The Philosopher's Philosopher | Heraclitus of Ephesus | Presocratic Philosophy

This episode is a collaboration with the artist Stian van Wyk. Check out Stian's work over at Instagram / goatman_stan .
The Presocratic Heraclitus of Ephesus is a philosopher's philosopher. His work was beloved by Socrates, Plato, Hegel, Nietzsche and Heidegger. Herclitus, the philosopher from Ephesus is commonly known as the philosopher of fire (thanks to Aristotle) or, for those with a little more nuance, he is known as the philosopher of panta rei or flux - of constant never-ending change.
But there is another side of Heraclitus's philosophy that is less talked about and that is his philosophy of Logos. This element of the Presocratic philosopher's work was taken up by the Gospel writer John who opened his Gospel with the line "In the beginning was there was the Logos and the Logos was with God and the Logos was God". John wrote his work in Ephesus and so the comparison with Heraclitus can't be avoided.
For Heraclitus Logos is the unchanging eternal principle that is the true nature of reality. That leaves us with something of a paradox in a way that is very similar to Parmenides, who also wrote about the contrast between the world of Being and the world of Becoming.
As well as Parmenides we will also be looking at how Heraclitus's work can be situated as part of the tradition of the Perennial Philosophy and can be fruitfully connected with the Eastern philosophies of Buddha Gautama and of Lao-Tzu.
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Further Reading:
- Curd, P. and McKirahan, R.D., 1996. A Presocratics Reader
- Geldard, R.G., 2000. _Remembering Heraclitus_. Richard Geldard.
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Media Used:
1. There’s Probably No Time - Chris Zabriskie
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3. Juniper - Kevin MacLeod
4. Eastern Thought - Kevin MacLeod
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⌛ Timestamps:
0:00 Introduction
2:06 Aristotle's View
4:22 The Other Half of Heraclitus
6:52 Heraclitus and the Mystical Tradition
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#heraclitus #thelivingphilosophy #philosophy #history #ancienthistory

[@TheLivingPhilosophy]

🎨 More from Stian: instagram.com/goatman_stan/ 💬 Discord: discord.gg/cA6fS5tJ 💚 Patreon: patreon.com/thelivingphilosophy ____________________ ⌛ Timestamps: 0:00 Introduction 2:06 Aristotle's View 4:22 The Other Half of Heraclitus 6:52 Heraclitus and the Mystical Tradition

[@Kar-Kan]

Do more on presocratic philosophy.

[@bingbongbingbong4305]

Yeah

[@bingbongbingbong4305]

What he said

[@TheLivingPhilosophy]

It's on the agenda Kar Kan. Was talking with Stian last week and we may do a video on Parmenides as well at some point. Anaximander is another I'd love to get into

[@TheLivingPhilosophy]

@@michaelmcclure3383 haha y'know what...I appreciate the push. It might be time to turn back to the presocratics. I'm still working on Marx at the moment but maybe after him I might get back to Parmenides and Anaximander

[@miretov6740]

"There is no proposition of Heraclitus which I have not adopted in my Logic." - Hegel

[@TheLivingPhilosophy]

Amazing

And this is why it's a mess.

[@miretov6740]

Have you read it?

[@Jootawallah]

All these philosophers who wrote books called On Nature, like Heraclitus, Parmenides and Lucretius were basically physicists and theorists before the word. Their idea of movement with stability, randomness with order, prefigures by about an couple millennia the discoveries of physicists in the 20th century. It's frankly amazing!

[@owretchedman]

For sure, the Logos corresponds nicely with Brahmin and the Tao. Good show!

[@danielarciniegas550]

I saw a quote of him saying "listen not to me but the logos, it is wise to agree all things are one" so rather the logos would be like a immanent divine? like the western holy Spirit

[@owretchedman]

@@danielarciniegas550 Totally, sir.

[@emceesquared193]

Similar to Buddhism, I think a comparison can be made between Heraclitus' philosophy and Advaita Vedanta, which contains the principles of samsara and moksha (nirvana in Buddhism).

[@danielhathaway43]

Great job! Would love to see you expand on Heraclitus and the pre-socratic philosophy.

[@TheLivingPhilosophy]

I think there'll be more coming in this vein Daniel. One of my old loves and also quite important for me so there'll definitely be more of this to come!

[@AngeloLunch]

Yes please!

[@RCSVirginia]

I believe that Heraclitus was the philosopher about whom the character Oliver was writing his treatise in the novel "Call Me By Your Name" by Andre Aciman.

[@NovaPatriae]

This was awesome! Thank you for providing this information to the world. A lot of people don't like to read anymore. This is a good way to keep people in the know.

