HERACLITUS AND LOGOS – AGAIN Cover Image

HERACLITUS AND LOGOS – AGAIN
HERACLITUS AND LOGOS – AGAIN

Author(s): Thomas M. Robinson
Subject(s): Philosophy
Published by: Новосибирский государственный университет
Keywords: Einstein; Galileo; Heraclitus; Hippolytus; Logos; Plato; Radio waves; Timaeus; Universe

Summary/Abstract: The paper has as its goal the investigation of the meaning of logos in DK frs. 1, 2, 31b, 39, 45, 50, 87, 108, and 115, with particular emphasis on frs. 1, 2 and 50. It is argued that the focal meaning of the term is ‘account’ or ‘statement’, and that the statement in question, of particular importance in frs 1, 2 and 50, it the account/statement forever being uttered by ‘that which is wise’, (to sophon), Heraclitus’ divine principle. Plato picks up the idea, with his notion of a World Soul which is similarly forever in a state of utterance (‘legei’, Tim. 37ab) which is a piece of self-description, and it is suggested that a modern version of the notion of the universe being in an everlasting state of such self-description is our ability to learn what it has to say by investigating the ‘language’ of radio waves and the like, which are forever being emitted by all moving systems composing the real, and thereby forever offering us a piece of the real’s self-description of itself.

  • Issue Year: VII/2013
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 318-326
  • Page Count: 9
  • Language: English