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They called him ‘the Riddler’ and ‘the Dark’ — and Heraclitus earned both names. This lecture from Academy of Ideas introduces the enigmatic Ephesian who traded a throne for the lonely pursuit of truth. His philosophy is built on three intertwined ideas: everything is in flux, the world is an ever-living fire, and war is the father of all. From the river you cannot step into twice to the hidden tug of war inside a strung bow, Heraclitus saw a universe held together by tension. The video shows why his riddles are worth diving for, and how his ideas still echo through Nietzsche and the Will to Power.
Full Video Transcript
The Presocratics Lecture 3 Heraclitus
In this lecture we will discuss the life and ideas of Heraclitus, one of the more famous and perhaps the most enigmatic of the Presocratics.
Heraclitus was born in approximately 540 BC in the Greek city of Ephesus.
Of all the Presocratics, the ideas of Heraclitus are the most difficult to understand.
Ancient philosophers struggled mightily in attempting to decipher his paradoxical aphorisms,
and subsequently nicknamed him the Riddler and the Dark.
There is a story that when Socrates was asked what he thought of Heraclitus’ book, he replied,
What I understood was fine, and no doubt also what I didn’t understand,
but it needs a diver to get to the bottom of it.
It is likely that Heraclitus intentionally shrouded his ideas in obscurity,
for he thought anything of value must be obtained through hard work and effort.
Those who seek gold, he wrote, dig much earth and find a little.
Ancient sources report that Heraclitus was of royal descent
and that in fact he was in line to become the king of Ephesus.
However, he declined his right to the throne, passing it on to his brother.
He saw no value in governing the masses towards whom he held a strong aversion
and instead decided to spend his life in the lonely search for truth and wisdom.
A story notes that one day Heraclitus was playing dice with children in the streets of Ephesus
and bewildered at his apparent immaturity,
some politicians asked him what he was doing, upon which he quipped,
Why are you surprised, you good-for-nothings?
Isn’t it better than playing politics with you?
It would be safe to classify Heraclitus as an aristocrat and a misanthropist.
Most men are useless and ignorant conformists, he thought, and it is a waste of time paying any attention to the banter of the masses, just as it is useless to attend to the noises of sheep. It is only the rare and unique individual who has any worth. One man is to me ten thousand, if he be the best, he wrote.
Part of Heraclitus’ disdain for the masses was due to their blindness towards the truth.
Heraclitus thought there was a single principle, or what he called the Logos,
which permeated all of reality, and which could be discerned by man if he made an effort to understand it.
As such, Heraclitus thought that truth was common,
as this Logos, which unveils the truth regarding the nature of all things,
literally exists everywhere, ordering and structuring reality.
In other words, Heraclitus held that this Logos expresses an objective truth.
Despite the Logos being common or objective,
Heraclitus thought that most individuals were too dim-witted to understand it.
But although the Logos is common, he wrote,
men live as if they had a private understanding of their own.
In other words, most men live in their own petty and constricted reality tunnel,
perceiving the world through their own illusory private beliefs, desires, insecurities, and opinions,
blind to the magnificent and divine truth which nourishes and orders all things.
The masses, forever remaining ignorant of the common truth which pervades all things,
spend their days sleepwalking.
Heraclitus condemned this ignorance.
Other men are unaware of what they do while awake,
just as they forget what they do when asleep.
How does one wake from their spiritual slumber and seize this divine truth?
Such a task, thought Heraclitus, one must perform on one’s own.
An understanding of the Logos cannot be obtained through academic study, nor by listening to the teachings of a philosopher.
The best that one who knows the truth can do is point to it, but ultimately the individual must see the truth through his own eyes.
While all the other pre-Socratics erected philosophical systems by building on the ideas of their predecessors, Heraclitus arrived at his ideas solely through inner contemplation.
I searched myself, he explained in the opening of his book.
The philosopher Diogenes reverberated this idea.
He was no man’s disciple, but said that he had searched himself and learned everything from himself.
Heraclitus’ vision of reality is encapsulated in three different intertwined ideas.
Everything is in flux, the world is an ever-living fire, and war is the father of all.
Heraclitus is perhaps most famous for his river statement.
Into the same river it is not possible to step twice, he wrote.
This statement is not merely an observation about rivers, but instead is symbolic of the nature of reality.
The first century philosopher Plutarch expounded this point.
According to Heraclitus, it is not possible to step into the same river twice,
nor lay hold twice of any mortal substance in one permanent state.
The universe, thought Heraclitus, and everything in it, is constantly in flux.
