Natural Hearing (Aristotle's Physics)
12. Heraclitus: Contradiction, Hidden Harmony, Strife and Fire
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/3-natural-hearing/012-heraclitus-contradiction-hidden-harmony-strife-and-fire/

[0:02] Socrates gets into contradictions when he responds to the questions of Parmenides, like other people get into contradictions when Socrates questions them. So Plato represents Parmenides and Zeno as teaching, in a way, Socrates what we might call the Socratic method.

[0:30] Now nobody knows whether, you know, time-wise, it was even possible for Parmenides to have come to Athens and had a conversation with what Socrates. But I think that's really beside the point. What's clear is that there's a connection between what Parmenides emphasized here, the axioms here of being and unbeing, the impossibility of a real contradiction, and the Socratic method. Because Socrates method of examining you is to ask you what do you think, and then seeing what follows from your think, and see if you in any way can contradict yourself.

[1:17] And if you do contradict yourself, that's a sign that there's some mistake in your thinking. So the Socratic method is in fact based upon the axioms of being and non-being.

[1:32] So whether historically Parmenides came to Athens and taught to Socrates, or whether Socrates read Parmenides, or just saw this right? in fact Socrates is basing himself upon the axioms of being and unbeing, which Parmenides was the first to talk about explicitly.

[1:59] And Plato speaks of Parmenides there as a man to be reverenced, and a man to be feared. No, when he talked about the central question of philosophy, we had the great dichotomy there of yes and no, with Plato and Aristotle. And here you have another dichotomy in human thought between Parmenides and what Heraclitus. Because Heraclitus is saying just the opposite, isn't he? He's insisting upon the reality of change, all things flow, nothing arrives.

[2:40] But in so doing, he seems to be admitting that day is night, and the sleeping are the waking, and so on. So the one is holding on to the impossibility of a contradiction. And consequently, denying the reality of change. The other is holding on to the reality of change, and in words at least, admitting contradictions.

[3:10] They seem to have nothing in common, but the one affirms the other denies. Now, if you went down through the course of history, you could find many more speaking like Heraclitus than like Parmenides.

[3:28] And so I mentioned how Hegel, right, in the 19th century, and in the Marxist thought in Hegel, they speak a little bit like Heraclitus. And sometimes they quote Heraclitus and say, "a good exposition of the rudiments of dialectical materialism, anticipation." And they talk about changes; them very real, but they admit, in words at least, that there are contradictions, that there's contradictions in the very essence of things.

[4:00] We didn't find many followers of Parmenides. But now, how would you, if you had to choose between Parmenides and Heraclitus, whom would it be more reasonable to choose? Parmenides, but you'd also

[4:27] accept change. Yeah, yeah. I see. If you had to choose between these two, say, okay, would be more reasonable to hold on to the impossibility of something both being and not being, and say that then change doesn't exist. Or would it be more reasonable to hold on to the reality that change exists, and then say, "But it's something that both be and not be."

[4:54] Well, how would be the reason why most thinkers in history would side with Heraclitus in this famous dichotomy? Is that our knowledge begins with our what senses? What strikes the senses is change. So you might want to hold on to change and then deny this. I mean, you find many other people down history, I should say, historically, who've done it right. Okay.

[5:25] But as Plato says, Parmenides is a man to be feared, a man to be reverenced. And as we're going to meet later on, when Aristotle follows it, we're going to meet a very interesting fragment. I don't have it in this collection, but it's a different collection, but collection on methods, where Heraclitus says himself, "Those who speak with understanding must be strong in what is common to all."

[5:58] And we'll see later on what Aristotle tries to follow that out to become strong. in What is common to all? Notice when two guys disagree.

[6:11] One guy can say, "You're mistaken. You don't agree with me," and the other guy can return the compliment. But that way, you don't go forward at all, right? The only way to go forward is to find some common ground that you both share that you can use. Use to decide between you where you disagree. So, for example, if two scientists imagine a different hypothesis to explain things, well, one could say, "Well, your hypothesis doesn't agree with mine, so it must be wrong."

[6:48] The other guy could say the reverse. That way, they go forward not at all. But they could think of an experiment that they could both perform and observe, an experiment in which their two theories would predict different things. And they conduct the experiment and see what takes place. They might be able to use that to decide between the two of them, right? Okay.

