Heraclitus     

1.28.14

            The aphorisms provided for Heraclitus were very difficult to follow. In fact, I read through the entire thing and still felt that I had gained very little insight into his viewpoints. On the second reading, one underlying theme really struck me—namely how assertive Heraclitus is about absolute truth. He talks about how “what is wise is set apart from all.”

When Heraclitus creates this system of logos, he is careful to emphasize how unknowable the full picture is. There are more implicit phrases that he uses: “Nature loves to hide.” Yet there are also more explicit examples: “Eyes and ears are bad witnesses to people if they have barbarian souls.”

Man’s goal, however, seems to be “right thinking.” I would interpret this as an understanding of the absolute truth, or an ability to see it aside from inherent biases. I can see a number of similarities between these ideas and Plato’s Allegory Of the Cave. However, the two visions differ when Heraclitus says, “You would not discover the limits of the soul although you have travelled every road.” This is a dangerous forum to interpret Plato without training, but I have always understood that the cave dweller was able to reach a place of full understanding once he saw the sun. If so, then the attainability of perfect understanding seems to be a substantial difference between the two views.

Pythagoras
1.23.14

When I saw the reading for Pythagoras, I became rather excited. It is one of those names that I have heard throughout my many, many years of math education. What I had no idea about was his clear belief in the transmigration of souls, specifically through a terrestrial, marine, and then winged circuit. I suspect that we may draw a number (pun intended) of inferences from this circuit. For one, it sounds like Pythagoras elevates creatures above nature in terms of metaphysical importance. This seems like a bit of a split from his predecessors. Secondly, I find the circuitous nature of these transitions very interesting. He routinely expresses the idea of a linear infinity, yet has his migration of souls run in circles.

            The most interesting aphorism from the readings was the one that arranged pairs of opposite ideas into columns. There were definitely some expected arrangements—namely male’s being paired with good, straight, right, etc. However, the columns also included some surprises. It seems particularly noteworthy that odd is contained within the “good” column, while even within the “evil” column. It looks like Pythagoras had a fascination with the number one. This would not only make odd numbers more substantive, as they include one, but I wonder if they also give insight into his religious viewpoints.