http://www.metafilter.com/tags/Pre-Socratic Posts tagged with 'Pre-Socratic' at MetaFilter. Thu, 27 Dec 2007 13:36:03 -0800 Thu, 27 Dec 2007 13:36:03 -0800 en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 60 http://www.metafilter.com/67750/Parmenides <a href="http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=9972">Parmenides.</a> "The <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/presocratics/">pre-Socratic</a> <a href="http://www.iep.utm.edu/p/parmenid.htm">philosopher</a> sparked an <a href="http://philoctetes.free.fr/parmenidesunicode.htm">intellectual</a> <a href="http://parmenides.com/about_parmenides/ParmenidesPoem.html?page=12">revolution</a> that still echoes today. Yet for philosophy and science to continue to progress in the 21st century, we may need to embark on an entirely new cognitive journey ." tag:metafilter.com,2007:site.67750 Thu, 27 Dec 2007 13:36:03 -0800 Classics Greece History Logic Philosophy Poetry Pre-Socratic Science homunculus http://www.metafilter.com/28220/Heraclitus%2Dthe%2DObscure%2DNow%2DWithout%2DFlash%2DAnimation <a href="http://members.aol.com/Heraklit1/heraklit.htm" title="Heraclitus the Fire Priest. It's not the most objective account, being the work of the Scientific Pantheists--I could care less about whoever they are--but it IS the simplest and jazziest and, hence, the introductory link here.">Heraclitus</a> of <a href="http://www.trincoll.edu/depts/phil/philo/phils/heraclitus.html" title="No Greek philosopher born before Socrates was more creative and influential than Heraclitus of Ephesus. Around the beginning of the fifth century BC, in a prose that made him proverbial for obscurity, he criticized conventional opinions about the way things are and attacked the authority of poets and others reputed to be wise. His surviving work consists of more than 100 epigrammatic sentences, complete in themselves and often comparable to the proverbs characteristic of 'wisdom' literature. Notwithstanding their sporadic presentation and transmission, Heraclitus' sentences comprise a philosophy that is clearly focused upon a determinate set of interlocking ideas.">Ephesus</a>, sometimes called <a href="http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/GREECE/HERAC.HTM" title="Heraclitus, along with Parmenides, is probably the most significant philosopher of ancient Greece until Socrates and Plato; in fact, Heraclitus's philosophy is perhaps even more fundamental in the formation of the European mind than any other thinker in European history, including Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.">Heraclitus</a> <a href="http://www.trincoll.edu/depts/phil/philo/phils/heraclitus.html" title="The Window: Heraclitus - A brief consideration of Heraclitean doctrine in relation to other classical thinkers.">the Obscure</a>: We only know him through 100 gnomic quotes and aphorisms<em>--I loves me some gnomic aphorisms!--</em>all direct from or inferred in the comments of various authors of Classical literature, of which <em>no one steps into the same river twice</em> is the best known. <a href="http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/heracli.htm" title="Heraclitus had a very strong influence on Plato. Plato interpreted Heraclitus to have believed that the material world undergoes constant change. He also thought Heraclitus was approximately correct in so describing the material world. Plato believed that such a world would be unknowable, and was thus driven to the conclusion that the material world was, in some sense, unreal, and that the real, knowable, world was immaterial.">Mark Cohen</a>, <a href="http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/Lesher.html" title="''Presocratic Contributions to the Theory of Knowledge''--discussed here in part: Heraclitus is most well known of the PreSocratics.">J. H. Lesher</a> and <a href="http://www.uh.edu/~cfreelan/courses/heraclnotes.html" title="Heraclitus is notorious for his ''obscure'' and distinctive style. Many readers seem to love it or hate it. Heraclitus' stylistic devices include metaphor, simile, aphorism, pun, word play, allusion, riddles, rhythm, and sound. ">Cynthia Freeman</a> provide excellent introductions. <a href="http://plato.evansville.edu/public/burnet/ch3.htm" title="We do not know the title of the work of Heraclitus -- if, indeed, it had one -- and it is not easy to form a clear idea of its contents. We are told that it was divided into three discourses: one dealing with the universe, one political, and one theological. It is not to be supposed that this division is due to Heraclitus himself; all we can infer is that the work fell naturally into these three parts when the Stoic commentators took their editions of it in hand. ">John Burnett's 1920 translation</a> is another academic standard. Jonathan Barnes. whose Penguin Classic <em><a href="http://us.penguinclassics.com/Book/BookFrame/0,1007,,00.html?id=0140448152" title="He quotes brief passages wherein Heraclituswas quoted by Classical authors to give the context of each quote. It really makes a difference.">The Early Greek Philosophers</a></em> has the best contemporary translation, wrote <em>Heraclitus attracts exegetes as an empty jampot wasps; and each new wasp discerns traces of his own favourite flavour.</em> Here are the jampots of <a href="http://philos.wright.edu/Dept/PHL/Class/PS/FN%2FH.html">Friedrich Nietzsche</a>, <a href="http://www.thebigview.com/greeks/heraclitus.html">Bertrand Russell</a> and <a href="http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/9994/heidher.html">Martin Heidegger</a>. And here, in passing, is a taste of the jampot of <a href="http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/heraclit.htm">Jorge Luis Borges</a>. Heraclitus coined the word <a href="http://atlanta.creativeloafing.com/2001-04-04/paradigms.html" title="''It happened like this. I was at a conference last week in Asheville to read a rather radical paper. My thesis was that desire is fundamentally impersonal. Because desire is also autonomous, anonymous sex -- particularly public sex -- is inevitable, I argued. Trying to regulate it is like trying to regulate the wind. The more you contain it, the more likelihood of a storm you create. But a funny thing happened. As I started to read my paper, I lost my voice.'' - from 'Losing My Voice In Asheville' by Cliff Bostock">enantiodromia</a>. John William Corrington's <em><a href="http://www.law.utexas.edu/lpop/etext/lsf/corr26-2logos.htm">Logos, Lex, And Law</a></em> is also of interest. Heraclitus figures strongly in the <a href="http://www.press.jhu.edu/books/groden/free/archetypal_theory_and_criticism.html" title="'Archetypal Theory And Criticism' from 'The John Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory & Criticism'--now there is a find...">Archetypal Psychology</a> of Carl Jung and <a href="http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/17214">James Hillman</a>, the latter especially in his discussion of the <a href="http://www.geocities.com/nulliusinverba/moonmirror.htm" title="The Moon In The Mirror: Prologue to a Brief History of the Soul by Leonard George discusses Jung and Hillman's thoughts on the subject.">Soul</a>. tag:metafilter.com,2003:site.28220 Thu, 11 Sep 2003 05:59:04 -0800 Greek Heraclitus Obscure Pantheism Philosophy Pre-Socratic y2karl