[@peterjones6507]

Thanks for an interesting talk, and a more than usually thoughtful reading of Heraclitus. His dual aspect world (the world of change and the Logos) is explained by Nagarjuna's doctrine of ''Two Truths' or 'Worlds' ',

[@OneConsciousnessWithAaron]

Excellent, accessible, well synthesized. More on a Delian diver please. I ask because it’s an aspiration of mine:). I love to swim in deep waters, the depths impenetrable, abyss and mystery

[@GhoulishAdventure]

Love your work. Thank you.

[@mattgodwin8852]

Something to contextualize the 'Monism' point, from Charles Khan's amazing commentary work The Art and Thought of Heraclitus (my go to Heraclitus source when writing my thesis): "hen panta einai (All is One). This is the earliest extant statement of systematic monism, and probably the first such statement ever made in Greece. In textbooks on the history of philosophy, the Milesian thinkers are represented as monists who reduce all things to water, to air, or to the Unlimited. But this view, which ultimately rests upon Aristotle's interpretation [...] in Metaphysics A 3, is anachronistic and misleading, insofar as it imputes to the earliest Greek naturalists a post-Parmenidean notion of some true unity underlying the apparent plurality of things ... There is no good evidence for assigning monism to the Milesians, if this is understood as the claim that 'all things are water' or 'all things are air', that (as Diogenes of Apollonia puts it) earth and sky and sea and air are not really 'different in their own physis' but are at bottom one and the same thing. But the Milesian philosophers were monists in a different sense, and their theories must have provided the background for Heraclitus thesis. What he could draw from them was the double claim (i) that all things are derived from a single arche or starting point, and (ii) that as now constituted all things are organized within a single world structure or kosmos." he goes on "By denying that this order is a work of art [i.e. a product of some God or maker], Heraclitus implies that it is a work of nature: self-made or self-grown. Thus the cosmological idea begins to emerge, and becomes explicit when the kosmos itself is invested with the attributes of divinity: 'it ever was and is and will be'.... The new philosophical paradox of [DK, D.30] is a denial of any fundamental duality between a generated world order and the eternal source from which it arises or the ruling intelligence by which it is organized. Insofar as the kosmos is made, it is self-made; insofar as it is organized, it is self-organized; insofar as it is generated, it is identical with its own eternal source, everliving fire... This break with the Milesian scheme has the effect of identifying the world with its eternal source or arche, the cosmic order with its divine helmsman or regulator. This is monism with a vengeance". This was the major part of his philosophy that endeared him to the great post-Cartesian Monists like Hegel, Spinoza, and Nietzsche (kinda also Leibniz. sorta.) Far too in-depth and labored a point to include in an introductory video I know- which by the way, i really enjoyed: kudos on being able to make entertaining and well put together stuff like this. thought i'd bring it up though. looking forward to the next one :)

[@davischu8134]

The animation was wonderful! More collabs with this guy pls

[@cam2307]

I have to say: Thanks, man! Thank you! A hundred times, thank you! Quality dialogues on philosophy are something I eagerly desire in my life. And you are dealing them out in spades.

[@TheLivingPhilosophy]

Wow that's amazing to hear Cam thank you so much! I'm delighted to hear that these little bits of exploration are resonating so deeply with someone!

[@user-sp9hq2cx6f]

Thank You for your videos, bro!!!!!!

[@alidjaja2160]

Great Editing btw!! Really enjoyed it!!

[@itsmeitsme99]

Another great video. Interweaving different ancient philosophys and belief systems allows the viewer a greater understanding Heraclitus and his ancient contemporaries. Excellent 🙂

[@TheLivingPhilosophy]

Glad you enjoyed it! Heraclitus is a gem

[@AngeloLunch]

Absolutely loving the artwork in this video!

[@TheLivingPhilosophy]

I know it's gorgeous right!

[@renaissancefairyowldemon7686]

Amazing video, it was very enlightening. Thank You 🖤🔥🌹

[@TheLivingPhilosophy]

Delighted to hear it Renaissance Fairy!

[@joshgradilone9583]

Your video graphics are getting better and better! I watch one every night before bed.

[@TheLivingPhilosophy]

Thanks Josh but alas I ca't take credit for this one it's the fine work of Stian that made this coe out so well. Hopefully I'll get there at some point!

[@TheEpicureanStoic]

Any video on Heraclitus is bound to simplify some stuff or leave others behind, but you manage to cover all the important ones (and the reasons why they're important!) in a very direct and understandable way, in less than 10 minutes, that's insane! It took me 15 minutes for my video on Heraclitus, and I don't think I convey his thoughts as clearly as you do, I'm very impressed. You just earned another subscriber!

[@TheLivingPhilosophy]

Thank you kindly that's high praise. I must check out your video I always love a bit of Heraclitus action. Also I love your name!!

[@TheEpicureanStoic]

@@TheLivingPhilosophy Thank you! Another Heraclitean paradoxical pair of opposites 😂

[@frimports]

Thanks my friend, appreciate your service to knowledge, the Logos, Prime mover, God or whatever you wish to call it, many heartfelt thanks.

