The Cosmic Context of Greek Philosophy: Part Six

by Laura Knight-Jadczyk 

Hecataeus of Miletus

Hecataeus (550-476 BC) is not a philosopher, proper, but since he has been quoted in relation to Pythagoras by Heraclitus, I’m including him briefly in his proper chronological spot. Recall what Heraclitus said about him, quoted in the discussion of Pythagoras:

The learning of many things does not teach understanding; if it did, it would have taught Hesiod and Pythagoras, and again Xenophanes and Hecataeus.

Hecataeus was a historian, born in a wealthy family, who occupied a high position in Miletus. He was against a revolt of the Ionians against Persian rule and when the Ionians were defeated, he was a member of the embassy that sued for peace. He was the first known Greek historian[1] and the first to mention the Celts. What probably raised the ire of Heraclitus was his Genealogiai, an account of the traditions and myths of the Greeks. He opened this book with:

Hecataeus of Miletus thus speaks: I write what I deem true; for the stories of the Greeks are manifold and seem to me ridiculous.[2]

It seems that he was attempting to employ a critical method to separate history from myth, and for this Heraclitus suggests that he should be included with those who certainly had learned many things but just wasn’t getting it. My guess is that Heraclitus was condemning him for tossing the baby out with the bathwater.

Anaximenes 585 – 528 BC

Anaximenes

The last of the Milesian school was Anaximenes. Like his predecessors, he was a proponent of ‘material monism’ which identified one, single, underlying, material reality (fire, air, water, whatever) and which has been hailed as the earliest attempt to provide explanations for the world without recourse to anything supernatural, or non-material. This is seen today as the earliest physics along the line of approaching Quantum Theory with its atoms and quarks.

His predecessors, Thales and Anaximander, thought that the underlying material of the world was water and apeiron[3] respectively. Anaximenes had somewhat different ideas: he proposed that air was the primal matter. He observed that when air condenses by cooling, it becomes visible as fog and then rain and then snow. He just took that idea further and supposed that it went on to form earth and stones with more ‘condensing’. He also noticed that water evaporates into air and that very hot air ‘ignited’ and formed fire. So he divided things into ‘hot and dry’ and ‘cold and wet’. He thought that heavenly bodies were derived from Earth, that many earthly bodies lie in the regions of the stars, i.e. that the stars are a lot closer than they actually are. This suggests that a firm connection via observation had been made between the ‘terrestrial bodies’ and stars of some sort, probably comets and fireballs. Such a theory might have been created to explain meteorites which are often observed to fall directly from the sky, enveloped in a cloud of smoke. His reasoning probably went: ‘if they fell down, they must have evaporated up first’.

The Eleatic School

Xenophanes of Colophon 570 – 475 BC

Xenophanes

At about the same time that the Milesian school was flowering, the Eleatic school was founded in Colophon[4], another Ionian city, by Xenophanes, a satirist, poet, and social-religious critic. Supposedly Xenophanes began traveling at the age of 25 and continued to roam about until he was 92! According to some sources, he was infamous (and exiled!) for his attacks on ‘conventional military and athletic virtues of the time’. He ended his life in Sicily. He wrote his ideas in the form of poetry, criticizing Homer and Hesiod, saying that myths and such were more or less human projections. He wrote that:

Homer and Hesiod have attributed to the gods all sorts of things that are matters of reproach and censure among men: theft, adultery, and mutual deception.[5]

In short, his main beef seems to have been the anthropomorphizing of the gods or even thinking that there was any physical manifestation at all. Xenophanes claimed that “God is one, supreme among gods and men, and not like mortals in body or in mind.”[6] His conception of god was that s/he/it is abstract, universal, unchanging, immobile and always present; one eternal being, spherical in form, comprehending all things within himself, is intelligent and moves all things, but bears no resemblance to human nature either in body or mind. Because of his development of the concept of a ‘one god greatest among gods and men’, Xenophanes is often seen as one of the first monotheists in the Western philosophy of religion, although we notice that what he actually said was that this ‘greatest god’ was greatest over other gods.

