Heraclitus. Heraclitus: philosophy, basic ideas, statements
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 by birth belonged to the aristocratic party and, at maturity, was a fierce enemy of democracy developing in Ionian cities. The expulsion from the city of his friend Hermodor 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 hopelessly corrupted to him; yielding to his brother the dignity of basileus, he lived poorly and lonely. They say that he also rejected the invitation of the Persian king Darius to spend some time at his court. Heraclitus was consecrated to the Eleusinian Mysteries, studied under the magicians priests, followers of Zoroaster, and he himself was a priest. Towards the end of his life, he retired from Ephesus and lived as a hermit in the mountains, eating grasses.
Heraclitus set out his teaching in a book "About nature",which he deposited in the temple of Artemis of Ephesus. From this work, divided into three parts - natural philosophical, political and theological - a lot of 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 everyone understood, passing off ordinary common sense as deep truths. For this, he was nicknamed "dark," although some parts of his composition were distinguished by strength, clarity and contraction.
2. Dialectics as a doctrine of the unity and struggle of opposites. Heraclitus claimed: everything flows, nothing remains motionless and constant, everything develops and turns into another. In two of his famous fragments we read: “You cannot enter the same river twice and you cannot touch something mortal in the same state twice, 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, meanwhile, in reality it each time consists of new water that arrives and disappears, therefore, entering the river a second time, we wash ourselves with other water. But we ourselves are changing: at the moment of full immersion in the river, we are already different, not the ones we were. Therefore, Heraclitus says that we enter and do not enter the same river. In the same way, we are and are not, to be what we are at a certain moment, we must not be what we were at the previous moment. This aspect of the teachings of Heraclitus led some of his students to extreme conclusions, such as Kratila, who asserted: we can’t not only swim twice in one river, but we can’t even once, when we enter and plunge into the river, other water arrives, and we ourselves are different even before complete immersion.
For Heraclitus, the assertion about the variability of the world around us was a statement of an obvious fact for everyone, starting from which, we need to go to deeper questions: what is the source or reason for the constant change in the world; what is the basis of the world, for one cannot 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 things cool, wet ones dry, dry ones get wet, a young man becomes decrepit, a living person dies, another youth will be born from a mortal, and so on. Between the opposing sides there is always a struggle. "The struggle is the mother of everything and the master of everything." The eternal flow of things and universal formation are revealed as a harmony of contrasts, as the eternal pacification of the warring parties, the reconciliation of the debaters and vice versa. “They (the ignorant ones) do not understand that what is excellent is according to oneself; the harmony of differences is like the harmony of lyre and bow. ” Only in alternating opposites give each other a specific meaning: “Disease makes health sweet, hunger gives the pleasantness of satiety, and hard work gives you a taste of relaxation.” Opposites come from the One and come together in harmony: “The road up and the road down is the same road.” The same thing - living and dead, awake and sleeping, young and old, because some things, changing, become different, and those and others, changing in turn, become the first. Philosophy is a reflection on the great contradictions that the mind everywhere encounters in the reality that it cognizes. Opposing principles of unity and multitude, finite and infinite, peace and movement, light and darkness, good and evil, active and passive, are mutually exclusive, and at the same time, they are united in the source and the whole system of the Cosmos is kept in harmonic combination. Thus, Heraclitus claimed Cosmic Law of Polarity: the manifested world exists due to the bifurcation of the One into opposites, which are one in essence, but different in manifestation. Hence, the knowledge of the world consists in the knowledge of opposites and finding their unity.
3. Doctrine of Fire.The internal source of development of all forms of the world is the Spiritual Beginning. Heraclitus claimed that the One Principle, which lies at the base of all phenomena in Nature, is Fire, all are manifestations of this Divine Substance. “All things are exchanges of fire, and one fire changes all things, just as commodities are exchanges of gold, and all things change to gold.” “This order, one and the same for all things, was not created by any of the Gods, nor by any of the people, but has always been, is and will be the eternal living Fire, igniting measures and decaying measures.” Fire is Spirit or All-Life, all other elements and forms are only transformations of Fire, everything that we see is only a dying, 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, evolved from the Fire, the thinking and immortal Element, are identical. If Fire is Spirit, animating everything, then earthly matter is extinct spirit; human souls, on the contrary, are “flaming lights,” an ignited substance. The Universe arises from the One Element, Fire, this primary Substance is transformed from the state of Fire into Air, then into the state of Water, then Water becomes the Earth, and then everything returns to the source. The path from Fire to Earth is the path of extinction - Heraclitus calls it "the way down," the reverse process of ignition - the "way up." He recognized the world year, consisting of two periods: the period of the depletion of the Divine, corresponding to the formation of the world, and the period of fullness, excess, saturation, corresponding to the ignition of the Cosmos. Thus, Heraclitus claimed Cosmic Law of the Cycle:everything begins with a fiery divine state and ends in a dense one, and then the process unfolds to the beginning, the material becomes spiritual again.
