Western Philosophy
Ancient philosophy |
Heraclitus by Johannes Moreelse. The image depicts him as "the
weeping philosopher" wringing his hands over the world and "the obscure" dressed in dark clothing, both traditional motifs.
|
|
Name
|
|
|
Birth
|
ca. 535 BC
|
|
Death
|
475 BC
|
|
School/tradition
|
Not considered to belong to any school of thought, but later subscribers to the philosophy were "Heracliteans."
|
|
Main interests
|
Metaphysics, Epistemology, Ethics, Politics
|
|
Notable ideas
|
Logos, flow
|
|
Influenced
|
Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle, Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Whitehead, Karl Popper, among many others
|
Heraclitus of Ephesus (Ancient Greek: Ἡράκλειτος ὁ
Ἐφέσιος — Hērákleitos ho Ephésios, English Heraclitus the Ephesian) (ca.
535–475 BC) was a pre-Socratic Ionian philosopher, a native of Ephesus on the coast of Asia Minor.
Heraclitus is best known for his doctrine of eternal flux.
Ancient characterizations
The obscure
At some time in antiquity other than his own (at least as far as the evidence indicates) he acquired an epithet denoting that
his major sayings were difficult to understand. Timon of Phlius calls him "the
riddler" (ainiktēs) according to Diogenes Laertius, [1] who had just explained that Heraclitus wrote his book "rather unclearly"
(asaphesteron) so that only the "capable" should attempt it. By the time of Cicero he had become
"the dark" (Ancient Greek ὁ Σκοτεινός — ho Skoteinós[2]) because he had spoken nimis obscurē, "too obscurely",
concerning nature and had done so deliberately in order to be misunderstood.[3][4] The customary English
translation of ὁ Σκοτεινός follows the Latin, "the obscure."
The weeping philosopher
Diogenes Laertius[1] ascribes to Theophrastus the theory that Heraclitus did not
complete some of his works because of melancholia. No additional detail is given, but the
word melancholy comes from the Theory of the Four Humors attributed to
Hippocrates. Theophrastus probably did not mean that Heraclitus was inflicted with
dyscrasia ("bad mixture"), a hypothetical pathogenic condition caused by the excess of one of the humors, in this case
black bile (melaina cholē), as he is not portrayed as insane or as having one of the diseases associated with that condition.
Theophrastus probably simply meant that Heraclitus had a melancholy disposition, which is not clear in either English or ancient
Greek. Not finishing the work might be a symptom of mild clinical depression; on the other hand, Heraclitus was also "the
obscure."
Later he was referred to as the "weeping philosopher", as opposed to Democritus, who is
known as the "laughing philosopher".[5] If Stobaeus[6], a writer of the late empire,
writes correctly, Sotion, mentor of Seneca in the early 1st century AD, was already
using the duo as a teaching device: "Among the wise, instead of anger, Heraclitus was overtaken by tears, Democritus by laughter." The laughing Democritus appears alone briefly a few decades earlier in
Cicero.[7]
The Pseudepigrapha of the Hippocratic corpus[8] relate the story of a visit to Democritus by Hippocrates to investigate a
report by the citizens of Abdera that Democritus had gone insane and was laughing at
everything obsessively, including weddings and funerals. Hippocrates found him surrounded by books and the bodies of animals
which he had dissected to examine their bile. He said he was investigating the causes of insanity.
On being questioned as to why he found the matters at which he laughed comical, he replied with the vanity argument, that all is
"folly and baseness" and a waste of time, which is essentially what Heraclitus had said. Hippocrates gave him a "passing" on
mental health and went away.
Putting these traditions together the ancient professors of philosophy came up with the imaginative duo of weeping and
laughing philosophers. The view is expressed in more or less complete form by the satirist Juvenal:[9]
The first of prayers, best known at all the temples, is mostly for riches .... Seeing this then do you not commend the one
sage Democritus for laughing ... and the master of the other school Heraclitus for his tears?
Subsequently the duo were considered an indispensible feature of philosophic landscapes. Montaigne proposed two archetypical views of human affairs based on them, selecting Democritus' for
himself.[10] The weeping philosopher
makes an appearance in William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, Act I Scene II Line 43. Donato
Bramante painted a fresco, "Democritus and Heraclitus", in Casa Panigarola in Milan.[11] And so on.