[7:16] So this is a very important thing. If you and I disagree, I can't resolve this by using that in which we disagree. I gotta go back to something that's common to both of us. Okay. Now, at first sight, you say, "What the heck is common to these two guys?" But the one guy affirms change, the other guy denies, says illusion, and vice versa. The guy who asserts that something can't be and not be, the guy says, "Yeah, it's possible."

[7:50] Okay. Say. But what, despite all the disagreement do they have in common, these two guys, at least in their words, huh? That there's contradiction. Well, in a sense, the agreement that you have to choose between these two: either you hold on to this and reject change, or you hold on to change and reject that. Okay. So their agreement is that you've got to choose between the two.

[8:29] One or the other. Okay. Now, if we ask the question, "Why do you have to choose between the two?" Well, if change involves a contradiction, then change obviously contradicts the axiom of contradiction, right? Ah. The ball game's over. Parmenides is one. See The very reason we've got to make a change is, Parmenides says. So, in thinking you have to make a change, you're already admitting Parmenides' principle.

[8:56] So the ball game's over. Parmenides is one. See. Yeah, but let's just say down through history, you see most people following what Heraclitus, because change is so evident to the senses.

[9:11] Now, I might mention something a little easier to see, but in this context here, as you go down through history, you'll find other people besides Heraclitus who deny the axioms about contradiction.

[9:30] But when you examine them, if they have a reason for denying it, it's because something that they've run into seems to contradict it. Well, you see something illogical about that, huh? They're denying the axiom about contradiction because something what contradicts it. They're saying it isn't so because what it is so, huh? I can't hold on to it because something that I run across somewhere, which I can't see without it, contradicts it.

[10:07] You see the absurdity of that? They're saying it isn't so because what it is so, huh? It's like when my brother Marcus was was defending the fifth postulate of Euclid there, which is really obvious, but not as obvious as some other things. And there have been attempts, you know, from ancient times and more in modern times, to try to prove the fifth postulate. So my brother Mark examined all these famous attempts to prove it, and each one of them involves assuming the very thing you're trying to prove, which makes all the proofs what invalid, huh?

[10:55] You can't prove something by itself, huh? But my brother Mark, you know, besides drawing that that first conclusion that the arguments are no good because they assume the very thing they're trying to prove, but at the same time, the fact they don't realize that they're assuming the very thing they're trying to prove is a sign that they really it's kind of obvious even to them. They assume without thinking, right?

[11:18] You see. Well, you can say something like this. I think in this regard, when someone says, "I run across something that seems to involve contradiction, I don't see any way out of it, therefore I have to reject this. " It's because this thing that they run into seems to contradict this, right? And their mind very well thinks, "Well, if it contradicts it, it can't be true, right?

[11:42] " So they're already, right, in his mind, really accepting this, huh? Okay. Yeah, similar things like that, you know, when you get into the ethics and you say, "Should we live by our emotions or should we live by our reason? " And I say, "Should live by your reason. " And someone else said, "No, I think you should. You should live by emotions. " And I say, "Well, why?

[12:06] " And he tries to explain why. you should live by emotions. Well, he's using his reason to decide whether one should live by reason or by emotions. Well, you've already admitted you should live by reason, then, right? Do you see that? You use your reason to decide whether you should live by reason or by emotions. You already. Admitting that you have to use reason to decide how to live, you've already lost.

[12:33] Now, Aristotle, coming on the scene after this, right, says, "Okay, if you had to choose, you have to choose Parmenides, huh? Because this is more certain than that.

[12:48] But at the same time, it's obvious that change does exist. Therefore, the contradictions that we see in change must not really be there."That must be what an apparent contradiction, but not a real contradiction. And so he will set out to what untie, unravel the appearance of contradiction.

[13:18] Okay. So, like when you say changing at rest. Well, I find travel restful. But what that means is that when my body is in motion, my emotions come to rest. Is that a contradiction? No, because not the same thing that's at rest and in motion. When the little boy is made to sit still with his body, his emotions become what agitated. Huh? Say. Well, contradiction means that the same thing both is and is not in motion at the same time.

[13:57] So it's not really a contradiction, is it? Okay. Now the one about one contrary becoming another though is something we'll see Aristotle untying when we go back to the readings from Aristotle. Okay.