4. The doctrine of the Logos and 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, finally, thought and its carrier mind. As a result, the Logos is the Cosmic Mind, God is the Creator and Ruler of the Cosmos. Logos - Fiery Being; The Mind moving the Cosmos is Fire and Fire is Mind. The Logos of Heraclitus periodically creates the Cosmos from Fire and destroys it again after all the lives in it have passed the cycle of existence laid down by him. Nothing will escape and escape from this fiery Logos, he will come suddenly, he will judge everything and take everything; the world should ignite and all the elements will again plunge into the Fire, from which they once arose. By Cosmos, ancient philosophers meant our Solar System, knowing the Infinity of the worlds, they studied our cosmos, the house in which the evolution of minerals, plants, animals, people and gods. Cosmos includes various spheres with different densities of matter, in Heraclitus we find mention that Cosmos is at least divided into two parts: the upper, the heavenly - the sphere of the divine, pure and intelligent Fire, and the lower, the sublunar - the sphere of the extinct substances cold, heavy and damp. Thus, the Cosmos for the philosopher seemed united and animated, full of souls, demons and gods.
5. Teaching about a person. Heraclitus fully accepted the Pythagorean and Zoroastrian views on the human soul and its properties. Man is the unity of body and soul, in addition, man has two souls: one fiery, dry, wise, immortal; the other is wet, unwise, blind, mortal. Condemning the popular religion, especially in the gross forms of its cult, Heraclitus, however, was a religious thinker who affirmed the above-ground existence and the law of reincarnation. He believed that the souls of people, before descending "into generation" or the lunar existence, live on the "Milky Way". He revived the idea of \u200b\u200bOrphics 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 \u200b\u200bpunishment and rewards after death: "After death, people overtake what they did not expect, which 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 man, the death of a man is the birth of a deity, the resurrection of true life. "Immortals are mortal, mortals are immortal, these live the death of those, and they die the life of these." Between man and the deity there is constant communication, since man cognizes the divine, and the divine is revealed to him.
6. Teaching about knowledge.Comprehension of the Truth is difficult to find a grain of gold, a lot of land needs to be blown up; to find the Truth, we must examine everything by personal experience and work, believing our eyes more than our ears, ascending from the known to the unknown, expecting the unexpected. We must learn from Nature itself, comprehend secret unity and harmony in the visible struggle, hidden harmony, triumphing over its opposite; we must in Nature itself seek the Law, the Logos. The weakness of the human mind, its delusions, the inability to know the Truth are determined by the sensuality of a person, obscuring this light. It is necessary to be alert to feelings, since the latter are satisfied with the appearance of things. A man comprehends the Truth, partaking of the wisdom of the Logos,which involved his divine soul. Sensual passions and desires that defile the soul, self-conceit, arrogance and wisdom, addiction to private people's opinions - all this alienates the soul from the Logos, the source of Wisdom. Must follow Reasonwhich is one and universal, people live, as if having each their own mind, and therefore not knowing what they are saying and what they are doing. Any reasonable reasoning should be affirmed on what has the universality and necessity of the Law, and, moreover, the Law of the divine, and not a conditional decree of any state. Only reasonable knowledge has full certainty; only Mindcan discern the true in perception, find identity and agreement in the visible difference. The noblest of the senses - sight and hearing - lie to a person who is not enlightened by the Reason and does not know how to understand their instructions. Truth is reached by the mind beyond senses. “Eyes and luscious witnesses for people, if their souls are barbaric.” In this sense, Heraclitus considered himself a prophet of the comprehensible Truth, hence his oracle tone as a specific way of expression. The highest goal of human knowledge for him is the knowledge of the purpose of the Logos.
7. "The Crying Philosopher."Any legislation regulating human relations should be based on the Law that governs the Cosmos. However, the moral and religious concepts of contemporary society, just like the laws of his hometown, seemed to Heraclitus not only conditional, but directly false, radically corrupted. The deep pessimism of the "crying" philosopher had a cosmological and ethical foundation. The world is a faded, deserted Deity, individual souls are the flooded particles of the divine Fire, who have forgotten their divine origin. From childhood, people learn to do lawlessness according to the law, untruthfully the truth, they learn to deceive, steal and lack of religion, worshiping the one who has the most time for injustice and violence. Everyone indulged in madness and greed, everyone pursues illusory happiness, no one hears the law of the Logos-God, does not know the word of Truth. Whether people hear him or not, they don’t understand him and, like donkeys, prefer straw to gold. The very knowledge they seek is vain knowledge, for their hearts do not have in themselves the pursuit of truth. People seek healing from the evils of their lives, but their doctors are worse than disease. Do any of them get sick, they call doctors: they cut, burn, deplete a sore spot and demand a bribe for the same thing that diseases do. Whether anyone sinned, they make bloody sacrifices, thinking they should wash their mud 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 are relativehowever, their foundation is 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 simple people, some free, others slaves. The visible disasters and suffering caused by it are not evil in the absolute sense of the word, for as a doctor sometimes torments the body that he heals, how woolly beats beat, tear and crush their wool to make it better and stronger, so people suffer sorrows, without understanding their necessity. There are many opinions, but Reason is one, the divine Law is one, and all Human laws on which human society is based must be fed by this Law. Justice is known in them, for their protection it is necessary to stand, as for the walls of their native city. But people are reluctant to obey this Law, they cannot stand superiority either, they reject teachers, not recognizing that one sometimes costs thousands if he is the best and most knowledgeable.
