56 ideas
| 421 | Men who love wisdom must be inquirers into very many things indeed [Heraclitus] |
| Full Idea: Men who love wisdom must be inquirers into very many things indeed. | |
| From: Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE], B035), quoted by Clement - Miscellanies 5.140.5 | |
| A reaction: …which invites the question 'Is there anything that a wisdom-seeker should NOT be interested in?' |
| 1491 | Everyone has the potential for self-knowledge and sound thinking [Heraclitus] |
| Full Idea: Everyone has the potential for self-knowledge and sound thinking. | |
| From: Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE], B116), quoted by John Stobaeus - Anthology 3.05.06 | |
| A reaction: This is true. When people are labelled as incapable of philosophy (e.g. by Plato), it is just that they are slow developers. |
| 5863 | Reason is eternal, but men are foolish [Heraclitus] |
| Full Idea: Although reason exists forever, men are foolish. | |
| From: Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE]), quoted by Aristotle - The Art of Rhetoric 1407b | |
| A reaction: The despair of all philosophers (e.g. Plato) who think reason is the easiest thing in the world, and stares everyone in the face, and yet people seem to spurn this supreme gift from the gods. They needed the optimism of the career teacher. |
| 414 | Logos is common to all, but most people live as if they have a private understanding [Heraclitus] |
| Full Idea: Although the universal law (logos) is common to all, the majority live as if they had understanding peculiar to themselves. | |
| From: Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE], B002), quoted by Sextus Empiricus - Against the Professors (six books) 7.133.4- | |
| A reaction: Heraclitus mentions 'logos' in just three fragments - this one, and Idea 15660 and Idea 424. |
| 416 | Beautiful harmony comes from things that are in opposition to one another [Heraclitus] |
| Full Idea: That which is in opposition is in concert, and from things that differ comes the beautiful harmony. | |
| From: Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE], B008), quoted by Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics 1155b04 |
| 425 | A thing can have opposing tensions but be in harmony, like a lyre [Heraclitus] |
| Full Idea: They do not understand how that which differs with itself is in agreement: harmony consists of opposing tensions, like that of the bow and the lyre. | |
| From: Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE], B051), quoted by Hippolytus - Refutation of All Heresies 9.9.2 | |
| A reaction: Like squabbling couples who resent outside intervention. The remark suggests the virtues of 'dialectic', and may get to the heart of what philosophy is. |
| 1312 | If everything is and isn't then everything is true, and a midway between true and false makes everything false [Aristotle on Heraclitus] |
| Full Idea: The remark of Heraclitus that all things are and are not effectively renders all assertions true, and that of Anaxagoras that there is an intermediary between assertion and negation makes all assertions false. | |
| From: comment on Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 1012a | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 416. Heraclitus is discussing truth-value 'gluts', as in paraconsistent logic, and Anaxagoras is discussing truth-value 'gaps', as in three-valued Kleene logic. |
| 15658 | The hidden harmony is stronger than the visible [Heraclitus] |
| Full Idea: The hidden harmony is stronger (or 'better') than the visible. | |
| From: Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE], B055), quoted by Hippolytus - Refutation of All Heresies 9.9.5 | |
| A reaction: 'An unapparent connection [harmonia] is stronger than an apparent one' is Curd's translation. I'm taking this for essentialism. It is the basic idea of the essentialising child (see Gelman). The hidden explains the apparent. |
| 13782 | Everything gives way, and nothing stands fast [Heraclitus] |
| Full Idea: Everything gives way, and nothing stands fast. | |
| From: Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE]), quoted by Plato - Cratylus 402a | |
| A reaction: This is as good a summary of the Heraclitus view of things as any, and Plato appears to present it as a verbatim quotation. |
| 11853 | A mixed drink separates if it is not stirred [Heraclitus] |
| Full Idea: The mixed drink, of wine, cheese and barley, separates if it is not stirred. | |
| From: Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE], B125) | |
