Heraclitus

The title of this article is ambiguous. Further meanings are listed under Heraclitus (disambiguation) .

Heraclitus of Ephesus ( Greek Ἡράκλειτος ὁ Ἐφέσιος Hērákleitos ho Ephésios , Latinized Heraclitus Ephesius ; * around 520 BC; † around 460 BC) was a pre-Socratic philosopher from the Ionian Ephesus .

Heraclitus claimed an insight into the world order that was different from all conventional ways of thinking. This results in his sustained criticism of the superficial perception of reality and the way of life of most people. A recurring theme of his philosophizing is, besides the concept of the logos , which can be interpreted in a variety of ways , which denotes the rational world order and its knowledge and explanation, the natural process of constant development and change. In later times this change was brought to the popular short formula panta rhei (“everything flows”). Heraclitus also dealt with the relationship between opposites, such as day and night, wakefulness and sleep, unity and discord. He saw these opposites standing in a tense unity.

Only quotes from later texts by other authors have come down to us from Heraclitus' work. These quotes often consist of only one sentence and contain numerous aphorisms , paradoxes and puns . The stylistic peculiarities, the fragmentary tradition and the fact that the authenticity of some fragments is in dispute make it difficult to grasp his philosophy precisely. His theses were and are therefore the subject of controversial attempts at interpretation. Because of the not easy to decipher messages he was given the nickname “the dark one” ( ὁ Σ Σκοτεινός ho Skoteinós ) already in antiquity . His exact living conditions - like the structure of his work - are unclear, since the research can only rely on information from non-contemporary, sometimes very late authors, whose credibility is controversial and in some cases obviously poor.

Life and Legends

Heraclitus was founded around 520 BC. Born in the Greek colony of Ephesus in Ionia , which was under the rule of the Persians until the 5th century. As the son of a certain Blyson or Herakon, about which there was already disagreement in antiquity, Heraclitus came from an aristocratic family. As a result, he was entitled to “official royalty”, but in favor of his brother he renounced what was regarded as a sign of his high disposition - or, if the source statement was interpreted negatively, his pride. Heraclitus also took a clearly negative political stance towards his fellow citizens, as shown by a quote referring to the banishment of a prominent local politician: “The Ephesians would do right if they all hung themselves up man by man and left their city to the minors, they who chased Hermodoros, their bravest husband, out of town with the words: 'None of us should be the bravest or, if so, then elsewhere and with others.' ”Despite his aversion to his fellow citizens, he never seems to leave his hometown to have.

Only a few of the details passed down on his life can be considered certain, including the information that he originally deposited his work in the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus . The sparse biographical information - for example in Diogenes Laertios - is otherwise inseparable from anecdotes, the truth of which is controversial and in some cases highly dubious. A large part of the alleged occurrences were apparently derived from his variously interpretable sentences at a later time and aimed to posthumously expose him to ridicule. In this sense, some anecdotes reflect distorted aspects of his utterances: fragment B 52, which equates life with a boy’s game, corresponds to an episode in which Heraclitus refused to participate in the legislation in Ephesus because he preferred playing with children in the Temple of Artemis. Heraclitus' death is also around 460 BC. The legend is that he fell ill with dropsy during his secluded life in the mountains around Ephesus because of his purely vegetable diet . With his usual puzzling expression, he was not able to make himself understandable to the doctors. He then tried to cure himself by lying under a dung heap to dehydrate his water addicted body. This description of alleged circumstances of his death may have its origin in set pieces of the teaching of Heraclitus, according to which it means death for the soul to become water.

Despite the local and temporal proximity to Miletus and its natural philosophers , a direct reference to the Milesians of Heraclitus has not been handed down for Thales , Anaximander or Anaximenes . He was neither in a student relationship with one of them, nor did he himself establish a continuous tradition or his own teaching direction. His relationship with Parmenides is controversial ; the assumption that he knew the work of Parmenides is speculative. His philosophizing, which he characterized as self-search, is thus outside of all classifications in schools and directions. In the history of philosophy, Heraclitus was therefore controversially referred to as a material monist or process philosopher , a scientific cosmologist , metaphysical or mainly religious thinker, empiricist , rationalist or mystic , assigned revolutionary or minor importance to his ideas and judged his work as the basis of logic or as a contradiction in terms .

plant

Heraclitus wrote a script which he - following the custom of the time - left without a title; only in later times it was titled as Περὶ φύσεως ( Perì phýseōs , "About nature"). It was completed in 478 at the latest. The work as a whole has been lost; the fragments available today come from the fragmentary tradition of ancient and Byzantine authors. The assumptions about the size of the original text fluctuate between five and one and a half times the number of fragments. Works by Greek and Roman authors such as Plato , Aristotle , Clement of Alexandria , Hippolytus of Rome and Diogenes Laertios mostly contain analogous, rarely literal quotations from the original Heraclitus. From these indirect sources Hermann Diels collected 137 fragments as well as several statements on Heraclitus' life. He published this material in 1901 under the title Herakleitos von Ephesos and from 1903 as part of his work The Fragments of the Pre-Socratics . Heraclitus fragments are usually quoted after this edition. However, according to the current state of research, one to three dozen of the fragments are considered to be inauthentic, doubtful or merely weak paraphrases of original quotations.

Because of this tradition, the original conception of the Heraclitic work cannot be reliably reconstructed. Even the question of the form of the writing was and is judged controversially: Some philologists assume that Heraclitus' work had a closed philosophical conception as well as "a well-composed character" and "was carried by certain basic ideas which gave it systematic context", even if the originally coherent connection between the fragments cannot be restored. Representatives of an opposing research direction, however, see the fragments as the remains of a book that was designed as a string of aphorisms, so-called gnomes , “a collection of terse, pointed expressions stylized with the highest artistry that may have come together over time.” Pointing to Gigon the individual fragments have "greatest intensity and independence", so that only the initial fragment would allow a factual and textual connection of other sayings. Geoffrey Kirk even considered the possibility that the known fragments were a collection of sayings compiled by a student after Heraclitus' death; however, this hypothesis has found little support in research.

Theophrast described - as Diogenes Laertios reports - Heraclitus' work as half-finished and written in different styles, which he attributed to the author's melancholy . Diogenes Laertios noted that Heraclitus' writing was divided into three sections on cosmology , politics and theology . However, it is no longer possible to assign the individual fragments to these parts, so that the actual form of the work ultimately remains unknown.

language

Heraclitus wrote his work in Ionic Greek . The fragments refer, often in poetic language, to phenomena of the natural environment such as sun, earth and air or to aspects of time such as day and night, morning and evening; they explain philosophical thoughts on the basis of natural processes (river fragments), behavioral patterns of animals or human activities. Heraclitus' language is at the same time full of aphorisms , paradoxes and puns , which condense his pieces of text and make them difficult to understand, so that he was given the nickname “the dark one” even in antiquity. In addition, Heraclitus uses a language that can be interpreted in many different ways, depending on the individual reading . The darkness of the language of Heraclitus is the result of a "characteristic ambiguous mode of expression [...] that corresponds to the ambiguity of his parables."

This is exemplified in the first fragment of the Diels Edition (B 1): "But for this logos, although it is eternal, people do not gain understanding [...]." Aristotle already criticized the fact that the word actually only occurs once “Always” ( ἀεί aeí ) is not clearly related to the preceding participle of “to be” ( ἐόντος eóntos ) or the following “unreasonable” or “without understanding” ( ἀξύνετοι axýnetoi ), and accused Heraclitus of weakness of expression. Modern translators are faced with a dilemma here, as they have to choose one of the options or a combination of both. For example, Rapp translates the term logos in general with "representation" or "explanation" and accentuates its general validity: "Although the explanation (lógos) given here always applies, people will not understand it [...]."

The brief sayings occasionally combine different meanings of a word. For example, the Greek word bios means both “life” ( βίος bíos ) and “bow” ( βιός biós ) with different emphasis , which is used in fragment 48 to play on words: “The name of the bow is life, its action is death. “Such linguistic contradictions and ambiguous allusions, added to the unity of a sentence, are sometimes interpreted as deliberate reflections of the hidden structure of the logo, which in this way turns out to be an entangled unity of opposites.

The classification of Heraclitus' fragments in literary history depends on partly contrary assessments of possible relationships to the expressions of other authors. Some researchers compare the language of Heraclitus with ancient oracle proverbs , the content of which is not clearly formulated but is presented in encrypted form, often in antithetical or paradoxical expressions. Others find no model in the archaic prose for Heraclitus' versatile use of stylistic devices . Furthermore, the linguistic features of his language have been compared to the choral songs of classical tragedy .

Philosophical horizon

The philosophy of Heraclitus was - somewhat one-sided - already understood monistically in antiquity in such a way that all things emerge from a reasonable world fire. According to Heraclitus, the world emerges from fire, which in all its manifestations reveals a rational disposition hidden to most people according to the universal law of the Logos . Everything is in a constant, flowing process of becoming , which summarizes superficial opposites in a superordinate unit. The abbreviated formulation “Everything flows” ( πάντα ῥεῖ pánta rheî ) later emerged from this view .

Experience and knowledge

A central aspect of Heraclitic philosophy is the distinction between life-world experiences, such as the mass of people ( οἱ πολλοί hoi polloí , “the many”), and deeper-based approaches to the reality of life, which alone lead to knowledge in the sense of the Logos. In Heraclitus, “the many” stand in a certain way for people who are not devoted to true philosophy and therefore cannot penetrate deeper knowledge. The multi-faceted repeated initial idea of ​​Heraklitic philosophizing, which appears in many places in the work, is therefore “the fight against and at the same time critical characterization of the way the many think and behave” and the overcoming of their only partial experiences and partial truths in an overall view. Heraclitus claims to have recognized the Logos in a sharp demarcation from the “pre- and extra-philosophical way of thinking and behaving” of those who do not recognize reality.

The statements on this basic topic are partly instructive, partly polemical. In fragment B 1, which is usually understood as an introduction to the work, which is written in the style of a Proömium and is the longest of all fragments, Heraclitus addresses this connection:

“But for this Logos, although it is eternal, people gain no understanding, neither before they have heard it nor as soon as they have heard it. Everything happens according to this Logos, and yet they act like the untried, as often as they try with such words and works as I proclaim them, breaking down each one according to its nature and interpreting how it relates to it. Of course, other people do not know what they are doing while waking, just as they forget what they are doing while sleeping. "

Despite a principally possible access to knowledge, for Heraclitus most of his fellow men are unteachable, who do not question their deceptive perception of reality even when they have come into contact with the Logos. Just as reality is left in sleep and an individual world is entered, they construct various explanations of reality among each other without understanding its nature. For Heraclitus, true human knowledge requires recognizing the logos as the law of thought and the world and aligning one's own actions and thoughts with it. Only by listening to nature does what is natural become accessible and thus, as a measure of action, is connected to what is reasonable given by the logos.

"Right consciousness is the greatest virtue, and wisdom (it is) to say the truth and act according to nature, listening to it."

The large number of fragments in which Heraclitus endeavors to delimit it from generally accepted views suggests that this is a core of his work. Thirteen fragments alone address the non-philosophical thinking of others directly, and another 14 expressly emphasize the difference between the thinking and behavior of the “many” and that of the “few”. In six fragments, Heraclitus also directs his polemics against poets and philosophers, whose statements represent the point of view of the broad masses for him.

Becoming and passing away

Heraclitus, oil painting by Hendrick ter Brugghen (1628)

Since Plato, when interpreting the philosophy of Heraclitus, it has often been emphasized that the structure of reality therein is understood not as static, but as processual. Accordingly, the everyday experience of stability and identity is misleading. The apparent stability only forms the surface and is not the whole truth. Rather, stability is the function of movement. According to Heraclitus, the basic principle of the cosmos is not - as was the case for Parmenides of Elea - a static, constant being , but becoming . While Parmenides radically denies non-being and thus becoming, Heraclitus emphasizes the opposing but inseparable relationship between being and becoming.

The so-called river fragments, which vary the metaphorical image of the river several times, stand for this totality of becoming and change that constitutes nature and world events as the actual law of being:

"Anyone who descends in the same rivers always receives different water."

The special ontological and terminological meaning of the river results from a double constellation: The river owes its identity as an object to the solid river bed with its bounding banks, without which it would not be a determinable whole. On the other hand, the specific property of a river would be missing if the water were not in constant motion. Heraclitus thus describes figuratively "Sameness as constancy on the one hand, coming from something else and always something else on the other". Becoming does not destroy constancy, it is rather a necessary condition for it.

