprouted a
school in Alexandria Egypt, a great center of Greek, early Christian and
later Muslim thought. We know of this exclusively through the writings
of Sextus.
Sextus
calls upon the ‘where there is smoke, there is fire’ example used by
Gautama and Aristotle, and then brings up many cases where one would be
mistaken to draw the inference. The point is not that it can’t be
drawn, but it can never be certain in a particular situation.