[@TheLivingPhilosophy]

Thanks a million Brad!

[@vinm300]

Very well explained It's nice that it ends on a cliff-hanger It would've been trite to attempt a simplistic definition of Logos

[@socraticlifedaily]

Such a great video (as always)!

[@TheLivingPhilosophy]

Thank you kindly!

[@Tahycoon]

in my opinion, if we assume that the collective minds of the many converge into an approximation of an individual abstract mind (i.e. the collective human actions and thoughts could be regarded as a single abstract being); AND if we assume that there is a connection between perception and reality; then we can make an analogy. The analogy is just as we perceive a constant image and an optical illusion occurs making us 'see' the image spinning in spirals, then (given the assumptions) the universe is actually constant and changing simultaneously (just as the image is constant and 'changing' simultaneously).

[@Opposite271]

Humanity is neither a collective mind nor a superorganism, far from it. The old myth speaks of human history as if it where the history of one individual, this is so to creat a artificial human identity. But in reality, human history is a bundle of broken glas, each with their own history and their own perspective.

It's a failure to understand language at it's core. A misunderstanding of understanding itself.

[@ClownWorldExplained]

Brilliant! One could describe me as a mystic and I changed my name to Paradox 21 years ago. 10 years prior to that I first started to read about philosophy and the first two philosophers that inspired me were Parmenides and Heraclitus. 31 years later I am even more convinced that they were the only Western Philosophers that truly realized the Non Dual nature of Reality. Their only modern equal is Alfred North Whitehead, who appeared just as mystical to his contemporaries as they did...and for the same reason. Those whose minds are lost in duality cannot decipher the paradoxical appearance of Non duality. Thanks for giving these two giants a modicum of the respect they deserve. Have you considered covering Whitehead?

[@Panda_436]

Pls don't let the view/like disencourage you... the way you paint these subjects is truly awesome!!! More of these please! :D

[@TheLivingPhilosophy]

Thank you so much 😀

[@tigerlilysoma588]

Between your show, Wes Cecil, and academy of ideas I’ve been learning a lot.

[@tigerlilysoma588]

Oh and Ryan Chapman

[@TheLivingPhilosophy]

Delighted to hear it! Never heard of Wes Cecil and only heard of Ryan Chapman yesterday for the first time so I must have an exploration of them!

[@albertoperezvadillo4531]

Another great video, James. You just made today's bacon-based breakfast much more nutritious. I would love to see more videos identifying "thought anchors" which can help us link up East and West.

[@TheLivingPhilosophy]

Haha delighted to hear it Alberto!! I think the next big one of these thought anchors would be Heidegger. I think that'll really open the can of worms

[@parheliaa]

Well, the form of your videos really improved, compared to older ones. Both sound quality, and visuals

[@TheLivingPhilosophy]

Great to hear Rafał thanks for the feedback! Though I can't take credit for the visuals with this one that's all Stian's fine artistry!

[@steve3172]

Excellent...👍👍

[@jurijsrjabokons7509]

Thanks a lot.

[@jeffreyforeman5031]

truly amazing, i have no backround in greek philosophy and the concepts are challenging, i have to do a lot of research. I stumbled a bit on the concepts, (we live in " saran" a never ending world of becoming) or impermance and that is nirvana) saran buddhism tao ?

[@jalepezo]

I comment ur work on editing the video, nice improvement, thank you very much for your content

[@TheLivingPhilosophy]

Thanks Gonzalo but I can take no credit! All the editing is down to Stian's fine work. I'll get there eventually hopefully!

[@TheAnthraxBiology]

This was class! I only recently took an interest in the pre-socratics because I had written them off as primitive and stupid, and although I feel like I'm not necessarily going to have my mind blown by Thales in 2022, Heraclitus still fascinates me and I'd love to see more of what you have to say about the pre-socratics.

[@TheLivingPhilosophy]

Great to hear! I do think that there's a way of looking at these thinkers where they remain relevant and fascinating (although admittedly Thales not so much)

[@skyhigh2118]

I looked for him after listening to his praise by Alan Watts

[@santerisatama5409]

Herákleitos has been called the first dialectic. More - and less - than that, he should be justly called also the first antidialectic. Heidegger reading Aristotle: pfft. Heidegger reading Plato: kinda OK. Heidegger reading Heraclitus: In Awe! Heidegger's Heraclitus seminar starts from wandering the fragment about Flash of Lightning...

[@TheLivingPhilosophy]

Ah really? Amazing. Been meaning to get into Heidegger more so this excites me that there may be a harvest with respect to my Heraclitus knowledge

[@roguegenesis7020]

@@TheLivingPhilosophy yes plzzz!!

[@douglaswright2143]

Why anti dialectic? Is it because chaange and logos cannot combine in synthesis?