Other interpreters see the river pictures as a metaphor for time , whose unchangeable periodic transition from day and night, summer and winter is symbolized by the constant river bed; like flowing water, it goes there without leaving the higher constant order. The time concept interpreted in this way unites the linear time picture of the continually running stream with periodic elements contained in the topographical constants of the river. The continuity of the course of the river and the restlessness of its flow, that is, the combination of constancy and variability, also represents an example of the “unity of opposites”, which is another core element of Heraclitic teaching.

Opposition and unity

Heraclitus regards the human world of experience as a whole of opposites that turn into one another and change from one pole to the other. The pairs of opposites not only follow an external process, but are already intertwined as opposites. The reversal of the opposites probably happens "according to dispute and debt " ( κατ᾽ ἔριν καὶ χρεών kat 'érin kaì chreōn ) in the tension between the respective reference poles . Heraclitus, for example, contrasts day and night with one another: they turn into one another, with the day drawing to a close at dusk and thus the onset of night. In the opposite process of dawn, the day in turn emerges from the decline in darkness.

The poles of an antithesis can only be experienced at all in the contrast to one another and therefore not separated in time, but exist at the same time in the form of a logical mutual entanglement. According to some fragments of Heraclitus, individual terms are essentially defined by the respective contrast, because only “illness makes health pleasant, evil makes good, hunger makes abundance, trouble makes rest”; Gods only become conceivable in contrast to humans. It is precisely in contrast that shows unity in the form of the belonging together of the different.

The unity of the seemingly counter-striving in fragment B 51, which is misunderstood by the many, is turned a little differently:

"They do not understand how what is diverging goes together with itself: opposing joining together like a bow and lyre."

The common feature of bow and lyre is the opposing legs of a rounded piece of wood, between which one or more strings are stretched. Although the respective ends diverge, in both cases they form a function-oriented unit. Other fragments cite as examples of pairs of opposites that merge to form a unity, for example the circle on which the beginning and the end coincide, or the identical route during ascent and descent. In a further fragment, Heraclitus points out the opposite meaning of sea water, which is the basis of life for fish, but inedible and deadly for humans. This idea comes across in fragment B 88:

“It is always the same, living and dead, awake and sleeping, young and old. One turns into the other, the other turns into one. "

Cosmos and fire

Even in pre-philosophical usage, the term cosmos stands in opposition to disorder. In principle, it can denote any type of formation, for example an army, or design, such as a social order; since the Milesians the term has stood in the philosophical sense specifically for the order of the world as a harmonious whole. Heraclitus' cosmology is difficult to reconstruct. In any case, the fire theory plays a decisive role in his conception of the cosmic order. In fragment B 30, Heraclitus develops this theory apart from the traditional notions of gods, assuming a world fire. In fragment B 31 he builds on this and describes the cosmos as follows:

“This world order, the same for all beings, was created by no god and no man, but it was forever and is and will be his eternally living fire, glowing according to measure and going out according to measure.
Fire's transformations: firstly the sea, half of it earth, the other fiery wind. […] It [fire] melts away as a sea and receives its measure according to the same word [law] as it was before it became earth. "

Schematic representation of the cosmological processes according to Heraklit

Heraclitus sees in fragment B 30 the cosmos as a material form of the world fire, not created in the sense of a creation myth and of eternal continuance. According to fragment B 31, the world fire itself changes materially into other elements that make up the visible cosmos. The hot and dry world fire is gradually transformed into its opposite, into damp and cold water. In it the world fire extinguishes completely, so that the water is the only cosmic element at this stage. Later the sea changes into other opposite qualities, partly in earth and partly in blazing wind. The glowing wind lets the stars emerge as a visible heavenly fire from evaporated water, which rises from the earth, is caught like in an upturned boat and ignites in the form of perceptible celestial bodies. The entire process also works in the opposite direction. This ignites the fire again and the cycle of cosmos events can begin again. During all changes, the cosmos, like the flow in the flow fragments, maintains a balance of the transformed parts.

As Heraclitus' teachings combine certain forms and processes with the tension between opposites and opposites and see them suspended in a dynamic equilibrium, his metaphysical interest in fire also becomes apparent: moving and invigorating power of the psyche to a sensual symbol for a moving and orderly cosmos and for a nature that organized and shaped itself individually. ”The myth, familiar from the myth, of the sun as a fireball moving in a circle could be used as a visible sign an immeasurable source of power can be interpreted, "which nevertheless held to itself, and without which the cosmic and terrestrial events could not be understood."

Fire ( πῦρ pŷr ), which in the tradition of the Ionic natural philosophers functions as arché , is also to be understood in Heraclitus as a metaphor for the logos, whose dynamism dominates the world and whose transformation forms its principle of being. So he characterizes the fire as “forever alive” ( ἀείζωον aeízōon ) and “reasonable” ( φρόνιμον phrónimon ). Heraclitus fire theory also stands for the idea that “everything can be found in one”, since everything else should emerge from fire and from fire everything else. To see fire as the cosmological-physical form of the logos is immediately obvious to those who see an active principle in the logos: like fire, the logos also has to control world events.

Logos and soul

The Heraklitic Logos has a universal, generally valid character and is open to all people as a common "form of thought" and "method of thinking". Thus it contains both an objective meaning content as a regulating principle in the sense of a "world law", a "world reason" or a "sense" as well as a subjective and more general one like "word", "speech", "exposition", "doctrine". As a result, Heraclitus' lecture is closely linked to the content of this term, also linguistically. According to Heraclitus, this Logos can be experienced due to its generality, as it is conveyed in Heraclitus' own words. Thinking in the Heraclitic sense therefore has the goal of knowing and fulfilling the Logos. Nevertheless, most people lose themselves in their own opinions without wanting to understand the common logo. However, whether the Logos is actually recognized is not decisive for Heraclitus, since it always exists outside the human understanding and all processes run in accordance with it, whereby in the Logos "everything is one" ( ἓν πάντα εἶναι hén pánta eînai ):

“But for this Logos, although it is eternal, people gain no understanding, neither before they have heard it nor as soon as they have heard it. Everything happens according to this logos, and yet they act like the untried, as often as they try with such words and works as I proclaim them, breaking down each one according to its nature and interpreting how it relates to it. "

“It is therefore a duty to follow what we have in common. But although the Logos is common to all, most of them live as if they had their own insight. "

"If you have not heard from me, but from my Logos, it is wise to admit that everything is one."

Similar to the cosmos, the soul ( ψυχή psychḗ ) is determined by the logos and is subject to comparable transformation processes. Since the soul has a share in the Logos and this rules and works through it as a supra-individual, common and eternal law, it can be experienced through “self-inquiry”. Heraclitus thus assigns the soul a certain "intellectual function" that goes far beyond the older sense of the word. However, a “barbarian soul” is not able to perceive the logos unadulterated. The understanding of the supra-individual and eternal law of the Logos thus begins in the individual soul, whose shape, scope or potential to determine or sound out, however, must prove to be in vain:

“You cannot find out the limits of the soul, and whether you walk off every road; she has such a deep reason. "

"The soul is inherent in the Logos, which multiplies itself."

Heraclitus' theory of the soul cannot be deduced precisely from the few relevant fragments; but it follows from this that the soul is subject to the same processes of change as the cosmos. In this way, the soul is placed in the same cyclical relationship to the elements earth and water in which, according to fragment B 31, the cosmic world fire is to the other elements:

“For souls it is death to become water, for water it is death to become earth. The earth becomes water, water becomes soul. "

This fragment treats the soul as mortal; However, since Heraclitus puts it in analogy to the world fire, which is imperishable in its entirety despite the transformation process, he seems to assign it an aspect of immortality. According to some interpreters, Heraclitus only ascribes immortality to the soul to the extent that it turns to thought and thus to the Logos, a "conditioned immortality" as it were. A few fragments support this interpretation. Perhaps Heraclitus taught, similar to Hesiod , that “the brave are rewarded after death with a new life as heroic guardians over the living”. This is perhaps alluded to by a few fragments that promise an immortal reward for an honorable life. Other interpreters believe that the souls of the best, in contrast to those of the many, are not dissolved in water, but initially remain as disembodied spirits before they - ultimately in the sense of mortality - go up in the world fire. However, a final answer to this question is hardly possible.

Polis and Nomos

References to Heraclitus' political thinking can only be found sparingly in the fragments. Nevertheless, some interpreters see less cosmology, but rather “the whole of human-political life” as the core of Heraclitus' philosophy. A few fragments indicate that Heraclitus' teaching was essentially aimed at the nature of man and the resulting organizational tasks of social interaction; Heraclitus emphasizes, for example, in a fragment that "his own kind [...] is his daimon to man". Daimon stands for the fate of the human being, which, according to conventional ideas, he receives from the gods and thus from an external authority. Heraclitus, on the other hand, connects the way people live with their fate: "What traditionally appears as the opposition of the divine and the human, the alien and the own, is brought together by Heraclitus - linguistically and conceptually - in the human being: daimon and ethos are one and the same." According to Heraclitus, "the human self takes the place of divine authority as a new authority."

At the same time, Heraclitus' philosophy is not only directed towards the individual, but also essentially towards the community , as it is described in B 2 as what is “common to all”: “It is therefore a duty to follow what is common. But although the logos is common to all, most of them live as if they had their own insight. ”The generally applicable law, the nomos , as the basic legal order of the polis, has elementary significance in political life for Heraclitus . He puts it on a par with the military's readiness to defend the community externally: “The people must fight for the nomos as well as for the city wall.” Fragment B 114 also assumes the importance of the nomos for the polis as fundamental, although the comparison here again the overall direction of thinking is to underline what is common to all, which follows from the divine universal law. Just as the polis gains strength from the citizens' orientation towards the nomos, so thinking gains productivity when it relates to what is common.

Heraclitus' concrete ideas about the ideal constitution of the polis cannot be found in the fragments. If it says in B 33 that the law could also say "to obey the will of one person", the contemporary Greek polis world offers various possibilities for this: In prominent positions with legislative powers, in addition to the representatives of the older tyranny , those in the Oikists , who acted as founders of the great colonization , and the Aisymnets who were appointed as mediators in internal polisic conflicts , as in the case of Solons of Athens. What special political role Hermodorus, apparently highly valued by Heraclitus, played in Miletus, who was forced into exile by the Milesians according to fragment B 121, also remains open.

God and man

Heraclitus, painting by Johan Moreelse (1602–1634)

The theological statements of the preserved fragments of Heraclitus can hardly be combined into a coherent teaching. Therefore, a wide spectrum of often contrary interpretations of Heraclitic theology opens up in Heraclitic research; Sometimes Heraclitus' philosophy is seen as a radical criticism of a traditional religion , other interpreters interpret his thinking "as a confirmation and articulation of religious tradition". The background to his distinction between non-philosophical view and deeper insight must be taken into account; He may have understood this insight as “bringing the tradition back to its truth”.

Heraclitus' idea of ​​God or idol can be grasped in the traditional fragments, especially in relation equations with the sizes monkey, child, man and deity:

"The most beautiful monkey is ugly compared to the human race."

"The wisest man is held against God as a monkey appear in wisdom, beauty and everything else."

"Childish is the man of the deity like the boy is called the man."

"The gender of men never comes to real insights, but that of the gods does."

Just as a human-like ape lags behind the human being, what is considered to be wise to the highest degree by the divine wisdom itself is relativized by the measure of divine wisdom and reaches its limit; however, Heraclitus does not deny the existence of God or several gods. The following two fragments contain further assessments of the relationship between gods and men:

“War is father of all, king of all. He turns some into gods, others into people, some into slaves, others into free. "

"Immortal mortal, mortal immortal: They live the death of those, and the life of those they die."

According to Held, the transitive use of “live” and “die” indicates that Heraclitus understands the whole of life as dying, with human mortality contrasting with divine immortality, which, as its opposite, is first conditioned and thus realized or made conceivable. The actual relationship between God and man is shown in this understanding of the struggle that confers a status, from which the “difference in rank between gods and men [...] results: Obviously, these groups can only be identified through their different relationship to death with which they be confronted in battle, distinguish. The gods emerge from the struggle as those not essentially affected by death; humans, on the other hand, turn out to be mortals […]. ”Therefore, every knowledge of humans finds its limit at its mortality and thus differs from divine wisdom, with which Heraclitus generally parallels or at least compares.