| A reaction: Wiggins quotes this, because it seems to be Heraclitus struggling to decide what sortal his drink falls under. I take it to be a problem of vagueness, since separation and mixing occur along a continuum, like a sorites. |
| 427 | It is not possible to step twice into the same river [Heraclitus] |
| Full Idea: It is not possible to step twice into the same river. | |
| From: Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE], B091), quoted by Plutarch - 24: The E at Delphi 392b10- |
| 11091 | You can bathe in the same river twice, but not in the same river stage [Quine on Heraclitus] |
| Full Idea: You can bathe in the same river twice, but not in the same river stage. | |
| From: comment on Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE]) by Willard Quine - Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis 1 | |
| A reaction: This seems to make Quine a 'perdurantist', committed to time-slices of objects, rather than whole objects enduring through change. |
| 2064 | If flux is continuous, then lack of change can't be a property, so everything changes in every possible way [Plato on Heraclitus] |
| Full Idea: According to Heracliteans, since things must be changing, and since lack of change can't be a property of anything, then everything is always undergoing change of every kind. | |
| From: comment on Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE], B030) by Plato - Theaetetus 182a |
| 430 | Senses are no use if the soul is corrupt [Heraclitus] |
| Full Idea: The eyes and ears are bad witnesses for men if they have barbarian souls. | |
| From: Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE], B107), quoted by Sextus Empiricus - Against the Mathematicians 7.126 |
| 1500 | When we sleep, reason closes down as the senses do [Heraclitus, by Sext.Empiricus] |
| Full Idea: Since when we sleep the senses are closed, mind is separated from its surroundings and loses the power of memory. When we wake the mind re-contacts the world, and regains the power of reason. | |
| From: report of Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE], A16) by Sextus Empiricus - Against the Professors (six books) 7.130 |
| 417 | Donkeys prefer chaff to gold [Heraclitus] |
| Full Idea: Donkeys prefer chaff to gold. | |
| From: Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE], B009), quoted by Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics 1176a07 |
| 426 | Sea water is life-giving for fish, but not for people [Heraclitus] |
| Full Idea: Sea-water is the purest and the most polluted: for fish it is drinkable and life-giving; for men, not drinkable and destructive. | |
| From: Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE], B061), quoted by Hippolytus - Refutation of All Heresies 9.10.5 |
| 431 | Health, feeding and rest are only made good by disease, hunger and weariness [Heraclitus] |
| Full Idea: Disease makes health pleasant and good, hunger makes satisfaction good, weariness makes rest good. | |
| From: Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE], B111), quoted by John Stobaeus - Anthology 3.1.178 |
| 23928 | Good art produces exaltation and detachment [Bell,C] |
| Full Idea: The contemplation of pure form leads to a state of extraordinary exaltation and complete detachment from the concerns of life. | |
| From: Clive Bell (Art [1913], I.III) | |
| A reaction: The last part is what gets the arts a bad name with the people who do deal with the concerns of life (which won't go away, even for an artist!). However, being totally trapped in the concerns of life is probably a recipe for misery. |
| 23922 | The word 'beauty' leads to confusion, because it denotes distinct emotions [Bell,C] |
| Full Idea: The word 'beauty' connotes objects of quite distinguishable emotions, and the term would land me in confusions and misunderstandings. | |
| From: Clive Bell (Art [1913], I.I) | |
| A reaction: His main example is a comparison of beautiful women with beautiful art. Personally I don't think the word aspires to be precise, so there is no problem. Maths has beautiful solutions, golf has beautiful shots, cooking has beautiful results. Wow! |
| 23921 | Our feeling for natural beauty is different from the aesthetic emotion of art [Bell,C] |
| Full Idea: It is not what I call an aesthetic emotion that most of us feel, generally, for natural beauty. …Most people feel a very different kind of emotion for birds, flowers and butterfly wings from that we feel for pictures, pots, temples and statues. | |
| From: Clive Bell (Art [1913], I.I) | |
