Heraclitus: philosophy, basic ideas, statements. Ephesian school
Heraclitus is one of the first ancient greek philosophers, father - the founder of scientific dialectics, believed that everything in the world is constantly changing and as a result of this, opposites are attracted.
Information about the life of the scientist is extremely scarce, and he did not like to spread about himself, and presented his conclusions in a veiled, incomprehensible form to those around him. For this, as well as for being in extreme melancholy and hypochondria, contemporaries called him "Gloomy."
What is known about the biography of the philosopher?
A reliable fact is that Heraclitus was born in the city of Ephesus, which is located on the territory of the state of Turkey. It is believed that he was born in the middle of the sixth century BC, around 544-541. Such conclusions are made on the basis of the fact that during the 69th Olympiad, Heraclitus reached the age of full bloom - "acme", i.e. about 40 years old.
He was of high birth, i.e. belonged to the "Basileus" dynasty, i.e. his ancestors performed the functions of both a ruler and a priest in society. It was his closest ancestor who founded the city of Ephesus, and representatives of subsequent generations ruled the city and judged.
But even in his youth, Heraclitus decided to devote his life to science and abandoned high positions in favor of his brother, and he himself settled at the temple of Artemis and engaged in reflections and conclusions.
By the way, it was this most famous in the world, as one of the wonders of the world, that the temple was burned in 356 BC. a certain Herostratus, who wanted to receive eternal glory and memory from descendants.
Dialectics as understood by Heraclitus
The scientific ideas and conclusions of Heraclitus were consistent with the philosophers of the Ionian school, who believed that the world consists of four elements, the main of which is fire. So in the teachings of Heraclitus, a special place is occupied by logos - fire - the fundamental principle of being. It is fire that is both the beginning and the end of existence; it flares up or dies down as needed. As a result of any natural disasters, a world fire flares up, which destroys all living things both on earth and in space, but only in order to engender a new life in the purified space.
It is to this philosopher that the honor of using the word COSMOS in its modern sense belongs - Galaxy, Universe.
The dialectic of Heraclitus is based on the constant connection of everything in the world, the struggle and attraction of opposites and the eternal continuous changeability of the world.
The world is permanent and eternal, but at the same time it is an ever-changing struggle of all elements: fire and water, earth and air. It is Heraclitus who is awarded the statements that everything flows, everything changes, and also that one cannot enter the same river twice.
Opposites at the same time repel and fight, but also converge: day gives way to night, life turns into death, good and evil cyclically change each other in the whirlwind of human life. But this constant cycle has boundaries, rhythm and pace.
The main force governing the fate of the earth and people is a kind of universal mind, higher power and justice. Heraclitus called this substance "the value of values" and identified it with Logos - fire.
He also believed that our senses are constantly deceiving us: what seems motionless and static changes invisibly to the eye and is in constant motion.
Soul in the teachings of Heraclitus
Staying in constant melancholy and hypochondria, Heraclitus mourned the behavior of his fellow citizens, reproaching them for their inability to properly manage their lives. For this he received another nickname "Crying".
He suffered in impotent rage from human stupidity and ignorance, unwillingness to change and change his life. The philosopher considered the most terrible and useless people for society to be those who do not want to think and learn something new, who prefer earthly riches to the riches of the soul and knowledge.
He also believed that nature - best teacher for a person, and everyone can learn and improve with very little effort.
Moreover, the philosopher's reflections on the state of human souls are very interesting. In his opinion, ignorant souls are made up of steam, they receive wet steam from the air and change depending on the weather, therefore they do not have their own opinion and are easily influenced from outside. The souls of vile and stupid people consist of water, and the more water, the more negative qualities in a person, and the souls of noble and kind people are dry, they are identical with Logos - fire and are able to emit light from within.
Views on politics and religion
Heraclitus had his own special opinion on the social structure: he was not a supporter of either democracy or tyranny. He considered the crowd of people unreasonable and influenced to allow it to rule the state and social life.
Looking at people as ignorant animals unwilling to improve their lives and gain new knowledge, he likened them to tamed animals that can eat from human hands if they live with people, but become wild after receiving the desired freedom.
There is a legend that when the inhabitants of the city of Ephesus turned to Heraclitus with a request to draw up a set of just laws, he refused, saying that you are living badly because you cannot live differently. And he also refused to the inhabitants of Athens, and even to the king of Persia, Darius, not wanting to leave his homeland and his fellow citizens, whom he for the most part despised.
