Presentation for philosophy course on a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Heraclitus (an overview).

1. ““No man ever steps in the same river twice,No man ever steps in the same river twice,
for it's not the same river and he's not thefor it's not the same river and he's not the
same man.same man.””
―― HeraclitusHeraclitus

2. Life of Heraclitus
Heraclitus (late 6th
century BC) was a
pre-Socratic Greek
philosopher, a
native of Ephesus,
an important city on
the Ionian coast of
Asia Minor, not far
from Miletus, the
birthplace of
philosophy.

3. 
 We know nothing about his life other than
what can be gleaned from his own
statements, he regarded himself as self-
taught and a pioneer of wisdom; for all
ancient biographies of him consist of nothing
more than inferences or imaginary
constructions based on his sayings.
Life of Heraclitus

4. 
Life of Heraclitus
 From the lonely life he
led, and still more from
the apparently riddled
and allegedly paradoxical
nature of his philosophy
and his stress upon the
needless unconsciousness
of humankind, he was
called "The Obscure" and
the "Weeping
Philosopher".

5. 
 Heraclitus appears to have written only one
book, entitled On Nature. Diogenes states that
Heraclitus' work was "a continuous treatise
On Nature, but was divided into three
discourses, one on the universe, another on
politics, and a third on theology.”
Theophrastus says (in Diogenes) "...some
parts of his work [are] half-finished, while
other parts [made] a strange medley.
On Nature

6. On Nature
The complete text of
Heraclitus' book has been
lost; however, since he was
frequently quoted by other
ancient philosophers, there
are about 130 fragments of
writing attributed to him.
Unfortunately, more than
one-half of these fragments
have been challenged as to
their authenticity by
various scholars at various
times. This leaves only
about 60 fragments which
are accepted as genuine by
all classical academics.

7. 
According to both Plato and Aristotle , Heraclitus held
extreme views that led to logical incoherence. For he
held that
 everything is constantly changing
 opposite things are identical
 everything is and is not at the same time.
The Doctrine of Flux and
the Unity of Opposites

8. 
Logos
The writing of
Heraclitus was the
first place where the
word logos was given
special attention in
ancient Greek
philosophy.

9. 
Heraclitus argued that there was an objective truth
about everything, an underlying current flowing across
a time, and on to the next one. This constancy he called
Logos. Logos, for Heraclitus, was the world’s rationale,
its determining formula, the truth, and thus the key to
everythings nature. Heraclitus, therefore, was
understandably opposed to the naïve empiricism of his
time, and pleaded that men come to discover the ‘depth
of the soul’s own logos’.
Logos

10. 
Arche - Fire
Fire, for Heraclitus the
primordial element arche.
From fire all things originate,
and return to it again in a
process of eternal cycles. He
believed fire gave rise to the
other elements. He regarded
the soul as being a mixture
of fire and water, with fire
being the noble part of the
soul, and water the ignoble
part.

11. 
This Cosmos [the same of all] did none of gods or men make.
But it always was, and is, and shall be an ever-living Fire,
kindling in measures and going out in measures.
This passage contains the earliest extant philosophical
use of the word kosmos denoting the organized world in
which we live, with earth, sea, atmosphere, and
heavens.
Physical Theory

12. 
Heraclitus' criticisms and metaphysical speculations are
grounded in a physical theory. He explains the order and
proportion in which the stuffs change:
The turnings of fire: first sea, and of sea, half is earth, half firewind
Fire is transformed into water ("sea") of which half turns
back into fire ("firewind") and half into earth. Thus there is a
sequence of stuffs: fire, water, earth, which are
interconnected
Physical Theory

13. 
When earth turns back into sea, it occupies the same volume
as it had before it turned into earth. Thus we can recognize a
primitive law of conservation-not precisely conservation of
matter, at least the identity of the matter is not conserved,
nor of mass, but at least an equivalence of matter is
maintained. Although the fragments do not give detailed
information about Heraclitus' physics, it seems likely that the
amount of water that evaporates each day is balanced by the
amount of stuff that precipitates as water, and so on, so that
a balance of stuffs is maintained even though portions of
stuff are constantly changing their identity.
Physical Theory

14. 
I chose Heraclitus as a subject of my presentation
because I find natural philosophers’ theories very
engaging in general and Heraclitus’ theory of fire being
‘the beginning of everything’ caught my attention. In
process I found out about his Doctrine of Flux which is
a very interesting and unusual concept too and gives
food for thought.
Why Heraclitus?

15. THE END. THANK YOU FOR THEATTANTION