[@santerisatama5409]

@@douglaswright2143 Simple. You can't be a proper dialektikos if you are not also an antidialektikos. ;)

[@markoslavicek]

@@TheLivingPhilosophy He also wrote a book on Heraclitus, writing about him more extensively than Hegel did.

[@purpledevilr7463]

I don’t see how there’s any contradiction in the philosophy. Everything ever-changing and all being one makes sense to me. There’s simply no conflict there. All the ocean is one entity (the ocean) yet all the water is always shifting. Everything is made from atoms yet items are different.

[@coweatsman]

"...was in line to become king...but chose to become a philosopher instead..." So similar to the origin story of Siddartha Gautama AKA the Buddha.

[@jonnyblamey]

There is a painting in the National Gallery in London of Venus giving her son away to Chronos. In other words (Christian John words) Logos, the God of love gives her/his son into the flow of time. I think perhaps real love can only be experienced in time, but yet that love is eternal.

[@rim157]

I was reading this book on the panpsychist views of philosophers throughout history and Heraclitus was one of the many names brought up in the book. I found the way Heraclitus was introduced to be very striking, he was introduced as the philosopher that’s apparently known as “the dark philosopher”. Not because he ventured into some forbidden, taboo field of philosophy but simply because of how hard comprehending his work was.

[@santerisatama5409]

Yes. The Greek epithet 'skoteinos' means in this context more like 'dusk'/'twilit' than 'dark'.

[@johnandersson8258]

The focus of the buddhist principles of samsara and nirvana seems, in my view, to be much more about, for lack of a better term, soteriology, than about knowledge about how the world actually works for the sake of knowledge in itself. I often think there's a mild parallellomania as far as buddhism goes, perhaps due to the popularity of the (cherry-picked versions of) buddhism in the west. As I interpret Heraclitus (simplified) the rule, the ordering principle of the universe (i.e. the Logos) _is_ that it is always in flux. And realizing that is real knowledge and insight, perhaps even liberation, but there's nothing that suggests that this insight would lead to something resembling nirvana in his view, i.e. it's not something that could "turn becoming into being", because that would be impossible )and paradoxical in a way that not even he would accept). Just wisdom. Thank you for taking on Heraclitus, the first philosophical giant.

[@stephencarroll230]

Jaspers wrote a fantastic essay on Heraclitus!

[@TheLivingPhilosophy]

I must check it out. Quite like Jaspers from the little I know about him

[@auggiemarsh8682]

Excellent overview. I second a request for Parmenides (especially a contrast to Heraclitus) whose philosophy was rooted in the mystical but morphed by Plato into the sciences and logic. Peter Kingsley’s book “Into the Dark Places, while too bloated for my liking (his premise, like many books, could have been encapsulated in a long essay) does provide quite interesting insight into the importance of “incubation” as a means to prophecy and healing. Are the roots of classical philosophy founded in mysticism and the concomitant spiritual and healing practices as Kingsley suggests based on his research? I haven’t yet read Kingsley’s “Reality,” (updated and revised in 2020) but plan on doing so. Evidently, it’s a prequel of sorts to “In the Dark Places of Wisdom” with further interpretations of the wisdom teachings of Parmenides, Empedocles, etc.

[@TheLivingPhilosophy]

Ooh now that sounds right up my alley Auggie thanks for bringing it to my attention

[@santerisatama5409]

@@TheLivingPhilosophy For a deep discussion of Heraclitus and Parmenides, Plato's Sophist which concludes his study of Forms is a must. Titanomakhia aka "Discussion of Great Kinds" (Being and non-Being; change and permanence; difference and sameness) concludes: dynamis. It was Aristotle who made a mess of Plato's process philosophical dynamis by morphing that into the dualism of potentiality (dynamis) and actuality (energeia). Plato - and in general Indo-European languages - bare the blame though, for Plato's great mistake in the Sophist is to claim that nouns are more fundamental than verbs. Heidegger blamed Aristotle for the Fall, I blame the claim that nouns are more fundamental. PS: In Finnish - and many other "indigenous" languages - we can form full grammatical sentences consisting only of a verb. Asubjective verbs speak without any subject or object, before the subject-object dualism. It's better to speak Tao with asubjective verb than with the mysterious noun "logos" - which I translate into Finnish with an asubjective verb.

[@TheLivingPhilosophy]

@@santerisatama5409 Fascinating as ever Santeri

[@michaelmcclure3383]

​​​@@santerisatama5409 isn't it also true that later on people like Nietzsche emphasised verbs over nouns, so that when you get to someone like Foucault you hear this anti-essensialism dogma that seems to derive from a lopsided interpretation of Heraclitus. Becoming without Being.. Heidegger rectified this to some degree.