| A reaction: Not convinced. I think the main difference is our awareness that art is a human production, the result of choice, whereas nature is a given. Beethoven 9 and a good sunset don't seem to me far apart in our responses. |
| 23929 | We only see landscapes as artistic if we ignore their instrumental value [Bell,C] |
| Full Idea: It is only when we cease to regard the objects in a landscape as means to anything that we can feel the landscape artistically. | |
| From: Clive Bell (Art [1913], II.I) | |
| A reaction: This sounds as if only the exploitative attitude blocks the artistic view, but I would expect the scientific view (of an ecologist, for example) to do the same. |
| 23923 | Visual form can create a sublime mental state [Bell,C] |
| Full Idea: Pure visual form transports me to an infinitely sublime state of mind. | |
| From: Clive Bell (Art [1913], I.I) | |
| A reaction: Unusual for anyone to use to term 'sublime' for works of art, and I suspect that Bell was the last to do so. Bell offers a quasi-religious role for art. I accept that being struck by something exceptionally good in art is a very distinctive experience. |
| 23932 | Art is the expression of an emotion for ultimate reality [Bell,C] |
| Full Idea: My hypothesis is that art is the expression of an emotion for ultimate reality. | |
| From: Clive Bell (Art [1913], II.II) | |
| A reaction: So later in his discussion the word 'ultimate' has crept in, after a chapter about the close relation between religious and artistic attitudes. He also sees good art as deeply 'spiritual'. It seems that religious belief is essential to his theory of art. |
| 23927 | Aestheticism invites artist to create beauty, but with no indication of how to do it [Bell,C] |
| Full Idea: The danger of aestheticism is that the artist who has got nothing to do but make something beautiful hardly knows where to begin or where to end | |
| From: Clive Bell (Art [1913], I.III) | |
| A reaction: Aestheticism strikes me as the main motivation for art nouveau artifacts, which I love. You start with beautiful lines, and then find ways to implement them. Bell has a point, though! |
| 8115 | Only artists can discern significant form; other people must look to art to find it [Bell,C, by Gardner] |
| Full Idea: Bell thinks that only artists can discern significant form directly in the natural world, and that all others must look to art for significant form. | |
| From: report of Clive Bell (Art [1913]) by Sebastian Gardner - Aesthetics 3.3 | |
| A reaction: I have a horrible feeling that 'significant' form will turn out to be the sort of form that artists can see. Presumably the form spotted by geologists won't be quite so 'significant'. Not a promising theory. |
| 23924 | Maybe significant form gives us a feeling for ultimate reality [Bell,C] |
| Full Idea: When we strip things of all associations and significance, what is left is 'the thing in itself', or 'ultimate reality'. …Artists can express an emotion felt for reality through line and colour. …So through 'significant form' we sense ultimate reality. | |
| From: Clive Bell (Art [1913], I.III) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] The thing in itself is a Kantian idea. He offers this as a speculation, rather than a fact. Maybe quantum physics gets us closer to the thing in itself? Bell knows that his faith in significant form needs more justification than an emotion. |
| 23931 | Significant form is the essence of art, which I believe expresses an emotion about reality [Bell,C] |
| Full Idea: My view that the essential quality in work of art is significant form was based on experience I am sure about. Of my view that significant form is the expression of a peculiar emotion felt for reality I am far from confident. | |
| From: Clive Bell (Art [1913], II.II) | |
| A reaction: It is hard to understand the idea of 'significant' form without a clear proposal for the nature of the significance. A detective doesn't stop at the point where evidence is seen as significant. Why should a 'peculiar' emotion matter? |
| 20434 | 'Form' is visual relations, and it is 'significant' if it moves us aesthetically; art needs both [Bell,C, by Feagin] |
| Full Idea: By 'form' Bell means the relations of lines, colours and shapes. Forms are 'significant' when the relationships of lines and so on move us aesthetically. If something is art it must have, to at least a minimum extent, significant form. | |
| From: report of Clive Bell (Art [1913], p.17) by Susan Feagin - Roger Fry and Clive Bell 3 | |