[14:19] Now, it may be that Heraclitus didn't really think that day is night. Didn't really think that. See. But maybe wanted to point out that in in change and in our very way of speaking about change, where we say that love turns into hate sometimes, right? Day becomes night. We seem to be admitting a contradiction in what we're saying. He just wanted to point that out. Okay. Now we have a fragment that I have among another collection there, the fragments on method, huh?

[14:55] And so on. And we have a fragment of Heraclitus where he says, "We should not act and speak like those asleep." Obviously, he sees a difference between being awake and being asleep. Huh? So he says the sleep and the waking are the same, right? Maybe he's just trying to point out an apparent what contradiction what we we say. Maybe more subtle than we think, Heraclitus, huh? Okay.

[15:25] We just take those words that we just looked at as they stand. He seems to be in words at least to mean that day and night are the same thing. We are and we are not, right? He seems to be a two-headed mortal, as Parmenides would call him, right? But maybe he's he's not really thinking that day is night, but he wants to say, "Well, why do we say day becomes night if it isn't night?"

[15:44] You see. Something to be explained there, right? Okay. Now, you say have you got any evidence of that? Well, let's look now at the next couple two or three fragments here.

[16:02] The hidden harmony is better than the apparent. And notice, huh? If you're familiar with Socrates, most people are walking around in a state of what apparent harmony. They think that everything they think is something they can think, but actually, some of the things they think lead to contradictions of other things they think.

[16:41] Now you lead them out of that apparent harmony into a what contradiction, right? And hidden under that what contradiction is a true what harmony, right? Take the simplest example we take in Plato's dialogues about it. Socrates speaks to the slave boy and he says, "You've got a square. Remember this, whose side is x, let's say. You want to get a square twice as big. How much longer does the side have to be?

[17:18] Twice as long, obviously, right? Now, as you know, that's not true, but the slave boy is in a state of apparent what harmony. He thinks he can think that the square whose side is twice as long will be twice as big, right? As if that's going to fit together. Harmony, incidentally, comes in the Greek word harmozo, which means to fit together. So he thinks that what he thinks about this that the side twice as long will give you a square twice as big.

[17:54] He thinks that's as far as he knows a harmony. But he knows he thinks of the man. But now, if you take an example of that and make a simple example, suppose you had a square whose Side was two. Well, then you say that the square, which is twice as long, namely four, would be twice as what big, right? And the slave boy knows that four is twice as much as what two.

[18:19] Now, if you stop and calculate out this, it's two by two. The area would turn out to be what four. And it's four by four. The area would turn out to be what sixteen. Now, you said the square, which is twice as long, is twice as big. So, therefore, this square is twice as big as that. Therefore, sixteen is twice four. Well, that doesn't fit together, does it?

[18:43] And even the slave boy would see that sixteen is not double of what four, right? But four is double of two. So, these three thoughts are not compatible, are they? That four is double of two. Sixteen is not double of four. But the square whose side is twice as long is twice as big. So, which of those is the weak point? Well, it's pretty sure that four is double of two, right?

[19:11] And sixteen is not double of 4. Therefore, it must be wrong that the square whose side is twice as long is twice as big.

[19:19] So, Socrates leads the little slave boy out of a state of apparent harmony into a what contradiction? Not to lead him there, but so he recognizes his error in the state, right?

[19:38] Now, hidden under that is the what true harmony, huh? Which is that if you take the diagonal of a square, you'll get a what the side of the square is twice as big, huh? You know, how Socrates shows it with the with the four squares together and so on. So, the hidden harmony is better than the what apparent harmony. We have another fragment in the methodological fragments Of Heraclitus, where he says, "Men do not understand the things they meet every day, although they think they do."

[20:16] Maybe in a way is anticipating what we see in Socrates. So maybe he's trying to. Now, you think you understand change, huh? I mean, like the wet becoming dry. Yeah, the wet does become dry. Yeah, that's what I think. What does become means? Comes to be. Okay, well, if the wet comes to be dry, then the wet would be dry. That's what comes to be means. Now, if the wet was dry, it both be wet because wet and not be wet because it is dry, and both be dry because dry, not dry because it's wet.

[20:52] You see? You don't even understand what you're talking about. You see? Maybe that's what he's trying to do, huh? You see? And this is a beautiful thing here.

[21:06] Later on, we'll talk about the the role of contradiction in the development of our knowledge, and this fragment here is a marvelous introduction to that. Now, take the next fragment here. They do not understand how that which is opposed agrees with itself, as if there can be what? Things could be in some way appear to be opposed, but they're really what? No. Not. There is a harmony of opposites, as in the case of the bow and the lyre.

