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Random Thoughts on Heraclitus and Anarchy
I listen to a lot of audio books these days due to a lack of more efficient means of transportation than my feet. I recently finished book 7 of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series, so I started looking for something new to listen to. The Dark Tower was interesting, and King is a good writer, but seriously…I don’t see what all the fuss is about. The first book, The Gunslinger, was promising but it all went downhill after that. Too much was explained; too much random variation; too many haphazard twists for my taste. King himself mentions that he doesn’t write the books per se – they grow from his imagination, and he has no idea where the next book will take him. This is quite noticeable. I can’t say that I approve. So I went for something more concrete; something more strict: The Teaching Company’s Introduction to Greek Philosophy.
I like it so far. It summarizes things pretty well, and even though there are repetitions they aren’t too bad. Sometimes these repetitions are actually excellently paced: just this morning I couldn’t recall the meaning of the word doxa – and the teacher repeated it right then. And the contents are good as well; the book begins with describing myths and rapidly procedes to mention various ideas spun by early thinkers like Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes, and eventually arrives at Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. The latter ones get a number of lectures for themselves; in fact, it’s mentioned that some believe that later – modern - philosophy just consists of footnotes to Plato.
Before the lecturer arrives at the important latter three, other philosophers are mentioned. Two that stuck to my mind are Heraclitus and Democritus – the weeping respectively the laughing philosopher. Oh, and a pet peeve of mine: why do English-speakers have this weird urge to change the spelling of names? Herkleitos becomes Heraclitus and so on. God damn you, it just messes up my attempts to google for info on them!
Heraclitus is known for famous sayings like “you can’t step into the same river twice” and similar eloquent similies and metaphors; all combine to form the doctrine of flux – that everything is in constant motion. This is in fact an elaboration of the state of becoming: nothing in the world is constant because everything is moving, and thus there never is a state where something is. But if we’re to trust our senses we know that things exist after all, so the logical (or well…mythical if one is to believe Plato) conclusion is that something can exist and not exist at the same time. That is essentially what becoming is; and it’s a paradox. Since it’s a paradox, it is also something that later philosophers object to: a thing that is and is not at the same time is logically faulty, and that renders the whole concept of becoming logically flawed. I.e., it doesn’t belong to reasonable thought - only is is logically valid. And something that does not belong to logos – the knowing; the reason – instead belongs to mythos – poetry; storytelling. (This is a very brief summary of Plato’s argument through Socrates’ words. Maybe this explains why I added the “mythical” comment above.)
As a footnote, it’s interesting that Heraclitus himself brings up the word logos. But to him it means the thing which all matter consists of – the arche - instead of human reason.
Back to the arguments against Heraclitus. First of all, I find Plato’s logical refutations of Heraclitus…lacking. The latter deals in relative notions, while Plato discusses absolutes. The simplest argument Plato brings up is that of self-reference: if Heraclitus is correct and everything is in flux, then even language itself must be in flux. That means that Heraclitus’ statement becomes unintelligeble since language cannot be trusted – the language loses its value and its ability to specify the doctrine of flux itself. Many other of Plato’s discussions are along those lines: he specifies premises and eventually disproves the other’s ideas by maneuvering them into a logical inconsistency. This seems fundamentally flawed to me. It’s like comparing apples and turtles. But then again, I’ve only listened to these audio lectures, so they might not have brought up some of the finer points of the arguments.
Another thing that I find lacking is the lecturer’s own interpretation of philosophers at times. While discussing Heraclitus he mentions that the philosopher brings up several possible arches throughout his writings, and that this in turn seems to indicate that Heraclitus appears to think that there is no static arche and that he is an anarchist. I.e., that he believes that there is no static foundation. I think that this conclusion is pretty far-fetched, as there are rather few examples where Heraclitus assumes a position either for or against. Read some of the old philosopher’s quotes and decide for yourself; personally, I think that this is a very premature conclusion, and one that the lecturer simply wishes to draw since it fits in with his idea of philosophy. Heraclitus seems to refuse to take a stand concerning that question and that fits in perfectly with his relativistic thinking, in my view. He refuses to name a specific arche, but he doesn’t appear to imply that this means that there is none.
I find Heraclitus’ ideas very appealing, and so do Nietzsche and Heidegger. But if there’s someone back then who really impresses me, it’s Democritus. Among many other things he completely side-stepped the question of is or becoming, and suggested that both are correct – it’s simply a question of semantics. He introduced the concept of atoms; the atom is static and indivisible, and is what all other matter consists of. In other words there is a foundation, but everything is in flux at the same time. I still recall how thunderstruck I was at this intuitive grasp of reality when I first heard about him in high school, and I’m still in awe at this theory he presented without modern means of producing empirical proof.