| A reaction: So art has two necessary conditions - that it move us aesthetically, and that it does so by means of its form. The obvious problem is to explain which forms are 'significant' without mentioning the aesthetic feeling they have to invoke. |
| 23934 | The only expression art could have is the emotion resulting from pure form [Bell,C] |
| Full Idea: If art expresses anything, it expresses an emotion felt for pure form and that which gives pure form its extraordinary significance. | |
| From: Clive Bell (Art [1913], III.I) | |
| A reaction: I don't think 'expresses' is the right word here. Artists express, but works just transmit. I personally doubt whether anything can have 'extraordinary significance' simply because it expresses one particular emotion. Why art, but not geometry? |
| 23925 | Mere copies of pictures are not significant - unless the copies are very exact [Bell,C] |
| Full Idea: A literal copy is seldom reckoned even by its owner a work of art. Its forms are not significant. Yet if it were an absolutely exact copy, clearly it would be as moving as the original, and a photographic reproduction of a drawing often is. | |
| From: Clive Bell (Art [1913], I.III) | |
| A reaction: What if the original artist made the copy? In 1913, Bell begins to spot this modern problem. He undermines his own theory of significant form here, if the form only becomes significant once we have checked it is an original. |
| 23926 | Art is distinguished by its aesthetic emotion, which produces appropriate form [Bell,C] |
| Full Idea: The characteristic of a work of art is its power of provoking aesthetic emotion; the expression of emotion is what gives it its power. ...Rightness of form is invariably a consequence of rightness of emotion. | |
| From: Clive Bell (Art [1913], I.III) | |
| A reaction: Bell doesn't dig very deep, because the obvious next question, not really addressed, is what makes the emotion 'right'. He suggests that significant form reveals reality, but why would an emotion do that? Does each work have a distinct emotion? |
| 23933 | Aesthetic contemplation is the best and most intense mental state [Bell,C] |
| Full Idea: Art is not only a means to good states of mind, but, perhaps, the best and most potent that we possess; …there is no state of mind more excellent or more intense than the state of aesthetic contemplation. | |
| From: Clive Bell (Art [1913], II.III) | |
| A reaction: Why does intensity make it good? It is pretty intense being involved in a road accident, but that doesn't make it good. There are many states of mind we enjoy or value highly, but we need more than that to prove them objectively 'excellent'. |
| 23935 | Aesthetic experience is an exaltation which increases the possibilities of life [Bell,C] |
| Full Idea: Those who have been thrilled by the pure aesthetic significance of a work of art …carry a state of excitement and exaltation making them more sensitive to all that is going forward about them. Thus they realise …the significance and possibility of life. | |
| From: Clive Bell (Art [1913], IV.III) | |
| A reaction: This seems like a bit of an afterthought, because he struggles to explain why his 'significant form' is so important. He shifts between it being an end - an intrinsic value - or a moral state, or now an increaser of life potential. |
| 22691 | Only artistic qualities matter in art, because they also have the highest moral value [Bell,C] |
| Full Idea: The only relevant qualities in art are artistic qualities: judged as a means to good, no other qualities are worth considering; for there are no qualities of greater moral value than artistic qualities, since there is no greater means to good than art. | |
| From: Clive Bell (Art [1913], II.III) | |
| A reaction: Wishful thinking, I suspect. I can't see anyone acquiring a moral education just by looking a Cezannes. This seems to be a late manifesto for the aesthetic movement. |
| 429 | To God (though not to humans) all things are beautiful and good and just [Heraclitus] |
| Full Idea: To God, all things are beautiful, good and just; but men have assumed some things to be unjust, others just. | |
| From: Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE], B102), quoted by Porphyry - Notes on Homer Il.4.4 | |
| A reaction: The idea that all things are actually 'just' strikes me as nonsense. I also don't think I can get my head round the idea that everything is actually good and beautiful. Must try harder. |