Even though the Heraclitic concept of God is often formulated in an indefinite way, another fragment leads to a more concrete understanding of Heraclitus' theology:

“God is day and night, winter, summer, war, peace, abundance and hunger. But it changes like ›a substance‹ which, when mixed with fragrances, is named after the respective fragrance. "

Held sees in this fragment an expression of the typically Greek image of God as a predicate term , i.e. the idea that the divine permeates different situations and thus makes itself tangible for humans, whereby “day” and “night” and other life-world circumstances each become “the god " become. These are modes of appearance of the one God who remains unchanged as a substrate, but appears in a different situation and is perceived through different modes of perception. The plurality of the respective gods is based on the experience of the one god in diverse situations, in that the divine itself is experienced precisely in its difference and superiority, which results from the human characteristics.

Wisdom and ignorance

Numerous fragments show that Heraclitus viewed wisdom in an extremely elitist manner; in perfect form he attributes it only to the gods. “The wise alone” ( τὸ σοφόν μοῦνον to sophón moúnon ) is the highest thinkable; his rank is at best comparable to the prominent position of Zeus in the Greek popular religion . Theoretically, it is true that "all people [...] are given to recognize themselves and to be clever", but only very few succeed in actually attaining wisdom:

“That way is only one thing. It does not want to be called by the name of Zeus - and yet wants it. "

"As many speeches as I've heard, none of them ever come so far as to realize: the wise is separate from everything."

In his criticism of misunderstood wisdom, Heraclitus also turns against well-known personalities; so he accuses Hesiod , Pythagoras , Xenophanes and Hecataeus , without understanding, simply having "omniscient" ( πολυμαθίη polymathíē ) instead of penetrating into true knowledge. It is true that he attests to his contemporary Pythagoras that he conducted more studies than any other person; however, he accuses him of "artifice" and mockingly calls him a " swindler " (kopídōn archēgós) . The "teacher of most", Hesiod, is criticized for not having recognized the elementary unity of the opposites day and night. Heraclitus only praises Hermodorus, statesman Bias von Priene , with whom he shares the disdain of the masses. An argument based on bias citation is found in fragment B 104 in which Heraclitus polemic about the Aöden and later rhapsodists scoffs:

“Because what is their meaning or understanding? They believe street singers, and for their teachers they have the mob. Because they don't know that most are bad and only a few are good. "

Heraclitus distances himself particularly sharply from Homer . The poet, like Archilochus, deserved to be kicked out of musical competitions and beaten up. The background of this polemic becomes clear when looking at the verse of the Iliad, "But any discord between gods and men," against which Heraclitus expressly takes a stand.

reception

In the course of the history of its reception , Heraclitus' thoughts were not only passed on, but often also used, reinterpreted and thereby distorted by those who referred to him for their own philosophical or theological purposes. Some later thinkers unilaterally emphasized a special aspect of his teaching in order to make it the forerunner of their own philosophy. Since Plato , Heraclitus has been the representative of an independent philosophical system that reduces all phenomena to constant change and, as a new achievement, postulates a principle that unites the most varied of opposites. He stands for the idea of ​​a fire gifted by reason as the origin of all things. He is seen as the first European philosopher who inferred from physical theories to metaphysical , epistemological and ontological facts and, in particular, applied his theory of the constant tension between opposites.

Ancient and Middle Ages

The first clue for the reputation of the "dark", which Heraclitus already had in antiquity, is a statement by Socrates in Diogenes Laertios. When asked about his studies in Heraclitus, Socrates is said to have replied: "What I have understood is excellent - I also believe what I have not understood, but it would take a Delian diver to do this". He was referring to especially experienced divers on the island of Delos and at the same time alluded to the oracle of Apollo there. The problems of interpretation that Heraclitus poses do not only result from the fragmentary, disordered tradition of the modern era, but existed in ancient times when Heraclitus' work was one of the few pre-Socratic writings that was accessible in the original at least until the middle imperial period .

Heraclitus quote on the path of visionaries in Berlin

The reinterpretation and inclusion of Heraclitic elements in their own philosophical ideas already began with Plato and Aristotle . While Aristotle saw Heraclitus as a forerunner of his metaphysics , Plato claimed it for the prehistory of his doctrine of ideas and characterized Heraclitus' thinking as an eternal becoming and flowing, which established a tradition of interpretation that still resonates with Nietzsche :

"Heraclitus says that everything goes away and nothing remains, and by comparing everything that exists to a flowing river, he says that one cannot step into the same river twice."

- Plato : Kratylos 402a

The first part of this quote from Plato's dialogue Kratylos is considered spurious. The second section is either a Platonic reinterpretation or is based on a saying that is not otherwise attested. In Cratylus also philosophers are mentioned which "have believed Heraclitus, go all that exists, and there remains nothing is." Similarly speaks Plato in Theaetetus of "friends of Heraclitus" or "Herakliteern"; however, it is hardly credible that this was a group of students in the narrower sense.

The weeping Heraclitus and the laughing Democritus, fresco on canvas by Donato Bramante (1477), Pinacoteca di Brera , Milan

Heraclitus was often mentioned and quoted during the Roman Empire, with the authentic mixed with the invented. Several bogus letters from him and to him that were in circulation at the time indicate that Cynics were trying to make him a forerunner of their direction. Stoics such as Seneca , New Pythagoreans , Platonists (especially Plutarch ) and the early church father Clemens of Alexandria all referred to him. Since there was no uniform tradition or school of Heraclitus, different currents could use him for their concerns, but such individual recourse did not result in continuity. Lucian of Samosata saw Heraclitus as a "weeping philosopher" who lamented the folly of the people, in contrast to Democritus as the "laughing philosopher" about human ignorance. The skeptic Sextus Empiricus criticized Heraclitus and accused him of "dogmatic" statements.

In the Middle Ages, only individual legends and fragments were known. While in the Byzantine Empire people liked to quote what little they knew about Heraclitus, especially in scholias on the works of ancient authors, for centuries he was virtually unknown to the Latin-speaking scholarly world of the West; It was not until the 12th century that Bernardus Silvestris quoted Heraclitus. In the 13th century, however, scholastic scholars began to take an interest in him; Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas already had some knowledge of Heraclitic ideas and dealt with them. Furthermore, Dante mentioned Heraclitus along with other ancient philosophers in the Divina commedia .

In the 15th century, Nikolaus von Kues developed the theological and epistemological formula of the coincidentia oppositorum , the coincidence of opposites, which is often associated with Heraclitus because of its similarity to the oppositional thinking. Nicholas does not mention Heraclitus, however, and there is no concrete evidence to suggest that he was influenced by him.

Early modern times and 19th century

Heraclitus in the figure of Michelangelo , detailed view from Raphael's The School of Athens (1510–1511), fresco in the Stanza della Segnatura , Vatican

"Heraklit" character head, alabaster bust by Franz Xaver Messerschmidt (18th century), Württemberg State Museum

Indirectly Heraclitean ideas found inclusion in the German idealism , mostly based on the first attempts of a collection of fragments, such as the Poesis philosophica of Henricus Stephanus of 1573, after also Hegel quoted Heraclitus. That of Lessing in terms of Spinoza influenced philosophy concept of Ἕν καὶ Πᾶν ( Hen Kai Pan , about "one and all"), took Hölderlin as an expression of pantheism . In the last version of Hyperion he formulated the intermingling of complementary opposites "as a simultaneous connection of the conflicting". In doing so, he referred to “the great word, the ἑν διαφερον ἑαυτ unterschied , the one that distinguishes itself, of Heraclitus”: “Like the strife of lovers, are the dissonances of the world. Reconciliation is in the midst of an argument and everything that has been separated is found again. The veins separate and sweep in the heart and some, eternal, glowing life is everything. ”The interpretation of Heraclitus, which has been common since Plato, as a thinker who mainly addressed the development and process of change, also worked with Hegel and Nietzsche in the 19th century to. In Heraclitus, Hegel saw the protagonist of a law of motion based on Hegel's dialectic and confessed: “Here we see land; it is not a sentence of Heraclitus that I did not include in my logic. "

New text editions appeared at the same time. In 1808 Friedrich Schleiermacher published his work Herakleitos the Dark , which was valued at the time for its completeness , and which contains 73 fragments. He endeavored to reconstruct Heraclitus' philosophy "from the ruins of his work and the testimonies of the ancients" and published what he had found "as much as one can know and prove about it".

The influence of Heraclitus is also reflected in Goethe from the time of Werther until the late period. Linguistically, it expresses itself in metaphorical use of the principle of opposition in Oxymora such as “far and near”, “lifeless life” or “united dual nature”. In terms of content, Goethe approaches Heraclitus primarily in an effort to understand the formations of nature as phenomena that refer to a hidden legality. In the union of constructive and destructive elements of his image of nature, Goethe Werther allows ideas to be formulated that are reminiscent of the river fragments:

“Can you say: This is! since everything passes since everything rolls past with the speed of the weather, [...] is carried away into the stream [...]? [...] I see nothing but an eternally devouring, eternally ruminating monster. "

Nietzsche thought he recognized an "ancestor" in Heraclitus, "in whose vicinity I feel warmer and more comfortable than anywhere else" and whose ideas he recognized as "most related to me", "what has been thought so far." planned book of philosophers , the actually realized passages of which he adopts in the fragment Philosophy in the tragic age of the Greeks , Nietzsche shows a closeness to the personality of Heraclitus, which leads to an identification especially in the writing Zarathustra . Nietzsche identifies with the protagonist Zarathustra, whose personality and demeanor are heavily influenced by Heraclitus. In Zarathustra he takes up numerous motifs of Heraclitus; There is no other source there as intensely as this one. In the choice of metaphors, clear parallels can be seen, for example in the doctrine of the superman , which is developed in analogy to the ape-man-god proportion of the Heraclitic fragments:

“What is the monkey for humans? A laugh or a painful shame. And that is exactly what man should be for the superman: a laugh or a painful shame. You have made the way from worm to human, and much of you is still worm. Once you were apes, and even now humans are more apes than any ape. "

In terms of philosophy and history, Nietzsche is stuck with the common opinion of the philology of his time, which Heraclitus interpreted in the Platonic tradition as a philosopher of becoming, the periodic end of the world and the struggle of opposites. "In the course of the revaluation and inversion of the metaphysics under the sign of Plato", Nietzsche's hermeneutics puts "becoming above the rigid being that arises from a fundamental illusion" and sees "Heraclitus as the preliminary refutation of Plato". At the same time, Nietzsche takes up the theory of the river, which has been redesigned by Plato's influence, and connects it with the idea of ​​the eternal return of the same, which comes from other ancient traditions and which he sees as Heraclitic and which he tries to reconcile with the teaching of his Zarathustra. According to Nietzsche's interpretation, the Heraclitic concept of becoming denies the “actual existence” of beings ; things are merely "the flashing and sparkling of sparks from drawn swords, they are the shining light of victory, in the battle of opposing qualities." So he has Heraclitus exclaim:

“I see nothing but becoming. Don't be fooled! It is in your brief glance, not in the nature of things, when you believe you see solid land somewhere in the sea of ​​growth and decay. You use names of things as if they had a rigid duration: but even the current into which you rise for the second time is not the same as the first. "

Hegel and Nietzsche emphasized Heraklit's importance as a source of inspiration in the history of philosophy from different perspectives. In Hegel, Heraclitus appears “as the earliest forerunner of the final, highest perfection of thought that has now been achieved”, but with Nietzsche “as the earliest harbinger of his deepest crisis; the completion rests on the complete appearance of what Heraclitus hinted at, the crisis on its complete oblivion in the present age. "

20th and 21st centuries

Martin Heidegger

Martin Heidegger studied Heraclitus intensively and placed it in the context of his own philosophy. In the 1930s, Heidegger determined “logic” in the sense of the Logos term Heraclitus, which denotes “the being of beings”. Heidegger traces his concept of truth as alétheia (unconcealment) back to Heraclitus and sees the “basic experience” arising from this word in Plato already “in the process of disappearing”. For Heidegger, “there was no metaphysics before Socrates; the thinking of Heraclitus and Parmenides is 'physics' in the sense of a thought of the essence of physis as the being of beings ”. Heidegger opposes “the interpretation hypothesis that Nietzsche himself put into circulation,” that being 'is' the 'becoming' ”. In his interpretation of Heraklitus, Heidegger wanted to go beyond the dualism of becoming and being. Accordingly, his reception of Heraclitus is essentially based on the logos interpretation as an interpretation of the phýsis : “In the original use of the word phýsis , according to Heidegger, something can still be heard of the relationship that in the word a-létheia , unconcealment , of the Greeks were named, but not specifically considered. ”The revealing of the hidden is therefore Heraclitus' achievement, which he himself claimed. Heidegger was of the opinion that “the beginning of the history of thought was more than a starting point that was later outdated, namely the beginning as arché , ie. H. as a founding and thus lasting initial reason ”. Heraklit's statement (B 123) that nature likes to hide itself already contains the law of development of philosophical-scientific thought. This explains the unique position of Heraclitus: "His thinking has a 'thing' as its theme, the constitution of which also shapes the entire historical fate of thought in general."

