{"id":7339,"date":"2016-10-27T18:41:46","date_gmt":"2016-10-27T18:41:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.idrlabs.com\/articles\/?p=7339"},"modified":"2020-06-20T22:38:48","modified_gmt":"2020-06-20T22:38:48","slug":"heraclitus-themes-relativity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.idrlabs.com\/articles\/2016\/10\/heraclitus-themes-relativity\/","title":{"rendered":"Heraclitus Themes: Relativity"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Ryan Smith<\/strong><\/p>\n

In this article, I am going to continue our tour of themes in the thought of Heraclitus. As I mentioned in the prior installment<\/a>, many of Heraclitus\u2019 themes cannot be analyzed dispassionately, but must be entered into with all one\u2019s being. To really understand Heraclitus, one must allow him to alter one\u2019s consciousness, as it were. As such, Constantine Vamvacas said it best when he said that Heraclitus’ \u201cmeanings are not crystallized but inhere in integral images and visions, grasped as an indissoluble whole.”[1] It is not possible to critically analyze each theme, rejecting some and accepting others, and each theme can easily have more than one meaning. To understand Heraclitus, one must attune one\u2019s mind to all<\/em> the themes, experiencing them directly as faint refrains that recur gently in the deafening chaos of the torrential whole. That is to say, the map is not the territory and the themes are not the points themselves. They are entry-points and supports for entering into the fullness of the Heraclitean vision with one\u2019s own being, and not textbook ideas to be approached with a critical stance.<\/p>\n

Relativity<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the work of Heraclitus, several fragments espouse a doctrine of relativity or perspectivism, such as:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most beautiful ape is ugly compared with the human race.\u201d \u2013 DK 82<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thoughtless man understands the Deity as little as the child understands the man.\u201d \u2013 DK 79<\/p>\n

\u201cSwine delight in mire more than clean water; chickens bathe in dust.\u201d \u2013 DK 13\/37<\/p>\n

\u201cSeawater is the purest and foulest water: for fish drinkable and life sustaining; for men undrinkable and deadly.\u201d \u2013 DK 61<\/p>\n

\u201cDonkeys would choose garbage over gold.\u201d \u2013 DK 9<\/p>\n

This relativistic facet of Heraclitus is often ignored, but in my opinion, it contains several important clues to the Heraclitean vision. I will argue that the import of these fragments is threefold:<\/p>\n

First<\/em>, we have already seen how Heraclitus is a radical nominalist: \u201cThings\u201d are not things, but a chaos of entities devoid of stable Being, suspended in a state of perpetual becoming.[2] The flower is not the same<\/em> flower from one moment to the next, nor is the human being, nor even the sun.[3] Furthermore, no two flowers are ever exactly<\/em> the same, but nevertheless we deceive ourselves; we take them to be. Like Plato, we postulate a form of the flower<\/em> and approach the individual florae of the rose-garland as interchangeable, missing much of what is really true about each one.[4] By the Platonic gaze, man imagines himself the master of the world, but perceives no more than an empty certitude; a self-generated fiction.[5] Thus, recalling the lesson of the previous article, we keep in mind that things are not things<\/em>. They are constructed as \u2018things\u2019 in the mind of the observer. This must be understood to understand the second point.<\/p>\n

Second<\/em>, just like \u2018things\u2019 are not objective, so qualities are not objective. They too are constructed in the mind of the observer. Thus, the wise man is wise only in relation to his peers; the adult understands more than children on the one hand, but less than Zeus on the other. The most beautiful ape can never be as beautiful to humans as a member of our own species, and so on. The common man would say gold is objectively valuable, but pigs prefer mud baths, and donkeys would choose refuse over gold. Things have contrary qualities from different points of view.[6] The same \u2018thing\u2019 appears light and heavy, new and old, high or low, depending on perspectives, relations, and the mind(s) involved in perceiving it. The qualities of objects \u2013 wisdom, value, beauty, etc. \u2013 are properties of the relation<\/em>, not of the objects themselves. How could things ever possess qualities in themselves, when \u2018things\u2019 do not exist?<\/p>\n

Furthermore, Heraclitus expands this hyper-nominalism to the domain of ethics and morality: Everything that happens in the world is equally \u2018true,\u2019 equally \u2018beautiful,\u2019 and equally \u2018just.\u2019[7] It is simply humans who, having a predilection for morality plays, construct ideas of good or bad, just and unjust in their minds. Heraclitus does not distinguish between is and ought, descriptive and normative. The world possesses its own logic. Whatever happens, happens, and cannot really<\/em> be \u2018wrong\u2019 or \u2018bad,\u2019 except in the minds of certain people (and are not their<\/em> minds, in the final instance, determined by and born of the world?). To say that things have \u2018true\u2019 qualities, or that actions and deeds have \u2018true\u2019 moral properties, is therefore simply meaningless.[8] There is nothing that is \u2018in itself,\u2019 prior to the real-world relations that constitute it.[9]<\/p>\n

Third<\/em> (last and perhaps least), note that several of the fragments contain the structure A\/B = B\/C (Child\/Man = Man\/God; Ape\/Man = Man\/God, etc.). This is sometimes interpreted to mean that Heraclitus postulates three rungs of reality (Child\/Ape, Man, God), but as we have seen, this cannot possibly be true since there are no distinct qualities or things, and nothing that is \u2018in itself.\u2019<\/p>\n