The Naturalist
Throughout the middle ages and into the 19th century Heraclitus was portrayed as a "naturalist" with varying interpretations
of that word. Diogenes says that the book attributed to him was On Nature (peri phuseōs)[12] where the operant word is phusis, "nature." In the next statement Diogenes
explains that by this he means "on the universe" (peri tou pantos, literally "about the everything"). In Fragment
DK B123 Heraclitus explains that nature likes to hide. This statement places him
among those seeking the hidden nature of things, akin to those who were seeking an explanation in substance.
Heraclitus had a rather different idea of the hidden nature than substance, but perhaps his ideas were too obscure for the
ancient students of philosophy. He was being called physicus at least as early as Cicero:[13] ... nemo physicus
obscurus? ... valde Heraclitus obscurus .... "no physicus was obscure? ... Heraclitus the obscure certainly was." In Cicero
and elsewhere he is lumped in that category with Democritus; perhaps the myth of the laughing
and weeping duo also was having its effect.
The long-standing translation of physicus into English is "naturalist." If phusis is nature, then a phusicus must be a
naturalist. For example, Serbati uses naturalist in translating a notable passage from Macrobius, which attributes to Heraclitus the view that the soul is a fragment of
starfire.[14] The term naturalist in native English can
have a great many meanings, most of which are responsible for myths about the gist of Heraclitus' thought.
Life
The main source for the life of Heraclitus, as is true of many other philosophers, is Diogenes Laertius. Some have questioned the validity of the anecdotes based on political or social
conjecture;[15] however, there is no solid
scholarship conclusively refuting the anecdotes.[16]
Time
Diogenes said that Heraclitus flourished in the 69th Olympiad,[17] which would be 504-501 BC. All the rest of the evidence - whom Heraclitus is
said to have known or who implies that he was familiar with Heraclitus' work - confirms the floruit but does nothing to establish
the start and end dates. Those vary by several years in different authors but all are based on an estimated life span of 60
years, round numbers, with the floruit in the middle.
Place
Heraclitus was born to an aristocratic family in Ephesus, present-day Efes, Turkey. His
father was named Bloson.
Character
Passing
There are several legendary stories about Heraclitus, especially concerning his eventual death from illness, including his
supposed attempt to stave off death using dung and ignoring doctors. These mostly stem from mis-interpretations of the metaphors
in his fragments and an attempt to construct a narrative based on these fragments.[18]
Philosophical fragments
We know from Diogenes Laertius's Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers
that Heraclitus wrote a book. Diogenes also tells us that he deposited his book as a dedication in the great temple of
Artemis, the Artemesium, one of the largest temples
of the 6th century BCE (and one of the "Seven Wonders of the Ancient World"). Diogenes' report here is likely to be true; ancient
temples were regularly used for storing treasures, and were open to private individuals under exceptional circumstances.
Furthermore, many subsequent philosophers in this period refer to the work. "Down to the time of Plutarch and Clement, if not later, the little book of Heraclitus was
available in its original form to any reader who chose to seek it out."[15] Furthermore, Heraclitus also became immensely popular in the period following his writing. Within
a generation or two "the book acquired such fame that it produced partisans of his philosophy who were called
Heracliteans."[19]
Unfortunately, as with other pre-Socratics, his writings only survive in fragments quoted by other authors. He disagreed with
Thales, Anaximander, and Pythagoras about the nature of the ultimate substance, and instead claimed that the nature of everything is
change itself; according to some interpretations he uses fire — with its connotations of both Promethean/human "fire", and the cosmic fire outlined by contemporaneous pre-Socratics — as a metaphor rather
than his solution to material monism, however the nature of the evidence is so sparse that it is difficult to substantiate this
claim.[citation needed][dubious – discuss]. This led to the belief that change is real, and stability illusory. For Heraclitus everything is "in flux", as
exemplified in his famous aphorism "Panta Rhei" ("Panta Rei"):
πάντα χωρεῖ καὶ οὐδὲν μένει (Plato, Cratylus 402a)
Everything flows and nothing is left (unchanged), or
Everything flows and nothing stands still, or
All things are in motion and nothing remains still.
Heraclitus is recognized as one of the earliest dialectical philosophers with his
acknowledgment of the universality of change and development through internal contradictions, as in his statements:
"By cosmic rule, as day yields night, so winter summer, war peace, plenty famine. All things change. Air penetrates the
lump of myrrh, until the joining bodies die and rise again in smoke called incense."