The article provides facts from the biography of the great Greek philosopher Heraclitus and the main provisions of his philosophical teachings.
The thinker of the royal family
To this day, historians cannot agree on the date of birth of the great Greek philosopher. Various versions are called: from 544 BC to 540. One thing is known: at about this time a descendant of the legendary Androclus, the founder of the policy of Ephesus, was born.
Born in the Basileus family, Heraclitus undoubtedly received an excellent education, but information about the teachers was not preserved. This ancient thinker was described as a very gloomy, thoughtful and despising a crowd of people. He was called Dark (due to the ornate and incomprehensible manner of expressing his thoughts) or the Gloomy, sometimes crying philosopher. It is claimed, according to Strabo, that a descendant of a noble royal family voluntarily renounced power in favor of his brother. The beliefs and philosophy of Heraclitus did not accept democracy. Most likely, it was a form of protest against the established new political system.
Proud Mountain Hermit
Diogenes of Laertes reports on his solitary lifestyle ascetic and hermit. It is difficult to say what served as the impetus that led this thinker to almost complete isolation. According to one version, after Hermodor’s ostracism, Heraclitus did not see himself in the public life of his native polis, he believed that the expulsion of his friend caused irreparable damage to the public good of the city. Nevertheless, he retires to the mountains and eats "pasture", harboring contempt for the human race. Meliss of Samos visited a proud hermit. Perhaps, thanks to the decisive actions of the brave naval commander, the world recognized the philosophy of Heraclitus of Ephesus, who introduced him to the public.
There are different versions of the death of the thinker. According to one of them, Heraclitus was torn alive by dogs. Other sources claim that he died by smearing himself with manure. Marcus Aurelius probably gives a more reliable version. According to his testimony, Heraclitus was sick with dropsy and, perhaps, manure seemed to be one of the ways to get rid of the disease, according to ancient healers.
Philosophical teachings and schools in the era of Heraclitus
In addition to the philosophy of Heraclitus in the Hellenistic world, there were about three hundred teachings, which were mentioned by ancient Roman scholars. Particular attention is paid to three schools: Ionian (or Miletian), Pythagorean and Elean.
The founder of the Pythagorean school is Pythagoras of Samos.
Representatives of this teaching believed that the world order rested on the correct ratio of numbers, forms and proportions. They developed the doctrine of the Soul, its relocation and subsequent liberation through moral and physical purification. Cognition of the world was reduced to the study of numbers and mathematical laws that, in their opinion, governed the world.
The founders of the Eleic philosophical school were Parmenides, Zeno, and Melissus of Samos. They considered the integrity of the world from the position of the principle of a single indivisible object. For the philosophers of this school, his personification was being, which, with the variability of the nature of things, remains unchanged.
Philosophy School of Polis Miletus
It is necessary to say separately about the Milesian school, since the ancient philosophy of Heraclitus consistently criticized this teaching.
Bright representatives of this school and its founders are Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes and Anaxagoras.
The modern division of the year into days was given to us by Thales, and also gave a powerful impetus to the emergence of such sciences as philosophy, mathematics, and studied natural science. The first to formulate the basics of geometry.
Anaximander deduced the initial of four elements in a multifaceted nature.
Air, according to Anaximenes, was the primary element. The discharged air was transformed into fire.
Anaxagoras introduced the concept of Nus (mind), creating a cosmos from promiscuous combinations of various elements.
The Miletus school is the first natural philosophical doctrine or protophilosophy, as it is also called by modern scholars, which is characterized by the absence of terminology and the opposition to the material and ideal (spiritual).
The origin of the foundations of dialectics
Outlining the philosophy of Heraclitus briefly, it is necessary to place God, as a connecting link, in the center. God, in his opinion, combines all opposites into a single whole. The Logos is God. As an example, he introduces the image of lyre and bow. The philosophy of Heraclitus interprets this as follows: on the one hand, these objects are in binary opposition to each other according to their purpose. Bow - represents destruction and death, Lyra - is harmony and beauty. On the other hand, these objects exist and can fulfill their functions only when two opposite ends are connected - bowstrings and strings. In other words, according to the philosopher, everything in the world is born only due to opposition to each other. By this he persistently upheld the idea of \u200b\u200bequality of two opposites. One cannot exist without the other.