| 12294 | Good and evil are the same thing [Heraclitus, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Heraclitus said that good and evil are the same thing. | |
| From: report of Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE], 58/102) by Aristotle - Topics 159b32 | |
| A reaction: Heaven knows what he meant by this, though it sounds suspiciously like moral nihilism. Maybe Heraclitus was not a very nice man. Or is the thought a more sophisticated one, in line with Nietzsche's remarks about cultural morality? |
| 419 | If one does not hope, one will not find the unhoped-for, since nothing leads to it [Heraclitus] |
| Full Idea: If one does not hope, one will not find the unhoped-for, since there is no trail leading to it and no path. | |
| From: Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE], B018), quoted by Clement - Miscellanies 2.17.4 | |
| A reaction: The best remark about hope I have ever encountered. Usually they are empty platitudes. |
| 415 | If happiness is bodily pleasure, then oxen are happy when they have vetch to eat [Heraclitus] |
| Full Idea: If happiness lay in bodily pleasures, we would call oxen happy when they find vetch to eat. | |
| From: Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE], B004), quoted by Albertus Magnus - On Vegetables 6.401 | |
| A reaction: But surely oxen are happy when they find some good vetch? Presumably, though, they are not 'eudaimon'. What is the complete fulfilment of life for an ox? |
| 5155 | It is hard to fight against emotion, but harder still to fight against pleasure [Heraclitus] |
| Full Idea: It is hard to fight against emotion, but harder still to fight against pleasure. | |
| From: Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE], B085), quoted by Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics 1105a08 | |
| A reaction: 'Emotion' is the Greek word 'thumos'. "The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it", said Oscar Wilde. Heraclitus underestimates how very good many modern people are at dieting. |
| 433 | For man character is destiny [Heraclitus] |
| Full Idea: For man character is destiny. | |
| From: Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE], B119), quoted by John Stobaeus - Anthology 4.40.23 | |
| A reaction: This is the extreme opposite of Sartre's existentialist claim that we can entirely change ourselves. Personally I am with Heraclitus, though I don't see why our destined character shouldn't be modified (e.g. by education). |
| 7903 | The six perfections are giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom [Nagarjuna] |
| Full Idea: The six perfections are of giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom. | |
| From: Nagarjuna (Mahaprajnaparamitashastra [c.120], 88) | |
| A reaction: What is 'morality', if giving is not part of it? I like patience and vigour being two of the virtues, which immediately implies an Aristotelian mean (which is always what is 'appropriate'). |
| 422 | The people should fight for the law as if for their city-wall [Heraclitus] |
| Full Idea: The people should fight for the law as if for their city-wall. | |
| From: Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE], B044), quoted by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.2 | |
| A reaction: This may be the first recorded assertion of the rule of law, and hence of the separation of powers. We still have plenty of people who reject this principle. |
| 614 | Heraclitus said sometimes everything becomes fire [Heraclitus, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Heraclitus claimed that from time to time everything becomes fire. | |
| From: report of Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 1067a |
| 424 | Reason tells us that all things are one [Heraclitus] |
| Full Idea: When you have listened, not to me but to the law (logos), it is wise to agree that all things are one. | |
| From: Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE], B050), quoted by Hippolytus - Refutation of All Heresies 9.9.1 |
| 5096 | Heraclitus says that at some time everything becomes fire [Heraclitus, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Heraclitus says that at some time everything becomes fire. | |
| From: report of Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE]) by Aristotle - Physics 204b37 | |
| A reaction: Modern cosmology says that Heraclitus was right (pretty much). If we say 'energy' instead of 'fire' (which may be what he meant), then he is absolutely spot-on. |
| 17539 | The sayings of Heraclitus are still correct, if we replace 'fire' with 'energy' [Heraclitus, by Heisenberg] |