[@2msvalkyrie529]

I recommend a visit to Ephesus to anyone who enjoyed this ! P!enty of cheap flights to Turkey . Fascinating place. Food / weather /Culture and people . And after the earthquake they need as much support as we can give ..🙏

[@christophmahler]

I really loved the accounts of *Franz Brentano* whose introductions and excerpts made Heraclitus - and e.g. Thales - appear *like Hebrew prophets, translating the spiritual experience of the dynamic, cyclical, yet 'trajectory' ('systemic') historical and eschatological process (arguably the 'lasting', intelligible 'logos', a divine 'intellectus agens' on a cosmic scale) into images* (John of Patmos was mentioned), but if reproduced in one's imagination were rather telling of sensitive observation and accurate description (one could think e.g. of Goethe's *'rational empiricism'* in regard to a 'mindful' observation of nature). After Brentano, European philosophy arguably _stopped_ - despite considerable efforts e.g. by Husserl - and was replaced with politics, including French post-war commentary on Marxist semantics, funded by the CIA... Before Husserl there was *Friedrich Hölderlin* who personified dialectics until there was nothing left, fit for modern language, with Neo-Hegelians like the historian *Johann Gustav Droysen* as a reflection of thourough and applied German reception of *'the Glory of Hera'* - moving beyond the medieval waves of Platonism (Augustine) and Aristoleianism (Aquino) - toward the few exceptions of original thought like *Pseudo-Dionysios* , *Maximus Confessor* (traditioned by Eriugenes), mastering *a dialectic, dynamic grasp of a 'differentiated' reality* , and rarities like *Alain de Lille* whose imaginative language may have come closest to the lucent pre-Socratic experience of the *Seven Sages* . A characterization of *Anacharsis the Scythian* and the later, but related *Phocion of Athens* - although more tilted toward underrated style of rhetorics - would make fine additions to the channel.

[@tragicduckling]

i love your videos so much

[@TheLivingPhilosophy]

Thanks a million nico! It gives me great pleasure to hear that!

[@spook1366]

Lovely content. You are my philosophy encyclopedia

[@TheLivingPhilosophy]

Haha and happy to be! Thanks Spook

[@TheNeoMosala]

Best philosophy channel

[@TheLivingPhilosophy]

Haha thanks Neo!!

[@peterclark6290]

The desire of one construct of the Cosmos to understand and possibly make full use of the processes that make universes stable is at the very least premature. It all comes down to our awareness of the utter unfairness of death. Until we realise that even our Universe will too become 'differently organised'. Beating the system is currently not possible but a ray of hope is offered when we accept death as functional (a new mind to replace the used) and use birth to perpetuate only our genesº. Who build 'Life Stars' to survive our Solar collapse, then the Galactic implosion/explosion then the Universe's demise till another Universe is found in the infinite Cosmos and another temporary planet can be used. The main enemy of the above is Entropy (every subatomic element will break apart) thus destroying the viability of the atom, compound materials, etc. That hope kept alive only by the hope that Entropy can be overcome. IOW attempting to answer the (quaintly anthropomorphic, to some) human design challenge: _Are Intelligence and Imagination the Cosmos trying to make sense of itself?_ Logos: There must be only Infinite Space (3 dimensions) and Perpetual Energy sub-packets which contain a polarised force (N/S, pos/neg, attract/repel) which thus contain a highly predictable binary logic for when they interact with other energy packets: enabled by the fourth dimension, Time (irreversible, unrepeatable). This foundation logic leads all the way to us, a conflicted alpha species. Do we dare? I believe the genome is capable however no society has ever concentrated its primary energy on raising great replacement adults; and it's taken tens of thousands of years to begin to undermine the metaphysical 'explanations' that end up with a convenient brain-reducing divinity. BTW 'Random' is a human too-hard for my brain excuse: the implicit logic drives everything and the Cosmos will not disappear. º The loss of transcription factors (contained only in the ova) is another barrier to this dream. All sperm can provide is half the DNA, no mitochondria or any other of the vital elements.

[@sigigle]

Good vids. Can you do one on Parmenides? He's one of my favorite philosophers.

[@TheLivingPhilosophy]

Thank you! There'll almost certainly be a video on Parmenides in 2023. Would love to work with Stian again and make that. Parmenides is an important one and harder to understand funnily enough so I've been hesitant about doing a bad job

[@sigigle]

@@TheLivingPhilosophy awesome 😊 ya doin good work, I watch a lot of philosophy vids and yours are definitely some of the best, keep it up :) Cheers

[@TheLivingPhilosophy]

​@@sigigle that's much appreciated si giggle!

[@maxzoe948]

Awesome vid. Any thoughts on Peter Kingsley?