Heraclitus and the Miletus School
The philosophy of Heraclitus and the Milesian school of thinkers, having at first glance a general approach to the definition of the fundamental principle, differ in their understanding of the fundamentals of primary matter and its quality. Milets considered primordial matter as the basis of life, primordial matter from which everything emerges and then returns to it. Heraclitus also has the concept of primary matter - "eternally living fire." But it is not the primary basis for other things, because everything in the world is identical to each other. Fire plays the role of a symbol rather than a fundamental principle. The thinker considers constancy not as a fundamental principle, but as a movement toward change: "everything flows, everything changes." The philosopher deduced a constant pattern, which he designated as the Logos. The Cosmic Logos is a harmonious whole, which, according to Heraclitus, most people are not able to understand. Inside this system, everything is modified in accordance with the laws of mutual transition, but the Logos remains unchanged and constant. Thus, the world, although dynamic, remains stable.
The political views of Heraclitus
The philosophy of Heraclitus places the law, and not the decrepit customs and traditions, on top of all social relations. Thus voicing the principle "Everyone is equal before the law." Heraclitus spoke unflattering about democracy, considering it the power of the crowd, which he compared with cattle, thoughtlessly stuffing his belly. Power must be given only to the best, who are always a minority. In this he defended the conviction of the need for the power of the aristocracy. Perhaps even his departure to the mountains was due to the fact that at one time he suffered a complete collapse in the political arena. The fact is that all ancient philosophers and thinkers were politicians with a keen interest in public administration. At the same time, information was preserved that Heraclitus defiantly refused lawmaking and public debate, citing the fact that "unworthy" had already come to power in Ephesus.
Democritus from Abdera and Heraclitus from Ephesus
Democritus was born around 460 BC. e. He traveled a lot, studied the philosophy of different nations: from Ethiopia to India. I met with Hippocrates, who described him as the smartest person. He loved solitude and often indulged in rampant laughter, so small people fumbling in his fuss seemed so petty. The philosophy of Democritus and Heraclitus is a common heritage of European ancient culture. These thinkers were often opposed to each other: Heraclitus, going out to people, cried, but Democritus, on the contrary, found everything funny in everything. Laughter and tears for ancient thinkers were acceptable reactions in response to the madness of human life, as well as personified wisdom. Thus, two great philosophers were a living embodiment of the ideas of ancient people about what real sages should be.
The influence of Heraclitus on the further development of philosophy
The philosophy and teachings of Heraclitus are called the basis of dialectics. It was he who introduced into philosophy the concept of the unity of the struggle of opposites. By this he had a great influence on Plato, who through Kratila became acquainted with this law and further developed it. Representing absolutely existent as a process, Heraclitus, as it were, reduces being to being, and this can easily lead to the denial of the law of equality (A \u003d A). Since everything flows and everything changes and nothing is constant, any cognition is impossible, since it is impossible to state unambiguously about anything because of its variability.
Heraclitus criticized Aristotle. Nietzsche, Hegel, and many other thinkers, admiring the philosopher, also criticized many points in his teaching. In any case, if there are ideas that are still debated, therefore, they are relevant, therefore their creator continues to live.
The philosophy of Ancient Greece was at the beginning of the path of knowledge and understanding of the World, but thanks to the inquisitive mind of its first adherents, we descendants got the foundation on which we sculpt the temple of modern science.
Heraclitus (circa 544-483 BC)
Heraclitus of Ephesus, the younger contemporary of the Ionian philosophers Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes, a man of noble family, aristocratic way of thinking and sad temperament, prone to melancholy, built a system based not on experience, but on speculation, which takes fire for the source of material and spiritual life, which , in his opinion, it is necessary to consider the initial of all things. Heraclitus set out his teaching in the book "On Nature"; ancient writers say that his presentation was very dark.
Crying Heraclitus and LaughingDemocritus. Italian fresco 1477
According to Heraclitus, fire is a natural force that creates everything with its warmth; it penetrates all parts of the universe; we accept, in each part, its special property. These modifications of fire produce objects, and by further modifications of it, objects produced by it are destroyed, and thus the universe is in an eternal cycle of changes: everything in it arises and changes; lasting, unchanging, there is nothing. Everything that seems to a person constant, motionless, seems so only by deception of feelings; Everywhere in the universe everything takes on different qualities every minute: everything in it either composes or decomposes. The law by which changes occur is the law of gravity. But the eternal process of changing matter is governed by a special universal law - an unchanging fate, which Heraclitus calls the Logos or Geymarmen. This is eternal wisdom, introducing order into the eternal current of changes, into the process of the eternal struggle of emergence with destruction.
Heraclitus is the first ancient Greek philosopher known to us, who believed that the main task of the philosopher is not to contemplate the inert, fixed forms of the surrounding being, but to penetrate the essence of the living world process through deep intuition. He believed that in the universe this is primarily the eternal, ongoing movement, and all the material objects involved in it are only its secondary tools. The doctrine of Heraclitus is at the origins of the ideological movement, which gave, among other things, the modern Western "philosophy of life."