"Men do not know how that which is drawn in different directions harmonises with itself. The harmonious structure of the
world depends upon opposite tension like that of the bow and the lyre."
"This universe, which is the same for all, has not been made by any god or man, but it always has been, is, and will be an
ever-living fire, kindling itself by regular measures and going out by regular measures"
He is famous for (allegedly) expressing the notion that no man can enter the same river twice:
"Ποταμοῖς τοῖς αὐτοῖς ἐμβαίνομέν τε καὶ οὐκ ἐμβαίνομεν, εἶμέν τε καὶ οὐκ εἶμεν."
"We both step and do not step in the same rivers. We are and are not."
A modern translation of this quote may better illustrate how Aristotle's later position on the illogic of contradiction was
not a direct refutation of Heraclitus:
"No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man."
The idea of the logos is also credited to him, as he proclaims that everything
originates out of the logos. Further, Heraclitus said "I am as I am not", and "He who hears not me but the
logos will say: All is one." Heraclitus held that an explanation of change was foundational
to any theory of nature. This view was strongly opposed by Parmenides, who said that reality
was permanent and unchanging. According to Lavine, Parmenides asked, "How can a thing change into something else? How can it be
and not be?" According to Parmenides, change is merely an illusion.[20]
His promotion of change also led Heraclitus to believe that conflict (e.g., ἀγών agon in
Greek) is necessary for change to occur and to argue against Homer: "War is the father of
all and the king of all" and "Every animal is driven to pasture with a blow."
His view on the random chance inherent in the universe[dubious – discuss]. is
famously the direct opposite of Einstein's (in which he stated "God does not play dice
with the universe"): "Time is a child moving counters in a game; the kingly power is a child's."
The Heraclitean emphasis on the nature of things and existence as one of constant change, expressed with language of polarity,
is particularly reminiscent of another ancient philosophical tradition, that of Taoism: the
Tao (or "the Way") often refers to a space-time sequence, and is similarly expressed with
seemingly-contradictory language (e.g., "The Way is like an empty vessel / that may still be drawn from / without ever needing to
be filled"). Indeed, parallels have been drawn between the fundamental concepts of the logos (as it was understood during
Heraclitus's time) and the Tao.[21]
Influence
The interpretation of Heraclitus' work is diverse, partly due to the fragmentary nature of his statements, and partly due to
the perspectives of his interpreters. Although many philosophers have acknowledged his influence, including Plato and Aristotle, his concept of Becoming, in which ontological opposites are seen as fundamentally interrelated, is central to his philosophy. More particularly,
he wrote: "Opposition brings concord. Out of discord comes the fairest harmony" (frag. 98; trans William Harris). Both Plato and
Aristotle would have disagreed. Plato believed that each thing has one unchanging essence. Aristotle was the first philosopher to
formally state the law of non-contradiction as "one cannot say of something that
it is and that it is not in the same respect and at the same time." Therefore Aristotelian logic
is in direct opposition to logos, because statements like "I am as I am not" clearly violate the
law of non-contradiction.
- Plato understood Heraclitus as the theorist of "panta rhei" (universal flux), as contrasted
with Parmenides' conception of a fixed and stable reality.[22] As a point of clarification, Heraclitus does not appear to have proposed that reality as a whole
is unstable, but since Heraclitus recognized nothing but existence itself as stable (existence being one), his philosophy came
into conflict with Plato's inclination toward multiple universal absolutes. Plato's theory of forms has been seen as a response
to Heraclitus.
- Aristotle saw Heraclitus as "a material monist who derived the entire physical world from
fire as its underlying element,"[22] and also as a
kind of dialectical philosopher of harmonic opposition.[23][24] Origen and Hippolytus of Rome also appear to have adopted the
"dialectical" interpretation.[25][26]
- The Stoics based their cosmology on Aristotle's materialistic interpretation of Heraclitus,
and interpreted the Logos as transcendent Reason, immanent in the world. Kahn sees the Stoics as
"the true Heracliteans of antiquity."[22]
- Heraclitus' idea of the Logos was very influential on Jewish philosophers such as Philo of Alexandria, who connected it to
Jewish notions of "Wisdom personified" as God's creative principle. Philo uses the term Logos throughout his treatises on Hebrew
Scripture in a manner clearly influenced by Heraclitus' work.