Every object, even though it may appear to our senses as being temporarily stable and permanent, is in fact in constant motion, morphing and transforming itself into a different object each instant.
This idea has profound consequences for philosophical thought, for if nothing remains the same for two instants, then knowledge of the sensible world is an impossibility.
For even if one could obtain knowledge of something in one instant, a mere second later that thing will have changed, rendering that knowledge obsolete.
Along with the fact that if everything is in flux it is impossible to arrive at any knowledge of anything, Heraclitus’ flux doctrine can also stimulate nihilistic despair.
For if everything in this world is eternally rolling on in a ceaseless flux, it follows that everything we value and all the spectacular human achievements, which we take pride in and derive meaning from, will ultimately decay into dust.
The ancient Mesopotamians were aware of this grim idea.
Mere man, his days are numbered. Whatever he may do, he is but wind.
Connected with Heraclitus’ flux doctrine is his claim the world is an ever-living fire.
There is much debate regarding exactly what Heraclitus meant by this statement.
Some have taken a more conservative approach, and claimed that it was meant merely as a symbolic description of the world.
Since everything is engaged in a continual flux, then fire serves as an apt symbol for the ceaseless change that is occurring, even in objects which appear stable and at rest.
However, there is evidence to suggest that Heraclitus in fact was aiming at something more with his statement,
the world is an ever-living fire.
The Stoics, who were heavily influenced by Heraclitus, identified fire with the Logos,
and claimed that the fire of Heraclitus permeated all things,
and was rational and responsible for the government of the whole world.
Heraclitus also stated that a man’s soul is fire,
and that when an individual exercises and cultivates his most divine feature, his reason,
then his soul becomes pure fire, hot and dry.
The dry soul is wisest and best, he wrote.
And just as the dry and hot soul is best, he claimed that to have a wet soul is the worst for man.
A man when he is drunk stumbles and is led by a beardless boy, not knowing whither he goes, for his soul is wet.
Another fragment signifies that when an individual dies, their soul turns to water.
For it is death to souls to become water, and death to water to become earth, but water comes from earth, and from water, soul.
This quote leads us into the final idea of Heraclitus’ we will consider, war is the father of all.
War is the father of all and king of all, Heraclitus stated.
Everything that comes into existence, Heraclitus thought, does so only through the destruction of something else.
Other Greeks thought the elements and things in this world were engaged in a sort of war, so to speak.
However, they called this war evil and longed for a stable and permanent reality where peace and rest reigned supreme.
Heraclitus was unique, for he envisioned the war and strife which all things in the world are engaged in as good.
Strife is justice, he wrote.
Not only did Heraclitus think that all elements and things in this world were engaged in a war with all other things,
but each object, each living thing, he thought, is constituted by opposing forces in tension.
To explain this idea, some scholars have used a strung bow as an example to illustrate how all things are made of opposing forces,
and hence subject to internal tension.
As William Guthrie explained in his first volume of A History of Greek Philosophy,
Look at a strung bow lying on the ground or leaning against a wall.
No movement is visible.
To the eyes it appears a static object, completely at rest.
But in fact a continuous tug of war is going on within it,
as will become evident if the string is not strong enough or is allowed to perish.
The bow will immediately take advantage, snap it, and leap to straighten itself,
thus showing that each had been putting forth effort all the time.
The harmonia was a dynamic one of vigorous and contrary motions, neutralized by equilibrium and so unapparent.
Since everything is in flux, for Heraclitus any apparent harmony conceals an underlying strife.
To conclude this lecture we will close with a quote by Nietzsche, who was heavily influenced by the ideas of Heraclitus.
Nietzsche took Heraclitus’ idea that all things are constituted by opposing and warring forces, and applied this idea to the nature of human beings.
In our culture, it is common to think of the good or even the great individual as one who has overcome their strong and evil passions, and cultivated internal peace and harmony.
The good individual is one who is devoid of internal tension, or so it is commonly believed.
In Heraclitian fashion, Nietzsche strongly disagreed with this assumption.
The great individual, he thought, is one who is constituted by a strong internal division,
where evil and good passions are engaged in battle with each other.
It is through this battle, he thought, that one develops strength, insight, and wisdom.
A passage contained in The Will to Power conveys the influence Heraclitus had on the development of the ideas of Nietzsche.
The essential point is, the greatest perhaps also possess great virtues, but in that case also their opposites.
I believe that it is precisely through the presence of opposites and the feelings they occasion that the great man, the bow with a great tension, develops.
Source: Academy of Ideas