Chapter 1 On #Nature 2 #Ethics 3 #Idealism 4 #Existentialism 5 #Phenomenology 6 #Aesthetics

Philosophy

Eva Brann discusses her book The Logos of Heraclitus (2011).

What is the world like, and how can we understand it? Heraclitus thinks that the answer to both questions is found in “the logos,” which is a Greek word with multiple meanings: it can be an explanation, a word or linguistic meaning, science, rationality (the Latin word is “ratio”), the principle of exchange between things… So the world is logos, in that it behaves in a lawlike manner so that mathematics and science can describe it. His physics imagined a basic material (he calls it fire, but clearly doesn’t mean the same thing as ordinary, visible fire) that transforms in lawlike ways (in definite ratios) into all the different parts of the world, and that it’s these cycles of transformation, driven by the logos itself, that make the world the moving system it is.

The world’s intelligibility–its singular logos–doesn’t mean it’s peaceful, though. The world is held together by tension; the logos is force. Confusingly to modern readers, Heraclitus believes that paradoxes really exist, that what in this discussion we call “stable ambivalences” hold, e.g. that relationships are made up of both love and strife, not in alternation but both, essentially, at the same time. Should this “logos” be thought of as God? Does it have a personality, a will? Is it immanent in the world or a transcendent force shaping the world? Heraclitus says that the logos “is unwilling and willing to be called by the name of Zeus.” It’s a stable ambivalence! Is your MIND BLOWN YET?

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Heraclitus on Understanding the World (with Eva Brann) - Partially Examined Life

Heraclitus stands alone among the pre-socratic philosophers. Contradictory, riddlesome, and enigmatic, he remains one of the most influential, yet least well-understood figures in Western philosophy. 

Born to a noble family in Ephesus, a city in Ionia, Greek Asia Minor, present day Turkey. Supposedly, he passed on a kingship, awarding it instead to his brother, to pursue a life as a roaming philosopher. He was self-taught. Heraclitus is not associated with any of the prominent schools of philosphy known to us from the time, and is regarded as an independent thinker and misanthrope, one who looked to break away from orthodoxies that pervaded his day. He drew influence from Anaxamander, Thales, and others; was critical of Pythagoras, and was most notably influential on Cratylus, who brought his philosophy to Athens, where Plato was introduced to it. Aristotle viewed Heraclitus as contradicting the Law of Noncontradiction, and regarded his unusual style of obscurantist, pithy, and ambiguous assertions as incoherent. Regardless, he proved influential not only to the Stoics, but also to nearly all of Western philosophy that followed.

Whenever you hear of the life of Heraclitus, they will say we don’t know much on the account of his life due to the sparse remaining fragments of his writings, and suspiciousness of the stories passed down from later writers, or sayings attributed, that may be imposed or fabricated altogether. Most of what we know comes from a single source, Diogenes Laertius and his Lives. In his lifetime, Heraclitus, produced but one book, which was stored in the great Temple of Artemis at Ephesus. and has since been lost in time. This work was supposedly tripartly divided into sections on cosmology, politics, and theology. The book was so inlfuential in its time, despite there being only one original copy available to whoever ventured to seek it out. It spawned a legion of followers, known as the Heraclitians, posthumonously. What remains of his life’s work comes down to us in fragments, 12 9, which constitute the perplexing, paradoxical, playful, somewhat sardonic philosophy of the Weeping Philosopher.