[21:40] Now, take the example there of the bow. Maybe it'll be easy to see. If I push forward with this hand against this glass, and I pull back with this other hand on the other side, I'm not a big glass. You could say that my two hands are working at cross purposes, aren't they?

[22:08] And the one hand is trying to push it forward, and one is trying to pull it back, and it goes nowhere. They're both frustrated, right? Okay. But now with the bow, I'm pulling back with what? The right hand, and I'm shoving forward with the left hand, right? Just like I was doing there, right? So they're working in opposition to each other, right?

[22:34] Actually, they're working together to make the arrow what? Move forward with more force and go right through his armor there that he's protecting him. This is the Battle of Agincourt or something. And you see. So when one hand is pushing forward and the other is pulling back, it would seem they're working to cross purposes. But are they? With the bow? No. That's the way to make the arrow go forward with greater. For us, and maybe get a direction too.

[23:07] Do you see that? See. So that's a hint, huh? That maybe there are things that seem to be opposed that are not really opposed, but are really working together, huh?

[23:22] Okay. And then in the next fragment, the opposite is useful. That's an extremely general statement, isn't it? But brevity is the soul of wit, huh? The opposite is useful. And I tell the students that the whole American way of life is based on this one statement. I say, take our legal system, huh?

[23:53] We have one lawyer trying to prove that he's guilty. Another lawyer trying to prove he's what? Not guilty, huh? We think that's the way to do it, huh? If you just had one lawyer in court trying to prove he's guilty, we might have a lot more convictions, but maybe that's what's justice, right? If you just had a lawyer in it trying to prove he's not guilty, you might get more people off, but again, justice would not be served so well, huh?

[24:24] So we think it's it's useful for justice to have both a prosecutor and a what? Defendant. The opposite is useful in the courtroom. Now, how about our political system, huh? Well, as you know, in the 20th century, one-party states have usually been what? Tyrannies, huh? You need what? An opposing party, huh? And the opposing party will point out the faults and the corruptions and other things that are wrong with the other party, and vice versa, so they keep each other to some extent from what?

[24:59] Completely ruling the country. Trouble here in Massachusetts is too much of a one-party, you know, democratic, huh? Okay. And is our economic system based upon this?

[25:15] We think competition is useful. Yeah, yeah. If I have a monopoly, I can charge you what I want to. But if I've got someone else competing with me, well, he might charge less than I do, so I got to come down, huh? Or he puts out a better product, so I better improve my product, or I'm going to be out the window, huh? So our economic system and our political system and our legal system is all based on this idea that the opposite is what useful, huh?

[25:50] And that's also why we have debates and things of that sort, huh? We think this is somewhat useful to get to what the truth is, huh?

[25:59] So maybe Heraclitus, you know. Has in mind also this business about most men do not understand the things they meet every day, huh? And they're in a state of apparent harmony. And when you give them a little bit of opposition, contradictions, so on, this is useful to them to stop and think and try to understand the hidden harmony, the way things really are.

[26:29] Now, the opposite's useful, of course, could be applied to the development of character too. If you brought up an easy street, your character probably doesn't develop very much. But

[26:43] hardiness comes from some kind of opposition. So I told the girls to play hard to get, huh? If she thinks he's the only guy asking you out, he's not going to try so hard to please you. But if he's competing with somebody else, he's kind of

[27:02] okay. But even God, in a way, is serious, doesn't he, huh? With the saints, huh? He plays hard to get, so to speak. And from those differing comes the most beautiful harmony. There's a lot of truth to that, isn't there? See, the moonlit sky or the you know the starry sky at night is very beautiful. But you have the the stars against the what black sky. The whole sky was black, or the whole sky was illuminated, be garish.

[27:39] But it's the stars against the black that is what beautiful. My mother used to say that a diamond ring looks better under candlelight than under say this kind of light. And candlelight, you have what darkness and so on. You have the the diamond kind of glittering and looks more beautiful. And if they show you a diamond in the jewelry store, they'll put it maybe in a black cloth, huh? Because it'll look better than if they put it on a white cloth.

[28:07] You see, from opposites comes the most beautiful harmony. And you see that, like in a painting, you know, I always take the example of the man with the helmet. There, say, of Rembrandt. You seen that picture of the man with the helmet? Well, if the whole painting was flooded with light, it would not be beautiful. If everything was in shadow and darkness, it would not be beautiful.

