Herakleides Ponticos

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Herakleides Pontikos (the Elder) (* around 390 BC in Herakleia Pontike ; † after 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher .

Life

Herakleides came from an old, wealthy family of Herakleia Pontike, today's Karadeniz Ereğli on the southwest coast of the Black Sea . As a youth he went to Athens, where he joined Plato's Academy . Plato apparently valued him because he entrusted him with the management of the academy for the time of his third journey to Sicily (361-360). After the death of Speusippus , Plato's successor, Herakleides wanted to become head of school ( scholarch ) of the academy in 339/338 , but was defeated by Xenocrates in a battle vote and then left the academy. He then retired to his hometown. He probably had some students there.

Scriptures and teaching

Of the numerous writings of Heracles, only fragments have survived, along with a number of titles. His works included About the good , About the species (on the theory of ideas ), About the Nous , About the Pythagoreans , About nature , About the celestial phenomena , About virtue , About poetry and the poets and About music . He dealt with questions of state theory in the writings On Rulership and On Laws . He also wrote pamphlets against the teachings of Zenon of Elea and against Democritus .

In some of his works Herakleides presented his teachings in dialogue form based on Plato's example; He had prominent historical or mythical figures appear as conversation partners. He was impressed and influenced by the Pythagoreans, but he rejected Pythagorean vegetarianism . He understood the soul as physical and light-like. He assumed that other celestial bodies were inhabited besides the earth.

Some ancient authors did not attribute Herakleides to the Platonic Academy , but to the school of Aristotle . They were wrong about this, but it can be seen from this that at least some of his views were similar to those of Aristotle .

Because of the unfavorable source location, his astronomical model cannot be reliably reconstructed. He assumed that the earth rotated on its axis every day and is considered to be the first to hold this view. The earlier widespread hypothesis that he took Mercury and Venus to be satellites of the sun and to that extent partially anticipated Tycho Brahe's system is rejected or at least strongly doubted in recent research. According to the wording of the representation of Calcidius , Herakleides assumed the concentric movement of Venus and the sun.

reception

The tendency of Herakleides to the exotic and fantastic was already criticized in antiquity. In Athens he was known for showing off and was derided as "Pompikos" for it. Cicero valued his education and literary skills, but criticized him for having filled his books with “childish fairy tales” (puerilibus fabulis) . Herakleides is said to have caused amusement and amazement through fantastic inventions, so that some critics counted his works more as entertainment literature than philosophy. Timaeus of Tauromenion and Plutarch characterized him as a storyteller of fables.

Demochares , a contemporary of Herakleides and opponent of the philosophers, claimed that Herakleides had used a famine caused by natural disasters in his home region to obtain an oracle by bribing the oracle of Delphi , which was consulted by his fellow citizens , which contained the instruction to give him a golden one Honor wreath. On leaving the theater where the oracle's answer was announced, Herakleides fell and died of a head injury. Even if the details of Demochares' hateful presentation are implausible, they are probably linked to a historical event and can contain a real core.

The Heraclides Promontory on the moon is named after the thinker.

Sources and Fragments

  • Eckart Schütrumpf (Ed.): Heraclides of Pontus: Texts and Translation . Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick 2008, ISBN 978-1-4128-0721-0 (critical edition of the fragments and sources with English translation).
  • Fritz Wehrli : Herakleides Pontikos . 2nd edition, Schwabe, Basel 1969 (edition of the fragments and sources with commentary; superseded by the new edition by Schütrumpf).

literature

Remarks

  1. ↑ Bruce S. Eastwood: Heraclides and Heliocentrism: Texts, Diagrams, and Interpretations . In: Journal for the History of Astronomy 23, 1992, pp. 233-260, here: 233-244, 256.
  2. ↑ Hans Krämer: Herakleides Pontikos . In: Hellmut Flashar (ed.): Outline of the history of philosophy. The philosophy of antiquity , vol. 3, 2nd edition, Basel 2004, pp. 67–80, here: 77 f. (with discussion of the older hypotheses).
  3. ↑ Herakleides Pontikos, Fragment 70, ed. by Eckart Schütrumpf: Heraclides of Pontus: Texts and Translation , New Brunswick 2008, p. 147 (No. 70).
  4. ↑ Cicero: De natura deorum 1,13,34.
  5. ↑ Konrad Gaiser : Philodems Academica , Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1988, pp. 119-123, 208-216, 483-493.
personal data
SURNAME Herakleides Ponticos
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Herakleides Pontic the Elder
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Pupil of Aristotle
DATE OF BIRTH around 390 BC Chr.
PLACE OF BIRTH Herakleia Pontike
DATE OF DEATH after 322 BC Chr.