Erich Fromm

In 1956, the psychoanalyst Erich Fromm analyzed the positions of Heraclitus in Die Kunst des Liebens , whose paradoxical logic he regarded as an alternative to Aristotelian, consistent logic . He also drew a comparison with the teachings of Zhuangzi .

Hans-Georg Gadamer

The spectrum of modern Heraclitus interpretations is wide. In German-language literature, Hans-Georg Gadamer's is one of the most prominent. For him, the thought and work of Heraclitus are definitely not in the tradition of the Ionian natural philosophy . Gadamer points out that even in antiquity, the interpretation was suggested that Heraclitus 'writing aimed less at nature and cosmological relationships than at the citizens' association, the politeia and their mental orientation. This view is based on the observation that Heraclitus' nature-related statements often appear so naive that they do not seem to have the main meaning. Such was the judgment of the grammarian Diodotus, who only gave Heraclitus to these utterances a paradigmatic, exemplarily illustrative character and considered the constitution of the state to be the real theme of his writing.

As a starting point for his interpretation, Gadamer chooses the formula “One is the wise” ( ἓν τὸ σοφὸν hen to sophón ), because he interprets the effort to think different things in a unity as the central message of Heraclitus repeated in several fragments. For the pair of opposites “waking and sleeping”, the individual himself as one who is awake or asleep represents the one or the one who is “alive”. In fragment B 26, this oneness is connected with fire: “At night, a person lights a light when the eyes are extinguished. Living he touches the dead, awakening he touches the sleeping. "Gadamer interprets this lighting of the light in the night as an awakening of consciousness , when one sees the" full expressiveness "of the Logos in the fact that" not the light of the dream, but the brightness, which we call 'consciousness', is meant here ”. This kindling of the fire of reason as the “coming to oneself” of consciousness is, according to Gadamer, not a purely individual process, but a collective “way to participate in the common day and the common world.”

Klaus Held

For Klaus Held, the juxtaposition of view and insight as a “critical self-distinction of thinking from the pre- and extra-philosophical way of thinking and behavior” is “the basic thought of Heraclitus, from which all his further thoughts can be developed” and “in the essence of his conception is based on thinking ”. As Heraclitus' position in the history of philosophy, he defines a middle position between the pre-philosophical thinking of archaic Greek on the one hand, as it is echoed in some fragments such as B 24 and B 25 with the treatment of death and honor, and on the other hand Plato's metaphysical thinking, in which the human being about his immortal soul can share in the eternity of ideas .

A specific aspect of Held's phenomenological interpretation of Heraclitus lies in the connection with the subjective experience of life in the world of time, philosophically reflected by Husserl and Heidegger . The starting point for this in Heraklit is the reversal (μεταπίπτειν) of opposites. An expectation or memory itself has the character of the present, of the one that is still outstanding or that has already disappeared: “It is the experience of the one and only present in which I constantly have all my experiences. The way in which I am aware of this present always includes a non-thematic grasp of the coming and going of the present. "

As a further focus of Heraklitic doctrine, Held cites the examination of the "decayed and death-forgotten behavior of the many". Life as the course between birth and death is not only determined by these temporal limits, but “born and mortal in each of its phases”. Waking and sleeping, youth and old age represent, beyond the common understanding, “modifications of those two basic modes of being-alive which are already denoted by the expressions 'life' and 'death'. [...] All three pairs of opposites vary the basic opposition of opening up renewing itself and closing itself off with dying. "

Jürgen-Eckardt Pleines

In contrast to Held, Jürgen-Eckardt Pleines sees the Heraclitic logos not only as recognizable for an elite, but emphasizes that generally accessible knowledge is meant. In terms of history of philosophy, Pleines sees parallels to modern game theory in Heraclitus' conception and considers it to be the draft of a “tense system theory ” that builds on the contradiction as a constitutive “principle of all objective and imagined being”.

In his interpretation, Pleines is based on the concept of harmony , which in Heraclitus denotes the "mutual relationship [...] of independent and opposing moments that are in a balanced, but equally ambivalent equilibrium". In Heraclitus, harmony describes the balanced relationship between opposing forces in a constant conflict (eris) of things. This “relational understanding of being” also corresponds to the span between the two poles, “the harmos , which as a 'fugue' just like the logos signals a unifying countermovement in the matter and in thinking”. Accordingly, the philosopher's focus was particularly on statements about objects or phenomena that show signs of their mutual relationship and opposition and are defined by means of this mediating difference, called "interval" by Plein. To understand harmony as an expression of inner tension, Pleines refers to the world of sound. Tones can always be perceived as differentiated from one another, but a melody broken down into its individual components is no longer recognizable as such. This conception of the art of music as a conflict of moments within a structure subject to change had been transferred by Heraclitus to all rational knowledge.

Heraclitus' way of thinking not only broke with the conventional ideas of creation, but "also opposed those attempts at explanation of the world that only counted on a sequence of moments of time in order to formulate causal laws or final series with their help". The reorientation of thinking already introduced by Anaximander led to a turning away from the search for a primordial element and in metaphysics directed attention to the problem of the relationships between objects.

Interpretations of Heraclitus doctrine of war and strife

Heraclitus' theses that war is “father” and “king” of all and that everything happens in the right way “in accordance with the conflict” have been interpreted differently in research. In his Basel dissertation published in 1935, Olof Gigon referred these statements specifically to military conflicts; it is about the glorification of heroism. For Heraclitus the war meant movement - as opposed to the calm Homer wanted. "Real life is the back and forth and chaos of war, the other is just delusion, to wish it the most disastrous folly, since one wants decomposition, destruction." William KC Guthrie also emphasized the contrast between calm and movement. Heraclitus connected calm with the end of the exertion, which is shown in the constant struggle of opposites, with death and decay. Therefore, he said, resting in peace should be left to the dead. From this point of view, he rebelled against the ideal of a peaceful and harmonious world, which he regarded as a misunderstanding of the character of the world that was unrealistic. Like Gigon, Karl Popper understood the "war" in the literal sense. He said that Heraclitus, as a “typical historian ”, saw “a moral judgment in the judgment of history”; therefore he claimed that "the outcome of the war is always fair". He had represented an ethical relativism , but this did not prevent him from drafting “a romantic tribal ethic” and proclaiming the “superiority of the great man”.

The alternative to a militaristic interpretation is the cosmic, natural-philosophical interpretation of Heraclitus "war". It has found numerous proponents in research. According to Hermann Fränkel's understanding, “war” means the force that creates and orders everything, and that is the contradiction in itself. Heraclitus had no word for this, so he chose the term "war". Gregory Vlastos considered Heraclitus' statements about war and strife to be his answer to the teaching of Anaximander, who associated strife with injustice and equated justice with the elimination of the injustice produced by strife. Anaximander had said that there was a just order despite the conflicts. Such a juxtaposition of right and wrong was an unacceptable “compromise” for Heraclitus. His unified understanding of nature inevitably led him to believe that everything must be either just or unjust. Therefore, in contrast to Anaximander, he positively assessed the dispute, which he considered a universal principle, and equated it with justice. For Charles H. Kahn, too, Heraclitus' point of view is a fruit of his monistic worldview. His polemic is directed against the position of Hesiods, who have distinguished a "good" contest - creative contest - and a "bad" one that leads to war, lawlessness and crime. Heraclitus opposed this view with his “cosmic” model, in which conflict is not sometimes good and sometimes bad, but the all-producing and comprehensive causality. Wolfgang Schadewaldt pointed out that the characterization of the war as father and king was "often quoted, but not always understood". The war or dispute prevails as the authority that “makes decisions, makes differences”. This is the "great achievement" of the dispute. Through this “differentiating power” the dispute becomes such an important principle of being for Heraclitus. One must understand it as a metaphysical principle. In the opinion of Geoffrey S. Kirk, conflict or war is Heraclitus' preferred metaphor for the predominance of change in the world. The "war" underlying all events means the action and reaction between opposing substances. If this dispute were ever ended by the victory of one side, Heraclitus believed that it would be tantamount to the destruction of the world.

Dieter Bremer and Roman Dilcher , on the other hand, plead for a not metaphysical but ethical interpretation in the Heraklit chapter of Friedrich Ueberweg's revision of the outline of the history of philosophy . They found that the famous fragment does not address war as a cosmic principle, but rather as "making distinctions with regard to what is at stake in the war - namely life". Heraclitus' reference to the fact that war makes some people free and others slaves should not only be understood in the literal sense. Rather, it is about the fact that those who shy away from death and cling to their life are the inferior and are enslaved. For Heraclitus, however, the “free” are those “who risked their lives and consciously experienced their own mortality”. In the possibility of voluntarily accepting death, "the insight into the togetherness of opposites is concretized in an existential way".

astronomy

The lunar crater Heraclitus is named after the philosopher.

Editions and translations

• Jean Bollack, Heinz Wismann: Héraclite ou la separation. Editions de minuit, Paris 1972 (Greek text with French translation and commentary).
• Marcel Conche: Héraclite: Fragments. 3. Edition. Presses Universitaires de France, Paris 1991 (Greek text with French translation and commentary).
• Carlo Diano, Giuseppe Serra: Eraclito: I frammenti e le testimonianze. Mondadori, Milan 1980.
• Hermann Diels , Walther Kranz (ed.): The fragments of the pre-Socratics. Volume 1. Hildesheim 2004 (unchanged new edition of the 6th edition from 1951), ISBN 3-615-12201-1 (Greek original text partly with German translation)
• Francesco Fronterotta: Eraclito: Frammenti. Rizzoli, Milan 2013 ( online ).
• Laura Gemelli Marciano (Ed.): The pre-Socratics. Volume 1, Artemis & Winkler, Düsseldorf 2007, ISBN 978-3-7608-1735-4 , pp. 284–369 (sources and fragments with German translation, explanations and introduction to life and work).
• Charles H. Kahn (Ed.): The Art and Thought of Heraclitus. An Edition of the Fragments with Translation and Commentary. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1981, ISBN 0-521-28645-X ( PDF ).
• Jaap Mansfeld (ed.): The pre-Socratics. Volume 1, Reclam, Stuttgart 1987, ISBN 3-15-007965-9 , pp. 231-283 (original Greek text with German translation).
• Serge Mouraviev (ed.): Heraclitea. Édition critique complète des témoignages sur la vie et l'œuvre d'Héraclite d'Éphèse et des vestiges de son livre et de sa pensée. Academia, Sankt Augustin 1999 ff. (20 volumes planned, 10 volumes published so far).
• Jean-François Pradeau: Héraclite: Fragments. Flammarion, Paris 2002.
• Bruno Snell (Ed.): Heraklit: Fragments . 14th edition. Artemis & Winkler, Düsseldorf 2007, ISBN 978-3-538-03506-5 (original Greek text with German translation).
• Thomas M. Robinson: Heraclitus: Fragments. University of Toronto Press, Toronto 1987.

literature

Overview and overall representations

• Dieter Bremer , Roman Dilcher: Heraklit . In: Hellmut Flashar et al. (Ed.): Early Greek Philosophy (= Outline of the History of Philosophy . The Philosophy of Antiquity , Volume 1), Half Volume 2, Schwabe, Basel 2013, ISBN 978-3-7965-2598-8 , p. 601-656
• Miroslav Marcovich : Herakleitos. In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Supplementary volume X, Stuttgart 1965, Col. 246-320.
• Serge Mouraviev: Héraclite d'Éphèse . In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques , Vol. 3, CNRS Éditions, Paris 2000, ISBN 2-271-05748-5 , pp. 573–617

Investigations

• Karl-Martin Dietz : Metamorphoses of the Spirit , Volume 3: Heraclitus of Ephesus and the development of individuality . Free Spiritual Life Publishing House, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-7725-1273-9 .
• Hermann Fränkel : Ways and forms of early Greek thought . 3rd, reviewed edition, Beck, Munich 1968, pp. 237–283.
• Hans-Georg Gadamer : The beginning of knowledge . Reclam, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-15-009756-8 , pp. 17-100.
• Thomas Hammer: Unity and multiplicity in Heraclitus of Ephesus (= epistemata. Philosophy series , volume 90). Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1991, ISBN 3-88479-591-0 .
• Klaus Held : Heraklit, Parmenides and the beginning of philosophy and science. A phenomenological reflection . Berlin / New York 1980, ISBN 3-11-007962-3 .
• Ewald Kurtz: Interpretations of the Heraklitian Logos Fragments (= Spudasmata , Volume 17). Olms, Hildesheim 1971, ISBN 3-487-04047-6
• Wolfgang H. Pleger : The logos of things. A study on Heraklit (= European University publications , series 20, volume 226). Lang, Frankfurt a. M. 1987, ISBN 3-8204-1007-4 .
• Jürgen-Eckardt Pleines: Heraklit. Initial philosophizing (= study books antiquity , volume 9). Hildesheim 2002, ISBN 3-487-11476-3
• Martin Thurner : The origin of thinking in Heraklit (= origins of philosophizing , volume 1). Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-17-016883-5

Bibliographies

• Francesco De Martino, Livio Rossetti, Pierpaolo Rosati: Eraclito. Bibliografia 1970–1984 e complementi 1621–1969 . Naples 1986.
• Evangelos N. Roussos: Heraclitus Bibliography . Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1971, ISBN 3-534-05585-3 .

