Blog Round Two: Electric Boogaloo - Heraclitus

I also like Heraclitus. The first thing I noticed about him is that in his writings he takes a lot of swings at other authors and poets, like Homer, Archilochus, Pythagoras, and Hesiod. His main reason for disliking them so is they have knowledge, but not understanding.

The distinction between knowing and understanding is very important to Heraclitus. Aphorism 3 states this clearly. Is reads, "Much learning ["polymathy"] does not teach insight. Otherwise it would have taught Hesiod and Pythagoras and moreover Xenophanes and Hecataeus." The next Aphorism also corroborates this point. "Pythagoras the son of Mnesarchus practiced inquiry more than all other men, and making a selection of these writings constructed his own wisdom, polymathy, evil trickery." I think the difference between learning and wisdom is rather obvious. People who have knowledge are common, but people who are wise are rare. 

Another point Heraclitus harps (haha instrument pun) on is the importance of objective thought. He says in aphorism 19, "One ought not to act and speak like people asleep." By "asleep", he means living and thinking in a personal matter. Heraclitus believes all people should live and act as if they are awake and sharing the same world. Objective thought and selfless action are necessary to live in the same world as other people, as to not be considered a bad person. 

The major point of contention I have after my first reading is at aphorism 28, which reads, "Heraclitus judged human opinions to be children's playthings." Heh. That's a pretentious statement. If human opinions are child's play, then how are we as adults supposed to transcend them? This line of thinking reminds me of the beginning of Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling, where he says, "In our time nobody is content to stop with faith but wants to go further. It would be perhaps be rash to ask where these people are going, but it is surely a sign of breeding and culture for me to assume that everybody has faith for otherwise it would be queer to them to be going further." Heraclitus seems to echo (or perhaps precede) the common people of Kierkegaard's society. He talks of going further than human opinions, but doesn't outline how. 

Second, the nature of going beyond human opinion is contradictory to me. We are humans, and so the highest opinions that we are capable of holding are human opinions. There are varying degrees of our opinions, good and bad, but I don't think we can transcend human thought. Kant wrote about the limits of human knowledge, the nouminal and phenomenal world, and how when knowledge has reached its limit, faith is needed to fill in the gaps. I generally agree with him. There are limits to things we can know, and there is a higher truth that is above us. There is a way in which the universe works that we are blind to due to our living in it. The truth (divine truth, THE truth) can only be observed by a being outside of our universe. 

So yeah, Heraclitus is pretty cool. There are a lot of obvious statements in the reader that he supplies (maybe they're not obvious to a citizen of Ancient Greece), a lot of pretentious statements (it takes a lot of balls to go after Homer and Hesiod), and few contentious statements. All in all, not a bad philosopher.

- Andrew