In addition, Heraclitus believed that it was not the Gods who created this world, but the elements and fire was the main one among them. He rejected the existence of the Olympians and did not believe in gods, but put nature at the head of life. At the same time, the philosopher believed that the only correct truth was revealed to him, he achieved fiery enlightenment and conquered his shortcomings.
Heraclitus was confident in his own uniqueness and believed that his name would live forever as long as humanity exists because of his teachings about the Logos and the soul.
The most famous teaching of Heraclitus
The doctrine of Heraclitus, which has survived to this day, is a treatise "On the nature of things." It was not completely preserved, but about two hundred quotes from it were found in the writings of Plutarch, Diogenes, Dionysius, etc. This work contained three large parts: the first - about the structure of the Universe, the second - about the system of government and its structure, and the third - about God and the soul.
As mentioned earlier, Heraclitus tended to speak allegorically, to present his conclusions in a paraphrased form, rather confusing and incomprehensible to his contemporaries. That is why we do not always understand the deep meaning of his conclusions.
Departure from society and death
Unexpectedly for all those around him, Heraclitus left the city, retired from all people and led the life of a hermit. He did not appear in the city, but lived by what nature gave him. He ate only grass and roots. It is believed that he died of the resulting dropsy, because he was smeared with a thick layer of manure, in the vain hope that the heat from him excreted excess moisture from the body and would endow him with fiery health.
Some researchers consider this behavior of the philosopher as confirmation of his penchant for Zoroastrianism, with which he was well acquainted.
The exact date of death is not known, but researchers are leaning towards approximate dates in the region of 484-481 BC.
Heraclitus during his lifetime had almost no students, one of his famous followers was Cratilus. In Plato's Dialogues, he acts as a denier of all existing philosophical teachings and declares that there is nothing definite and studied in nature.
The ideas of Heraclitus were close to the Stoics (Socrates, Diogenes and others). History has preserved for us the image of Heraclitus - wise, but withdrawn, arrogant and lonely, despising people for their ignorance and unwillingness to change.
Scientists researchers, having deciphered some of the philosopher's statements, spoke of him as a pessimist who grieved about the transience of life and the inability to dispose of it correctly.
Contemporaries endowed the philosopher with labels - "Crying", "Dark", "Gloomy".
But many ancient philosophers treated him with sincere respect and reverence. For example, in his small sketch, Aristotle shows Heraclitus completely different than his contemporaries are used to seeing.
Foreign wanderers wanted to see the great philosopher and approached his dwelling, but stopped at the threshold, struck by the poverty of the dwelling and the wretched attire of a man who was warming his body in rags by the hearth.
"Come in, do not be afraid, for the gods also live in a poor dwelling," Heraclitus told them. The philosopher always expressed himself incomprehensibly, giving the opportunity to think out his thought on his own. So, the concept of LOGOS is not only fire, but also WORD, SPEECH, REPORT, COMPOSITION, PART OF THE WHOLE.
Perhaps the philosopher wanted to convey to the descendants that the Logos is exactly what allows you to unite disparate parts into a single whole.
Consider one of the most mysterious and incomprehensible philosophers of antiquity - Heraclitus.
Heraclitus of Ephesus was born in the city of Ephesus in Ionia. The date of birth can also be calculated by his akme, which falls on the years 504-501 BC. Apparently, he was born sometime in 540 BC. and lived, as biographers point out, for about 60 years. According to some reports, Heraclitus had a noble origin, was even a Basileus, i.e. king, however, abandoned the reign, handed it over to his brother, and he himself went to the mountains, where he lived as a hermit. Subsequently, falling ill with dropsy, Heraclitus went down to the city, however, being not quite a good opinion of people, he could not tell the cause of his illness and asked the doctors in riddles if they could turn the downpour into a drought? The doctors, of course, did not understand that he meant the request to cure him of dropsy, and therefore Heraclitus tried to self-medicate: he buried himself in the manure, hoping that the heat coming from the manure would heal him. There are different versions of what happened next: one by one - the manure froze, and Heraclitus could not get out and died like that; according to another version, he was attacked by dogs and tore apart. But one way or another, at the age of 60, Heraclitus died of dropsy.