- The author of the fourth Gospel, the Gospel of St. John (traditionally ascribed to John the Apostle) uses the term Logos
throughout the first chapter of his book to describe the pre-human existence of Jesus as the Word (Logos) of God: "In the
beginning was the Logos (Word), and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God. All things were made by him; and without him
was not any thing made that was made....And the Logos was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as
of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth." (John 1:1, 3, 14)
- Alfred North Whitehead, known for having seen all of Western philosophy as
the legacy of Plato, saw Heraclitus as Plato did, yet referred to both the forms of Plato and the flux model of Heraclitus in
developing his own thoughts on process philosophy.
- Oswald Spengler wrote his doctoral thesis on Heraclitus[1], and his notion of eternal war was very
strongly influenced by Heraclitus, who saw conflict as "the father of all things."[2]
- Martin Heidegger in his 1943/44 lectures expansively discusses Heraclitus in the
context of "the origin of occidental thought" and "logic - Heraclitus' teaching of logos",[28] and credits the very coining of the term "philosophy" to Heraclitus,
evidently because of Heraclitus' high regard for "sophon" (wisdom; what is wise).
- Karl Popper accused Heraclitus as having played a part in laying the foundations for a
closed society. In particular, Popper concludes that Heraclitus relativises moral values, quoting Heraclitus: "The good and the
bad are identical", relating to Heraclitus's theory of the unity of opposites. Popper also alleges Heraclitus of having
formulated a historicist doctrine based on the "justice of war and the verdict of history a
tribalist and romantic ethic of Fame, Fate, and the superiority of the Great Man".[29]
- Carl Jung developed the psychological concept of enantiodromia (in a manner similar to Heraclitus' usage) to illustrate his notion that whenever an
individual forms an asymmetrical, conscious ideation as fundamentally predominant, for example, "masculine" values and
suppositions of a father archetypalfigure, there will necessarily be opposing forces, and that
they will make themselves apparent within the unconscious in various ways as a means to
maintain an individual's psychic balance.
Notes
- ^ a b Book IX, 6.
- ^ De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum, Chapter 2, Section 15.
- ^ Compare Plato's not writing anything under
his own name so as NOT to be misunderstood. Most of the ancient philosophers considered that their principles were secrets not to
be generally published; in fact, some, such as the Pythagoreans, required an oath of
secrecy.
- ^ The name Heraclitus Scotinus was used earlier by Livy in Book 23 Chapter 39 as belonging to an emissary sent to Hannibal, which
was after the time of the philosopher. It is tempting to presume a usage deriving from the philosopher and descending to the
emissary but there is no evidence of that.
- ^ Many writers of what the classicists call "handbooks" are not aware of the
antiquity and meanings of these terms. For example, Kenny, Sir Anthony (1998). A
Brief History of Western Philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, page 18. ISBN 0-631-20132-7.
calls the laughing of Democritus "late" and ascribes it to feasting. For a scholarly presentation the reader is referred to
Seneca, Lucius Annaeus; John M. Cooper
& J.F. Procopé (translators) (1995). Moral and Political Essays. Cambridge University Press, page 50 note 17. ISBN
0521348188.
The brief presentation above is based on quotes of ancient authors given there.
- ^ III.20.53
- ^ On Oratory II.235.
- ^ Letters ostensibly of Hippocrates but
of date and authorship unknown. There is a chance that they did somehow descend from Hippocrates or were written from memory by
some or one of his students and associates. They must have a source and the least likely explanation is that they are a
Hellenstic fabrication, as they are among medical texts and not part of myth. Letters 13, 15, 16 and 17 concern Democritus. Their
contents are discussed in Temkin, Oswei (1991). Hippocrates in a World of Pagans
and Christians. Baltimore: Johns HopkinsUniversity Press, pages 67-70. ISBN 0801851297.
- ^ Satire X. The translation is from Juvenal; Sidney George Owen (translator) (1903). Thirteen Satires of
Juvenal. London: Methuen & Co., page 61.
- ^ Montaigne, Michel
de. Of Democritus and Heraclitus.
The Essays of Michel de Montaigne. www.gutenberg.org.
- ^ Levenson, Jay, editor; Daniel
J. Boorstein (Introduction) (1992). Circa 1492: Art in the Age of Exploration. New Haven: Yale University Press, page 229.
