Let’s continue our journey from Heraclitus’ idea of Logos to St. John’s application of the Logos to the Son of God. In post 35, I discussed how the Stoics took Heraclitus’ idea of the logos and expanded it to include the idea of eternal recurrence – the continual destruction and rebirth of the entire universe.1 […]
Category Archives: Presocratic Philosophers
35. Logos: from Heraclitus to the Stoics
What unifies a universe made up of individual and diverse things? As I previously stated, the main philosophical problem to be solved – throughout history but especially in ancient Greek philosophy – is that of universals also known as the problem of the one and the many.1 (Please read the preceding posts if you haven’t […]
34. Heraclitus Finds Logos in the Soul
In post 32, I said that I would cover Heraclitus and his ideas on logos in two posts, but I could not do it. In fact, I don’t think three posts are enough, but we will see. Truth be told, I could probably write at least a dozen more posts on Heraclitus. If any of […]
33. Heraclitus Declares that All Things are One
Heraclitus’ Damascus Road Experience As portrayed above, Heraclitus is an aged and weary man as compared with the resolute and determined Heraclitus in the previous post. His hands are clasped and his head is bowed as if in prayer. He seems to be either meditating as he awaits some profound insight or resigning himself to […]
32. Heraclitus – Fire as the Universal Principle
Heraclitus is, for me, the most difficult of the Presocratic thinkers to write about. This heavyweight of Greek philosophy had gravitas – he was a deep, complex, enigmatic figure, and a brooding thinker. (I reposted this article as Post 51 in order to answer objections to the comments below by an astute reader. If you […]
31. Xenophanes and the Corruption of the gods
Xenophanes could be considered the roving vagabond of the Presocratic philosophers. Like the others discussed earlier, he came from Ionia.1 He was from the Ionian city of Colophon which was near Miletus, home of the Milesian Presocratic philosophers Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes. Also, there was something about Ionia that lent itself to producing great thinkers […]
29. Pythagoras Discovers the Beauty and Harmony of the Cosmos
Pythagoras was a demigod who went around performing miracles. He talked to the animals and they listened to him.1 Once, he convinced a bear to stop harassing the townspeople and the bear gave its word that it would. He also was renowned for having a “golden thigh.” These are just some of the legends that […]
28. Anaximenes – Air, the Spirit, and the Soul
Anaximenes, the philosopher who theorised that air was the principal element of the universe, may have inadvertently discovered the soul.
26. Anaximander of Miletus Discovers Infinity in a Boundless Universe
Anaximander, a student of Thales, was known for wearing ostentatious clothes.1 Like Thales, he was a multifaceted character. He was the first person to make a map of the world and thus was the first geographer. Anaximander also speculated that the earth was free-floating in space and not suspended by anything, whereas Thales said that […]
25. Thales Determines that Water is the Source of Everything
As the story goes, Thales of Miletus, an astronomer among many other things, was walking along, gazing at the stars, not watching where he was going, when he fell into a well.1 A story like that is stereotypical of a philosopher who has his mind so set on lofty ideas, he loses touch with earthly things. […]