Tradition calls Heraclitus "the weeping philosopher", because Heraclitus, seeing the general stupidity and purposelessness of life, wept, looking at people leading an empty lifestyle. He owns "0 nature", which, as indicated, he deliberately wrote more incomprehensibly so that only those who really deserve it could read it, and for this he later received the nickname "dark." Socrates, having first familiarized himself with the work of Heraclitus, said that “what I understood is fine, what I did not understand, I hope so too, but by the way, here we need a Delian diver”, hinting at the depth of thought that is hidden in the work Heraclitus. And if Socrates did not understand everything, then what to say about us and his interpreters?
This work consists of three parts, which deal, respectively, with the universe, state and theology. Heraclitus himself indicates that he did not learn from anyone, and he took all his knowledge from himself.
In Fragments of the Early Greek Philosophers, a huge number of pages are devoted to Heraclitus, like no other pre-Socratic philosopher. The number of surviving fragments attributed to Heraclitus is quite large, and this shows the influence that Heraclitus had on subsequent philosophy. One list of philosophers citing Heraclitus shows his significance and influence in the years that followed. Here we see Plato, who was directly influenced by Heraclitus, and Aristotle and other philosophers. And what is important for us, Heraclitus is often quoted by both the fathers and teachers of the Church. These are Maximus the Confessor, Tatian, Clement of Alexandria, Hippolytus, Nemesius, Gregory the Theologian, Justin Martyr, Eusebius of Caesarea, Tertullian, John Damascene. Moreover, quoting Heraclitus, the Church Fathers often subscribed to his opinion. And at the same time, such a hater of Christianity as Friedrich Nietzsche spoke highly of Heraclitus, considering him his favorite philosopher, the only one who at least to some extent approached his own philosophy. In addition, Heraclitus was highly valued by Marx, Engels, Lenin. So the range of assessments of Heraclitus and high opinion of him is so great that it covers absolutely opposite figures: from the Fathers of the Church to blasphemers and persecutors of the Church. Why this is so, you yourself can understand by reading these fragments, which I highly recommend to you.
Heraclitus was primarily a philosopher. Of course, he was not a philosopher to the extent that they were later philosophers, such as Plato or Aristotle. Heraclitus still has a lot of mythology, but still he is a thinker of a different order than the Milesians. In the philosophy of Heraclitus, some basic provisions can be distinguished. This is a teaching about universal change, about opposites, about logos, about nature and about man. It is difficult to say which of these provisions subsequently had the greatest impact.
Everything that exists, according to Heraclitus, is constantly changing, so that “on those entering the same rivers, one time flows — one, another time — other waters”. Or, as Seneca quotes him: "We enter the same river twice and do not enter." St. Gregory the Theologian also uses this thought of Heraclitus in one of his poems: “I am, but what does this mean? What I was has passed. Now I will be different and different, if I really do not have constancy. I myself am a muddy river stream, I always flow forward and never stand ... Twice the river flow you will not pass the same as before, again, you will never see a mortal as the same. " This doctrine of Heraclitus about universal change was later used fruitfully by Plato, creating his own doctrine of ideas.
Thus, according to Heraclitus, true being is not constant, but is a constant change. Everything passes from one to the other. Heraclitus gives many examples of this: night turns into day, life turns into death, illness turns into health and vice versa, even the gods (of course, the Olympic ones) are mortal. In fact, what are the gods? As Heraclitus said, the gods are immortal people, and people are mortal gods.