The human soul, according to Heraclitus, consists of warm, dry steam; she is the purest manifestation of divine fire; it is nourished by the heat received from the fire surrounding the universe; she perceives this warmth through her breath and sense organs. That soul is endowed with wisdom and other good qualities, which consists of very dry steam. If the steam that makes up the soul becomes raw, then the soul loses its good qualities and its mind weakens. When a person dies, the divine part of him is separated from the body. Pure souls in the afterlife become higher beings than humans (“demons”). It seems that Heraclitus thought of the fate of the souls of evil people in the same way as the popular belief of the afterlife kingdom of the god Hades. Some scholars believe that Heraclitus was familiar with the Persian teachings of Zoroaster. They see his influence in the fact that Heraclitus considers everything dead unclean, gives extremely high importance to fire and considers the process of life to be a universal struggle.
Heraclitus. Painting by H. Terbruggen, 1628
Sensual knowledge cannot, according to Heraclitus, lead us to the truth; it is found only by one who tries to delve into the divine law of the mind that rules the universe; he who obeys this law receives peace of mind, the highest good of life. As the rule of the universe rules and must dominate the soul of man, so he must dominate the state life. Because Heraclitus hated tyranny, he hated democracy, as the dominion of an unreasonable crowd, which obeys not reason, but sensual impressions and therefore deserves contempt.
He boldly rebelled against Greek worship and rejected the gods of folk religion. The learned Zeller says of him: “Heraclitus was the first philosopher who strongly expressed the idea that nature is imbued with the original principle of life, that everything material is in a continuous process of change, that everything individual arises and perishes; He opposed this process of eternal change of objects, the invariable sameness of the law of change, the dominance of rational power over the course of life of nature. The idea of \u200b\u200bHeraclitus about the sovereignty of the unchanging, rational Law-Logos over the process of change was not apparently accepted by those of his followers, whom Plato laughs at because they did not recognize anything permanent, spoke only about the continuous variability of everything according to the internal law of the universe .
Years of life: about 540 BC - 483 BC
Greek philosopher, creator of historical dialectics (the doctrine of the eternal formation and variability of being). We know about the life of Heraclitus mainly from the words of his biographer Diogenes. And about philosophy - from the words of philologist Herman Diels, who retold Heraclitus' only book "On Nature", which includes 125 statements on various topics. The original book is lost.
Heraclitus was born in Ephesus, the Greek city that was located on the territory of modern Turkey. He was the heir to the ruling Androclus family and as a child was no different from other children: he spent a lot of time on the street, playing with friends. Most likely, he studied a lot, like all descendants of noble families. But the boy grew up and everything changed.
Heraclitus turned into a young man dissatisfied with life, who was not seduced by power or social activity. Yes, and simple communication with people was a burden. He refused the title in favor of his brother and retired to the temple of Artemis, where he indulged in thought in ascetic conditions, eating herbs. Why did he do that? Some historians claim that it was an act of protest: he hated democracy, considering it an unjust form of government. In his early writings, Diogenes wrote that Heraclitus’s renunciation of power was a gesture of generosity, and in later writings it was a manifestation of arrogance. One way or another, Heraclitus became a hermit, he did not have a wife or children. At first, he went out to throw dice with yard boys, but he sank more into misanthropy and eventually hated the whole world.
Heraclitus in a painting by the Dutch artist Morelse
Heraclitus considered all uneducated fools to whom no education would help. “Mnogoznanie does not teach the mind,” he declared contemptuously to people. Those paid him in return: Heraclitus was beaten with sticks at poetry contests. He had no teachers or students.
The philosophical teachings of Heraclitus were contradictory and gloomy, like his life. Speaking to people, he cried. Contemporaries called him that: Heraclitus the Dark or Heraclitus the Gloomy. He sang of war and death: "War is the father of all, the king of all: she declares some to be gods, others to be people, some to be slaves, others to be free." Heraclitus is often contrasted with another sage - the positive Democritus, who loved to laugh during performances.
He did not take part in lawmaking and polemics, because he believed that the authorities were unworthy people. He believed that aristocrats should be in power. He called democracy the power of a crowd that looks like cattle stuffing a belly.
Heraclitus is sometimes called a philosopher-poet - his thoughts are metaphorical, they have many puzzles. He wrote simply about complex, but few could understand the true meaning of the statements. Socrates admitted that he was able to unravel only some of the ideas of Heraclitus, and admired them.
Heraclitus introduced the concept of "logos" into philosophy - the meaning and laws of life. According to the philosopher, world harmony is a cosmic logo, which over time remains unchanged. However, people are not able to realize this. They believe that their logo is more important than the universal.