[28:30] But you have that contrast of light and dark. And that's why usually the most beautiful time of the day, as far as the sun is concerned, it's you know right above us, shining down, illuminating everything. But it's in sunrise or sunset we have kind of a alternation of light and dark and so on. And so from from opposite comes the most beautiful harmony. Since I was taking a line.

[28:55] I said, "Now, what would he think of these homosexual marriages?" I say. They must be ugly, right 'Cause they're not from opposites. And all things come to be by strife. Well, now he's starting to say something that's a long history in human thought too. But said more explicitly now in the next fragment, war is the father of all things, the king of all things. In these he has shown gods, but those men.

[29:37] These he has made slaves, and those what free? Now, what kind of a cause is he talking about here when he says father? Origin. Yeah. Not the form, is it? Must not be matter either, is it? And we saw before how the first opinion about matter is Mother Earth. And the word for matter in Latin, materia, comes from mater, mother. So he's thinking of the what mover or maker.

[30:17] So it's very significant that he uses the word father. And later on, when you see Aristotle talking about the third kind of cause, he'll use again the word father as an example. And again, I explain to the students why do we call God our father rather than our what mother, huh? Well, if you called God our mother, you'd be thinking of God as a cause in the sense of matter.

[30:44] But God is not a cause in the sense of matter, but in the sense of the mover, or the maker. So that's why he's appropriately called a father. There. I'm not going to get any flack yet about that? It makes much sense, right? You can see so clearly when you go from Mother Earth to to this here. Idea. Now, you'd expect again Heraclitus that he's the man who most of all emphasizes the reality of motion or change in the world around us.

[31:14] So it's not surprising he should begin to look for the cause called the what? Mover, huh? Because that's obviously motion as a cause, huh? Okay.

[31:31] Now the next fragment expresses that same kind of thought. We must know that war is common and strife is justice, and that all things come into being by strife and faith. Now you see the Marxists in the twentieth century, the official name of Marxist philosophy is

[31:50] dialectical materialism. And materialism means that matter is the beginning of all things, the source of all things. But by dialectical, they don't mean dialectical in the sense of you know that part of logic called dialectical. But there's some connection there. And in fact, when Aristotle talks about dialectical reasoning in the book on Sufficient Refutation. He says it's reasoning from probable opinions even to contradictory conclusions. And you have an example of that, say, in the Meno, where Socrates doesn't yet know fully what virtue is, so he's going to look at both sides: can it be taught or can't it be taught?

[32:41] And he reasons with some probability that virtue can be taught, and then he reasons with some probability that virtue what? Cannot be taught. And that would be in the Mino. So he's reasoning from probable opinions to contradictory conclusions, huh? But notice when you reason to opposite things, and you have this developed very. Much in the Middle Ages, what they call the questiones disputatae, and we have many sets of questiones disputatae, say of Thomas Aquinas, questiones disputatae de veritate and de malo and all kinds of things, de potencia.

[33:20] But in the beginning of each questiones disputatae, you have maybe ten or fifteen arguments on one side and another ten arguments on the other side. So you have a kind of a what a war going on there, right? And then the master has to come in and resolve this war and so on. So when the Marxists speak of dialectical materialism, they mean that matter is the beginning of all things, but everything develops out of matter to a war, so to speak, right?

[33:47] To a struggle of opposites that are found in matter. Of course, we talked about there being contraries or opposites in change already, and so Heraclitus suggests that the struggle of these opposites gives rise to things, and you can see that, of course, in human history. But you have the same idea then taken over by the the moderns, huh? Not only the Marxists, but sometimes by the biologists and other people.

[34:21] Now, in the next fragment, you see something that's relevant to all these thinkers up to this point, and including Heraclitus. They're all looking for one matter which all things are made, and we mention that it's reasonable to look for one matter, for one cause,

[34:48] in part because reason is naturally inclined to that. Well, notice what he says in this fragment. It is wise, listening not to me but to reason, to agree that all things are one. It's reason itself that leads man to look for unity. And one way of manifesting that through something perhaps more known is we everybody who's ever talked about reason realizes that reason looks for order, and order is based on something what?