[@TheLivingPhilosophy]

Thanks maxzoe! Only just heard about him from someone else in this comments section so none as of yet. Got him on the list now

[@belomolnar2128]

Interesting how much is saying Heraclitos to our Mankind for all the ages. No facilities but enough time to be a Man.❤❤❤

[@robertharris1611]

Can you do a segment about Emil Cioran? Just a suggestion. :)

[@TheLivingPhilosophy]

Great suggestion. He's someone I'm wanting to dive into so it is on the list!

[@MatthewShute]

I'm not sure that the panta rhei/Logos dichotomy is as irreconcilably paradoxical as it might appear. If what is utterly fundamental/essential to nature (what Heraclitus calls Logos) endures forever unchanging, but _everything else_ (us, the entirety or the cosmos, the natural world around us) is in perpetual flux... then we never bump into a logical contradiction. It would mean there's an essence, vitality, or ratio that's immune from the change that characterizes all else. I think of the former as a basic and primordial reality that somehow inexorably drives the latter, though the latter (the world of change) is quite real, accounting for everything we experience, and we ourselves. If the most basic characteristic of reality is eternal and indestructible, and if this inexorably produces change out of itself (if forces and change flow from it, owing to its very nature), then change also goes on forever. Admittedly, there's quite a bit of my interpretation or extrapolation mixed in here. You mention Lao Tzu, and yes, the Logos idea makes me think of the Dao, too. The parallels with the ideas of these two figures can seem a little uncanny, like they were both expressing the same or similar intuition(s). What's tragic is how little of H's writing (the handful of fragments) survives to this day.

[@TheLivingPhilosophy]

Agreed Matthew it's a shame we have so little of it and it's certainly an uncanny match for the Tao. I also like your playing around with logos and panta rei there. I think this is something I'll be returning to in the video on Parmenides because he emphasises the impossibility of any change occuring when Being is all that there is so I think the paradox of it will be better expressed in that one though your argument may still apply

[@satnamo]

Dao is the universal principle of heaven, earth +mankind; it is called Logos.

[@jonathanlivingston7358]

This was great! What other channel would anyone on here recommend to learn more about the mystical aspect of philosophy instead of the dry mental approach to philosophy?

[@TheLivingPhilosophy]

Would love to hear other recommendations as well Jonathan but there's one name that jumped immediately to my mind and that's John Vervaeke. Highly recommend him. Been meaning to do a full watch of his meaning crisis series but in anything I've seen of him he's both an erudite and gentle presence

[@jonathanlivingston7358]

@@TheLivingPhilosophy Thank you very much! I’m listening to the first episode.

[@TheLivingPhilosophy]

@@jonathanlivingston7358 Awesome! Let me know what you think of him if you get into it!

[@jonathanlivingston7358]

@@TheLivingPhilosophy I watched the first three episodes. For me, his style was too theoretical and didn’t focus enough on the description of the mystical state from a direct lived experience. The rare short descriptions he gave felt heady and theoretical. He seems to me to be lecturing heavily from his left brain rather than from a good mixed of the left and right. Using Wilber’s model, which I know you’re familiar with, I feel his worldview is heavily informed by the upper right quadrant and little by the upper left. I was hoping for more of a balanced presentation between the UL & UR. I know, it’s hard to find people like that. But thank you!

[@christophmahler]

Not a philosopher, but arguably a mystic: French orthodox iconographer *Jonathan Pageau* - not 'brilliant' in systematical approach or didactics, but genuine exploration of images with 'resonant' results.

[@tree6835]

Heraclitus! I've only encountered a tiny bit of his stuff before, but man was that stuff FIRE! (heh heh (: )

[@TheLivingPhilosophy]

Haha thanks tree! Best compliment a Heraclitean could receive!

[@rogerbartlet5720]

Contrast with Parmenides would be interesting

[@TheLivingPhilosophy]

It would indeed Roger. I might do a video on Parmenides at some point and then another doing a deep comparison between the two

[@borischum5733]

The original language used in John's gospel does not use the function word (a) before singular nouns when the referent is unspecified.... I believe a more likely translation in John's introduction... is "The logos was (a) God" Seems an important difference. Is it right?

[@TheLivingPhilosophy]

Really? That's fascinating. That's even more Heraclitus-esque. This is the case with Ancient Greek?

[@borischum5733]

@@TheLivingPhilosophy Yes, I believe that is the case with the common Greek, Koine, the international language of the day.

[@TheLivingPhilosophy]

@@borischum5733 Absolutely fascinating Boris

[@123456789772951]

You can do something repeatedly, but you will never experience it the same way just as when you tread in the river, listen to music or hear a story etc x What are you reading at the moment James? x x 📚

[@TheLivingPhilosophy]

Indeed! At the moment I'm reading an amazing book by Edward Edinger called Ego and Archetype. It's really blowing my mind and changing how I look at the relationship between consciousness and unconsciousness

[@maceain]

go han mhaith mo chara... excellent summary. I think ole Heraclitus had it surrounded. Should be our indigenous religion.