Since all things pass into each other, then each time the same thing is and is not itself. Therefore, things are always opposites. If day becomes night and night becomes day, then sometime we observe both day and night at the same time. If life becomes death and, accordingly, vice versa, then a person lives for death and dies in order for a person to live. Therefore, everything in the world is full of opposites, and Heraclitus also very often speaks on this topic. So, pseudo-Aristotle points out: "The meaning of the saying of Heraclitus the dark is conjugation: whole and non-whole, converging - diverging, consonant - dissonant, from everything - one, from one - everything." Heraclitus believed that everything is in harmony with each other, as the bow and the lyre are in harmony (meaning the harmony of strength and peace). A bow with a stretched bowstring carries with it tremendous energy, and an arrow fired from a bow rushes with great speed, but in a stretched bow we see nothing but peace. Likewise, the lyre: the sound is emitted from it only due to the fact that the strings are tightly stretched. Therefore, everything arises and everything exists through opposites. Thus, war, as Heraclitus points out, is generally accepted, enmity is the usual order of things, everything arises through enmity and mutually, i.e. at the expense of the other. However, what is happening in the world does not happen by chance. The world is ruled by a certain Logos. Perhaps, Heraclitus understood by Logos not what we understand now, as it is understood in Christianity, but simply a certain word, speech. And Heraclitus said his phrase about the Logos only because of his contempt for the crowd. A negative attitude towards people, of course, exists in this phrase. This is how this first fragment, one of the most famous, sounds: “This is the logos that exists forever, people do not understand both before listening to it, and having listened to it once, for, although all people come across directly with this logos, they are like those who do not know it, even though learn from experience exactly the words and things that I describe, dividing them according to nature and expressing them as they are. As for the rest of the people, they do not realize what they are doing in reality, just as the sleeping people do not understand it ... "The following fragments also speak about the esotericism of Heraclitus, about his negative attitude towards the crowd:" Those who heard, but they did not understand, they are similar to the deaf ”,“ Most people do not think things the way they meet them and, having learned, do not understand, but imagine ”, etc. Apparently, it was precisely this attitude of Heraclitus to philosophy and to people that attracted in this philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who was also confident in his higher destiny.
The beginning of the world, according to Heraclitus, is fire. The world is not eternal and burns down every 10,800 years. The following world arises from fire on the basis of ordinary transformations: fire turns into air, air - water, water - into earth. Thus, the cosmos as a whole is eternal, none of the gods and none of people created it. He is an eternally existing fire, kindling by measure, extinguishing by measure. Thus, the Logos, which governs the world and constitutes its beginning, also has a fire-like nature. As a matter of fact, it is not surprising that, affirming eternal change and believing that everything consists of opposites, Heraclitus chooses fire as the beginning, for none of the other elements - neither water, nor air, nor earth - are in eternal motion and in eternal change like fire. Any element can stop, freeze, but fire is always mobile. Therefore, the basis of this eternal incessant movement is fire. Subsequently, this teaching will be renewed in Stoic philosophy.
With regard to the soul, Heraclitus expresses various opinions. Sometimes he says that the soul is air, sometimes - that the soul is part of the Logos and is fire. Since the soul is air on one side, and on the other it has a fire-like principle in itself, the wise soul is dry, writes Heraclitus. Conversely, stupid bad soul- the shower is wet. You need to live according to reason, according to the logos, which rules the world and which is contained in our soul. And people live as if they each have their own understanding. Therefore, people are like sleeping people who do not know what they are doing. Heraclitus, thus, implicitly recognized the existence of certain laws of thought, without attaching to this the importance that Aristotle would give. Thinking is the highest valor.
Heraclitus also had a negative attitude towards the religion of his day, objecting to cults, mysticism, however, believing in the gods, in the afterlife, in that everyone will be rewarded according to his merits. For God, everything is beautiful and fair. People, however, recognized one thing as just, and the other as unfair. Thus, Heraclitus for the first time comes across the idea of the perfection of the whole world, of the absolute goodness of God and that unhappiness and injustice arise only from the fact that they seem to us as such from the point of view of our incomplete knowledge of the world. What seems to us to be evil and injustice, for God is justice and harmony. Heraclitus did not leave the school after himself. There were philosophers who considered themselves Heraclitians, among them Cratilus, after whom one of Plato's dialogues is named. Cratilus argued that one and the same river cannot be entered not only twice, but also once. Since everything flows and everything changes, then nothing can be said about everything at all, because as soon as you say, the thing ceases to be what you wanted to say. Cratilus therefore only pointed with his fingers.
Heraclitus spoke scathingly about other philosophers. So, in particular, he noted: "Knowledge does not teach the mind, otherwise it would teach Pythagoras and Hesiod, Xenophanes and Hecateus." We will now turn to the study of the philosophy of Xenophanes.
Biographical information. Heraclitus (c. 544-480 BC) - ancient Greek sage. He was born and lived in Ephesus, therefore it is often called Heraclitus of Ephesus. Despite the fact that he belonged to a royal priestly family, he lived poor and lonely. Heraclitus had the nicknames Dark (since his statements were obscure) and Crying (because he often lamented because of human imperfection). Heraclitus is a spontaneous materialist and the founder of dialectics.