Web links

Commons : Heraklit  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Heraklit in the catalog of the German National Library

Fragments

Wikiquote: Heraclitus  - Quotes

Wikisource: Heraklit  - Sources and full texts

Wikisource: Heraclitus  - Sources and full texts (Latin)

Wikisource: Fragments  - Sources and Full Texts (Greek)

• Hermann Diels: Herakleitos of Ephesus , Greek and German, Berlin 1901
• Egon Gottwein: Text selection
• William Harris: Heraclitus: The Complete Fragments (PDF; 154 kB), Greek and English, Middlebury College 1994
• Randy Hoyt: The Fragments of Heraclitus , Greek after Diels-Kranz and English after John Burnet 1912 with small modifications, 2002
• Samuel Béreau: 139 fragments , Greek after Diels and English after John Burnet 1912
• Fragments (original Greek texts with English and French translations; PDF file, 213 kB)

source

• Diogenes Laertios, Lives and Opinions of Famous Philosophers IX 1–17 (English)

literature

• Daniel W. Graham :  Entry in Edward N. Zalta (Ed.): Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy .
• Daniel W. Graham :  Entry in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy .
• Günter Wohlfart : Heraclitus of Ephesus . In: UTB online dictionary philosophy

Remarks

1. ↑ On the dating of the birth and death of Heraclitus see the detailed discussion by Serge N. Mouraviev: Héraclite d'Éphèse. Les vestiges . Vol. 1: La vie, la mort et le livre d'Héraclite (= Heraclitea III.1), Sankt Augustin 2003, pp. 110–129.
2. ↑ Diogenes Laertios 9.1 (= FGrHist 244 F 340a).
3. ↑ Michael Franz : Heraklit and the Artemision. The invention of a neutral position in politics. In: Enrica Fantino, Ulrike Muss, Charlotte Schubert , Kurt Sier (eds.): Heraklit in context (= Studia Praesocratica. Volume 8). De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2017, pp. 83–102, here p. 89.
4. ↑ Diogenes Laertios 9.6: ἐκχωρῆσαι γὰρ τἀδελφῷ τῆς βασιλείας.
5. ↑ Diogenes Laertios 9.6: σημεῖον δ 'αὐτοῦ τῆς μεγαλοφροσύνης; Most translations interpret this communication in a positive, praising sense; different Michael Franz: Heraklit and the Artemision. The invention of a neutral position in politics. In: Enrica Fantino, Ulrike Muss, Charlotte Schubert , Kurt Sier (eds.): Heraklit in context (= Studia Praesocratica. Volume 8). De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2017, pp. 83–102, here p. 89, which translates as “arrogance”.
6. ↑ Diogenes Laertios 9.2.
7. ↑ Hans-Georg Gadamer: The beginning of knowledge , Stuttgart 1999, p. 12.
8. ↑ Diogenes Laertios 9: 1–17.
9. ↑ Geoffrey Kirk, John E. Raven, Malcolm Schofield: Die vorsokratischen Philosophen , Stuttgart 2001, p. 199.
10. ↑ Christof Rapp : Vorsokratiker , Munich 1997, p. 62.
11. ↑ Diogenes Laertios 9.3.
12. ↑ DK 22 B 36; Christof Rapp: Vorsokratiker , Munich 1997, p. 62.
13. ^ Jürgen-Eckardt Pleines: Heraklit. Initial Philosophizing , Hildesheim 2002, p. 67, note 180.
14. ↑ Serge Mouraviev: Héraclite d'Éphèse . In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques , Vol. 3, Paris 2000, pp. 573–617, here: 584 f. (with an overview of the literature on the question). Mouraviev points out that only speculative philosophical-historical considerations can speak for a reception of Parmenides in Heraclitus, whereas arguments from the history of philosophy as well as philological arguments have been put forward for a reception of Heraclitus in Parmenides. The question remains open.
15. ↑ DK 22 B 101: “I have researched myself” ( ἐδιζησάμην ἐμεωυτόν ); Diogenes Laertios 9.5.
16. ^ Daniel W. Graham: Heraclitus . In: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy .
17. ↑ For the dating see Serge Mouraviev: Héraclite d'Éphèse . In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques , Vol. 3, Paris 2000, pp. 573–617, here: 583, 587.
18. ↑ An overview of the hypotheses is provided by Serge Mouraviev: Héraclite d'Éphèse . In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques , Vol. 3, Paris 2000, pp. 573–617, here: 598 f.
19. ↑ The usual citation includes the identifier DK as an abbreviation for Diels-Kranz, a number assigned to the author, the name of the section and the number of the fragment, e.g. B. DK 22 B 101.
20. ↑ Serge Mouraviev: Héraclite d'Éphèse provides an overview of the views of various editors on the authenticity of the fragments . In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques , Vol. 3, Paris 2000, pp. 573–617, here: 604–607.
21. ↑ Thomas Hammer: Unity and Multiplicity in Heraclitus of Ephesus , Würzburg 1991, p. 32.
22. ↑ Olof Gigon: The Origin of Greek Philosophy from Hesiod to Parmenides , 2nd edition, Basel 1968, p. 197.
23. ↑ Olof Gigon: The Origin of Greek Philosophy from Hesiod to Parmenides , 2nd edition, Basel 1968, p. 200.
24. ↑ Diogenes Laertios 9.5–6.
25. ^ For example, Cicero, De finibus bonorum et malorum 2.15.
26. ^ Charles H. Kahn (Ed.): The Art and Thought of Heraclitus. An edition of the fragments with translation and commentary , Cambridge 1981, p. 89.
27. ↑ Klaus Held: Heraklit, Parmenides and the beginning of philosophy and science , Berlin 1980, p. 185.
28. ↑ ^{a b c} DK 22 B 1; Translation varies slightly according to Hans-Georg Gadamer (ed.): Philosophical Reading Book , Volume 1, Frankfurt 1965, p 27 ( τοῦ δὲ λόγου τοῦδ ἐόντος ἀεὶ ἀξύνετοι γίνονται ἄνθρωποι καὶ πρόσθεν ἢ ἀκοῦσαι καὶ ἀκούσαντες τὸ πρῶτον · γινομένων γὰρ πάντων κατὰ τὸν λόγον τόνδε ἀπείροισιν ἐοίκασι, πειρώμενοι καὶ ἐπέων καὶ ἔργων τοιούτων, ὁκοίων ἐγὼ διηγεῦμαι κατὰ φύσιν διαιρέων ἕκαστον καὶ φράζων ὅκως ἔχει · τοὺς δὲ ἄλλους ἀνθρώπους λανθάνει ὁκόσα ἐγερθέντες ποιοῦσιν, ὅκωσπερ ὁκόσα εὕδοντες ἐπιλανθάνονται. ).
29. ↑ Aristotle, Rhetorik 1407b11-18.
30. ^ David Sider: Word Order and Sense in Heraclitus: Fragment One and the River Fragment . In: Konstantine J. Boudouris (ed.): Ionian Philosophy , Athens 1989, pp. 363–368, here: 364.
31. ↑ Christof Rapp: Vorsokratiker , Munich 1997, p. 65 f.
32. ↑ Translation according to Hans-Georg Gadamer: The beginning of knowledge , Stuttgart 1999, p. 51 ( τῷ οὖν τόξῳ ὄνομα βίος, ἔργον δὲ θάνατος. ).
33. ↑ Dieter Bremer: Heraklit . In: Friedo Ricken (Ed.): Philosophen der Antike , Volume 1, Stuttgart 1996, pp. 73-92, here: 81. Similar to Hans-Georg Gadamer: Der Anfang des Wissens , Stuttgart 1999, p. 51: “In words the unity of opposites is already in it. That is certainly the reason why Heraclitus is particularly fond of word games. They allow him to capture his own truth in the wording and, as it were, to break up the leveled, thoughtless use of language. "
34. ↑ Christof Rapp: Vorsokratiker , Munich 1997, p. 64. According to Rapp, fragment B 93: "The Lord to whom the oracle in Delphi belongs, says nothing, hides nothing, but gives signs" can also be understood as an allusion to Heraclitus himself. Ernesto Leibovich already expressed himself in this sense: L'aiôn et le temps dans le fragment B 52 d'Héraclite . In: Alter 2, 1994, pp. 87-118, here: 91.
35. ↑ Dieter Bremer: Logos, language and play in Heraklit . In: Synthesis philosophica 5 (fasc. 10), 1990, pp. 379-391, here: 380.
36. ↑ Hans-Georg Gadamer: From the beginning with Heraklit . In: Ingeborg Schüssler (Hrsg.): Being and Historicity. Karl-Heinz Volkmann-Schluck on his 60th birthday , Frankfurt a. M. 1974, pp. 3-14, here: 5.
37. ↑ Diogenes Laertios 9.6.
38. ↑ Klaus Held: Heraklit, Parmenides and the beginning of philosophy and science , Berlin 1980, p. 441.
39. ↑ Klaus Held: Heraklit, Parmenides and the beginning of philosophy and science , Berlin 1980, p. 128.
40. ^ Andreas Graeser : Major works of philosophy. Antike , Stuttgart 1992, p. 29.
41. ↑ ^{a b} Klaus Held: Heraklit, Parmenides and the beginning of philosophy and science , Berlin 1980, p. 130.
42. ↑ Dieter Bremer: Heraklit . In: Friedo Ricken (Ed.): Philosophen der Antike , Volume 1, Stuttgart 1996, pp. 73–92, here: 91 f.
43. ↑ DK 22 B 112; Transfer to Dieter Bremer: Heraklit . In: Friedo Ricken (Ed.): Philosophen der Antike , Volume 1, Stuttgart 1996, pp. 73-92, here: 91 ( σωφρονεῖν ἀρετὴ μεγίστη, καὶ σοφίη ἀληθέα λέγειαν κατφτφτφτν ποιὰῖν ίοστ ποιὰῖν ίοστφς ).
44. ↑ Klaus Held: Heraklit, Parmenides and the beginning of philosophy and science , Berlin 1980, p. 129 f.
45. ↑ DK 22 B 17, B 19, B 28, B 34, B 46, B 56, B 85, ​​B 87, B 95, B 97, B 104, B 107, B 121; Klaus Held: Heraklit, Parmenides and the beginning of philosophy and science , Berlin 1980, p. 128.
46. ↑ DK 22 B 1, B 4, B 9, B 10, B 13, B 21, B 24, B 25, B 26, B 29, B 37, B 49, B 54, B 89; Klaus Held: Heraklit, Parmenides and the beginning of philosophy and science , Berlin 1980, p. 128.
47. ↑ DK 22 B 40, B 42, B 57, B 81, B 106, B 129; Klaus Held: Heraklit, Parmenides and the beginning of philosophy and science , Berlin 1980, p. 128.
48. ^ Andreas Graeser: Major works of philosophy. Antike , Stuttgart 1992, p. 42.
49. ^ Jürgen-Eckardt Pleines: Heraklit. Initial philosophizing , Hildesheim 2002, p. 80 f .: “For what would being be without becoming? - an unrecognizable, shapeless mass without structure and life; and what would becoming be without being? - an unrecognizable movement without direction or purpose, a change from nothing to nothing. ”On the contrary positions of Heraclitus and Parmenides see Margot Fleischer: Beginnings of European Philosophizing. Heraklit - Parmenides - Platons Timaios , Würzburg 2001, p. 115 f.
