Heraclitus

Ephesus

He came from one of the city's noblest families and passed the hereditary royal office to his brother.

💡 Did you know? Heraclitus lived in Ephesus in Asia Minor: also famous for the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders.

Presocratics

The thinkers before Socrates asked above all about the primal ground of nature.

💡 Did you know? As a „Presocratic“, Heraclitus is among the early thinkers before Socrates who asked after the origin of the world.

everything flows

The formula itself probably stems from later authors: but it captures the core of his fragments.

💡 Did you know? „Panta rhei“ (everything flows): nothing stays, all is in constant change.

the river

'Into the same rivers we step and do not step': by the second step the water has changed.

💡 Did you know? „You cannot step into the same river twice“: the second time, both water and person have become other.

Logos

Rational order and world-law in one: the concept had a career reaching into Christian theology.

💡 Did you know? Behind all change, for Heraclitus, works a hidden world-law, the „Logos“: a term with enormous influence reaching into the Bible.

war

Not praise of battle, but opposition as the driving force of all becoming: like the counter-tension of the bow.

💡 Did you know? „War is the father of all things“: he means opposition, strife, as the engine of all becoming.

fire

An 'ever-living fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures'.

💡 Did you know? Heraclitus chose ever-changing fire as the archetype of the world: constantly consuming and arising anew.

the Obscure

Socrates reportedly joked that one needed a 'Delian diver' to fathom his depths.

💡 Did you know? His second epithet: 'the weeping philosopher': counterpart to the laughing Democritus.

in the temple of Artemis

Only some 100 fragments survive: quoted by later authors.

💡 Did you know? He is said to have deposited his enigmatic book in the Temple of Artemis: his obscure style earned him the epithet „the Obscure“.

Hegel

Heraclitus' thinking in opposites made him the ancestor of dialectics.

💡 Did you know? Hegel confessed there was „no proposition of Heraclitus“ he had not taken into his own logic.

He searched himself

He scorned mere polymathy: it 'does not teach understanding': otherwise it would have taught Pythagoras.

💡 Did you know? Asked about his teachers, Heraclitus proudly replied that he had „searched himself“.

Heraclitus

Heraclitus of Ephesus was a Presocratic thinker who interpreted the world as eternal change and strife.

💡 Did you know? His „panta rhei“ (everything flows) and the image of the river one cannot step into twice are among philosophy's most famous lines.