OcHoeniyie Works... About 130 fragments have survived to this day.
Philosophical views. The beginning. Heraclitus considered the origin of all things the fire. Fire is material, eternal and living (hylozoism), moreover, it is intelligent, the Logos is inherent in it. Fire is not created by anyone, but it obeys the World Law, “flashing in measure and extinguishing by measure”.
Dialectics. The fundamental feature of the world is its constant changeability: "Everything flows", "you cannot enter the same river twice." In this, Heraclitus opposes most of the ancient philosophers, who believed that "true being" is eternal and unchanging (Pythagoreans, Eleats, etc.). A significant change according to Heraclitus is a change in its opposite (the cold heats up, the hot cools). Opposites exist in unity and in eternal struggle ("the struggle is the father of all and the king over all").
Cosmogony and cosmology. Everything in the world arises from fire, and this is the "way down" and "lack" of fire (Figure 20). According to Heraclitus, space is not eternal, the “way down” is replaced by the “way up”, and then the whole world burns out in a world fire, which is at the same time a world judgment (since fire is alive and reasonable).
According to Clement of Alexandria (III century BC)
Scheme 20. Heraclitus: cosmogony
The doctrine of the soul. The human soul is a combination of fire and moisture. Souls arise "evaporating from moisture", and, conversely, "souls are born of death in water". The more fire there is in the soul, the better it is; the human mind is Fire (Logos).
Epistemology. The senses, especially sight and hearing, are useful in the process of cognition, but the highest goal is to cognize the Logos. It is not available to everyone, although all people are intelligent. Most people, being "like a bestial satiated", do not try to comprehend the Logos. Many knowledge, trust in such teachers as Homer and Hesiod interfere with the comprehension of the Logos. Only a few people have comprehended the Logos and live in accordance with it.
The fate of the teaching. The ideas of Heraclitus about the Fire-Logos in many ways served as the basis for the teachings of the Stoics. The ideas of dialectics began to attract serious attention only starting from the Renaissance, they found consistent application and development in Hegel's philosophy and Marxism.
Heraclitus of Ephesus - approximately 540 - 480 BC
1. Life and Writings. Heraclitus came from a noble family, one of his ancestors was the founder of Ephesus. He was by birth a member of an aristocratic party and in maturity was a fierce enemy of the democracy that developed in the Ionian cities. The expulsion of his friend Hermodorus from the city finally restored him against his fellow citizens. He did not consider it possible to participate in the legislation and administration of the city, the structure of which seemed to him hopelessly spoiled; yielding to his brother the rank of basileus, he lived poor and lonely. They say that he also rejected the invitation of the Persian king Darius to spend some time at his court. Heraclitus was initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries, studied with the magician-priests, followers of Zoroaster, and was himself a priest. Towards the end of his life, he retired from Ephesus and lived as a hermit in the mountains, feeding on herbs.
Heraclitus expounded his teaching in the book "About nature", which he deposited in the temple of Artemis of Ephesus. From this essay, divided into three parts - natural-philosophical, political and theological - many aphorisms have come down to us, reminiscent of the sayings of oracles, who usually communicated only with those who deserved it, and stayed away from the crowd. And Heraclitus hid his thoughts in order to avoid the ridicule of fools who believed that they understood everything, passing off ordinary common sense for deep truths. For this he was nicknamed "the dark", although some passages of his work were distinguished by strength, clarity and conciseness.
2. Dialectics as a doctrine of the unity and struggle of opposites... Heraclitus argued: everything flows, nothing remains motionless and constant, everything develops and turns into something else. In two of his famous fragments we read: "You cannot enter the same river twice and you cannot touch something mortal twice in the same state, but due to the irrepressibility and speed of change, everything dissipates and gathers, comes and goes." "We enter and do not enter the same river, we are the same and not the same." The meaning of these fragments is clear: outwardly, the river is the same, but in reality it always consists of new water, which comes and disappears, therefore, entering the river a second time, we are washed by another water. But we ourselves are changing: at the moment of complete immersion in the river we are already different, not what we were. Therefore, Heraclitus says that we enter and do not enter the same river. In the same way, we are and are not, in order to be what we are at a certain moment, we must not be what we were in the previous moment. This aspect of the teachings of Heraclitus led some of his students to extreme conclusions, such as Cratilus, who argued: not only can we not swim in one river twice, but we cannot even once, at the moment of entering and immersion in the river, another water arrives, and we ourselves are others even before we are completely immersed.