50. ↑ DK 22 B 12, DK 22 B 49: "In the same waters we rise and we do not get: We are there and they are not" ( ποταμοῖς τοῖς αὐτοῖς ἐμβαίνομέν τε καὶ οὐκ ἐμβαίνομεν, εἶμέν τε καὶ οὐκ εἶμεν ). B 49a, however, is only a vague reference to the original text, whereby the entire second part is not authentic; Klaus Held: Heraklit, Parmenides and the beginning of philosophy and science , Berlin 1980, p. 326. DK 22 B 91: “[The river] disperses and gathers it again and approaches and moves away” ( σκίδνησι καὶ πάλιν συνάγει καὶ πρόσεισι καὶ ἀπεισι · ).
51. ↑ DK 22 B 12 ( ποταμοῖσι τοῖσιν αὐτοῖσιν ἐμβαίνουσιν ἕτερα καὶ ἕτερα ὕδατα ἐπιρρεῖ · ).
52. ^ Margot Fleischer: Beginnings of European Philosophizing. Heraklit - Parmenides - Platons Timaios , Würzburg 2001, p. 30.
53. ^ Margot Fleischer: Beginnings of European Philosophizing. Heraklit - Parmenides - Platons Timaios , Würzburg 2001, p. 31; similar to Klaus Held: Heraklit, Parmenides and the beginning of philosophy and science , Berlin 1980, p. 327 f.
54. ↑ Hans-Georg Gadamer: The beginning of knowledge , Stuttgart 1999, p. 42.
55. ↑ DK 22 B 80.
56. ↑ ^{a b} DK 22 B 57.
57. ^ Margot Fleischer: Beginnings of European Philosophizing. Heraklit - Parmenides - Platons Timaios , Würzburg 2001, p. 23.
58. ↑ DK 22 B 111.
59. ↑ DK 22 B 62: "Immortal mortal, mortal immortal: They live each other's death and die their life" ( ἀθάνατοι θνητοί, θνητοὶ ἀθάνατοι. Ζῶντες τὸν ἐκεδδεθ θντων θάνατεοε, ωντω θὲνατεοε, ντωθεντω θντεεοε, ωντθενω θντεοε, ωντθενω θντεοε, ωντθενω θντεοε .
60. ↑ DK 22 B 51, translation according to Klaus Held: Heraklit, Parmenides and the beginning of philosophy and science , Berlin 1980, p. 166 ( οὐ ξυνιᾶσιν ὅκως διαφερόμενον ἑωυτῷ συμφέρεται .ρρρμανηυητωκωπε παντυητονοωπε παντυητοντωπε παντυητωκωπε παντητοντωπε παντυητκωπε παντυητκωπε παντυητωπωε παντυητωπωε παντυητκωπε παντυητκωπε παντυητκωπε παντυητωκωε .
61. ↑ Dieter Bremer: Heraklit . In: Friedo Ricken (Ed.): Philosophen der Antike , Volume 1, Stuttgart 1996, pp. 73–92, here: 88 also refers to the fact that bow and lyre (or lyre) are also united on a higher level in the hand of the God's Apollo , who is depicted as the epitome of harmony with the lyre, who on the other hand sends arrows into the Greek camp with the help of the bow in the Iliad , which cause plague and strife there.
62. ↑ DK 22 B 103: “Because with the circumference of a circle the beginning and the end are common” ( ξυνὸν γὰρ ἀρχὴ καὶ πέρας ἐπὶ κύκλου περιφερείας ); B 60: “The way up and down is one and the same” ( ὁδὸς ἄνω κάτω μία καὶ ωὑτή ).
63. ↑ DK 22 B 61 "sea water is the purest and most horrible: drinkable for fish and life supporting, undrinkable for people and kills" ( θάλασσα ὕδωρ καθαρώτατον καὶ μιαρώτατον, ἰχθύσι μὲν πότιμον καὶ σωτήριον, ἀνθρώποις δὲ ἄποτον καὶ ὀλέθριον ).
64. ↑ Translation by Hans-Georg Gadamer: Philosophical Reading Book , Volume 1, Frankfurt 1965, p 29 ( ταὐτὸ ζῶν καὶ τεθνηκὸς καὶ ἐγρηγορὸς καὶ καθεῦδον καὶ νέον καὶ γηραιόν · τάδε γὰρ μεταπεσόντα ἐκεῖνά ἐστι κἀκεῖνα πάλιν μεταπεσόντα ταῦτα ).
65. ↑ On the use of the term in early Greek philosophy, see Charles H. Kahn: Anaximander and the Origins of Greek Cosmology , Indianapolis 1994, pp. 219-230.
66. ↑ DK 22 B 30 ( κόσμον τόνδε, τὸν αὐτὸν ἁπάντων, οὔτε τις θεῶν οὔτε ἀνθρώπων ἐποίησεν, ἀλλ ἦν ἀεὶ καὶ ἔστιν καὶ ἔσται πῦρ ἀείζωον ἁπτόμενον μέτρα καὶ ἀποσβεννύμενον μέτρα ); DK 22 B 31 ( πυρὸς τροπαὶ πρῶτον θάλασσα, θαλάσσης δὲ τὸ μὲν ἥμισυ γῆ, τὸ δὲ ἥμισυ πρηστήρ [...] θάλασσα διαχέεται καὶ μετρέεται εἰς τὸν αὐτὸν λόγον, ὁκοῖος πρόσθεν ἦν ἢ γενέσθαι γῆ ).
67. ↑ Heraclitus' world fire is not to be understood as a cosmic substratum or primordial material or to be interpreted in the sense of the elemental teachings of other pre-Socratics or Aristotle; see Dieter Bremer, Roman Dilcher: Heraklit. In: Hellmut Flashar et al. (Ed.): Early Greek Philosophy (= Outline of the History of Philosophy. The Philosophy of Antiquity. Volume 1), Half Volume 2, Basel 2013, pp. 601–656, here: 617; Serge N. Mouraviev: Heraclitea , Vol. 3/2, Sankt Augustin 2008, pp. 142–144.
68. ↑ Klaus Held: Heraklit, Parmenides and the beginning of philosophy and science , Berlin 1980, p. 404.
69. ↑ Even in antiquity (e.g. Aristotle, De caelo 279b12–17) it was disputed whether Heraclitus taught an Ekpyrosis theory, which assumes a world fire, or whether it describes a different kind of transformation of the entire cosmos back into the starting element world fire; Margot Fleischer: Beginnings of European Philosophizing. Heraklit - Parmenides - Platons Timaios , Würzburg 2001, p. 35.
70. ^ Jürgen-Eckardt Pleines: Heraklit. Initial Philosophizing , Hildesheim 2002, p. 135 f.
71. ^ Jürgen-Eckardt Pleines: Heraklit. Initial Philosophizing , Hildesheim 2002, p. 137; Cicero still understood Heraclitus in this way, Pleines notes when he speaks of ignea vis , of the flaming and dying force that helped him to understand nature.
72. ↑ DK B 90: "For fire is counter exchange everything and for all the fire as for gold money and for money Gold" ( πυρός τε ἀνταμοιβὴ τὰ πάντα καὶ πῦρ ἁπάντων ὅκωσπερ χρυσοῦ χρήματα καὶ χρημάτων χρυσός ).
73. ↑ Christof Rapp: Vorsokratiker , Munich 1997, p. 89.
74. ^ Hermann Fränkel: A Heraklitic way of thinking . In: Hermann Fränkel: ways and forms of early Greek thinking , 3rd, reviewed edition, Munich 1968, pp. 253–283.
75. ↑ Wolfgang Schadewaldt: The beginnings of philosophy among the Greeks. The pre-Socratics and their requirements , Frankfurt am Main 1978, p. 373.
76. ↑ For a more detailed differentiation see Klaus Held: Heraklit, Parmenides and the beginning of philosophy and science , Berlin 1980, p. 176.
77. ↑ DK 22 B 2 ( διὸ δεῖ ἕπεσθαι τῷ ξυνῷ, τουτέστι τῷ κοινῷ · ξυνὸς γὰρ ὁ κοινός. Τοῦ λόγου δ ἐόντος ξυνοῦ ζώουσιν οἱ πολλοὶ ὡς ἱδίαν ἔχοντες φρόνησιν ).
78. ↑ DK 22 B 50 ( οὐκ ἐμοῦ, ἀλλὰ τοῦ λόγου ἀκούσαντας ὁμολογεῖν σοφόν ἐστιν ἓν πάντα εἶναι ).
79. ↑ DK 22 B 101.
80. ↑ Klaus Held: Heraklit, Parmenides and the beginning of philosophy and science , Berlin 1980, p. 189. Christof Rapp: Vorsokratiker , Munich 1997, p. 90 interprets similarly : “Heraklit evidently locates the intellectual abilities in the soul and sees them proportionally to the proportion of fire, i.e. the dryness of the soul. "
81. ↑ DK 22 B 107.
82. ↑ DK 22 B 45 ( ψυχῆς πείρατα ἰὼν οὐκ ἂν ἐξεύροιο πᾶσαν ἐπιπορευόμενος ὁδόν · οὕτω βαθὺν λόγον ἔχει ).
83. ↑ DK 22 B 115 ( ψυχῆς ἐστι λόγος ἑωυτὸν αὔξων ).
84. ↑ DK 22 B 36 ( ψυχῇσιν θάνατος ὕδωρ γενέσθαι, ὕδατι δὲ θάνατος γῆν γενέσθαι, ἐκ γῆς δὲ ὕδωχήρ γδονετι, ἐξυ ὕδδτοετι, ἐξ ψ δατοετι, ἐξδως ); Christof Rapp: pre-Socratics , Munich 1997, p. 90.
85. ↑ ^{a b} Klaus Held: Heraklit, Parmenides and the beginning of philosophy and science , Berlin 1980, p. 431.
86. ↑ Uvo Hölscher : Initial questions. Studies on early Greek philosophy , Göttingen 1968, p. 157 f.
87. ↑ DK 22, B 24, B 25, B 27.
88. ↑ Geoffrey Kirk: Heraclitus and Death in Battle (Fr. 24 D) . In: American Journal of Philology 70, 1949, pp. 384-393.
89. ↑ Hans-Georg Gadamer: The beginning of knowledge , Stuttgart 1999, p. 12 f., 19.
90. ↑ DK 22 B 119 ( ἦθος ἀνθρώπῳ δαίμων ).
91. ↑ Dieter Bremer: Heraklit . In: Friedo Ricken (Ed.): Philosophen der Antike , Volume 1, Stuttgart 1996, pp. 73–92, here: 77.
92. ↑ Dieter Bremer: Heraklit . In: Friedo Ricken (Ed.): Philosophen der Antike , Volume 1, Stuttgart 1996, pp. 73–92, here: 76. For self-search see also fragment B 101.
93. ↑ Gottfried Neeße: Heraklit today. The fragments of his teaching as a prototype of European philosophy , Hildesheim 1982, p. 108. On Heraklit's term ξύνον ( xýnon ), Neeße remarks: “In ancient Greek, the word first of all stands for 'community' as well as 'common good', and this is how Heraclitus becomes have grasped. "
94. ↑ διὸ δεῖ ἕπεσθαι τῷ ξυνῷ, τουτέστι τῷ κοινῷ · ξυνὸς γὰρ ὁ κοινός. τοῦ λόγου δ᾽ ἐόντος ξυνοῦ ζώουσιν οἱ πολλοὶ ὡς ἱδίαν ἔχοντες φρόνησιν.
95. ↑ Translation according to Klaus Held: Heraklit, Parmenides and the beginning of philosophy and science , Berlin 1980, p. 138 ( μάχεσθαι χρὴ τὸν δῆμον ὑπὲρ τοῦ νόμου ὅκωσπερ τείχεος ).
96. ↑ “In order to speak with the spirit, one must lean on the spirit of the whole, just as the city leans on the law, even more so. All human laws are nourished by the unique, the divine. That rules as far as it always wants, is enough for everything and is always more. ”Translation from Hans-Georg Gadamer: Philosophisches Lesebuch , Volume 1, Frankfurt am Main 1965, p. 27 ( ξὺν νῷ λέγοντας ἰσχυρίζεσθαι χρὴ τῷ ξυνῷ πάντων, ὅκωσπερ νόμῳ πόλις, καὶ πολὺ ἰσχυροτέρως. τρέφονται γὰρ πάντες οἱ ἀνθρώπειοι νόμοι ὑπὸ ἑνὸς τοῦ θείου · κρατεῖ γὰρ τοσοῦτον ὁκόσον ἐθέλει καὶ ἐξαρκεῖ πᾶσι καὶ περιγίνεται ).
97. ↑ “Law can also be to obey the will of one person.” Translation from Hans-Georg Gadamer: Philosophisches Lesebuch , Volume 1, Frankfurt am Main 1965, p. 27 ( νόμος καὶ βουλῇ πείθεσθαι ἑνός ).
98. ↑ ^{a b} Klaus Held: Heraklit, Parmenides and the beginning of philosophy and science , Berlin 1980, p. 442.
99. ↑ DK 22 B 82 ( πιθήκων ὁ κάλλιστος αἰσχρὸς ἀνθρώπων γένει συμβάλλειν ).
100. ↑ DK 22 B 83 ( ἀνθρώπων ὁ σοφώτατος πρὸς θεὸν πίθηκος φανεῖται καὶ σοφίᾳ καὶ κάλλει καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις πᾶινν ).
101. ↑ DK 22 B 79 ( ἀνὴρ νήπιος ἤκουσε πρὸς δαίμονος ὅκωσπερ παῖς πρὸς ἀνδρός ).
102. ↑ DK 22 B 78 ( ἦθος γὰρ ἀνθρώπειον μὲν οὐκ ἔχει γνώμας, θεῖον δὲ ἔχει ).