He examined fossils and concluded that water must have covered the entire Earth at some point. That is, he actually used physical evidence as opposed to declaring ideas with nothing to back them up except ‘logic and reason’. He was one of the first during those times who tried to make a distinction between belief and knowledge. But then he shot himself in the foot by saying that you can know something but not really know it, suggesting that there were ‘deeper truths’ that you could ‘just know’ but have no evidence to prove.

Xenophanes was among the first to make the explicit claim that he was writing for future generations. Nevertheless, we notice that he, too, was on the short list of well-educated dummies according to Heraclitus, keeping company with Hesiod, whom he criticizes himself!

Xenophanes’ cosmology stated that heavenly bodies were transient structures, the result of cloudy exhalations of the Earth. This is similar to the picture of Anaximenes, but Xenophanes said that the clouds caught fire as they rose. We can see that this model can easily be used to explain any unexpected events in the heavens, which suggests that such events were not unknown at the time! But he had difficulty using it to explain the regular stars that were fixed in place, so he came up with the idea that they were extinguished every day and fired up the next from new exhalations being constantly produced by the Earth! In short, this was a purely atmospheric theory of stars designed to accommodate the fearful comets, suggesting that they were formed of clouds that caught fire. No wonder Heraclitus thought he belonged on that list.

Heraclitus 535 – 475

A bust of Heraclitus, from the Hall of Philosophers in the Capitoline Museum.

Now we come to Heraclitus: This is the guy who said that Hesiod, Pythagoras, Xenophanes and Hecataeus were well educated in certain respects, but in their analyses, apparently didn’t have a clue. He also thought that Homer and Archilochus[7] deserved to be beaten.[8] His exact words, as quoted by Diogenes were:

Much learning does not teach understanding; else would it have taught Hesiod and Pythagoras, or, again, Xenophanes and Hecataeus. … this one thing is wisdom, to understand thought, as that which guides all the world everywhere.[9]

He is certainly acknowledging the high level of learning of the named individuals, but he points out that it is “thought which guides the world everywhere.” This strikes me as being possibly a multi-layered remark. It could mean that thought, or ideas, are the substance of the universe. It could also, at the same time, mean that thought – how a man thinks, or how a civilization en masse thinks – determines what happens to him. We are reminded of the saying in Proverbs 23:7: “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” Scaling this up to the global level seems to suggest that ‘as a civilization thinks/is, so the cosmos creates’. Another way of saying it is: men and nations do not attract what they want, but what they are; the soul attracts what it harbors in secret.

Let’s see if we can figure out what Heraclitus meant by a process of elimination. As we know now, the main thing about Pythagoras seems to be that he was a shamanic teacher of reincarnation and his view of the cosmos was possibly similar to that of Pherecydes, who wrote about the cosmic battles and the five (or seven) recesses which must have been constellations before constellations were described and refined. It seems possible that Pythagoras took this and converted it into some theory of purification a la Orphism unless that is a later astralization created by Plato. It might also have had something to do with the books of Pythagoras that were bought and utilized by Plato, which may have included a version of the story of Atlantis that Plato wrote in Timaeus and Critias.

Hesiod, of course, wrote all of that business about gods in some sort of Olympic world, a semi-real region that might be described as hypercosmic or hyperdimensional, but even if it was fanciful, it captured the action pretty well if one has comet science and the theories of Bailey, Clube and Napier in mind. Xenophanes, as we have just seen, obviously didn’t have a clue so we can agree with Heraclitus without much ado. Hecataeus wrote that the stories of the Greeks were ridiculous, which amounts to criticizing both Hesiod and Homer, who Heraclitus wants to beat with sticks, so how is it that he is included in the list? All of them wrote about the gods and the heavens, either from mythological points of view, or as rational attempts to explain away the supernatural, and both of these approaches were apparently condemned by Heraclitus. So what other options are left? I think it comes back to that last part of the statement: “this one thing is wisdom, to understand thought, as that which guides all the world everywhere.”

