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.