103. ↑ Klaus Held: Heraklit, Parmenides and the beginning of Philosophy and Science , Berlin 1980, p. 441: By conceiving this relationship primarily against the background of the distinction between non-philosophical views and true knowledge of the few, “he is at the same time exercising the most decisive criticism the pre-philosophical self-understanding of man with regard to his relationship to God or gods; he explains what this relationship is really about. "
104. ↑ The genitive plural πάντων pántōn ("aller") is interpreted in the specialist literature by some interpreters as a neuter ("all [things]"), by others as masculine with reference to the persons named afterwards (gods and people, slaves and free) . Of the editors, translators and commentators, Hermann Diels and Walther Kranz prefer the first-mentioned interpretation: The Fragments of the Pre-Socratics , Volume 1, Hildesheim 2004, p. 208; Carlo Diano, Giuseppe Serra: Eraclito: I frammenti e le testimonianze , Milan 1980, p. 115; Marcel Conche: Héraclite: Fragments , 3rd edition, Paris 1991, p. 441; Jean-François Pradeau: Héraclite: Fragments , Paris 2002, p. 126, 234 and Francesco Fronterotta: Eraclito: Frammenti , Milan 2013, p. 47. Jean Bollack, Heinz Wismann: Héraclite ou la séparation , Paris choose the other view 1972, p. 185; Miroslav Marcovich: Heraclitus: Greek text with a short commentary. Editio maior , Mérida 1967, p. 146; Thomas M. Robinson: Heraclitus: Fragments , Toronto 1987, p. 117; Geoffrey S. Kirk: Heraclitus: The Cosmic Fragments , Cambridge 1970, pp. 246-249; Serge Mouraviev: Heraclitea , Volume III.3.B / iii, Sankt Augustin 2006, p. 64 and Klaus Held: Heraklit, Parmenides and the beginning of philosophy and science , Berlin 1980, p. 450 f.
105. ↑ DK 22 B 53 ( Πόλεμος πάντων μὲν πατήρ ἐστί, πάντων δὲ βασιλεύς, καὶ τοὺς μὲν θεοὺς ἔδειξε θεοὺς ἔδειξε τοὺς δοηδς τεος δὲ ίνρώπος σοηδυτε τοὺς δὲ νὲθεπος σοηδυτς τεος δὲ νὲρώπος νοηδυτοησ τεοὺς δὲυθἀς ντθς νσθς νσθς νσθυς νσθς . The full text handed Hippolytus of Rome , Refutatio contra omnes haereses 9,9,4; Abridged and paraphrased versions in other traditions are compiled by Miroslav Marcovich: Heraclitus: Greek text with a short commentary. Editio maior , Mérida 1967, p. 143 f.
106. ↑ DK 22 B 62 ( ἀθάνατοι θνητοί, θνητοὶ ἀθάνατοι. Ζῶντες τὸν ἐκείνων θάνατον, τὸν δὲ ἐκείνων βίον τεθνεῶτες ).
107. ↑ Klaus Held: Heraklit, Parmenides and the beginning of philosophy and science , Berlin 1980, p. 453.
108. ↑ Klaus Held: Heraklit, Parmenides and the beginning of philosophy and science , Berlin 1980, p. 456.
109. ↑ DK 22 B 67 ( ὁ θεὸς ἡμέρη εὐφρόνη, χειμὼν θέρος, πόλεμος εἰρήνη, κόρος λιμός ἀλλοιοῦται δὲ ὅκωσπερ> <, ὁπόταν συμμιγῇ θυώμασιν, ὀνομάζεται καθ ἡδονὴν ἑκάστου.? ); the subject of the comparison is not preserved. It has been suggested that Heraclitus thought of fire, wine or oil; since these assumptions are speculative, Klaus Held chooses: Heraklit, Parmenides and the beginning of philosophy and science , Berlin 1980, p. 460 f. the undifferentiated phrase “substance”.
110. ↑ Klaus Held: Heraklit, Parmenides and the beginning of philosophy and science , Berlin 1980, p. 456 ff.
111. ↑ Klaus Held: Heraklit, Parmenides and the beginning of philosophy and science , Berlin 1980, p. 465 f.
112. ↑ DK 22 B 116 ( ἀνθρώποισι πᾶσι μέτεστι γινώσκειν ἑωυτοὺς καὶ σωφρονεῖν ).
113. ↑ DK 22 B 32; Translation according to Hans-Georg Gadamer: Philosophisches Lesebuch , Volume 1, Frankfurt am Main 1965, p. 29 ( ἓν τὸ σοφὸν μοῦνον λέγεσθαι οὐκ ἐθέλει καὶ ἐθέλει Ζηνὸς ὄνομα ).
114. ↑ DK 22 B 108; Translation by Hans-Georg Gadamer: Philosophical Reading Book , Volume 1, Frankfurt 1965, p 28 ( ὁκόσων λόγους ἤκουσα, οὐδεὶς ἀφικνεῖται ἐς τοῦτο, ὥστε γινώσκειν ὅτι σοφόν ἐστι πάντων κεχωρισμένον ).
115. ↑ DK 22 B 40.
116. ↑ DK 22 B 129. Doubts about the authenticity of B 129 are unfounded; see Leonid Zhmud : Science, Philosophy and Religion in Early Pythagoreism , Berlin 1997, pp. 35–37.
117. ↑ DK 22 B 81.
118. ↑ DK 22 B 39.
119. ↑ DK B 104 22 ( τίς γὰρ αὐτῶν νόος ἢ φρήν; δήμων ἀοιδοῖσι πείθονται καὶ διδασκάλῳ χρείωνται ὁμίλῳ οὐκ εἰδότες ὅτι > οἱ πολλοὶ κακοί, ὀλίγοι δὲ ἀγαθοί < ).
120. ↑ DK 22 B 42.
121. ↑ Iliad 18:10.
122. ↑ DK 22 A 22: "Heraclitus resented [Homer], that he wrote, but Schwände any division among gods and men '" ( Ἡράκλειτος ἐπιτιμᾷ τῷ ποιήσαντι> ὡς ἔρις ἔκ τε θεῶν καὶ ἀνθρώπων ἀπόλοιτο < ); Klaus Held: Heraklit, Parmenides and the beginning of philosophy and science , Berlin 1980, p. 451.
123. ^ Jürgen-Eckardt Pleines: Heraklit. Initially philosophizing , Hildesheim 2002, p. 9. Held therefore understands his own approach to interpretation as an alternative to the “popular 'profound' speculations”, in which the Heraclitus fragments were only used “as stimulus words for their own ideas”; Klaus Held: Heraklit, Parmenides and the beginning of philosophy and science , Berlin 1980, p. 110.
124. ↑ Jürgen-Eckardt Pleines describes the search for historical Heraklit as a hindrance: Heraklit. Initial Philosophizing , Hildesheim 2002, p. 36, entirely in the style of Gadamer, especially those interpretations “which in Heraclitus either equated the logos with the absolute or mediated it in world history. [...] In all these cases, looking back, it is therefore important to carefully remove the later overlays in order to return the thought to its initial meaning. Only then does it make sense to transfer it to the typically modern objects and forms of knowledge. "
125. ↑ Diogenes Laertios 2.22; Translation according to Christof Rapp: Vorsokratiker , Munich 1997, p. 61. For this anecdote and its tradition, see Serge N. Mouraviev: Heraclitea , Vol. III.1, Sankt Augustin 2003, p. 77 f. and Vol. II.A.1, Sankt Augustin 1999, pp. 9, 178 f.
126. ↑ Uvo Hölscher: The recovery of the ancient soil. Nietzsche's recourse to Heraclitus . In: Neue Hefte für Philosophie 15/16, 1979, pp. 156–182, here: 156.
127. ^ Jürgen-Eckardt Pleines: Heraklit. Initial philosophizing , Hildesheim 2002, p. 9.
128. ^ Jürgen-Eckardt Pleines: Heraklit. Beginnes Philosophieren , Hildesheim 2002, p. 10 comments on this: “The appeal to Heraclitus appears just as suspicious when, conversely, the contradiction and agitation of the different things are conceptually graded, in order to put them on the highest level of a last immovable as well as non-differential and non-opposed Formally summarize the unit. "
129. ↑ Klaus Held: Heraklit, Parmenides and the beginning of philosophy and science , Berlin 1980, p. 326 f.
130. ↑ Plato, Kratylos 401d.
131. ↑ Plato, Theaetetus 179d.
132. ^ Jürgen-Eckardt Pleines: Heraklit. Beginnes Philosophieren , Hildesheim 2002, p. 10; Margot Fleischer: Beginnings of European Philosophizing. Heraklit - Parmenides - Platons Timaios , Würzburg 2001, p. 121.
133. ↑ The letters of the pseudo-Heraclitus are edited by Serge N. Mouraviev: Heraclitea , Vol. II.A.2, Sankt Augustin 2000, pp. 274–309.
134. ↑ The evidence is collected in Serge N. Mouraviev: Heraclitea II.A.2, Sankt Augustin 2000, p. 259 ff.
135. ↑ Uvo Hölscher: The recovery of the ancient soil. Nietzsche's recourse to Heraclitus . In: Neue Hefte für Philosophie 15/16, 1979, pp. 156–182, here: 156.
136. ↑ Serge N. Mouraviev: Heraclitea II.A.2, Sankt Augustin 2000, pp. 450–452 compiled the evidence on Lukian's reception of Heraklit .
137. ↑ The relevant passages can be found in Serge N. Mouraviev: Heraclitea II.A.2, Sankt Augustin 2000, pp. 570-584.
138. ↑ The documents are compiled by Serge N. Mouraviev: Heraclitea , Vol. II.A.4, Sankt Augustin 2003, pp. 797–891.
139. ↑ In his commentary on Martianus Capella 5,150-165.
140. ↑ The passages are compiled from Serge N. Mouraviev: Heraclitea II.A.4, Sankt Augustin 2003, pp. 894–922 for Albertus Magnus, pp. 924–936 for Thomas Aquinas.
141. ^ Dante, Divina commedia , Inferno IV, 138.
142. ↑ Peter Kampits : Heraklit and Nicolaus Cusanus . In: Atti del Symposium Heracliteum 1981 , Vol. 2, ed. by Livio Rossetti, Roma 1984, pp. 11–18, here: 18.
143. ↑ Uvo Hölscher: The recovery of the ancient soil. Nietzsche's recourse to Heraclitus . In: Neue Hefte für Philosophie 15/16, 1979, pp. 156–182, here: 157.
144. ↑ Hölderlin: Hyperion I 2, 3rd letter (Kleine Stuttgarter Ausgabe, vol. 3, p. 55) and last letter (p. 85).
145. ↑ Quoted from Dieter Bremer: Heraklit . In: Friedo Ricken (Ed.): Philosophen der Antike , Volume 1, Stuttgart 1996, pp. 73–92, here: 73.
146. ↑ Quoted from Klaus Held: Heraklit, Parmenides and the beginning of philosophy and science , Berlin 1980, p. 110.
147. ↑ Friedrich Schleiermacher: Herakleitos the dark [...] . In: Schleiermacher: Critical Complete Edition , Department 1, Vol. 6, Berlin 1998, pp. 101–241, here: 105.
148. ^ According to Schleiermacher in a letter (Berlin, March 8, 1808), quoted from Jürgen-Eckardt Pleines: Heraklit. Initial philosophizing , Hildesheim 2002, p. 25.
149. ^ Dorothea Lohmeyer: Faust and the world , Munich 1975, p. 26; Uvo Hölscher: The recovery of the ancient soil. Nietzsche's recourse to Heraclitus . In: Neue Hefte für Philosophie 15/16, 1979, pp. 156–182, here: 161.
150. ↑ Uvo Hölscher: The recovery of the ancient soil. Nietzsche's recourse to Heraclitus . In: Neue Hefte für Philosophie 15/16, 1979, pp. 156–182, here: 160.
151. ↑ Goethe: The Sorrows of Young Werther , Book I, August 18, anniversary edition, vol. 16, p. 58 f.
152. ↑ Friedrich Nietzsche: Nachgelassene Fragmente 1884–1885 (= Complete Works. Critical Study Edition (KSA), Vol. 11), 2nd edition, Berlin 1988, p. 134 (Fragment 25 [454]).
153. ^ Friedrich Nietzsche: Ecce homo . In: Nietzsche: Complete Works. Critical Study Edition (KSA), Vol. 6, 2nd, reviewed edition, Berlin 1988, pp. 255–374, here: 312 f.
