Heraclitus By Karl Popper

Heraclitus

It is not until Heraclitus that we find in Greece theories which

could be compared in their historicist character with the doctrine of

the chosen people. In Homer’s theistic or rather polytheistic

interpretation, history is the product of divine will. But the

Homeric gods do not lay down general laws for its development.

What Homer tries to stress and to explain is not the unity of

history, but rather its lack of unity. The author of the play on the

Stage of History is not one God; a whole variety of gods dabble in

it. What the Homeric interpretation shares with the Jewish is a

certain vague feeling of destiny, and the idea of powers behind the

scenes. But ultimate destiny, according to Homer, is not disclosed;

unlike its Jewish counterpart, it remains mysterious.

The first Greek to introduce a more markedly historicist

doctrine was Hesiod, who was probably influenced by oriental

sources. He made use of the idea of a general trend or tendency in

historical development. His interpretation of history is pessimistic.

He believes that mankind, in their development down from the

Golden Age, are destined to degenerate, both physically and

morally. The culmination of the various historicist ideas proffered

by the early Greek philosophers came with Plato, who, in an

attempt to interpret the history and social life of the Greek tribes,

and especially of the Athenians, painted a grandiose philosophical

picture of the world. He was strongly influenced in his historicism

by various forerunners, especially by Hesiod; but the most

important influence came from Heraclitus.

Heraclitus was the philosopher who discovered the idea of

change. Down to this time, the Greek philosophers, influenced by

oriental ideas, had viewed the world as a huge edifice of which the

material things were the building material.1 It was the totality of

things—the cosmos (which originally seems to have been an

oriental tent or mantle). The questions which the philosophers

asked themselves were, ‘What stuff is the world made of?’ or

‘How is it constructed, what is its true ground-plan?’. They

considered philosophy, or physics (the two were indistinguishable

for a long time), as the investigation of ‘nature’, i.e. of the original

material out of which this edifice, the world, had been built. As far

as any processes were considered, they were thought of either as

going on within the edifice, or else as constructing or maintaining

it, disturbing and restoring the stability or balance of a structure

which was considered to be fundamentally static. They were cyclic

processes (apart from the processes connected with the origin of

the edifice; the question ‘Who has made it?’ was discussed by the

orientals, by Hesiod, and by others). This very natural approach,

natural even to many of us to-day, was superseded by the genius of

Heraclitus. The view he introduced was that there was no such

edifice, no stable structure, no cosmos. ‘The cosmos, at best, is like

a rubbish heap scattered at random’, is one of his sayings.2 He

visualized the world not as an edifice, but rather as one colossal

process; not as the sum-total of all things, but rather as the, totality

of all events, or changes, or facts. ‘Everything is in flux and

nothing is at rest’, is the motto of his philosophy.

Heraclitus’ discovery influenced the development of Greek

philosophy for a long time. The philosophies of Parmenides,

Democritus, Plato, and Aristotle can. all be appropriately described

as attempts to solve the problems of that changing world which

Heraclitus had discovered. The greatness of this discovery can

hardly be overrated. It has been described as a terrifying one, and

its effect has been compared with that of ‘an earthquake, in which

everything .. seems to sway’3. And I do not doubt that this

discovery was impressed upon Heraclitus by terrifying personal

experiences suffered as a result of the social and political

disturbances of his day. Heraclitus, the first philosopher to deal not

only with ‘nature’ but even more with ethico-political problems,

lived in an age of social revolution. It was in his time that the

Greek tribal aristocracies were beginning to yield to the new force

of democracy.

In order to understand the effect of this revolution, we must

remember the stability and rigidity of social life in a tribal

aristocracy. Social life is determined by social and religious

taboos; everybody has his assigned place within the whole of the

social structure; everyone feels that his place is the proper, the

‘natural’ place, assigned to him by the forces which rule the world;

everyone ‘knows his place’.

According to tradition, Heraclitus’ own place was that of heir

to the royal family of priest kings of Ephesus, but he resigned his

claims in favour of his brother. In spite of his proud refusal to take

part in the political life of his city, he supported the cause of the

aristocrats who tried in vain to stem the rising tide of the new

revolutionary forces. These experiences in the social or political

field are reflected in the remaining fragments of his work.4 ‘The

Ephesians ought to hang themselves man by man, all the adults,

and leave the city to be ruled by infants ...’, is one of his outbursts,

occasioned by the people’s decision to banish Hermodorus, one of

Heraclitus’s aristocratic friends. His interpretation of the people’s

motives is most interesting, for it shows that the stock-in-trade of

anti-democratic argument has not changed much since the earliest

days of democracy. ‘They said: nobody shall be the best among us;

and if someone is outstanding, then let him be so elsewhere, and

among others.’ This hostility towards democracy breaks through

everywhere in the fragments:’.. the mob fill their bellies like the

beasts ... They take the bards and popular belief as their guides,

unaware that the many are bad and that only the few are good ... In

Priene lived Bias, son of Teutames, whose word counts more than

that of other men. (He said: ‘Most men are wicked.’).. The mob

does not care, not even about the things they stumble upon; nor can

they grasp a lesson—though they think they do.’ In the same vein

he says: ‘The law can demand, too, that the will of One Man must

be obeyed.’ Another expression of Heraclitus’ conservative and

anti-democratic outlook is, incidentally, quite acceptable to

democrats in its wording, though probably not in its intention: ‘A

people ought to fight for the laws of the city as if they were its

walls.’

But Heraclitus’ fight for the ancient laws of his city was in

vain, and the transitoriness of all things impressed itself strongly

upon him. His theory of change gives expression to this feeling5:

‘Everything is in flux’, he said; and ‘You cannot step twice into the

same river.’ Disillusioned, he argued against the belief that the

existing social order would remain for ever: ‘We must not act like

children reared with the narrow outlook “As it has been handed

down to us”.’

This emphasis on change, and especially on change in social

life, is an important characteristic not only of Heraclitus’

philosophy but of historicism in general. That things, and even

kings, change, is a truth which needs to be impressed especially

upon those who take their social environment for granted. So much

is to be admitted. But in the Heraclitean philosophy one of the less

commendable characteristics of historicism manifests itself,

namely, an over-emphasis upon change, combined with the

complementary belief in an inexorable and immutable law of

destiny.

In this belief we are confronted with an attitude which,

although at first sight contradictory to the historicist’s

overemphasis upon change, is characteristic of most, if not all,

historicists. We can explain this attitude, perhaps, if we interpret

the historicist’s over-emphasis on change as a symptom of an

effort needed to overcome his unconscious resistance to the idea of

change. This would also explain the emotional tension which leads

so many historicists (even in our day) to stress the novelty of the

unheard-of revelation which they have to make. Such

considerations suggest the possibility that these historicists are

afraid of change, and that they cannot accept the idea of change

without serious inward struggle. It often seems as if they were

trying to comfort themselves for the loss of a stable world by

clinging to the view that change is ruled by an unchanging law. (In

Parmenides and in Plato, we shall even find the theory that the

changing world in which we live is an illusion and that there exists

a more real world which does not change.)

In the case of Heraclitus, the emphasis upon

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