The gloomy philosopher argued that the world is constantly changing and transforming, and called this process a world current. Every matter and substance has an opposite. For example, the human soul consists of two components: the noble (fire) and the noble (water). Heraclitus first introduced the concept of atom. According to the philosopher, both the body and the human soul are composed of atoms.
The death of Heraclitus is as grim, incomprehensible and mysterious as his life and philosophy. According to one version, he got dropsy, decided to treat the disease with manure, but the remedy did not help. So he was found dead in a pile of excrement. According to another version, there was no dropsy, and the philosopher was bullied by wild dogs.
Read about the life of HERACLITUS, the biography of the great philosopher, the teachings of the sage:
HERACLITES
(c. 544-483 BC)
Ancient Greek philosopher, representative of the Ionian school. He considered the beginning of the world to be fire, which is also the soul and mind (logos); by condensation from the fire all things arise; by discharge, they return to it. He expressed ideas about continuous change, formation ("everything flows", "you cannot enter the same river twice"), that opposites are in eternal struggle. Main essay: "On nature."
Around the middle of the III century BC. e. the basis of the chronology adopted in ancient Greece was the holding of the Olympic Games; the first games, according to legend, took place in 776 BC. e. The ancient Greeks believed that a person reaches physical and spiritual maturity by the age of forty, and called this period of human life "acme". According to Diogenes Laertes, the “acme” of Heraclitus falls on the 69th Olympiad (504-501 BC). This means that Heraclitus was born around 544-541 BC. e. According to etymology, the name "Heraclitus" comes from the name of the goddess Hera and the words "glorious", "glorified", that is, it means something like "Geraslav." Diogenes Laertius reports that according to one version of Heraclitus’s father, they called her Bloson, and her friend was called Gerakont. Diogenes himself is inclined to consider the first version more reliable. All sources unanimously claim that Heraclitus came from the Asia Minor Greek city-state of Ephesus.
Ephesus was one of the twelve Ionian policies and was founded in the XI century BC. e. The city received the name "Ephesus" by the name of one of the mythical Amazons. Ephesus was located in the fertile region of the Kaistros River, which flows into the Kaistrian Gulf (now Kushada Bay, northwest of the island of Samos). Ephesus, along with other policies of the Greek world, went through a process of democratization; power passed from the royal and aristocratic families to the democratic layers of the population, which is directly related to Heraclitus of Ephesus. He came from the royal family of Katridov. However, at that time, he could not only claim the privileges associated with his genealogy, but also voluntarily refused even those privileges that were still vested in the representatives of the deposed royal families or descendants of the aristocracy. One source says that because of “pride”, Heraclitus lost his royal title to his brother, which he had to inherit from his father. Most researchers find this message believable.
Regarding the motives, one can only guess. Some scholars believe that Heraclitus refused the dignity of the king in protest against the triumph of democracy in Ephesus. The abdication allowed Heraclitus "to join, on an equal footing with other" best "citizens, in the thick of political events." It is said that Heraclitus persuaded the tyrant Melancom to resign. Usually, researchers do not trust this message, in particular, they express doubt about the existence of the tyrant Melancom in Ephesus in the era of Heraclitus. Others, on the contrary, referring to Herodotus, according to which the Persian commander Mardonius deposed (in 492 BC) all Ionian tyrants and established democratic rule in the respective cities, they believe that in Ephesus under Persian rule tyrant apparently , Melancom, which, like the rest of the Ionian tyrants, was overthrown by Mardonius.
Heraclitus, who was about 28 years old and eager to turn around, might have persuaded Melancom to relinquish his power in favor of Hermodor. But Hermodor did not rule for long. All attempts to establish the role of Hermodor in the history of Ephesus and the reasons for his exile did not yield results. Heraclitus himself says: “It would be worth all adult Ephesians to strangle and leave the city to teenagers, because they expelled Hermodor, the husband between them the most useful, saying:“ May there be none among us most useful, and if there is one, let him be in a foreign land and with strangers. "
Hermodor may have claimed sole rule. In this regard, researchers pay attention to the statements of Heraclitus, in most cases favoring the sole form of government. Be that as it may, the very exile of Hermodor could have occurred in a democracy. The sharply negative reaction to the expulsion of Hermodor is not the only case talking about the inconvenience of Heraclitus with his fellow citizens. Here is what we read in another snippet. "May wealth not leave you, Ephesians, so that it can be seen how vicious you are." In those days, scientists, philosophers often settled at temples, which willingly provided the sages with housing. But at the same time, Greek scholars and philosophers, which also refers to Heraclitus, were not required to fulfill priestly duties or imitate the lifestyle of the priests.
Living at the temple, Heraclitus, according to evidence, sometimes played dice and other children's games with children, sometimes indulged in “idle” thoughts. He told the Ephesians who had caught him at the game of grandmother: “Why are you, the most depraved, surprised? Isn't it better to do this than to conduct state affairs among you?” Diogenes also said that the philosopher rejected the Ephesians' requirement to draw up laws for them on the grounds that their "bad rule" had taken root. If behind these legends lies a grain of historical truth, then it boils down to perhaps the following: Heraclitus, like all thinkers of the period of the Greek classic, was primarily a political figure, being in the thick of the state and public life of Ephesus, he showed a keen interest to social changes and political events of his time. In a word, Heraclitus was a “polis” Greek, which means a “born” politician.
