We
have already discussed quite a few of the Heraclitean Fragments and
themes raised in them, but in this entry we are looking at them collectively,
reiterating some, and bringing out the rest of the subjects, which together
constitute everything we know about Heraclitus, hopefully, although not
necessarily firsthand.
The
title of this entry represents probably the most familiar of his leitmotifs,
which says that everything (in this case, sun)
is subject to never-ending change, and I’ve chosen it for two reasons. One is
its relative novelty; the other is the fact that this ‘sun’ Fragment comes first in the
conventional numbering of these Fragments at #32, whereas the most
famous saying, You cannot step into the same river
twice belongs to Fragments 41-42.
(Ironically, in Fragment #81, he words this idea far more cautiously: We step and do not step into the same rivers; we are and are
not, whereas in Fragment 69, he appears to be at odds with
his own doctrine: The way up and the way down is
one and the same. To be fair, such contradictions are extremely
common with all original thinkers, who coin them with different applications in
mind, but on the surface, to a layman, producing seemingly sharp
inconsistencies.
There
is another cluster of entries, representing Heraclitus’ monistic worldview. Fragment
1 advises us to listen to the Logos and to
confess that all things are one. This One, to Heraclitus, is Fire,
and a number of Fragments rationalize such choice beginning with one
already quoted earlier: (20) This world, which is
the same for all, no one of gods or humans has made; but it was ever, is now,
and ever shall be an ever-living Fire with measures of it kindling and measures
going out. Out of fire come all things: The
transformations of Fire are first of all, sea; and half of the sea is earth,
half whirlwind (21). All things are an exchange for Fire and Fire for all
things, even as wares for gold and gold for wares (22). It becomes liquid sea
and it is measured by the same tale as before it became earth (23). Fire is
want and excess (25). It lives the death of air, and air lives the death of
fire; water lives the death of earth, and earth that of water (25). And
finally it becomes virtually indistinguishable from God: Fire in its advance will judge and convict all things (26).
It is expressed even more explicitly in God
is day and night, winter and summer, war and peace, surfeit and hunger; but he
takes various shapes, just as fire, when it is mingled with spices, is named
according to the taste of each (36). Heraclitean God is One, He is
wise (The way of humans has no wisdom, but that of
God has (96), but amoral, or rather, dwelling “Jenseits von Gut
und Böse“: To God all things are fair
and good and right, but people hold some things wrong and some right (61). (It
is particularly interesting how he is fusing this Divine Amorality with his
theory of Oneness in Fragment 57: Good and
ill are one. (!)
I
shall avoid the unpleasantly misanthropic and derisive (toward Homer, Hesiod,
Pythagoras, Xenophanes, etc.) Heraclitean Fragments, having discussed
them enough already. Also his doctrine of the opposites and the glorification
of war and strife, as well as his ‘Valhallization’ of all heroes slain
in battle. The last point I intend to make concerns a very modern phrase,
which, I am afraid, has not been properly attributed to its original source,
which is Heraclitus, and because it ought to stand out in a particularly sharp
relief, it must become a separate entry, whose title will hopefully catch
enough attention for the entry to be properly read and understood. This is
going to be my posting tomorrow…
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