In Metaphysics Γ, Aristotle argues against those who seem to accept contradictions. He distinguishes between the Sophists, who deny the principle of non-contradiction through arguments, and the Natural Philosophers, whose physical investigations lead to the acceptance of objective contradictions. Heraclitus’ name appears throughout the discussion. Usually, he is associated with the discussion against the Sophists. In this paper, I explore how the discussion with the Natural Philosophers may illuminate both the interpretation of Heraclitus by Aristotle and Heraclitus’ own worldview. To (...) refute the Natural Philosophers, Aristotle proposes a general reconstruction of their reasoning. Roughly, relying on sensory evidence (A1), they see that the same thing changes from one opposite to another (A2). Such a change appears to characterize a generation out of non-being, which a Natural Philosopher does not accept (A3). To solve the problem, despite their different worldviews, Natural Philosophers hint at a state in which opposites co-occur, characterizing an objective contradiction (C). Looking at the discussion in Metaphysics Γ and Heraclitus fragments, sections 1–3 show how assumptions A1, A2, and A3 easily apply to Heraclitus. The case of the conclusion is more challenging. In the case of the Pluralists, the co-existence of opposites characterizes a state in which there is no generation. Such a view does not fit Heraclitus’ mobilism. To argue that Aristotle’s argument is general enough to encompass dynamic views, I examine his problematization of accepting the change of change in Metaphysics K and Physics V. There, after re-stating several points that appear in Metaphysics Γ, Aristotle argues that accepting the becoming of another becoming leads to a state of contradiction in which the becoming is perishing. Heraclitus’ B8, cited in Nicomachean Ethics, gives evidence that, for Aristotle, Heraclitus puts a process at the origin of an opposite process. Moreover, after examining the expression ‘living the death/dying the life’ in B62, I argue that Heraclitus was aware that his worldview implied a dynamic objective contradiction. Finally, an analysis of elemental changes in B36 proves that accepting objective contradictions does not make Heraclitus’ worldview less attractive. (shrink)

This article provides a defence of B112, arguing that, far from being a weak paraphrase, the fragment is a genuine piece of Heraclitean art packing into a few, carefully organized words Heraclitus’ original view on human life and ethos, deeply integrated with the whole of his thought. In so doing, it counters the ‘deflationary reading’ of Heraclitus’ moral philosophy and, connecting B112 to other fragments, attributes him a robust and original ethical framework, pivoting on the idea that grasping the harmony (...) of opposites as the all-pervasive, world-sustaining pattern unavoidably and instantly transforms the way one lives, causing ‘to act and speak the truth’. It offers an interpretation of this puzzling phrase, suggesting that, as the world-unifying pattern of opposites applies also to the objects of human pursuits and avoidances, this is the ἀληθέα Heraclitus’ wise man signifies in words and actions; it concludes providing examples. (shrink)

Journal Name: Apeiron Issue: Ahead of print.

This catalogue is divided into two parts. Part 1 presents basic bibliographical information on books and journal issues that consist exclusively or in large part in papers devoted to the Presocratics and the Sophists. Part 2 lists the papers on Presocratic and Sophistic topics found in the volumes, providing name of author, title, and page numbers, and in the case of reprinted papers, the year of original publication. In some cases Part 2 lists the complete contents of volumes, not only (...) the Presocratic and Sophistic-related papers. Annual updates are submitted as additional files below. (shrink)

The doctrine of unity of opposites lays in the centre of the debate on Heraclitus’ philosophy. The present article proposes a critical analysis of the mainstream interpretation of geometrical oppositions (fragments DK 22 B 59, B 60 and B 103) as mere examples of different points of view. Instead, we suggest that these fragments are fundamental pieces in Heraclitus cosmology and that they are traces of a circular and archaic paradigm. Indeed, cyclical formulations are spread throughout the fragments and, read (...) in connection with geometrical oppositions, perform a useful model to describe how permanence and change can be complementary events. In this context, circularity can be a key to the comprehension of unity of opposites as a result of interchangeable processes – as day and night, life and death, beginning and end – so that opposites are part of a concrete and vital unity. (shrink)