It is possible, however, that failure in the political field, anger and frustration at his fellow citizens forced him (most likely, in adulthood or at the end of his life) to leave the political arena and refuse to participate in public affairs. The Greeks marveled - the descendant of the royal family chose the path of poverty and reflection. But they often remembered Heraclitus the sage in connection with serious circumstances for the city. Thus, the Ephesians, recognizing him as one of the prominent sages, believed that he could give Ephesus the most wise legislation. According to the testimony of Diogenes Laertius, when the Ephesians "asked him to give them laws, he neglected their request, referring to the fact that the city was already in the grip of a bad state system."
There is evidence that the Athenians sent their ambassadors to Heraclitus. Having learned about him as an outstanding philosopher, the inhabitants of Athens who were interested in philosophy wanted to see Heraclitus in their city, to hear him, to argue with him. The thinker refused this.
A lot of evidence, however, confirms that Heraclitus was passionately interested in the affairs of the Greeks, sharply criticized the orders in Ephesus and other Greek cities. For the love of paradoxes and intricate turns of speech, Heraclitus in the III century BC. e. was nicknamed "mysterious," and from the 1st century BC. e. he was constantly accompanied by the epithet "dark." However, the reputation of a "dark" philosopher, which was firmly entrenched in him, did not prevent his popularity both in antiquity and in subsequent times. They say that when the playwright Euripides, also known as the bibliophile, gave Socrates the work of Heraclitus and asked his opinion, he answered as if: “What I understood is excellent, I think that what I did not understand is also. However, he needs a Delos diver. "
In the Teetet dialogue, Plato, alluding to the "darkness" of Heraclitus, ridicules the love of paradoxes and mysterious sayings of some Heraclitians. Aristotle, who formulated the basic laws of logic, was irritated (besides the complexity of the expression) by the Ephesian’s manner of combining opposing concepts and ideas (for example, “we enter and do not enter the same river”).
According to Theophrastus, Heraclitus does not express anything clearly in one case, he "does not finish something," in the other - "contradicts himself because of melancholy." A legend has come down to us, as if, going out to people and talking with them, Heraclitus was always very sad and, despising them for their stupidity, even cried in impotent rage. Since then, the nickname "Crying Philosopher" has entrenched him.
Did Heraclitus give his compositions an obscure form intentionally? This could be consistent with his philosophical conviction expressed in the words "Nature loves to hide." In any case, so Cicero thought, justifying Heraclitus. “Darkness” does not deserve to be reproached in two cases, either if you introduce it intentionally, like Heraclitus, who is known by the nickname “Dark”, for he reasoned too darkly about the nature of things, “or when the incomprehensibility of speech is due to the darkness of the subject.” However, “is dark ", the subject of Heraclitus was also unusual, because it was about the hidden nature of things, about the dialectics of the world that are most difficult to comprehend. Each of the interpreters expresses their own version, reinforces it with evidence.
A number of essays are attributed to Heraclitus of Ephesus. Like other Greek sages, Heraclitus, according to evidence, wrote the essay "On Nature". Diogenes Laertius reports that it was divided into three main parts: in the first, it was about the Universe, in the second - about the state, in the third - about theology. This refutes the possible idea that the work, whose title is “On Nature”, is devoted to nature only in its own narrow sense of the word. And we can assume that in it there could be a discussion about the essence of everything that exists. Then the essay, divided into thoughts about the Universe (that is, about nature itself), about the state and about the deity, contains the three most important stories that occupied all the ancient Greek philosophers, and after them philosophers from other countries and eras.
According to Heraclitus, man is a part of nature, nature (cosmos), which is an eternally living fire, is not created by anyone, it is eternal and immortal ("divine"); a person must conform with nature, with its living "soul" - the eternally living fire-logos, or, in other words, with its active material-ideal basis, or essence.
It is the eternally living fire that is the beginning of the world. A fragment is preserved in which he writes: "This cosmos, the same for all that exists, was not created by any of the gods and none of the people, but it has always been, is and will be forever alive, with fires and extinct measures." In another fragment, he writes about the changes of this eternally living fire: "Everything is exchanged for fire and fire for everything, like gold for goods and goods for gold." Those changes that occur in the direction: earth - water - air - fire are called Heraclitus the way up, and those that go in the opposite order - down.
The fire in the interpretation of Heraclitus is something like fate, which carries with it some kind of retribution, even if it does not establish cosmic "justice."
Every phenomenon for Heraclitus is made up of opposing principles. These opposites are in a state of struggle: "War is the father of everything and the mother of everything; one she determined to be gods, other people; some she made slaves, others free." "You should know that the war is universal, and the truth is struggle, and everything happens through struggle and out of necessity."
