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INTRODUCTION OF HERACLITUS
Heraclitus or Herakleitos was a great pre-Socratic philosopher of Ephesus of 540-480
BC) , who in his philosophy, made a number of astonishing observations on the nature of
life and of the universe. Pre-Socratic is the period before Socrates, from the sixth to
approximately the middle of the 5th century BC, may, for purposes of convenience, be
called as such.1 Heraclitus was the first philosopher to have shown the relation between
the divine law and the human laws. There is another view on him where he was said to be
known as to his contemporaries as the 'dark philosopher, so-called because his writings
were so difficult to understand.2 Heraclitus compared most peoples understanding to that
of those asleep. He was also remembered mostly for his hatred of democracy, his
prophecy about global war and his pre-Christian utterances on the vanity of all human
affairs. But he does not seem to have been, so far, fairly appreciated by scholars.
Apart from this, he was in temperament aristocratic, melancholy, and meditative; and
gave up public office for contemplative retirement, holding the world in contempt.
Mostly self-taught and independent in his views, he studied and freely criticised those of
others, and was probably the profoundest of the early Greek thinkers. A work of his
entitled On Nature won for him, by the crudity of its style and, also, we may suspect, by
the depth and paradoxical character of its contents, the sobriquet of The Obscure.
Diogenes Laertius relates that Socrates, when asked what he thought of a certain work of
Heraclitus, replied, "What I have understood is good; and so, I think, what I have not
understood is; only the book requires a Delian diver to get at the meaning of it" 3
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1

DH van Zyl, SC MA LLB Drjur PhD LLD DLitt, Judge of the Supreme Court of South Africa, Transvaal
Provincial Division. The origins of natural law in Greek legal thought. 26 De Jure 100 1993
2
http://www.ancient.eu/Heraclitus_of_Ephesos/. Joshua J. MARK. 14 July 2010.
3
Lives of the Philosophers (Bonn's Class. Lib.), p. 65.

There are few principles derived by Heraclitus during his time. He had a lot of law

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concepts and he is the first one who manage to transform them into something real. For
him law is reason and it must rule and govern, because it is neither transitory nor
capricious; it is constant, serene, eternal; it deals with the general and the universal. The
city where man lives must be based on law, because law is reason and reason is universal;
the science of politics is derived from the knowledge of the universal law. Although his
theory is not systematically expressed, yet his fragments are numerous enough to reveal
his conception of the law. "The people must fight for the law just as for a city wall." (fr.
44/100/) "With god all is beautiful, good, and just, but men hold that this or that is unjust
or is just" (fr. 102 /61/). "All human laws are sustained by the one divine law, which is
infinitely strong, and suffices, and more than suffices, for them all" (fr. 114/91b/).4
Heraclitus was the first to see man or the human soul as the center of the world. He
was the first to ask himself the ever burning question. What is man doing in the cosmos?
What is his place in the universal struggle between Being and Becoming? "I look into
myself," he used to say. In fact, by looking into himself, he became conscious of his place
and of his effect in the world, for knowledge has a relation to life. And the soul has a deep
insight and reason is universal. Man sees the laws of the universe and his duty is to learn
and obey them. He must follow the truth of nature which is infallible, because it is the
divine law of nature. Man is a whole in the scheme of the universe and he is not only a
physical being that has to obey the laws of the universe and he is also an intellectual
being who has to obey the laws of the city in which he lives. In short, he has humanised
the law and the law is new.

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4

Maurice Le Bell. Natural Law in Greek Period. 2 Nat. L. Inst. Proc. 3 1949

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BRIEF OF HERACLITUSS PHILOSOPHIES

Heraclitus s first principle itself is very intersting. Heraclitus is sometimes treated as
a Hylicist and Hylozoist. He did, it is true, assume a physical principle (fire) and affirmed
the universal presence of life in matter. The central point in his speculations, however,
was not the universal material source of things, but the universal process of things.
Emphasizing the aspect of change in nature, he held that existence was an absolute
process, a continual flux: , 5 "all things flow," is his real first principle.
Although his words are meant to provide concrete vicarious encounters with the world,
Heraclitus adheres to some abstract principles which govern the world. Already in
antiquity he was famous for advocating the coincidence of opposites, the flux doctrine,
and his view that fire is the source and nature of all things.
In commenting on Heraclitus, Plato provided an early reading, followed tentatively
by Aristotle, and popular down to the present. According to Barnes version, Heraclitus is
a material monist who believes that all things are modifications of fire. Everything is in
flux in the sense that everything is always flowing in some respects, as mentioned
earlier which entails the coincidence of opposites which was interpreted as the view that
every pair of contraries is somewhere coinstantiated and every object coinstantiates at
least one pair of contraries,6 The coincidence of opposites, thus interpreted, entails
contradictions, which Heraclitus cannot avoid. On this view Heraclitus is influenced by
the prior theory of material monism and by empirical observations that tend to support
flux and the coincidence of opposites. In a time before the development of logic, Barnes
concludes, Heraclitus violates the principles of logic and makes knowledge impossible.
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5

[] meaning everything flows and nothing stands still, everything gives way
and nothing stands still (Heraclitus via Plato, "Cratylus" 402a)
6
Betegh, G., 2004, The Derveni Papyrus: Cosmology, Theology and Interpretation, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.