| Full Idea: If we replace Heraclitus's word 'fire' by the word 'energy' we can almost repeat his statements word for word from our modern point of view. | |
| From: report of Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE]) by Werner Heisenberg - Physics and Philosophy 04 | |
| A reaction: My problem has always been that I have no idea what 'energy' is, so I'm none the wiser. |
| 3054 | Heraclitus said fire could be transformed to create the other lower elements [Heraclitus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Heraclitus taught that fire when densified becomes liquid, and becoming concrete, becomes also water; again, that the water when concrete is turned to earth, and this is the road down. | |
| From: report of Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.1.6 |
| 15660 | Logos is the source of everything, and my theories separate and explain each nature [Heraclitus] |
| Full Idea: All things come into being according to this Law ('logos'), ...and I expound theories (words) and processes (actions) separating each thing according to its nature and explaining how it is made. | |
| From: Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE], B001), quoted by Sextus Empiricus - Against the Mathematicians 7.133 | |
| A reaction: I like the fact that things are separated according to their natures (particulars!), and not that natures are somehow bestowed on individuals. |
| 12269 | All things are in a state of motion [Heraclitus, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: All things are in a state of motion. | |
| From: report of Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE]) by Aristotle - Topics 104b22 | |
| A reaction: This seems right, I would say. It seems to make a 'process' the fundamental category of ontology, rather than an 'object'. |
| 420 | The cosmos is eternal not created, and is an ever-living and changing fire [Heraclitus] |
| Full Idea: This cosmos, which is the same for all, was not created by any one of the gods or of mankind, but it was ever and is and shall be ever-living fire, kindled and quenched in measure. | |
| From: Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE], B030), quoted by Clement - Miscellanies 5.1.103 |
| 1499 | Heraclitus says intelligence draws on divine reason [Heraclitus, by Sext.Empiricus] |
| Full Idea: According to Heraclitus we become intelligent by drawing on divine reason. | |
| From: report of Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE], A16) by Sextus Empiricus - Against the Professors (six books) 7.129 |
| 15659 | Purifying yourself with blood is as crazy as using mud to wash off mud [Heraclitus] |
| Full Idea: They purify themselves by staining themselves with other blood, as if one were to step into mud to wash off mud. But a man would be thought mad if any of his fellow-men should perceive him acting thus. | |
| From: Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE], B005), quoted by Origen - Against Celsus 7.62 |
| 7607 | Nagarjuna and others pronounced the world of experience to be an illusion [Nagarjuna, by Armstrong,K] |
| Full Idea: Many later Buddhists (after Nagarjuna, c.120 CE) developed a belief that everything we experience is an illusion: in the West we would call them idealists. | |
| From: report of Nagarjuna (teachings [c.120]) by Karen Armstrong - A History of God Ch.3 | |
| A reaction: This is just one step beyond Plato (who at least hung onto the immediate world as an inferior reality), and is presumably intended to motivate meditators to break out of the misery of existence into a higher realm. Personally I am against it. |
| 23930 | Religion sees infinite value in some things, and irrelevance in the rest [Bell,C] |
| Full Idea: The essence of religion is a conviction that because some things are of infinite value most are profoundly unimportant. | |
| From: Clive Bell (Art [1913], II.I) | |
| A reaction: The aspect of religion which most worries atheists like Nietzsche. You can end up with a rather cool and detached view of genocide, if you really believe that worldly matters are unimportant. Do souls in heaven worry about the next life after that? |
| 1501 | In their ignorance people pray to statues, which is like talking to a house [Heraclitus] |
| Full Idea: In their ignorance of the true nature of gods and heroes people pray to these statues, which is like someone holding a conversation with a house. | |
| From: Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE], B005), quoted by Anon (Pyth) - Theosophia Tubigensis 68 |