Heraclitus of Ephesus (Greek Ηρακλειτος Herakleitos) (about 535 - 475 BC), known as 'The Obscure,' was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher. He disagreed with Thales, Anaximander, and Pythagoras about the nature of the ultimate substance and claimed instead that everything is derived from the Greek classical element fire, rather than from air, water, or earth. This led to the belief that change is real, and stability illusory. For Heraclitus everything is "in flux", as exemplified in his famous aphorism "Panta Rhei":
Παντα ρει και ουδεν μενει Everything flows, nothing stands still
He is famous for saying: "No man can cross the same river twice, because neither the man nor the river are the same." The idea of the logos is also credited to him, as he believes everything originates out of the logos. Further, Heraclitus said "I am as I am not".
Heraclitus' view that an explanation of change was foundational to any theory of nature was strongly opposed by Parmenides, who argued that change is an illusion and that everything is fundamentally static.
Only fragments of Heraclitus' writings have been found. He appears to have taught by means of small, oracular aphorisms meant to encourage thinking based on natural law and reason. The brevity and elliptical logic of his aphorisms earned Heraclitus the epithet 'Obscure'.
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Some of the ancient Greek philosophers taught a version of hylozoism.
Thales, Anaximenes, and Heraklitus all taught that there is a form of life in all material objects, and the Stoics believed that a world soul informed all things in the world.
It is important to note that these philosophies did not necessarily hold that material objects had separate life or identity, necessarily, but only that they had life, either as part of an overriding entity or as living but insensible entities.
Heraklitus Fragments A text and translation with a commentary by T.
His great hierophantic pronouncement, "The sun has the breadth of a human foot" may have been "The sun is the width of my foot" before some "New Age" doxographer of the third century BC decided to improve on what he had before him.
Robinson's determination to present Heraklitus as an early Blobovian swells to Zemblan proportions when he claims that "Every animal is driven to the pasture with a blow" is "a powerful metaphysical statement concerning the cosmos."
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