![]() Īccording to Diogenes Laërtius, Heraclitus deposited the book in the Artemision – one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World – as a dedication. The title is unknown, but many later writers refer to this work, and works by other pre-Socratics, as On Nature. ![]() Heraclitus is said to have produced a single work on papyrus, which has not survived however, over 100 fragments of this work survive in quotations by other authors. According to Diogenes Laertius, Heraclitus deposited his book in the temple. On Nature A modern reconstruction of the Ephesian Temple of Artemis, located in Istanbul. This may be to parody his doctrine that for souls it is death to become water, and that a dry soul is best. Īccording to Diogenes Laertius, Heraclitus died covered in dung after failing to cure himself from dropsy. However, this date can be considered "roughly accurate" based on a fragment that references Pythagoras, Xenophanes, and Hecataeus as older contemporaries, placing him near the end of the sixth century BC. Heraclitus is traditionally considered to have flourished in the 69th Olympiad (504–501 BC), but this date may simply be based on a prior account synchronizing his life with the reign of Darius the Great. He praised one Hermodorus as the best among the Ephesians, who he says should all kill themselves for exiling him. He endorsed the sage Bias of Priene, who is quoted as saying "Most men are bad". He also criticized Homer, Hesiod, Pythagoras, Xenophanes, and Hecataeus. He did not consider others incapable, but unwilling: "And though reason is common, most people live as though they had an understanding peculiar to themselves." Heraclitus did not seem to like the prevailing religion of the time, criticizing the popular mystery cults. Heraclitus considered himself self-taught. The skeptic Timon of Phlius called Heraclitus a "mob-abuser" ( ochloloidoros). Since antiquity, Heraclitus has been labeled an arrogant misanthrope. However, it is unclear whether he was "an unconditional partisan of the rich," or if, like the sage Solon, he was "withdrawn from competing factions". Heraclitus appears to have had little sympathy for democracy or the masses. Although most of the information provided by Laertius is unreliable, the anecdote that Heraclitus relinquished the hereditary title of "king" to his younger brother may at least imply that Heraclitus was from an aristocratic family in Ephesus. The main source for the life of Heraclitus is the doxographer Diogenes Laërtius. Miletus, the home to the previous philosophers, was sacked and captured. Ephesus appears to have subsequently cultivated a close relationship with the Persian Empire during the suppression of the Ionian revolt by Darius the Great in 494 BC, Ephesus was spared and emerged as the dominant Greek city in Ionia. In the 6th century BC, Ephesus, like other cities in Ionia, lived under the effects of both the rise of Lydia under Croesus and his overthrow by Cyrus the Great c. Heraclitus, the son of Blyson, was from the Ionian city of Ephesus, a port on the Kayster River, on the western coast of Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey). Life Theater in Ephesus on the coast of Asia Minor, birthplace of Heraclitus He also saw the logos as giving structure to the world. Like the Milesians before him – Thales with water, Anaximander with apeiron, and Anaximenes with air – Heraclitus chose fire as the arche, the fundamental element that gave rise to the other elements. This changing aspect of his philosophy is contrasted with that of the ancient philosopher Parmenides, who believed in " being" and in the static nature of reality. He expressed this in sayings like "Everything flows" ( Greek: πάντα ρει, panta rei) and "No man ever steps in the same river twice". He viewed the world as constantly in flux, always "becoming" but never "being". He also saw harmony and justice in strife. The central ideas of Heraclitus' philosophy are the unity of opposites and the concept of change. Consequently, he became known as "the weeping philosopher" in contrast to the ancient philosopher Democritus, who was known as "the laughing philosopher". He was considered arrogant and depressed, a misanthrope who was subject to melancholia. His paradoxical philosophy and appreciation for wordplay and cryptic, oracular epigrams has earned him the epithets "the dark" and "the obscure" since antiquity. Most of the ancient stories about him are thought to be later fabrications based on interpretations of the preserved fragments. He wrote a single work, only fragments of which have survived. 500 BC) was an ancient Greek pre-Socratic philosopher from the city of Ephesus, which was then part of the Persian Empire. Heraclitus ( / ˌ h ɛr ə ˈ k l aɪ t ə s/ Greek: Ἡράκλειτος Herákleitos fl.
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