[35:22] So reason naturally looks for unity. And when we look at these secondary readings here, we'll see that the modern natural scientists have that same tendency, huh? To look for unity. You all got copies, right? Yeah. When we finish Heraclitus, we'll we'll turn and look at these for a little bit, huh? But here you see Heraclitus's own fragment, huh? And sometimes I I take his exhortation there by itself.

[35:50] Listen not to me, but to reason. And now somebody might say, well, what do you mean? Isn't he talking? What does he mean? Listen not to me.

[36:06] But no, listen to me only in so far as I listen to reason myself. Now, stop, a moment on that interesting exhortation, just taking it by itself. Listen not to me, but to reason. You might ask yourself, what does that mean?

[36:27] Does that mean? Because sometimes in daily life we use that phrase too, or say about somebody, he won't listen to reason. Don't you hear people say that? Okay. Now, somebody might say and say, "Well, what are you saying? I mean, there's my reason and your reason and the next man's reason. What's this reason you're going to listen to, rather than you know me or you or somebody else's reason?

[36:52] So, what does it mean to listen to reason? Is there a reason out there besides your reason or my reason or the next person's reason?

[37:05] Well, is there something out there separate from your reason and my reason? What's it mean to listen to reason? Or somebody might say, there is no reason out there apart from your reason, my reason, the next man's reason. So all we can do is listen to my reason or your reason or some other guy's reason.

[37:37] So what does it mean really to listen to reason? Saint Augustine said, "If you see it and I see it, it's not mine, it's not yours. " I know, I know, I know. See, what it means is to listen to what is common to your reason and my reason, and then you're listening to what reason naturally. What knows, huh? And that goes back to this other fragment we mentioned of Heraclitus, where he says, "Those who speak with understanding must be strong in what is common to all."

[38:20] That's why if you and I disagree. We have to go back to something common, and use that to resolve our disagreement. That's what it means to listen to reason, to listen to what is common to your reason, my reason, and that's what's natural to reason. So listen to nature. And we have another fragment of Heraclitus where he says, "Wisdom is to speak the truth and to act in accord with nature, giving ear thereto."

[38:53] So to listen to reason means to listen to what is natural to reason, and that's what's common. Therefore, what's natural to reason is common to your reason and my reason, and vice versa. What is common to your reason, my reason, goes back to what is natural to reason. And you go, you know, if you look at the fragments of Parmenides, he sees something of that because he says, "No matter what I say, I always come back to this.

[39:22] It's common, this axiom about contradiction, huh? " And someone who denies that, he said, is a what? Two-headed mortal, huh? As I say, make a little joke in class. I say, in this case, two heads are not better than one. A two-headed mortal is a what? Monster, huh? Right. But isn't that beautiful? A monster is the opposite of something natural. So someone who denies the axiom of contradiction, the man who thinks something can both be and not be, it has to be a two-headed mortal to really think that.

[39:59] He had to be a monster. It's so unnatural. You see. So to listen to reason is to listen to what reason naturally knows. It's to listen, therefore, to what is common to your reason and my reason.

[40:17] Heraclitus is really very profound, huh? And so he's a central thinker because he emphasizes that listening to what is common, listening to reason, listening to nature. And what reason naturally knows, including all things we know What we call natural, I call usually natural understanding, but Aristotle calls it just nous, or in Latin they call it intellectus, huh? That particular virtue of reason.

[40:51] Okay. The whole is larger than what? Part, yeah. Everybody naturally knows that, huh? Now somebody says, you know, you say I don't know that. You're lying, huh? But if you say you don't know it, I say, well, I'm going to give you part of your salary this week, and when you order your dinner, in the restaurant we'll give you, you know, part of your meal that you ordered.

[41:18] And when you buy a car, we'll give you part of the car. Because for you, there's you don't see any difference, do you? You go raving rant and so on, and you know that you do know it, huh? You see what I mean? Yeah.

[41:36] But you see, sometimes somebody will attack one of these obvious statements with an objection that somebody can't what solve, huh? Like the whole is larger than the part, huh? I give the students this sophistical objection to it sometimes in class, and I say, I give it to you before I think I gave it to you before, yeah. But I'll say to them, you know, what is man, huh?

[42:03] Well, man is an animal, right? But is man just an animal? No, that's only a part of what man is. So man is an animal with reason, huh? Okay. And I'll tell them how my mother didn't like it when I'd say man is an animal. I'd say, well, mother, I don't mean man is just an animal. Well, okay. So animal is only a part of what man is.