A sampling of the fragments will constitute our main subject today. In true Heraclitian fashion, I will expound upon selected fragments, and give but my interpretation of what might be meant. Some have decided, in other readings, to choose passages at random, employing random number generators for the task, a method which I find to be trivializing to both Heraclitus and the student of Heraclitus. The philosopher himself encouraged what we might recognize as Stoic virtues of courage, rectitude, and an overall antiplebian, even aristocratic orientation. Therefore it is prudent to exercise one’s capacity for discernment in selecting from his works; to do otherwise is to treat him not as a philosopher, but as an archaic curiosity, observed voyeuristically in the zoo of ancient ideas. Core Heraclitian principles: the unity of opposites, the theory of flux, the primordial flame in all things and which was there in the beginning, will make themselves known as we go along. It is worth noting, that a not insignificant portion of the meaning that would be passed down in writing, even discounting our lack of original volume, may be lost in translation, as many of his sayings and espousings involved semantic and rhetorical wordplay, but neither I, nor most of you, read Ancient Greek. If you find my interpretations wanting, I’d encourage you to posit your own. There are only 130 fragments, most of which are quite brief, so those of you looking to see for yourself what Heraclitus was all about, can easily work through them in under an hour to gain familiarity, and even seek out additional translations/footnotes/and interpretations, to complement the ones provided here. In keeping cognizant of the principle of flux, I expect my own understandings to change going forward. After all, you can’t cross the same fragment twice.

32: Heraclitus of Ephesus – Philosopher of Fire

Do you ever feel like the time we live in feels flat, complacent, timid, conformist, populated by people who are focused on playing it safe and are inwardly empty?

A century and a half ago, the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard felt the same way about the period in which he lived, and posited that there are two kinds of ages: the revolutionary, decisive, and passionate, and the sensible, rational, and reflective.

Here to unpack Kierkegaard’s ideas on these two kinds of ages is Jacob Howland, retired professor of philosophy and author of Kierkegaard and Socrates. Today on the show, Jacob and I first discuss some background on Kierkegaard and his existential philosophy. We then get into the differences between an age of passion and an age of reflection. We discuss how in a passionate age, an individual stands as an individual, possesses an energy which focuses on truth and ideals, and has the courage to take bold leaps of faith, while in a reflective age, the individual is subsumed by the crowd, is afraid of public opinion, and gets so lost in analysis and abstraction that he never makes a decisive move. All along the way, we delve into how Kierkegaard’s description of his age parallels our own, and Kierkegaard’s evergreen call to be an individual, embrace risk, and own your opinions and actions.

Kierkegaard on the Present (Passionless) Age

On “An Introduction to Metaphysics” (1903)

How does metaphysics differ from science? While Kant had dismissed metaphysics as groundless speculation about things beyond human knowledge, Bergson sees it as a matter of grasping things “from the inside.” He calls this “intuition”: the kind of understanding we have of our own inner lives. If you try to describe this with concepts or images, you falsify it, you freeze it into position. That’s necessarily what science does, and is very useful, but doesn’t get at what’s metaphysically fundamental for Bergson, which is the unbroken flow of duration.

The regular foursome are joined by Matt Teichman to try to figure out how this proto-phenomenology is supposed to actually amount to metaphysics, like how you can sympathetically have an intuition about anything besides your own experience.

Bergson on Metaphysics - Partially Exmained Life

Stephen West of the Philosophize This! podcast returns to host the Aftershow for PEL episode #110 on Alfred North Whitehead. In this preview you’ll hear Stephen, Dylan Casey (who has a lot to say about process philosophy and science), and David Buchanan (guest from our Pirsig episode and PEL blogger). Later in the conversation they were also joined by Amough Sahu.

This is a 20-minute preview of a 80-minute discussion. Get the full audio by becoming a PEL Citizen and going to the Free Stuff for Citizens page. 

Whitehead Aftershow (Preview)

This is recording of the lecture I gave on Heraclitus and Parmenides to the 300+ students in the Hofstra University Honors College first year course Culture and Expression.  My paper is organized around Luce Irigaray's critique of the imbalance in Western philosophy that has prioritized 'looking-at' over 'listening-to'.   The absence of any visual aid (i.e., a powerpoint slide, which is the norm for these lectures) was also an important component of this lecture, which emphasized the power of voice and sound in Heraclitus and Parmenides.

Kierkegaard on the Present (Passionless) Age

The Art of Manliness