Download File - History of Western Philosophy

Heraclitus
End of Pre-Socratics and Start of
Something New
• Heraclitus (535-475 BCE)
• Lived in Ephesus
• Many people called him the
“Enigmatic One” – Enigma
means question or unable to
understand. Mystery.
Heraclitus
• FIRE!
• “Fire lives the death of air, and air lives the death of
fire; water lives the death of earth, earth that of water.
Measures of it kindling and measures of it going out.”
– Fire is always eating air and being eaten by it. The world is
a fire.
– He says that people are either wet or dry. They either help
the fire continue (dry) or they try to stop it (wet).
• But fire is not the substance.
• The other philosophers wanted to find “the Substance,”
but Heraclitus does not.
Heraclitus
• Logos = word
– “All things happen, obeying (服从) the Logos.”
– “The Logos is common to all things.”
– “All things are one in the Logos.”
•
•
•
•
This “Logos” means more than word.
What does it mean “common to all”?
Why is Logos the thing that unites everything?
Talk about it for a couple minutes.
Heraclitus
• Is this God? Or Zeus?
• Many people think that Heraclitus was talking about a
god or one God
• Many years later Christians (教会), Jews (犹太), and
Muslims (穆斯林) used this idea of Logos to mean God.
• What does Heraclitus say?
• “The One (Logos) is both wanting and not wanting to
be called Zeus (God).”
• He also says, “Praying to temples (寺庙) is like
whispering (耳语) in an empty house.”
Heraclitus
• Is this Apeiron? Is Heraclitus saying the same thing as
Anaximander?
• No, Apeiron is a substance. It is something that creates
and destroys everything. It commands justice (正义).
• In the Apeiron, everything exists in conflict (冲突). The
universe is a big fight.
• The Apeiron is the substance that creates and judges all
things.
• The Logos is the Way. It is the order in everything.
• Heraclitus believed that everything is harmony (和谐)
• Apeiron = Conflict, Fight Logos = Harmony, Peace
Heraclitus
• So, Logos is not a god, but it is similar.
• Heraclitus uses “Logos” in a similar way that Laozi
uses “Dao” (道)
• Laozi tells people that the Dao is the “way”
• He says it is the order (秩序) of everything
• He says everything is nothing and nothing is everything.
• This is similar to what Heraclitus means by Logos
• It is the “knowledge” that is greater than
everything, but also in everything.
• Is this cup half empty or
half full?
• Is this road going up or
down?
• Is money good or evil?
Heraclitus
• “The way up is down”
• “Couples are one and not one, what agrees disagrees,
the concordant is discordant. From all things one and
from one all things.”
• Half empty is half full
• Money is good and evil
• “Living and dead are the same, so are awake and
asleep, young and old.”
• “Out of discord comes the most beautiful harmony.”
• The Logos is the Dao, the Way
• It is harmony.
Heraclitus
• This is very very very very very very very very
important to the History of Philosophy.
• It started a BIG FIGHT!!!
• When Heraclitus says that the Logos is everything and
everything is Logos, he is saying that there is no Being.
• Being (don’t really know how to translate into
Chinese). It is the “this” ness of something.
• Book-ness, Table-ness, Student-ness, Troy-ness.
• Why is Troy different than the table?
• The answer to that question is…Being.
Heraclitus
• If you say, Troy is different than the table.
Then you are saying that I am a Being separate
from the table.
• If you say Troy and the table are the same.
Then you agree with Heraclitus and think that
there is no Being.
Heraclitus
•
•
•
•
“A man cannot step twice into the same river.”
“Everything moves. Nothing stands still.”
“Nothing exists, but change.”
Heraclitus believed that there is no such thing as a
“Present” tense. There is only Past and Future.
• Change is constant, every moment, everything
changes.
• I am not the same man I was yesterday.
• This room will change. Now. And now. And now.
And now.
Heraclitus
• This idea of Being and change will be very
important to almost every philosopher who
lives after Heraclitus. Every religion talks
about it and every person understands it.
Other Pre-Socratics
• I don’t have time to talk about all of the Pre-Socratics,
but they are very important. Here is a list of some:
• Parmenides – “A person cannot say what does not
exist”
–
–
–
–
There is no Past, Present, Future
Everything is real and now.
If you can think something in your mind, it is real.
Perception vs. Thought
• Empedocles – Evolution
– “First skin and bone. Then arms and legs. Then faces
without necks. Then men who looked like cows…”
Other Pre-Socratics
• Anaxagoras – Big Bang Theory
– “All things were together, many and small. Then
one of the small pieces started to turn in a circle.
Things started to separate and grow…”
• Democritus – Atoms
– “If we take a piece of anything, we can break it
again and again. But, finally we will find a small
piece that cannot be broken. These are called
atoms.”
Plato
• See Socrates and Plato PPT