[42:23] So they all agree to that, see? And I say, yeah, but does an animal include besides man, dog, cat, horse, elephant? So what is only a part of man includes much more than man. So sometimes a part is more than the whole, right? Yeah, I guess that is true sometimes. He said. Now, how have I deceived them in this case? Of course, okay. Yeah, yeah. You have two kinds of whole here.

[42:53] The universal whole, which is set of its parts, and universal whole is always set of more than any one of its parts. And then you have the what composed whole, and one kind of composed whole, which is a definition, huh? The definition always includes more. It's always put together from more than one of its parts. So when I compare animal to man, dog, cat, and horse, I'm talking about universal whole in comparison to its particulars.

[43:24] I talk about animals as a part of the definition of man, I'm talking about another kind of whole. But, they don't see the distinction between these senses, so I cut them, you know. I say, okay. So.

[43:44] Okay. Now, in the next fragment, Heraclitus is expressing his opinion about what is that one matter of which things are made, and he says all things are exchanged for fire and fire for all things. He makes an economic comparison, just as goods for gold and gold for goods, huh? Or we could say goods for money and money for goods, huh? But notice in the economic order, that's don't exaggerate that likeness because obviously you don't turn the money into what you buy, do you?

[44:19] But there's some likeness there, huh? You can turn, you know, all these things into money and then use money to get other things, huh? So it makes a little interesting comparison there. Now, you may see later on there that Heisenberg said if you substitute the word energy for fire, you've got what we're saying. But anyway, we'll come back to that. Now, let's compare the guess here of fire with those that have gone before.

[44:49] And in particular, if you take Mother Earth, and we saw how water is a better guess than Mother Earth, because it's thinner and finer, and that air is an even better guess than water.

[45:05] Now we also saw air is a better guess than water because it's more formless in its qualities, huh? Is it water is more formless than Mother Earth? Now, is fire a better guess than air and water, or not? Or is it not as good?

[45:26] It seems to have more qualities. Yeah. So in terms of qualities, you'd say well, fire is a worse guess than air and even than water, because fire is more definitely hot and dry than water is cold, huh? See? So what the hell is this central thinker here in thought? You know, suggesting fire instead of that, right? Now in terms of being thinner and finer, could you argue that fire is the thinnest of all things? Well, if you leave this paper here in the air for a while, it's going to be cut up.

[46:08] No, you put that paper in the fire, and it's going to be cut to pieces, just a pile of ashes on the floor. Now, fire is sharp, huh? Right. And the sharpness comes from thickness or thinness. Yeah. And you know how you you put those charcoal there on the fire, and the fire gets right inside, right?

[46:34] It's the most penetrating thing, isn't it? Fire, huh? So you might argue that in terms of being subtle and fine and thin, fire might possibly be a better guess than the rest, huh? Which is shown by the fact that it cuts things up. It's the thin that cuts things. But in terms of definite quality, it's inferior not only to air but even to what? Water, huh? Yeah.

[47:05] But Heraclitus is not the last word now, the last word now. But maybe he's thinking of the need not only for a matter out of which things are made, but for a what? A mover. Yeah. And so, in that sense, his thinking is more advanced. He's thinking maybe of fire as both the matter out of which things are made and the mover. And Heisenberg, the great physicist, as you'll see when you look at those other passages, he sees a likeness there between fire and the energy of the modern physicists, because energy is what enables you to do things and be like the mover in that sense.

[47:49] But according to Einstein's other equations, there equals m c squared and so on. You can get mass and therefore matter out of what? Energy, right? So energy is both the matter and the mover in modern science and science, huh? And maybe Heraclitus' fire is like that, huh? It's both the matter and the mover. So he's seeing the need now for a third kind of cause, the mover in addition to the what?

[48:16] The matter. But notice at the same time. What makes fire a good mover? It's being hot, huh? And you can see that, huh? Hot air rises, huh? So hot is what enables fire to move things. And if I put the water on the stove, the fire makes the water start to move and finally shoot out of the the pan and so on, huh? So what makes fire a good mover is being so hot.

[48:47] Makes it in a way a bad matter, huh? Because everything in the world has to be hot that is made out of fire. And that gives you a nice hint, doesn't it? What makes it a good mover and makes it a bad what? Guess to some extent is the is the first matter. There you begin to see maybe the need to separate the what matter and the what mover, and when you get to the next thinker, Empedocles, the matter and mover are much more separated than they are in the fire, where they kind of run together.