Doctrine of flux is one of the important principle derived by Heraclitus. Barnes bases

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his Platonic reading on Plato's own statement Heraclitus, I believe, says that all things
pass and nothing stays, and comparing existing things to the flow of a river, he says you
could not step twice into the same river. The established scholarly method is to try to
verify Plato's interpretation by looking at Heraclitus' own words, if possible. There are
three alleged river fragments:
potamoisi toisin autoisin embainousin hetera kai hetera hudata epirrei.
The meaning of this statement is varied. First, definition derived by Cleanthes from
Arius Didymus from Eusebius that is on those stepping into rivers staying the same other
and other waters flow. Second, Heraclitus himself says it is that into the same rivers we
step and do not step, we are and are not. Third, it is not possible to step twice into the
same river according to Heraclitus, or to come into contact twice with a mortal being in
the same state said by Plutarch. Of these only the first has the linguistic density
characteristic of Heraclitus' words. The second starts out with the same three words as
Cleanthes, but in Attic, not in Heraclitus' Ionic dialect, and the second clause has no
grammatical connection to the first. The third is patently a paraphrase by an author
famous for quoting from memory rather than from books. Even it starts out in Greek with
the word river, but in the singular. There is no evidence that repetitions of phrases with
variations are part of Heraclitus' style (as they are of Empedocles).7
To start with the word river(s) goes against normal Greek prose style, and on the
plausible assumption that all sources are trying to imitate Heraclitus, who does not repeat
himself, we would be led to choose Cleanthes as the one and only river fragment, the
only actual quotation from Heraclitus' book. This is the conclusion of Kirk (1954) and
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7

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. First published Thu Feb 8, 2007; substantive revision Tue Jun 23,
2015

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Marcovich (1967), based on an interpretation that goes back to Reinhardt (1916). That
Cleanthes is genuine is suggested by the features it shares with Heraclitean fragments:
syntactic ambiguity, toisin autoisin the same can be construed either with the same
rivers or with those stepping in with what comes before or after, chiasmus, soundpainting, the first phrase creates the sound of rushing water with its diphthongs and
sibilants, rhyme and alliteration.8
If is accepted as genuine, it tends to disqualify the other two alleged fragments. The
major theoretical connection in the fragment is that between same rivers and other
waters. Cleanthes is, among other things, a statement of the coincidence of opposites.
But it specifies the rivers as the same. The statement is, on the surface, paradoxical, but
there is no reason to take it as false or contradictory. Heraclitus derives a striking insight
from an everyday encounter. Further, he supplies, via the ambiguity in the first clause,
another reading, on the same people stepping into rivers, other and other waters flow.
With this reading it is people who remain the same in contrast to changing waters, as if
the encounter with a flowing environment helped to constitute the perceiving subject as
the same.
It is seems as Heraclitus believes in flux, but not as destructive of constancy; rather it
is, paradoxically, a necessary condition of constancy, at least in some cases and arguably
in all. In general, at least in some exemplary cases, high-level structures supervene on
low-level material flux. The Platonic reading still has advocates, but it is no longer the
only reading of Heraclitus advocated by scholars.

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8

Ibid. 26 De Jure 100 1993

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Another philosophy derived by Heraclitus is about the soul and reason. The human
soul is but a mode of the universal fire. The dry soul is best; moisture in the soul obscures
reason. By respiration and the action of the organs of sense, the soul is nourished with the
universal fire. "Souls enter the body from a higher state of existence, and after death,
when they have proved themselves worthy of their privilege, they return as demons into a
purer life. Eyes and ears are bad witnesses to those who have "barbarous souls". The
senses deceive by giving the appearance of fix to things not fixed. The reason is the real
source of knowledge. By reason man ceases to be a dreaming individual and becomes a
waking universal. It is by participation in the universal reason, the ,9 that we
know and do that which is true and right. The principle he enunciates to explain this view
reads thus:
Those who speak with understanding must hold fast to what is common to all
as a city holds fast to its law, and even more strongly. For all human laws are
fed by the one divine law. It prevails as much as it will, and suffices for all things
with something to spare.10
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9