ISBN 0300051670.
- ^ IX, 5-6.
- ^ De Divinationibus II 132-133.
- ^ Serbati, Antonio Rosmini
(1888). Psychology. London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., page 27.
The Macrobian passage is Macrobius. Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis, I 14.20.
- ^ a b Kahn, Charles (1979). The Art
and Thought of Heraclitus: Fragments with Translation and Commentary. London: Cambridge University Press, pages 1 – 23. ISBN
0-521-28645-X.
- ^ For example, Charles Kahn referenced in a previous footnote begins by
asserting "The details of Heraclitus' life are almost completely unknown", followed by a number of pages of detail. He gives an
overview of the some of the scholarship on Heraclitus but descends to personal invective in support of unsubstantiated
speculation: "The 'Life' ... is a tissue of Hellenistic anecdotes, most of them obviously fabricated ... the unusually disgusting
report of his final illness and death reveal a malicious pleasure .... Such stories may reflect no more than the contempt for his
fellow-citizens." While these statements reflect the values and views of Kahn, they must not be taken as an objective account of
antiquity.
- ^ Book IX, 1. The Greek is a form of the verb, "to acme", according to
which English scholars refer to the acme, meaning floruit.
- ^ Kirk, G.S. Heraclitus: The Cosmic Fragments London:
Cambridge University Press, 1954. ISBN 0-521-05245-9
- ^ Laertius, Diogenes. The Lives of Eminent Philosophers. Cambridge, Mass:
Harvard University Press, 1965
- ^ Lavine, T. Z. (March 1984). "Shadow and Substance - Plato's Sources: The Pre-Socratics", From Socrates
to Satire: The Philosophic Quest. New York, New York: Bantam Books, 24. ISBN 0-553-25161-9.
- ^ E.g. Christoph Harbsmeier, Science and civilisation in China, vol.
VII:1 (Cambridge UP, 1998), p. 258; Graham Parkes, Heidegger and Asian thought (U of Hawaii P, 1987), p. 140; Jonathan R.
Herman, I and Tao: Martin Buber's Encounter with Chuang Tzu (SUNY Press, 1996), p. 95.
- ^ a b c Kahn, Charles H.; "The
Art and Thought of Heraclitus;" Introduction.
- ^ Aristotle; Nicomachean
Ethics; Book VIII, Chapter 1.
- ^ Aristotle; Eudemian Ethics; Book
VII, Chapter 1.
- ^ Origen; Contra Celsus; Book
VI, Chapter 42.
- ^ Hippolytus of Rome; Refutation of All Heresies; Book 9, Chapter 4: "An Account of the System of
Heraclitus".
- ^ Nietzsche, Friedrich; The Twilight of the Idols; "Reason in Philosophy;" section 2.
- ^ Heidegger, Martin. Heraklit. Gesamtausgabe, vol. 55. Frankfurt/Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1979.
- ^ Popper, Karl, The Open Society and Its Enemies: Vol. 1 The
Spell of Plato London: Routledge Classics, 1965.
Bibliography
- Bakalis, Nikolaos (2005). Handbook of Greek Philosophy: From Thales to the
Stoics: Analysis and Fragments. Trafford Publishing, pages 26-45 under Heraclitus. ISBN 1-4120-4843-5.
- Barnes, Jonathan (1982). The
Presocratic Philosophers [Revised Edition]. London & New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group. ISBN
0-415-05079-0.
- Burnet, John (2003). Early
Greek Philosophy. Kessinger Publishing. ISBN 0-7661-2826-1.
First published in 1892 this book has had dozens of editions and has been used as a textbook for decades. The first edition is
downloadable from Google Books for free at [3] and the text is also available on the Internet (follow the Wikipedia author link).
- Davenport, Guy (translator) (1979).
Herakleitos and Diogenes. Bolinas: Grey Fox Press. ISBN 0-912516-36-4.
Complete fragments of Heraclitus in English.
-
Heidegger, Martin;
Fink, Eugen & Seibert (translator), Charles H. (1993), Heraclitus Seminar,
Evanston: Northwestern University Press, ISBN 0-8101-1067-9. Transcript of seminar in which two German philosophers
analyze and discuss Heraclitus' texts.
