Heraclitus

Heraclitus from Ephesus or dark one, because of his obscure meanings, forms alone a peculiar category of philosopher. It would not be an exaggeration to say that historians and epistemologists stay with some awe before him. We now have only 137 extracts from his work. Many of these extracts are constituted by one or two phrases. His words have a universal meaning and hold some kind of prophecy.

Heraclitus used to be a strange character since he had been a child. He loved to say that people are interested only for materials and they do not do anything for their soul. He preferred to spend his time playing with children. His ancestors were reach and powerful enough. During a war he felt happiness, because it was an excellent opportunity for his townsmen to understand that no money can buy wisdom and internal equilibrium.

His cosmology was based on fire. He used to consider fire as the motive force of universe. This fire was never totally clarified. The sun was certain expression of fire, but was not this fire. Studying the philosophy of Heraclitus and replacing the word fire by the current term energy, we could found a perfect description of a lot of natural phenomena.

How Heraclites died

Heraclitus nourished respect to the nature and he said that nature likes to be hidden, because the hidden harmony is always better than the obvious one. Being poetic he managed to describe a secret force that nowadays would have translated into entropy by saying: "Just like a pile waste flown in the chance is the most beautiful cosmos". Heraclitus never forgot that a human being always stands insignificant against nature. What we should do is to study nature and to remain humble.