3/30/2023 0 Comments Heraclitus fragments meaningHis answer, strangely to our ears, is both. To Heraclitus, “listening to the logos” is about trying to suss out the underlying logic in nature, and he was (probably) the first one to try to figure out not just what the underlying element of nature is (as did his proto-physicist predecessors), but what the underlying principle of it is, and he asked the question whether this lawlike appearance of nature is something immanent within nature itself or imposed transcendentally from without. It’s about knowledge, being at the root of all the “-ology” words we have, and rationality, but not just in someone’s mind, but in nature itself. Brann’s emphasis in the book is on the Greek term “logos”-in Latin “ratio”-which has such a rich variety of meanings that she thinks we should really stop trying to translate it and just add “logos” to our lexicon. In particular, the characterization of him as a philosopher who posited that existence is pure flux (Plato’s characterization of him) seems to be bogus.ĭr. His book, if he even wrote a full book, did not survive antiquity, but he was quoted extensively by other authors, though in some cases (we think) erroneously. Heraclitus (who was active around 500 BCE) is the “Pre-Socratic” philosopher with probably the most influence today and together with Parmenides (it’s not clear which of the two lived first or whether they read each other) is considered the inventor of Western metaphysics. Should this “logos” be thought of as God? Does it have a personality, a will? Is it immanent in the world or a transcendent force shaping the world? Heraclitus says that the logos “is unwilling and willing to be called by the name of Zeus.” that relationships are made up of both love and strife, not in alternation but both, essentially, at the same time. Confusingly to modern readers, Heraclitus believes that paradoxes really exist, that what in this discussion we call “stable ambivalences” hold, e.g. The world is held together by tension the logos is force. The world’s intelligibility-its singular logos-doesn’t mean it’s peaceful, though. His physics imagined a basic material (he calls it fire, but clearly doesn’t mean the same thing as ordinary, visible fire) that transforms in lawlike ways (in definite ratios) into all the different parts of the world, and that it’s these cycles of transformation, driven by the logos itself, that make the world the moving system it is. What is the world like, and how can we understand it? Heraclitus thinks that the answer to both questions is found in “the logos,” which is a Greek word with multiple meanings: it can be an explanation, a word or linguistic meaning, science, rationality (the Latin word is “ratio”), the principle of exchange between things… So the world is logos, in that it behaves in a lawlike manner so that mathematics and science can describe it. Please note that Phoenix does not normally consider for publication articles of longer than 40 pages in manuscript, nor do we consider material that will be published or is under consideration for publication elsewhere.In the above podcast, Eva Brann discusses her book The Logos of Heraclitus (2011). The standard length of a Phoenix article is up to 10,000 words, including notes. Papers illustrated with black-and-white photographs, maps, and/or line-drawings are welcome. Authors should ensure that the argument of the paper is clearly expressed and its general significance made clear. The journal welcomes submissions that use new approaches to elucidate their chosen topic and wishes to encourage more submissions on broader themes, as well as those that treat a single question in a detailed manner. Articles should make a fresh, interesting, and significant contribution to our understanding of classical antiquity. Phoenix, journal of the Classical Association of Canada, publishes scholarly papers embodying original research in all areas of classical studies: the literature, language, history, philosophy, religion, mythology, science, archaeology, art, architecture, and culture of the Greek and Roman worlds from earliest times to about AD 600.
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