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Heraclitus: Nature
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Heraclitus of Ephesus was a Presocratic Greek philosopher from Ephesus in Asia Minor. As with other Presocratics, 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 claimed instead that everything is derived from the Greek classical element fire, rather than from air, water, or earth. This led to the belief that change is real, and stability illusory. For Heraclitus everything is "in flux", as exemplified in his famous aphorism "Everything flows, nothing stands still." He appears to have taught by means of small, oracular aphorisms meant to encourage thinking based on natural law and reason.
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Heraclitus was famous for his provocative sayings. For example: "you can't step in the same river twice"; "dogs bark at what they don't understand"; "expect the unexpected, or you won't find it, because it leaves no trail". Today, more than 2500 years after they were written, his ideas about life, nature and the cosmos remain as startlingly original as ever. Roger von Oech uses 30 of Heraclitus's epigrams as a springboard to innovation. Treating each saying as a creativity exercise, he supplies mental puzzles, amusing anecdotes and intriguing questions designed to topple old habits of thought and fire the imagination.
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There has been some debate as to whether Heraclitus is chiefly a philosopher of nature (a view championed by G. S. Kirk) or a philosopher concerned with the human condition (C. H. Kahn). The opening words of Heraclitus' book seem to indicate that he will expound the nature of things in a way that will have profound implications for human life.
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In reading these passages, you should be able to piece together the central components of Heraclitus's thought. What, precisely, is the Logos? Can it be comprehended or defined by human beings? What does it mean to claim that the Logos consists of all the paired opposites in the universe? What is the nature of the Logos as the composite of all paired opposites? How does the Logos explain change?
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