For Heraclitus, the statement about the variability of the world around us was a statement of a fact obvious to all, starting from which, one must go to deeper questions: what is the source or cause of the constant change of the world; what lies at the basis of the world, for it is impossible to think of becoming without being !? There are two sources of movement and change: external and internal. The first source is the existence and interaction of opposites. Becoming is a continuous transition from one opposite to another: cold things heat up, hot ones cool, damp things dry up, dry things moisten, a youth grows decrepit, dies alive, another youth will be born from a mortal, and so on. There is always a struggle between the opposing sides. "Struggle is the mother of everything and the master of everything." The eternal flow of things and universal becoming are revealed as a harmony of contrasts, as an eternal pacification of the warring parties, a reconciliation of disputants, and vice versa. “They (the ignorant) do not understand that what is excellent is in accord with itself; the harmony of differences is like the harmony of the lyre and the bow ”. Only in alternation do opposites give each other a specific meaning: "Disease makes health sweet, hunger gives pleasure to satiety, and hard work gives a taste of rest." One and the same thing - living and dead, awake and sleeping, young and old, because some things, changing, become different, and those, others, changing in turn, become the first. Philosophy is a reflection on the great contradictions that the mind encounters everywhere in the reality it knows. The opposite principles of unity and plurality, finite and infinite, rest and movement, light and darkness, good and evil, active and passive, exclude each other, and at the same time are one at the source and the entire structure of the Cosmos is kept by their harmonious combination. Thus, Heraclitus argued Cosmic Law of Polarity: the manifested world exists due to the bifurcation of the One into opposites, which are one in their essence, but different in manifestation. Hence, the knowledge of the world consists in the knowledge of opposites and finding their unity.
3... Teaching about Fire. The inner source of the development of all forms of the world is the Spiritual Principle. Heraclitus asserted that the One Principle underlying all phenomena in Nature is Fire, everything is a manifestation of this Divine Substance. "All things are the exchange of fire, and one fire changes all things, just as goods are the exchange of gold, and all things are exchanged for gold." "This order, one and the same for all things, was not created by any of the Gods, and by any of the people, but has always been, is and will be an eternal living Fire, flaring up and dying out measures." Fire is Spirit or Primary Life, all other elements and forms are only transformations of Fire, everything that we see is only extinguished, hidden Fire. Fire, according to Heraclitus, Hippocrates and Parmenides, is the Divine Principle, the teachings of the Zoroastrians, Plato and the Stoics that everything in the world, including the human soul and body, developed from Fire, the thinking and immortal Element, are identical. If Fire is the Spirit that animates everything, then earthly matter is an extinct spirit; the souls of people, on the other hand, are "flaming fires," an ignited substance. The Universe arises from a Single Element, Fire, this primary Substance is transformed from the state of Fire into Air, then into the state of Water, then Water becomes Earth, and then everything returns to the source. The path from Fire to Earth - the path of extinction - Heraclitus calls the "downward path", the reverse process of combustion - the "upward path". He recognized the world year, consisting of two periods: the period of Deity's impoverishment, corresponding to the formation of the world, and the period of fullness, excess, saturation, corresponding to the ignition of the Cosmos. Thus, Heraclitus argued Cosmic Law of Cycle: everything begins with a fiery divine state and ends in a dense one, and then the process unfolds to the beginning, the material again becomes spiritual.
4. The doctrine of the Logos and the Cosmos. In the philosophy of the ancient Greeks, the word Logos had several meanings: law, word, dictum, speech, the meaning of words and the content of speech, and finally, thought and its carrier, reason. As a result, the Logos is the Cosmic Mind, God is the Creator and Ruler of the Cosmos. Logos is a Fiery Being; The Reason that moves the Cosmos is Fire and Fire is Reason. The Logos of Heraclitus periodically creates the Cosmos from Fire and again destroys it after all the lives in it have passed the cycle of existence set for them. Nothing will escape and hide from this fiery Logos, he will come suddenly, judge everything and take everything; the world must ignite and all the elements will once again plunge into the Fire from which they once arose. Under the Cosmos, the ancient philosophers meant our Solar System knowing about the Infinity of the worlds, they studied our Cosmos, a house in which minerals, plants, animals, people and gods evolve. The Cosmos includes various spheres with different density of matter, in Heraclitus we find a mention that the Cosmos is at least divided into two parts: the upper, heavenly - the sphere of divine, pure and intelligent Fire, and the lower, sublunar - the sphere of extinguished substances cold, heavy and damp. Thus, the Cosmos for the philosopher appeared to be one and animate, full of souls, demons and gods.