154. ^ Friedrich Nietzsche: Philosophy in the tragic age of the Greeks . In: Nietzsche: Complete Works. Critical Study Edition (KSA), Vol. 1, 2nd, reviewed edition, Berlin 1988, pp. 799–872, here: 834: “Such people live in their own solar system; one must seek them out there. [...] But of the feeling of loneliness that permeated the Ephesian hermit of the Temple of Artemis, one can only suspect something frozen in the wildest mountain wasteland. [...] He is a star without an atmosphere. His eye, directed blazing inward, looks dead and icy, as if only for appearance, outward. All around him, directly at the feast of his pride, the waves of madness and perversity beat: he turns away from it with disgust. But people with a feeling breast also evade such a larva as if cast from ore; In a remote sanctuary, under images of gods, next to cold, calm, sublime architecture, such a being may appear more understandable. Heraclitus was incredible among people, as a person. "
155. ↑ Uvo Hölscher: The recovery of the ancient soil. Nietzsche's recourse to Heraclitus . In: Neue Hefte für Philosophie 15/16, 1979, pp. 156–182, here: 164.
156. ^ Friedrich Nietzsche: Also Spoke Zarathustra , Part 1. In: Nietzsche: All works. Critical Study Edition (KSA), Vol. 4, 2nd, reviewed edition, Berlin 1988, pp. 9-102, here: 14.
157. ↑ Klaus Held: Heraklit, Parmenides and the beginning of philosophy and science , Berlin 1980, p. 110.
158. ^ Friedrich Nietzsche: Ecce homo . In: Nietzsche: Complete Works. Critical Study Edition (KSA), Vol. 6, 2nd, reviewed edition, Berlin 1988, pp. 255–374, here: 313: "This teaching of Zarathustra could have been taught by Heraclitus in the end."
159. ↑ Dieter Bremer: Heraklit . In: Friedo Ricken (Ed.): Philosophen der Antike , Volume 1, Stuttgart 1996, pp. 73–92, here: 75.
160. ^ Friedrich Nietzsche: Philosophy in the tragic age of the Greeks . In: Nietzsche: Complete Works. Critical Study Edition (KSA), Vol. 1, 2nd, reviewed edition, Berlin 1988, pp. 799–872, here: 826.
161. ^ Friedrich Nietzsche: Philosophy in the tragic age of the Greeks . In: Nietzsche: Complete Works. Critical Study Edition (KSA), Vol. 1, 2nd, reviewed edition, Berlin 1988, pp. 799–872, here: 823.
162. ↑ Klaus Held: Heraklit, Parmenides and the beginning of philosophy and science , Berlin 1980, p. 114.
163. ↑ Martin Heidegger: Logos (Heraklit, fragment 50) and Aletheia (Heraklit, fragment 16) . In: Heidegger: Lectures and Essays (= Heidegger: Complete Edition Vol. 7), Frankfurt am Main 2000, pp. 211–234, 263–288; Heraklit , [senior] seminar [with Eugen Fink], winter semester 1966/1967. In: Heidegger: Complete Edition Vol. 15, Frankfurt a. M. 1986, pp. 9-263; Heraclitus. 1. The beginning of occidental thought. 2. Logic. Heraklit's doctrine of the logos , Freiburg lecture summer semester 1943 and summer semester 1944 (= Heidegger: Complete edition vol. 55), Frankfurt am Main 1979; From the notes of the Heraklit seminar organized with Eugen Fink . In: Heidegger Studies 13, 1997, pp. 9-14.
164. ↑ Peter Trawny : Martin Heidegger , Frankfurt 2003, p. 119 f. Heidegger has dedicated his own essay to the subject: Logos (Heraklit, fragment 50) . In: Heidegger: Lectures and Articles (= Heidegger: Complete Edition, Vol. 7), Frankfurt am Main 2000, pp. 211–234; For Heidegger, Heraklit's Logos means “the gathering that reveals and conceals”; Martin Heidegger: Nietzsche , Vol. 2, Pfullingen 1961, p. 463.
165. ↑ Martin Heidegger: Metaphysik und Nihilismus (= Heidegger: Gesamtausgabe Vol. 67), Frankfurt am Main 1999, p. 135.
166. ↑ Martin Heidegger: On the essence of truth. On Plato's allegory of the cave and Theätet (= Heidegger: Gesamtausgabe Vol. 34), Frankfurt am Main 1988, p. 93. Heidegger also dedicates an article to the term aletheia : Aletheia (Heraklit, fragment 16) . In: Heidegger: Lectures and Essays (= Heidegger: Complete Edition Vol. 7), Frankfurt am Main 2000, pp. 263–288.
167. ↑ Martin Heidegger: Metaphysik und Nihilismus (= Heidegger: Gesamtausgabe Vol. 67), Frankfurt am Main 1999, p. 89.
168. ↑ So u. a. in Martin Heidegger: Metaphysik und Nihilismus (= Heidegger: Gesamtausgabe Vol. 67), Frankfurt am Main 1999, p. 96.
169. ↑ ^{a b} Klaus Held: Heraklit, Parmenides and the beginning of philosophy and science , Berlin 1980, p. 113.
170. ↑ DK 22 B 123 ( φύσις κρύπτεσθαι φιλεῖ ).
171. ↑ Erich Fromm: The Art of Loving , Ulm 2007, p. 88.
172. ↑ Hans-Georg Gadamer: The beginning of knowledge , Stuttgart 1999, p. 78.
173. ↑ Hans-Georg Gadamer: The beginning of knowledge , Stuttgart 1999, p. 19.
174. ↑ Hans-Georg Gadamer: The beginning of knowledge , Stuttgart 1999, p. 33 Note 1.
175. ↑ Hans-Georg Gadamer: The beginning of knowledge , Stuttgart 1999, page 56 refers to B 32 ( ἓν τὸ σοφὸν μοῦνον λέγεσθαι οὐκ ἐθέλει καὶ ἐθέλει Ζηνὸς ὄνομα ), B 41 ( εἶναι γὰρ ἓν τὸ σοφόν, ἐπίστασθαι γνώμην, ὁτέη ἐκυβέρνησε πάντα διὰ πάντων ) and B 50 ( οὐκ ἐμοῦ, ἀλλὰ τοῦ λόγου ἀκούσαντας ὁμολογεῖν σοφόν ἐστιν ἓν πάντα εἶναι ).
176. ↑ Hans-Georg Gadamer: The beginning of knowledge , Stuttgart 1999, p 85 ( ἄνθρωπος ἐν εὐφρόνῃ φάος ἅπτεται ἑαυτῷ ἀποσβεσθεὶς ὄψεις ζῶν δὲ ἅπτεται τεθνεῶτος εὕδων , ἐγρηγορὼς ἅπτεται εὕδοντος. ).
177. ↑ Hans-Georg Gadamer: The beginning of knowledge , Stuttgart 1999, p. 89.
178. ↑ Klaus Held: Heraklit, Parmenides and the beginning of philosophy and science , Berlin 1980, p. 341.
179. ↑ DK 22 B 24: “Those who fell in war honor gods and people”; B 25: "Greater death receives greater reward."
180. ↑ Klaus Held: Heraklit, Parmenides and the beginning of philosophy and science , Berlin 1980, p. 432.
181. ^ Klaus Held: Heraklit, Parmenides and the beginning of philosophy and science , Berlin 1980, p. 320; In the accompanying note 73, Held notes: “I am alluding to Husserl's discovery of the field of presence with retention and protention.” On p. 323, Held explains: “This coming and going cannot be the arrival and departure of an unpresent presence, that of which would be distinguished from a passing present; for a distinction from other presences would mean the dissolution of their uniqueness. Accordingly, pure coming and going can only be the arrival and departure of the one presence itself. But this is only possible if the present is distinguished from itself. Now the constant presence, it turns out, is light. As different from itself, it must therefore be dark. "
182. ↑ Klaus Held: Heraklit, Parmenides and the beginning of philosophy and science , Berlin 1980, p. 281.
183. ^ Jürgen-Eckardt Pleines: Heraklit. Initial Philosophizing , Hildesheim 2002, p. 13; P. 33: “Since Heraclitus did not see his own research as an ingenious achievement, but rather as a contribution to a common knowledge and will that is possible at any time, today's interpreter is obliged to take its references to the spirit of that time, to common reason, seriously. "Pleines also refers to Sextus Empiricus and Mark Aurel , who emphasized Heraclitus' vocation" on the ideally connecting, on the communal and obligatory in the logos ".
184. ^ Jürgen-Eckardt Pleines: Heraklit. Initial Philosophizing , Hildesheim 2002, p. 90: "Because the assignment that arises from a free play of forces or capabilities lives from a legality that is tied to an execution in which chance and necessity work together."
185. ^ Jürgen-Eckardt Pleines: Heraklit. Initial Philosophizing , Hildesheim 2002, p. 182.
186. ↑ ^{a b} Jürgen-Eckardt Pleines: Heraklit. Initial Philosophizing , Hildesheim 2002, p. 120.
187. ^ Jürgen-Eckardt Pleines: Heraklit. Initial Philosophizing , Hildesheim 2002, p. 181.
188. ^ Jürgen-Eckardt Pleines: Heraklit. Initial Philosophizing , Hildesheim 2002, p. 201 f. points out that hearing tones and recognizing distinct, but interconnected tone sequences was only possible “as long as the various tones did not fall back indiscriminately into a single, inarticulate sound, but on the other hand did not break out of the melody into the infinite isolated singularity ". But the point of intersection in perception is the kairos , that moment “in which the limitless is limited and the limited is freed from the fetters of rigid rules”.
189. ^ Jürgen-Eckardt Pleines: Heraklit. Initial Philosophizing , Hildesheim 2002, p. 202.
190. ^ Jürgen-Eckardt Pleines: Heraklit. Initial Philosophizing , Hildesheim 2002, pp. 121, 180.
191. ↑ Olof Gigon: Investigations on Heraklit , Leipzig 1935, pp. 118-120.
192. ^ William KC Guthrie: A History of Greek Philosophy , Vol. 1, Cambridge 1962, pp. 446-449.
193. ^ Karl Popper: The open society and their enemies , vol. 1, 7th, revised edition, Tübingen 1992, p. 22 f.
194. ^ Hermann Fränkel: Ways and Forms of Early Greek Thinking , 3rd, reviewed edition, Munich 1968, p. 270.
195. ↑ Gregory Vlastos: On Heraclitus. In: American Journal of Philology 76, 1955, pp. 337-368, here: 356 f.
196. ↑ Charles H. Kahn (ed.): The art and thought of Heraclitus , Cambridge 1979, pp. 205-210.
197. ↑ Wolfgang Schadewaldt: The beginnings of philosophy among the Greeks , 2nd edition, Frankfurt 1979, p. 389 f.
198. ↑ Geoffrey S. Kirk: Heraclitus of Ephesus. In: Geoffrey S. Kirk, John E. Raven, Malcolm Schofield (eds.): Die vorsokratischen Philosophen , Stuttgart 2001, pp. 198–233, here: 211–213.
199. ↑ Dieter Bremer, Roman Dilcher: Heraklit . In: Hellmut Flashar et al. (Ed.): Early Greek Philosophy (= Outline of the History of Philosophy. The Philosophy of Antiquity. Volume 1), Half Volume 2, Basel 2013, pp. 601–656, here: 625 f.

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