Before we touch on the ideas of Heraclitus, I think a little background information on him is in order. He is known for the obscurity of his words and descriptions, and that may be due to certain issues that affected him. According to Diogenes, Heraclitus was a hereditary prince who abdicated in favor of his brother because he was expected to participate in government and refused, saying that politics was ponêra, or evil. He was self-taught and something of a real crank, which might be understandable considering the environment in which he lived, which we’ll be observing here and there as we go along. He eventually became so misanthropic that he wandered the hills like a madman eating grass and herbs. When he became ill with what was called dropsy, or severe edema, which was obviously evidence of some systemic failure, according to one source, he attempted to cure himself by packing his legs with cow manure and baking in the Sun. That experiment brought his life as a philosopher to an abrupt end. Before that fatal act, however, he wrote a book that became quite famous and was still available down to the time of Plutarch and Clement of Alexandria (150-215 AD). His philosophy was full of riddles and he was known as ‘The Weeping Philosopher’[10] because he was so depressed and negative all the time. That should give us pause when we consider that he said: “this one thing is wisdom, to understand thought, as that which guides all the world everywhere.” Maybe he saw something coming as a result of the thinking and behavior of humanity during his times? Theophrastus, quoted by Diogenes, suggests that it was melancholy that prevented him from finishing his works. No kidding!

Heraclitus painted as the weeping philosopher by Johannes Moreelse. c. 1630

Reading what little is available about him gives the impression of an incredible, sublime intellect that wasn’t quite grounded, but then, that is rather common for geniuses who really see. The question is: did he see anything useful and if so, do we have a clue what it was since I must repeat the usual refrain: nearly all of his works are lost.

Heraclitus proposed that the Universe contains a divine artisan-fire which foresees everything and, extending throughout the Universe, must produce everything via the unity of opposites: “the path up and down are one and the same.”[11] [12] This ‘divine fire’ later very much attracted Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, but what it suggests to me is electricity or, more precisely, plasma. It could also be what is called the quantum vacuum, but not simply a physical one. His ideas have the taste of something rather like ‘Chi’ or even Reich’s ‘orgone energy’.

This divine fire, or aether, is also ‘logos’ – that is, the basis for all activity in the Universe; it is both the source of passive matter, and the artisan creating with, and enlivening it, which neither increases nor diminishes itself.[13] His cryptic words that “all entities come into being in accordance with this Logos” has been the subject of endless speculation.

In addition to seeing it as the most fundamental of the four elements and the one that is quantified and determines the quantity (Cosmic Mind) of the other three, he presents fire as the cosmos, which was not made by any of the gods or men, but “was and is and ever shall be ever-living fire.” I don’t know about you, but that gives me chills! For Heraclitus, fire is both a substance and a motivator of change, it is active in altering other things quantitatively and performing an activity Heraclitus describes as “the judging and convicting of all things.” (If that’s true, our civilization is in big trouble!) It is “the thunderbolt that steers the course of all things.” There is no reason to interpret the judgment, which is actually ‘to separate’ (as in wheat from tares, sheep from goats, etc.), outside of the context of “strife is justice.”[14] His term ‘strife’ had a special meaning as the conflict/unity between opposites. What is intriguing is his apparent allusion to the idea that the cosmos itself can respond to humankind with “the thunderbolt” that steers all things. In an interesting way, this connects us to the ideas of Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe, who proposed that life was brought to Earth by comets, i.e. panspermia.

He had some other very advanced ideas that are common currency in modern physics. Heraclitus is famous for insisting that the universe is all about change. He said, “No man ever steps in the same river twice.” If objects are new from moment to moment so that one can never touch the same object twice, then each object must dissolve and be generated continually moment by moment. That reaches right down into Quantum Theory and possibly beyond. No wonder the guy was wandering the hills like a madman!

In respect of ethics, Heraclitus declared that people should not live according to their own judgment but to find out and follow the divine law. His concept of god didn’t include any manifestations of what humans would call justice. That is, humans are neither made in the image of God nor is God particularly interested in them individually or as a whole. “To God all things are fair and good and just, but people hold some things wrong and some right.”[15] God’s ways are wise, but human customs are foolish.[16] At the same time, both humans and God are childish (inexperienced): “human opinions are children’s toys” and “Eternity is a child moving counters in a game; the kingly power is a child’s.”[17] Wisdom is “to know the thought by which all things are steered through all things,”[18] which must not imply that people are or can be wise. Only Zeus, the wielder of the thunderbolt, is wise.[19]

Some scholars see all of this as mysticism, but clearly it is not: it is pure physics, though the terminology is archaic. And certainly, his mental state was affected by seeing these things and thinking these thoughts because he also declared in despair, “The fairest universe is but a heap of rubbish piled up at random.”[20]