5.The doctrine of man... Heraclitus fully adopted the Pythagorean and Zoroastrian views on the human soul and its properties. Man is the unity of soul and body, besides, man has two souls: one fiery, dry, wise, immortal; the other is wet, unwise, blind, mortal. Condemning popular religion, especially in the rough forms of its cult, Heraclitus, nevertheless, was a religious thinker who asserted the supermundane existence and the law of reincarnation. He believed that the souls of people, before descending into "generation" or sublunary existence, live on the "Milky Way". He revived the idea of the Orphic that bodily life is the mortification of the soul, and the death of the body brings the soul to life, he affirmed the idea of punishment and reward after death: "After death, people overtake things that they did not expect, that they could not imagine." He recognized the individual immortality of the Supreme Soul and its evolution: Gods are immortal people, people are mortal gods; the death of a deity is the life of a person, the death of a person is the birth of a deity, the resurrection of true life. "Immortals are mortals, mortals are immortal, these live the death of those, and those die the life of these." There is constant communication between man and deity, since man cognizes the divine, and the divine is revealed to him.
6. The doctrine of knowledge. Comprehension of the Truth is difficult; in order to find a grain of gold, a lot of earth needs to be exploded; to find the Truth, we must explore everything personal experience and by labor, believing his eyes more than his ears, ascending from the known to the unknown, expecting the unexpected. We must learn from Nature itself, comprehend the secret unity and harmony in the visible struggle, the hidden harmony, triumphing over its opposite; we must seek in Nature itself the Law, the Logos. The weakness of the human mind, its delusions, the inability to cognize the Truth are conditioned by the human sensibility, which darkens this light. It is necessary to be alert to feelings, since the latter are satisfied with the appearance of things. A person comprehends the Truth, joining the wisdom of the Logos, to which his Divine soul participates. Sensual passions and inclinations that defile the soul, conceit, arrogance and superstition, addiction to private human opinions - all this alienates the soul from the Logos, the source of Wisdom. Gotta follow Reason, which is one and universal, but people live as if they each have their own mind and therefore are not aware of what they say and what they do. Any reasonable reasoning must be affirmed on what has the universality and necessity of the Law, and, moreover, the Law of the divine, and not a conditional decision of any state. Only rational knowledge has complete certainty; only Intelligence can discern the truth in perception, find identity and agreement in visible difference. The noblest of the senses - sight and hearing - lie to a person who is not enlightened by Reason and does not know how to understand their instructions. Truth is attained by the mind beyond the senses. “Eyes and ears are for people, if their souls are barbaric”. In this sense, Heraclitus considered himself a prophet of intelligible Truth, hence his oracle tone as a specific way of expression. The highest goal of human cognition for him is cognition of the plan of the Logos.
7. "Crying Philosopher". Any legislation that regulates human relations should be based on the Law that governs the Cosmos. However, the moral and religious concepts of his contemporary society, just like the laws of his hometown, seemed to Heraclitus not only conditional, but downright false, fundamentally flawed. The deep pessimism of the "weeping" philosopher had a cosmological and ethical basis. The world is an extinct, degraded Deity, individual souls are filled with particles of divine Fire, who have forgotten their divine origin. From childhood, people learn to create lawlessness in accordance with the law, untruth in truth, learn to deceive, steal and indiscriminateness, worshiping the one who succeeds most in untruth and violence. All have indulged in madness and greed, all are chasing ghostly happiness, no one heeds the law of the Logos-God, does not know the word of Truth. Whether people hear it or not, they do not understand it and, like donkeys, prefer straw to gold. The very knowledge they seek is vain knowledge, for their hearts have no striving for truth. People seek a cure for the evils of their lives, but their doctors are worse than diseases. Whether any of them is sick, they call doctors: they cut, burn, drain the sore spot and demand a bribe for the same thing that diseases do. Whether anyone has sinned, they offer bloody sacrifices, thinking to wash their dirt with their mud; they pray to the walls on which the images of the gods are written, not knowing what these Gods and Heroes really are.