Rather, to understand Heraclitus\u2019 meaning here, we must peek ahead to our next theme: The Logos <\/em>(meaning \u2018word,\u2019 \u2018principle,\u2019 or \u2018logic\u2019). Many fragments of Heraclitus speak about this Logos<\/em>, such as the following, which is widely agreed to have constituted the beginning of his book:<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough this logos<\/em> holds true always, men ever fail to comprehend it, both before hearing it and once they have heard. Although all things come to be in accordance with this logos<\/em>, men are like the untried when they try such words and works as I set forth, distinguishing each thing according to its nature and describing how it is…\u201d \u2013 DK 1<\/p>\n

Since logos<\/em> has the connotation of \u2018logic\u2019 (among other things), it has often been interpreted as logic or rationality, not least by scientists who have taken an interest in Heraclitus. For example, the physicist Erwin Schrodinger maintained that rationality and logic, dispassionately applied, produce a body of reliable scientific knowledge. The people who base their worldview on science are thus the people who understand the logos<\/em>, but many \u201cfail to comprehend it,\u201d turning away into their own private worlds of superstition and non-reliable knowledge.[10] Thus, to Schrodinger, since many men do not have a scientific temperament, it made sense why Heraclitus lamented the inability of most men to understand the logos<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for Schrodinger, he is just completely wrong here. There was already a considerable scientific tradition among the Greeks in Heraclitus\u2019 time, as exemplified by the Ionian school of Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, and so on. By all accounts, they conducted scientific inquiries into the mysteries of nature in a remarkably modern spirit.[11] Yet, though an Ionian himself, Heraclitus showed no interest in their theories. It is possible that he had a rudimentary theory of physics \u2013 a few fragments hint at that. But overall, scientific inquiry was not a major undertaking for him. He agreed with science on the importance of empirical observation, but not on the importance of arranging those observations into a scientific \u2018system.\u2019 In a certain respect, one could say he was too empirical for science. Thus, in certain places, he appears to mock the scientists\u2019 propensity for theory-generation, short-circuiting their claims to empiricism by stating \u2013 with recourse to direct observation \u2013 that \u201cthe sun is the size of a human foot.\u201d[12] (One could easily imagine him defending this utterance by lying down in the town square and blotting out the sun from his face by raising his foot into the air.)<\/p>\n

So if Heraclitus\u2019\u00a0logos<\/i>\u00a0is not science or logic, what it is then? We shall have more to say on this when we dedicate ourselves to exploring that theme in depth. For now, let us just say that the\u00a0logos<\/i>\u00a0is the principle by which everything happens in the world. Someone who understands that there is no stable Being, no objects or things, and no qualities-in-themselves; someone who understands that\u00a0that every \u2018entity\u2019 that exists is but a point in a process; a fleeting \u2018blip\u2019 in a chaotic stream of becoming; someone who understands these things, not intellectually, but instinctively \u2013 without willing it, simply seeing it \u2013\u00a0he<\/i>\u00a0comprehends the universe in accordance with the\u00a0logos<\/i>. And truthfully, there are not many people who can penetrate into, let alone maintain, such a vision. Heraclitus is therefore right to remark that most men do not comprehend the\u00a0logos<\/i>. However, Heraclitus does not consign himself to lamenting that most men do not understand his teaching (as the Buddha did): Remember that what we are attempting to answer here is the third sense of why Heraclitus uses the relativistic formula A\/B = B\/C (Child\/Man = Man\/God; Ape\/Man = Man\/God, etc.). If read together with his lamentations that most men do not understand the\u00a0logos<\/i>, one could read Heraclitus\u2019 use of this formula as a device for calling attention to the relative inferiority to one who understands the world according to \u2018normal\u2019 knowledge when compared to one who sees the world through the eyes of the\u00a0logos.<\/i>\u00a0In Heraclitus\u2019 view, the man who does not comprehend the\u00a0logos<\/i>\u00a0is truly like an ape or child compared to the man who does.<\/p>\n

Thus the threefold meaning of the relativity theme in Heraclitus is:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Things are not things; they are constructed by the mind of the observer.<\/li>\n
  2. Qualities are not objective; they are determined by their relations.<\/li>\n
  3. People who understand reality devoid of the logos<\/em> are like children compared to the people who understand how the logos<\/em> steers everything.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    NOTES<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n

    [1] Vamvacas: The Founders of Western Thought (Springer 2009) p. 105<\/p>\n

    [2] Heraclitus: DK 124<\/p>\n

    [3] Heraclitus: DK 6<\/p>\n

    [4] Plato: Symposium 211ae<\/p>\n

    [5] Nietzsche: Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks \u00a711<\/p>\n

    [6] McKirahan: Philosophy Before Socrates (Hackett 2010) p. 117<\/p>\n

    [7] Heraclitus: DK 102<\/p>\n

    [8] Heraclitus: DK 65<\/p>\n

    [9] Heraclitus: DK 10<\/p>\n

    [10] Schrodinger: Nature and the Greeks and Science and Humanism (Cambridge University Press 1996) pp. 72-73<\/p>\n

    [11] Smith: The Pre-Socratics as a Dance of Personalities, Part 2 (CelebrityTypes 2015)<\/p>\n

    [12] Heraclitus: DK 3<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    By Ryan Smith In this article, I am going to continue our tour of themes in the thought of Heraclitus. As I mentioned in the prior installment, many of Heraclitus\u2019 themes cannot be analyzed dispassionately, but must be entered into with all one\u2019s being. To really understand Heraclitus, one must allow him to alter one\u2019s[\u2026] Continue Reading<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-psychology"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idrlabs.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idrlabs.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idrlabs.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idrlabs.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idrlabs.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7339"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.idrlabs.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7341,"href":"https:\/\/www.idrlabs.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7339\/revisions\/7341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idrlabs.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idrlabs.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idrlabs.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}