I think that, in the above, we find the cranky reason that Heraclitus made his list of idiots; he made it clear when he said the universe was not made by any of the gods or men, but “was and is and ever shall be ever-living fire.” No wonder the guy was melancholy and had nobody to talk to! That’s an idea that is hardly comprehensible to the average person even in today’s world when people still have to have a creator (whether it’s an old bearded guy or the ‘god’ of evolution who set off the Big Bang is immaterial) to blame for things existing. Not only that, his ideas would be almost impossible for a mind living at that time to even bear. To me, what Heraclitus was saying sounds rather like an early version of Information Theory combing with a plasma cosmos![21]  

In any event, Diogenes tells us that his treatise On Nature was divided into three discourses, one on the universe, another on politics, and a third on theology. He deposited the book in the temple of Artemis and, “according to some, made it the more obscure in order that none but adepts should approach it.” This book is going to come back to haunt us. 

Heraclitus (name outlined in red) in a fragment of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, discussing the Moon.

A modern reconstruction of the Ephesian Temple of Artemis, located in Istanbul, where, according to Diogenes Laertius, Heraclitus deposited his book. 

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[1] Herodotus’ dates for comparison: c. 484 – 425 BC.

[2] Shotwell (1939) The History of History, p. 172.

[3] An ambiguous word meaning unlimited, infinite or indefinite. From a word meaning ‘without end or limit’.

[4] According to Apollodorus and Proclus, the mythical seer Calchas died at Colophon after the end of the Trojan War. Strabo names Clarus as the place of his death, which would later be a cult center in the territory of Colophon. An oracle had it that he would die when he would meet a better seer than himself. As Calchas and the other heroes on their way home from Troy came upon the seer Mopsus in Colophon, the two competed in their mantic qualities. Calchas couldn't equal Mopsus’ skills as a seer, being a son of Apollo and Manto, so he died. In Greek antiquity two sons of Codrus, King of Athens, established a colony there. It was the birthplace of the philosopher Xenophanes and the poet Mimnermus.

[5] Diels & Kranz (1951) Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, Xenophanes.

[6] Zeller, Vorsokrastische Philosophie, p. 530, n. 3.

[7] Greek lyric poet from the island of Paros in the Archaic period. He is celebrated for his “versatile and innovative use of poetic meters and as the earliest known Greek author to compose almost entirely on the theme of his own emotions and experiences.” From Brown (1997), Introduction to Gerber’s A companion to the Greek Lyric Poets, p. 49.

[8] Aristotle, Rhetoric 3.17.14 18b 28.

[9] Diogenes Laertius, Lives, IX, 1.

[10] The main source for the life of Heraclitus is Diogenes Laërtius, although some have questioned the validity of his account.

[11] Diogenes Laërtius, vii. 148.

[12] Sextus Empiricus, adv. Math. ix. 104, 101; Cicero, de Natura Deorum, ii. 8.

[13] Cicero, de Natura Deorum, ii. 9, iii. 14.

[14] Diels-Kranz (1951) Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker.

[15] DK (Diels-Kranz) B51

[16] DK B78.

[17] DK B70; DK B52.

[18] DK B41.

[19] DK B32.

[20] DK B124.

[21] A branch of applied mathematics, electrical engineering and computer science involving the quantification of information.

To be continued

Part 1

Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Part 5

P.S.1 (A.J) "... the universe is all about change...". That is certainly true. "Processes" and "morphisms" are extremely important. Perhaps even more important than "objects" themselves. But in human interactions one has to be very careful about changes. One must be careful when applying the "forgetful functor". Consider, for instance, this, based undoubtedly on personal experience,  warning:

P.S.2. 01-08-23 (A.J) Inserted Sec. 7.6 to the file"Notes on Conformal Group"

P.S.3 (A.J) Just received by email: "Despite vast detailed knowledge of the brain, neuroscience cannot 1) explain consciousness, memory, binding nor real time conscious action, 2) effectively treat Alzheimer’s or other brain disorders, or 3) define our place in the universe. Why not? Oversimplified cartoon neurons." More here: Neuroscience Needs a Revolution to Understand Consciousness