In the philosophy of Heraclitus, there is, so to speak, the value of all values, which he truly worships. It's about the law. "The people," says Heraclitus, "must fight for the violated law, as for the wall of the city." Obviously, this does not mean every available law of any state. But the value of a true law for him is not just high, but absolute. This thought occurs later in Socrates and Plato.
One of the main vices against which Heraclitus speaks with true passion is ignorance. According to the philosopher, ignorant are those who succumb to deceptive human opinion, who are lazy in thinking, who, in the pursuit of wealth, do not improve their souls. A common form of ignorance: people believe in what they are told. Heraclitus indignantly speaks of such people and contrasts the crowd - "the best": "One to me is darkness, if he is the best." Who does Heraclitus refer to the "best"? These are those who, thinking, perfecting the soul, prefer “bestial” satiety with purely material wealth. But the "best" are not just people who acquire knowledge, although it is, of course, very important to reflect, reason, and accumulate knowledge. For Heraclitus, understanding is already a kind of virtue. And each person can develop in himself a beneficent ability to think, to know himself. The ability to think and self-knowledge, according to Heraclitus, is in principle given to all people, you just need to use it correctly.
The crowd, according to Heraclitus, is made up of people who are too lazy to part with ignorance, gullibility and rush to the path of wisdom. There are very few wise people, most of them are not involved in wisdom.
Sorrowing over the ignorance of the "majority", the Ephesian observes: "It is better to hide ignorance" than to reveal it publicly; "Dogs bark at those they don’t know"; "Arrogance should be extinguished faster than a fire."
It is interesting that Heraclitus sees the cause of the "barbarism of souls" of people in their concrete material state. The fact is that souls, he explains, come from moisture, but tend to dry out. And the difference between a "wet" and a "dry" soul just determines the difference between a stupid and intelligent person. So, a drunkard, says Heraclitus, certainly has a wet soul. At the same time, the soul of the sage is the driest and best. It is characteristic that in a state of extreme dryness, the human soul, according to Heraclitus, emits light, testifying to its fiery nature. Moreover, moving to Hades, the souls of the sages play a special role there as guardians of the living and the dead.
According to Heraclitus, ignorant people with their "rude" souls do not strive for a distant and lofty goal: "Having been born, they crave life and thereby death, or rather, to calm down, and leave the children born to death." Meanwhile, the purpose of man is not just to live and give birth to their own kind. He should overcome his penchant for passive perception of life and careless complacency. Unlike the "wet" soul of the ordinary and smug "many," the "dry" ("fiery") soul of the "best" is in constant dissatisfaction and anxiety. However, dissatisfaction is an integral feature of human life itself. "People would not feel better if all their wishes were fulfilled." Life knows no rest and rest; peace and inaction are "a property of the dead."
Although the Ephesian declares the idea of \u200b\u200bthe afterlife illusory, he nevertheless does not give a definite answer to the question that arises about the possibility and impossibility of the afterlife. According to him, "after death, people are waiting for what they do not expect and do not expect." However, judging by some fragments, it seems that Heraclitus adhered to the belief that a person by his behavior and lifestyle in this world determines the fate of his soul in the other world, that is, posthumous rewards and punishments. Therefore, a person who has indulged in sensual pleasures and who has led a predominantly unreasonable ("wet") lifestyle cannot rely on the posthumous preservation of the individuality of his soul.
This means that excessively moistened remnants of his psychic fire will turn into water or, at best, separated from the moisture contained in them, merge with the cosmic fire and get lost in it. A different fate awaits the souls of wise and generally better people who adhere to a moderate lifestyle and protect their souls from moisture and pollution, that is, keep their psyche "dry." Such people, their souls, can hope for individual immortality. Probably Heraclitus consciously led the solitary life of a scientist, philosopher, a kind of hermit. He retired to the mountains, and ate grass and roots. Due to poor nutrition, Heraclitus fell ill with dropsy, however, he knew that "psyche death - to become water." Realizing that he was in mortal danger, he returned to the city to seek advice from the doctors he reproached. The philosopher, remaining true to his style, that is, speaking in riddles, turned to the doctors with the question of whether it was possible to turn the rain into drought, but they could not understand what he wanted from them. Then Heraclitus, based on the thesis that “the wet dries up,” invented his own method of treatment by climbing into a stable, he buried himself in manure (according to another version, he doused himself with manure), hoping that warm manure would save him. However, his hopes were not realized, and he died. According to another version, he recovered, but later died from another disease. The date of death of Heraclitus is unknown. From the message of Diogenes, it follows that Heraclitus died at the age of sixty years, that is, about 484-481 BC. e. To what extent this date is true is difficult to judge. With some certainty, it can be assumed that Heraclitus died a little later, around 475 BC. e.
......................................
Copyright: life biography teaching