In this first paper dealing with Heraclitus ' doctrine as such, the author examines and discusses two recent controversial articles with the content of which he sympathizes - one by Gábor Betegh on the cosmological status of Heraclitus ' psychê, and the other by Aryeh Finkelberg on Heraclitus ' cosmogony and the reality of a Heraclitean world conflagration. This examination is aimed, first, at fostering "marginal" opinions which the author believes to be fundamentally correct - and the rejection of which (...) since times immemorial he considers to have greatly harmed and hampered our understanding of the Ephesian philosopher ; second, at introducing some personal corrections and additions to these opinions ; and third, at illustrating the advantages of a deliberately un prejudiced approach towards our sources, an approach based on the presumption of innocence, knowledgeability and intelligence for all our informers and on the rejection of any rejection [this is not a dittography!] of any source on ground of mere suspicion.Among the proposed novelties the following particularly deserve to be underscored: the defense of the authenticity of "fr. B 76" DK qua three different fragments and the reconstruction of Heraclitus ' system of four physical exhalations - both of which are connected with the notion of a world soul; and the interpretation of Plat. Soph. 242 C - 243 A [T 132] as confirming Arist. De cael. 279b12 [T 170] and the cosmogonical interpretation of F 31 - both of which presuppose the reality of a Heraclitean ecpyrosis.Yet, since the author's dogmatism does not extend beyond the requirement of having re course to logically sound procedures, he is ready to give up any conclusion of which it can be proven that it is irreconcilably contradicted by a sounder one and supported by none. (shrink)

The article analyses the remaining fragments and testimonies of Heraclitean philosophy and their connection with Hippocratic medicine. It is claimed that both schools belong to the same philosophical-scientific paradigm of the elements. Therefore, theoretical insights of the school of Cos might well serve explaining complicated and often difficult to interpret Heraclitean thoughts. Moreover, it is plausible that parts of Corpus Hippocraticum were written under the influence of the Heraclitean philosophy and therefore its analysis and interpretative application allows us to partially (...) reconstruct the fragmented Heraclitean ideas into the single unified system. The article uses comparative analysis of both thinking traditions in regard to psychological, ethical, physiological, cosmological, and medical ideas. Similarities in explaining human nature are revealed. It is shown that science and philosophy in Antiquity use the same paradigmatic utterances to describe reality. Therefore, there are many mutual interconnecting principles between early philosophy and medicine. (shrink)

Recent studies of Aristotle’s meteorology have often focused on questions of scientific methodology rather than on the empirical accuracy of the explanations. Here we wish to focus on Aristotle’s theory of storms, considering them in their historical context and in light of Aristotle’s theoretical commitments, but testing them in terms of their ability to explain the phenomena in question. Aristotle’s approach to storm events follows a general pattern of “outburst” theories proposed by Presocratic thinkers, in which wind, fire, and the (...) like burst out of clouds. Aristotle proposes a two-exhalation theory in which a dry and a moist gas arise by evaporation and can conflict with each other. In Meteorologica II.9 and III.1, he provides his own theory of storms. Modern accounts are hampered by a mistranslation of ‘eknephias’ as “hurricane.” We argue that an eknephias is never a hurricane, but in the first place a theoretical construct meant to account for three distinct phenomena: tuphōn, keraunos, and prēstēr, all of which need to be identified more clearly with actual meteorological phenomena than they have been. We identify appropriate phenomena and also propose a phenomenon corresponding to eknephias, which makes sense of Aristotle’s account. (shrink)

This article aims to throw light on a recurrent structural feature of Heraclitus' style that, it will be argued, serves as a tool to enrich interpretation of his fragments. Named after the bow image used by the philosopher in B51, the ‘bow composition’ will be presented as a narrative technique developed by Heraclitus to reveal his conception of the world. In B51 we read: οὐ ξυνιᾶσιν ὅκως διαϕερόμενον ἑωυτῶι ὁμολογέει· παλίντροπος ἁρμονίη ὅκωσπερ τόξου καὶ λύρης (‘They don't understand how what (...) is in variance agrees with itself, a reciprocal stretching harmony as in the bow and the lyre’). Following an assumption that will be defended later, I argue that Heraclitus attempts through his text to demonstrate how ‘what is in variance agrees with itself’. One of his strategies to this end would be the bow composition, a way to structure his statements in which its first and last terms share the same root but have subtle suffix or prefix differences in order to depict that while being related (ὁμολογέει) they still maintain some difference (διαϕερόμενον). By means of employing such structure to describe reality Heraclitus would imitate the world order in his word order by providing his audience with an analogy that once perceived in the text would teach them how to correctly interpret nature itself. (shrink)