[@TheLivingPhilosophy]

Thanks a million Barry! It would be lovely if he were our indigenous religion although the Salmon of Knowledge ain't bad either eh

[@maceain]

@@TheLivingPhilosophy Yes, Dagda, an old Indo-European archetype of an expression of the primordial all father. I can see the traces of pre Christian spiritual cosmology continuum in there, from Vedic to Druid, all the same concept. A mirror of Heraclitus' concepts. An bhfuil Gaeilge agat? Ca bhfuil tú i do chónaí mo chara?

[@TheLivingPhilosophy]

@@maceain Níl a lán Gaeilge agam unfortunately. Táim i mo chonaí i Luimneach. How about yourself? Are you a fluent speaker of the mother tongue? and what part of the land do you hail from?

[@maceain]

@@TheLivingPhilosophy Rugadh mé i Mississippi agus d'fhás mé suas i dtuaisceart Louisiana. Tháinig muintir m’athar ó Dhún na nGall agus tháinig muintir mo mháthar ó Chontae an Chláir. Tá Gaeilge agam, measartha maith, ach caithfidh mé a bheith ag obair uirthi níos mó. Tá mé ag dul go hÉirinn ó na 1970idí agus tá cónaí orm ann cúpla uair. Tá an oiread sin athraithe tagtha ar Éirinn, ach is ábhar difriúil é sin. Tá go leor col ceathracha agam i nDún na nGall agus fanann muid i dteagmháil lena chéile. Táim ag obair ar leabhar anois, is faoin Síthe é, ach é á insint ó thaobh na hAlban-Éireann de. Ar Amazon, is mise Barry R McCain. Anois, tá mé i mo chónaí in Oxford, Mississippi.

[@TheLivingPhilosophy]

@@maceain Ah! Is aoibhinn liom do fhocail! I have't read so much Irish since school. I'm surprised how much a thuigim. Cén chuid de Chláir are your mothers side from? I looked up your books on amazon by all accounts you're a very diligent scholar! Must have been very fulfilling to dive into your roots

[@Rico-Suave_]

Watched all of it 8:46

[@cjstevens6405]

Have you, for contrast to your parallel with Nirvana, considered Heraclitean Logos as a principle (e.g. an organizing principle, hello Apollo) taken to be eternal and, qua principle only, unchanging? To borrow the reading of the river fragment which figures in the film Call Me By Your Name, we can see a river as *being* that thing whose permanence arising from it never having the same contents, from its contents being in permanent flow. Through such an interpretative lens, and going beyond the reading from said film, Logos may itself, as a principle, also be pictured as just such a river. I think this is a fruitful alternate take.

[@Mashauri-Ai]

John of the gospels is a different john with the one who wrote revelations

[@davidwingate]

Book of Revelation was written by John of Patmos not by the author of the Gospel of John -an error of this magnitude calls into question the authority of the speaker.

[@satnamo]

Ah, but 1, 1 is a warrior because he will bring the others back.

[@amanofnoreputation2164]

Peterson asserts that Jung is tacitly arguing that Catholicism is the peak of human sanity. This is absurd. Jung said Tibetan Buddhism (by this I assume some variation of Mahayana) was the religion that best matched his psychological theory.

[@michaelmcclure3383]

Well, that's interesting. Tibetan Buddhism is the from of Buddhism most inclined to be interested in the realm of the psyche, dreams and so on. Especially vajrayana. You even have dream yoga and so on. Peterson is probably trying to assert this west is west, east is east case. Probably partly Jung's fault since he chickened out of meeting Ramana Maharshi, but it is a kind of a denial or overlooking by Peterson of Jung's deep interest in the east.

[@markoslavicek]

I would just like add something and refer to Mark A. Johnstone's paper titled "On 'Logos' in Heraclitus" here. To understand the philosophers who lived so long ago, we must take the language barrier into account. If Aristotle's reading of Heraclitus is already problematic, imagine how far off we could be today. So, Johnstone points out to the original meaning of the word 'logos' in the 5th century BCE Ephesus. It is deprived of Stoic notions of Mind (nous), Christian Word/God (the gospel of John as an example), not to mention later usages such as those by Jung. Heraclitus likely never intended any "mind", "law", or "god" in those fragments (otherwise he would have used 'nous', 'nomos', or 'theos'), but rather account, or a story. This logos of his surely does represent some kind of u nderlying principle, the structure of universe if you will, but being a riddler, he intentionally used the word that in his day and age didn't imply anything so specific like it did in centuries to come. And the future implications were, ironically, at least partialy influenced by the popularity of his own riddles.

[@aldebaranredstar]

I think logos also meant measure? It’s a word that seemingly relates to structure, as in a story or account or logic.

[@markoslavicek]

@@aldebaranredstar Indeed, I also tend to see it as some kind of structure. But of course, it also means the word and other things.