Logos (UK /los, ls/, US /loos/; Greek: , from lego "I say") is an important term
in western philosophy, psychology, rhetoric, and religion. It is a Greek word meaning "ground", "plea",
"opinion", "expectation", "word", "speech", "account", "reason", "discourse",but it became a technical term
in philosophy beginning with Heraclitus (c. 535475 BCE), who used the term for a principle of order and
knowledge.
10
Heraclitus refers to his philosophy as the word (logos), apparently in the sense of reasoned and ordered
principles governing the universe. Fire in turn is virtually defined as the "wise one", and it is to this
wisdom, likened to Zeus, that all things are fair and good and right, as opposed to men who consider some
things wrong and others right. In this regard Heraclitus puts forward the proposition that "thought" is
common to all persons in the sense that all people have the power to think, to understand and to gain
wisdom. This common power should be applied, as has been done by Heraclitus himself, who refers to his
own philosophy of the universe as "common" He criticises those who live as if they have a unique, and not
a common, wisdom. The value to Western philosophy of the thought of Heraclitus is expressed by
Armstrong in his own inimitable way in the folowing terms: "The Logos is thus for Heraclitus a universal
principle which is the cause of order, proportion, balance, harmony and rationality in the continual flow of
being and
is at the same time vividly alive. It is this union of life and rationality in the single concept of the Logos
which is one of Heraclitus's great contributions to our traditional inheritance of thought. The other is his
extraordinary vivid intuition of the nature of the world in which we live: a world in which all things are
subject to the law of perpetual change, and die continually into each other's life, and in which the only
possible harmony is a delicate and precarious tension of opposing stresses; but a world which is no mere
chaos but one governed by a living law. It is a view of the world of time and change which has been

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HERACLITUSS FRAGMENTS - The untrained mind shivers

with excitement at everything it hears. Heraclitus

There are 100 over fragments delivered by Heraclitus in his time. One which going
to be discussed in this writing is on the untrained mind shivers with excitement at
everything it hears. Well, a fool is fluttered by every word , dogs bark at that which
they do not know , these fragments brings a very minor difference yet there is a
common idea raised by these fragments, which is true judgment requires that beliefs are
not merely inherited by our parents but it is very influential by the surrounding
circumstances of a person. In each of these fragments, Heraclitus rebukes philosophical
idea and indicates the inadequacy of speech and hearing. 11 However, it can be seen in
these fragments stern reproaches from a silent, misanthropic man, and shaped his
biographical character, and the anecdotes that illustrate it, accordingly. The anecdotes
themselves, however, should not be taken as evidence for either a habitual refusal to
speak or for a nonverbal method of communication, teaching, or composition.
Like the report of his melancholy, these two anecdotes of willful, critical silence were
created from his work and probably for a comic as well as illustrative effect. Both,
Heraclitus under closer scrutiny, fall into pieces and reveal nothing about Heraclitus, but
a great deal about the biographical method and its dangers. Several biographical topic
come into play here. First and generally, the phrase that Heraclitus was exceptional from
youth is a telling one in the biographical world, for signs of adult genius are almost
always manifested in the subjects biographical youth.
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accepted by later and greater thinkers who looked beyond it to a transcendent and external world of the
spirit; and there are surely few in our own days who would be stupid enough to deny the essential truth of
Heraclitus's vision."'
11
Chpt 2 Heraclitus. G.S.Kirk.

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These tokens of future greatness are typical of philosophers as well as poets; bees sat
upon the lips of Plato as upon Pindars. Further, the biographer typically uses childhood
or youth to characterize the subjects adult nature. In this case, Heraclitus, having been
exceptional in youth, would naturally be exceptional as an adult. Next, in this passage
Diogenes Laertius veers from his usual track to emphasize the unusually misanthropic
nature of his subject; his routine standard now calls for a discussion of the subjects
teachers. Here, however, the only discussion is Diogenes Laertius insistence that
Heraclitus had no teacher, a statement we will consider in depth. Diogenes Laertius
makes only a casual mention of another source that makes Heraclitus the student of
Xenophanes.12 In this reputed relationship, we see a further example of the biographical
method, the equation of literary or philosophical influence with an actual student/teacher
relationship.
Conclusion, Heraclitus writing was of very significant elements in it which still can
be applied in this modern world.

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12

Diogenes Laertius begins his discussion of Heraclitus work, theories, and method of investigations, with
the passage that begins: He was exceptional from childhood, for when he was young, he declared he knew
nothing, but when he was old, that he knew everything. He was no ones pupil, but said that he had
searched himself (fr. 101) and learned everything from himself. Sotion, however, says that some people say
he was Xenophanes pupil. . . . (DL 9.5)