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Dreamers Asleep

Reading Heraclitus of Ephesus adds to my questions on the relationship between truth and knowledge. At end of last post and by the comments, it is clear that sometimes knowledge cannot get us to the truth. Knowledge without insight is not enough if the truth is wanting to be found. Today's philosopher says this and he calls people who gain knowledge with no insight a bunch of... dreamers asleep, to put it in nice words. 

Heraclitus is saying that we are able to gain the knowledge and truth at the same time only by having insight, bridging the gap between the divine knowledge and human knowledge that Homer opened or aggravated. Heraclitus uses the word logos to describe what he believes in. Curd defines Heraclitus' logos as the "objective and independent truth available to all." We all have the capacity to gain this independent truth but only through insight. Curd is really clear at stating that this insight is not just the inquiry aspect but the "understanding how all things form a unity". 

To sum up Heraclitus: We are a bunch of dreamers asleep if we just gain knowledge without insight. The world is made of independent truths, logos, that can be gained through inquiry but most importantly profundity of insight by identifying that all things form a unity. He explains the unity of things through paradoxes which result to be powerful because it gives logos an unchanging characteristic in the midst of a changing cosmos. 

How can I apply Heraclitus contribution to philosophy to todays world? Easy. How many people do we hear saying that they have nothing to do with our political situation today? How many students go to class to copy down material in their notebooks and not question the logic behind what they are writing? How many things happen behind our backs that we never have identified before? 

A question I have for Heraclitus is: what type of truth will his doctrine of unity of all things bring us to? Can there just be one truth or multiple? We know that Heraclitus' logos is unchanging in the midst of a changing cosmos. Maybe the truth can only be one then. Is this what we need in these times of discrimination and war to show people that although we are all separate we are unified by one truth?

The image to the right is Sanzio's depiction of Heraclitus, aka "the weeping" philosopher. He is seating away from the rest of the philosophers at a meeting. To me he seems asleep, but hopefully not being a dreamer asleep! He is actually being depicted as showing melancholy for humanity. I thought it was interesting to see the way art characterizes him, to some extent to show the way his doctrine impacts him personally, weeping for humanity and maybe those people who cannot grasp logos or are ignorant of the unity that all things form. 




Comments

  1. Anne-Marie SchultzJanuary 26, 2017 at 11:05 AM

    That is a really, really good question. Do we still have access to Heraclitus' truth.

    ReplyDelete

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