-
Heraclitus; Haxton (translator), Brooks &
Hillman (Forward), James (2001), Fragments: The Collected Wisdom of Heraclitus, New
York: Viking (The Penguin Group, Penguin Putnam, Inc.), ISBN 0-670-89195-9. Parallel Greek & English.
- Laertius, Diogenes. Lives and
Opinions of Eminent Philosophers in Ten Books.
Book IX, Chapter 1, Heraclitus.
- Lavine, T.Z. (1984). From Socrates to Sartre: The Philosophic Quest. New
York, New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. (Bantam Books), Chapter 2: Shadow and Substance; Section: Plato's
Sources: The Pre-SocraticPhilosophers: Heraclitus and Parmenides. ISBN 0-553-25161-9.
- Robinson, T.M. (1987). Heraclitus: Fragments: A Text and Translation with a
Commentary. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-6913-4.
- Wright, M.R. (1985). The Presocratics: The main Fragments in Greek with
Inroduction, Commentary and Appendix Containing Text and Translation of Aristotle on the Presocratics. Bristol: Bristol
Classical Press. ISBN 0-86292-079-5.
See also
External links
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
-
Bearden, Thomas E. (2002), "Appendix III: A conditional Criterion
for Identity, Leading to a Fourth Law of Logic", Aids: Biological Warfare, Cheniere Press, ISBN
0972514651. A modern physicist looks at the problem of change as
expressed by the law of identity of Aristotle and the
flux of Heraclitus and formulates a relativistic solution. A basic knowledge of
Symbolic logic and the concept of spacetime is
required but advanced mathematics is not necessary.
- Elpenor. Heraclitus: The Word is Common (html). The Greek Word: Three Millenia of Greek Literature. Elpenor.
Retrieved on 2007-10-10. Heraclitus bilingual anthology from DK in Greek and English, side by side, the translations being provided by the organization,
Elpenor.
- Graham, Daniel W. (2006). Heraclitus (html). The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The editors. Retrieved on 2007-10-09.
- Harris, William, translator (1994). Heraclitus: The Complete Fragments: Translation and Commentary and The Greek Text (pdf).
Humanities and the Liberal Arts: Greek Language and Literature: Text and Commentary. Middlebury College. Retrieved on
2007-10-09. Greek and English with DK numbers
and commentary.
- Heraclitus the Obscure:
The Father of the Doctrine of Flux and the Unity of Opposites (html). Archimedes' Laboratory. Retrieved on 2007-11-09. Text and selected aphorisms in Greek, English, Italian and French.
- Hooker, Richard (1996). Heraclitus (html). World Civilizations: An Internet Classroom and Anthology: Greek Philosophy. Washington
State University. Retrieved on 2007-10-11. Selected fragments translated by Hooker.
- Hoyt, Randy (2002). The Fragments of
Heraclitus (html). Retrieved on 2007-10-09. The fragments also cited in DK in Greek (Unicode) with the English translations of John Burnet (see Biliography).
- Knierim, Thomas (2007). Heraclitus:[Ephesus, around 500 BC] (html). thebigview.com. Essay on the flux and fire philosophy of Heraclitus.
- Lancereau, M. Daniel; M. Samuel Béreau (2007). Heraclitus (html/pdf). Philoctetes: ΦΙΛΟΚΤΗΤΗΣ. Retrieved on 2007-10-10. Site with links to pdf's containing the fragments of DK in Greek (Unicode) with the English translations of John Burnet (see Biliography) and
translations into French, either in parallel columns or interlinear, with links on the
lexical items to Perseus dictionaries. Includes
also Heraclitus article from Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh
Edition.
- Stamatellos, Giannis. Heraclitus of Ephesus: Life and Work (html). Retrieved on 2007-10-12.
- Trix. Heraclitus' Epistemological Views (html). sym•pos•i•a: σψμποσια: the online philosophy journal. Retrieved on
2007-10-10.
| Persondata |
| NAME |
Heraclitus |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES |
Heraclitus the Ephesian; Heraclitus of Ephebes; Heraclitus the Obscure; Ἡράκλειτος ὁ Ἐφέσιος - Herákleitos ho Ephésios |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION |
Greek philosopher |
| DATE OF BIRTH |
535 BC |
| PLACE OF BIRTH |
Ephebes, Asia Minor |
| DATE OF DEATH |
475 BC |
| PLACE OF DEATH |
|
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