All human social laws and moral requirements relative, however, they are based on the absolute divine Laws. For example, war is evil, but war is also a necessity at this stage of human development: it makes some heroes, and even gods, others - common people, some - free, others - slaves. The visible calamities and suffering caused by it are not evil in the absolute sense of the word, for just as a doctor sometimes torments the body that he heals, as wool beats beat, tear and crumple their wool to make it better and stronger, so people endure sorrow. without realizing their necessity. There are many opinions, but there is one Reason, one divine Law, and all human laws on which human society is based should be fed by this Law. Justice is learned in them, for their protection you should stand as for the walls of your hometown. But people are reluctant to obey this Law, they cannot stand superiority, they reject teachers, not recognizing that one is sometimes worth a thousand, if he is the best and knowledgeable.
The wisdom is
to speak the truth and,
to act in harmony with her.
Heraclitus (approximately 540 - 480 BC) - ancient Greek thinker, natural philosopher, spontaneous materialist and dialectician. Compatriots called Heraclitus "Dark" for the mystery and thoughtfulness. Heraclitus received the nickname "Crying" for the fact that he could not remain indifferent and cried every time, looking at people and their deeds, because they seemed pitiful to him.
From the works of Heraclitus (according to some sources - "On Nature", according to others - "Muses") 130 - 150 fragments have survived. Ancient philosophers often mentioned the name of Heraclitus, commenting on his teachings and fragments from it.
The ontology of Heraclitus is based on fundamental natural-philosophical premises about the essence and nature of being. The material primordial essence of the world is fire. "Space, one and the same for everyone, was not created by any of the gods or of people, but it has always been, is and will be an eternally living fire, combusting and extinguishing measures." The cycle of the existence of the world is determined at 10800 years. Then the world turns into fire and from fire arises again.
Fire is an image of the changing and active essence of the world. Being is constantly changing. "Everything flows" is an attribute (inalienable property) of being. "You cannot enter the same river twice and you cannot touch something mortal twice in the same state, but due to the irrepressibility and speed of change, everything dissipates and gathers, leaves and comes." His disciple Cratilus absolutized variability, believing that "you cannot step into the same river and once." It was clear to Heraclitus himself as a true dialectician that change exists in stability, movement at rest, identity in discrimination, eternal in the transient, unity in the multitude. The change itself occurs according to the invariable law - "logos", which is based on the interaction of opposites as the cause of movement, development and harmony of being.
The harmony of opposites in Heraclitus is divine. God is the personification of the driving force, the impulse of movement and development in a certain direction. "God is day-night, winter-summer, war-peace, satiety and hunger." "Death of fire is birth of air, death of air is birth of water. From the death of the earth water is born, from the death of water - air, from the death of air - fire, and vice versa."
Heraclitus introduces the principle of determinism into nature (in nature, everything is causally conditioned). He was the first to approve in philosophy the concept of "logos" to denote a general world necessity (regularity). The Logos has a divine intelligent guiding power for change, development and order. Later, in ancient philosophy, under the logos, they began to understand the spirituality of the world, its reason, necessity (like logical), the orientation towards its expediency and orderliness.
In epistemology, Heraclitus reveals himself to be one of the first rationalists. The essence (logos) can be grasped only by the mind. Sensory cognition gives only opinion, not knowledge. It is associated with an ordinary vision of the world, with "knowledge", which differs from genuine wisdom. "Much knowledge does not teach the mind," Heraclitus said. Heraclitus was one of the first to point out the relativity of our knowledge of the world: "The sea is filled with the purest and most polluted water: suitable and useful for fish, dirty and destructive for people." Sensory knowledge can be true if guided by a worthy mind. "People's eyes and ears are bad witnesses if they have barbarian souls."
3. Elea school
In the western part Ancient Greece, in the city of Elea (southern Italy), a philosophical school appears, which continues the traditions of the Ionian philosophers, many of whom emigrated from the cities of Ionia. One of them was Xenophanes of Colophon (565 - 470 BC), who is often called the ancestor of the Eleatic school. Others consider him the ideological predecessor of the Eleatics, which is more in line with the philosopher's lifestyle. He himself called himself a vagabond, having spent almost 70 years in wanderings, and, having lived to 92 years of age, did not have a permanent home.
