People


Heraclitus c.535–c.475 B.C  of Ephesus (Asia Minor)

Encyclopedia Entries

Columbia Encyclopedia

Wikipedia

IEP


Questions of 

From IEP: Heraclitus A Greek philosopher of the late 6th century BCE, Heraclitus criticizes his predecessors and contemporaries for their failure to see the unity in experience. He claims to announce an everlasting Word (Logos) according to which all things are one, in some sense. Opposites are necessary for life, but they are unified in a system of balanced exchanges. The world itself consists of a law-like interchange of elements, symbolized by fire. Thus the world is not to be identified with any particular substance, but rather with an ongoing process governed by a law of change. The underlying law of nature also manifests itself as a moral law for human beings. Heraclitus is the first Western philosopher to go beyond physical theory in search of metaphysical foundations and moral applications.


Reading

See his Cosmic Fragments, ed. by G. S. Kirk (1954, repr. 1962)


Writing available on the net


Commentaries

 study by G. O. Griffith (1977)

John Burnet Early Greek Philosophy: brief analysis; the fragments (http://plato.evansville.edu/public/burnet/ch3a.htm)


Quotations

Everything flows, nothing stands still