[@aldebaranredstar]

@@markoslavicek yes, a word and language has a structure too.

[@Mark.Allen1111]

The five senses change. The sixth sense the sense of “I am” doesn’t change.

[@HassanCodA-Xod8hm.]

😶

[@NavzXx]

mario madness smash bandicoot

[@DrayTheFurbyFan]

Lmao

[@tomato1040]

What about🌬️ AIR? Without Air 🌪️ WE=mc2 can't even breathe t🔯to LIVEmc2 🫁Breath The💨Breath🎺 of🧬✨LIFE mc2 🧬🎶!

[@Lifequotesfountain]

"Good character is not formed in a week or a month. It is created little by little, day by day.”

[@alistareapalex983]

I disagree. I think that if a tree does fall in the forest but no human is around to hear it that it will still make a sound.

[@jimb3093]

You probably are right.

[@Lamya_1]

First

[@pipeline732]

And at the moment of writing, Heraclitus would propably add, also the last :)

[@Lamya_1]

@@pipeline732 🗿🗿🚬

[@daithiocinnsealach1982]

Of course he was royalty. Up until recent times only the rich had the luxury of spending their days thinking about reality. The rest of humanity had the arduous task of working their hands to the bone just for basic survival while the privileged few looked down their noses at them. During the Christian era you could become a monk if you were poor but you were restricted to spending your time meditating on the Bible and on Catholic dogma rather than being free to think about whatever came to mind. Even today we find ourselves restricted by the prevailing dogmas of our tielme. We are prisoners of the umwelt.

[@dorothysatterfield3699]

One correction: We don't know who wrote the four gospels; the names of the authors were simply assigned to them by later Christians. So we can't say that the Gospel According to John was actually written by the John who was one of Jesus's disciples, or by anyone else named John. We CAN say that the Book of Revelation was written by someone named John, because the author himself says so, but he doesn't claim to be either John, the disciple, or the author of the gospel ascribed to John. We can definitely say the man who wrote the gospel of John and the man who wrote the Book of Revelation are two different men. The gospel was written in fairly good Greek; the Book of Revelation was written in execrable Greek. It's the work of an illiterate lunatic.

It's not a paradox but a failure of understanding the basics of language and mind tbh. Which explains the group that follows and why it forms religions almost inevitably.

[@demetris6214]

It's pronounced he-RA-klee-tus

[@TheLivingPhilosophy]

So I just googled it since I'd never heard anyone pronounce it that way. Turns out your way is the American way and my pronunciation is the British way. I was very confused there for a sec

[@demetris6214]

@@TheLivingPhilosophy You are right. I should have checked first. I speak Greek and the pronunciation I provided is closest to the Greek pronunciation (he-RA-klee-tos), and I assumed, since similar names like Aurelius don't become au-ree-LA-ee-us in English, that it would be the same here. Greek names always sound weird in English. Great video, as always

[@TheLivingPhilosophy]

@@demetris6214 Ah yes I was actually going to ask if it was a Greek thing before scrubbing my response on checking Google. That makes a lot of sense

[@christophmahler]

@@demetris6214 It's also unsatisfying that the _Latin_ form is prefered in dictionaries - which is always sapping education. I'm not Greek, but I wonder if the name of Hera should not be stronger pronounced: 'Herà kleitós' instead of Heraaahkleeeitooos...

[@demetris6214]

@@christophmahler The ‘H’ put at the front of many Greek names is to conform to English pronunciation. Heraclitus and Hera are both Eracletos and Era in Greek. The former I explained above how it’s pronounced, so just subtract the H to get the true Greek pronunciation, and the latter is pronounced exactly like Era but with an E as in ‘He’ (not an e as in elephant). Also, by stronger, if you mean that in Greek vowels are not dragged you are right. Basically in Greek it is very difficult to mispronounce words because there is no ambiguity as to the sound a syllable might make. What’s on paper, whatever letters are in a word, are all pronounced, always, and in the exact same way. Additionally, monotonic orthography allows you to know what syllable to accentuate. For example Ήρα (Hera) is always pronounced E-rah and never e-RAH because the ‘ on the Greek Η (letter E) tells you what syllable to accentuate. I hope this makes sense.

[@jakelm4256]

Sorry but this modern belief that Aristotle caricatured and oversimplified his predecessors is itself oversimplified and just frankly ridiculous. He was hardly removed from those men and schooled with the other experts on them most his life. Moderns pretend to have the ‘real’ interpretation of them based off fragments and commentaries of fragments.

[@zerotwo7319]

So, he was the one spreading misinformation on how the world works.

[@jannieschluter9670]

Calling Heraclitus a "philosopher" is quite the stretch. Quite frankly, he was utterly misguided and deceiving.

[@babyblue8302]

Get a haircut. Otherwise your video was great...