[49:22] But as you know, we know things in a confused way before we know them distinctly. In a way, combining the matter and the mover in in the one fire leads to some difficulty, right? Because what makes it a good mover, its being hot, makes it a bad one in terms of having a matter that's not limited in its qualities. Do you see that?

[49:44] And in the next thinker after that, Anaxagoras, the matter and mover are even more distinct, entirely distinct. You see? Now you can see why the communists, the Marxists, want to go back to Heraclitus, though, because once you start to separate the mover from the matter on the way to God, so long as you don't separate the matter and mover, you know, you can forget about God, right?

[50:10] Once you start to separate those things, that's going the wrong direction for the Marxists. They're going away from the independence of matter. Now, I think you got to be careful, you know, about Heisenberg's comparison as I'll say later on again, because the energy of modern physics is a much more abstract notion, mathematical notion, and as we mentioned before, in mathematics, there's no matter, like Schrödinger pointed out, and there's no motion, in the definitions of mathematics.

[50:47] So some of the physicists, you know, kind of get an idea that their knowledge doesn't contain what they're studying. It shadows matter and motion, but doesn't contain them. There's no matter motion there. It's a very strange knowledge huh? It shadows matter-in-motion. Because I use Aristotle sometimes,

[51:07] and so does I compare it a bit to the syllogism, because the energy comes into the universal equations of modern physics, and the universal equations of modern physics are something like the what premises in a syllogism. That's why they use the word deduction for both, right? You can deduce a conclusion, from the premises, you can deduce something from the equation. Now it's interesting when Aristotle talks about the premises of the syllogism and how they're in a way a cause of the conclusion.

[51:46] He sometimes says that the premises are as the matter of the conclusion. Sometimes he says the premises are as the mover, or the maker. Well, let me exemplify that here. Just take the form of syllogism to show it show it.

[52:05] Every B is A. Every C is D. What follows necessarily? Every C is A. Every C is A okay. You just call that mnemonic, but Barbara, because the letter A represents a universal affirmative, two universal quantifiers, universal conclusion. So in logic, we had Barbara, three A's in it. Now, are the premises as the matter or as the maker of the conclusion? Well, if you consider that the conclusion has C as the subject and A as the predicate, if you consider it's made out of C and A, they are as it were the parts, and therefore like the matter which it is made.

[52:57] You've got those two of the premises, don't you? So that out of which the conclusion is made, that which is put together to make the conclusion, C and A, are already in the premises, aren't they? So you have something like the matter, right, in the premises, namely C and A. But notice B. B, which in logic is called the middle term, is that really a part of the conclusion?

[53:28] No. But B is what brings together C and A, huh? And so B is like the middle term, huh? So you're the matchmaker or something, right? See. If I know a man and a woman, I think they make a good couple, and I arrange for them to meet and so on without them knowing it, and they get married. well am I part of the marriage? No, the marriage is made up of those two that they're doing part.

[53:56] But I'm the what? The mover, the instigator. You see what I mean? See. So in the syllogism here. You can see that the premises are in some way like the matter out of which the conclusion is made, but also in some sense the maker of the conclusion. But you can distinguish them more here than you can in the equations of modern science, because the middle term is more like the maker, the one that brought the two together, and A and C, the major and minor term, are more like the matter.

[54:27] So the universal equations of modern physics are a bit like the premises of the syllogism, they have some likeness to matter and some to the maker. But again, strictly speaking, you don't have matter or motion in logic or in mathematics, so you don't want to overextend the comparison of energy or even the premises of the syllogism to the fire of Heraclitus on it. But there you see how they are in some way distinct: there, the making aspect from the matter aspect.

[54:59] And the equations are the premises to the conclusion being the application. Well, no. Aristotle says, are the premises a cause of the conclusion, and what sense of cause? And sometimes he speaks of them as containing the matter of the conclusion, but sometimes he speaks of them as being the mover or maker. Well, insofar as they have C and A, what the conclusion is made out of, they seem to be something like the matter, the parts of which it's made.

[55:32] But insofar as they have the middle term, which is bringing these two together and and uniting them, then it seems to be like the what mover or maker, right? Okay. So some distinction there between the way in which the premises are like matter, where they're like more like mover or maker. You have a question there, still? Just then, then what was what the connection with the equations in physics?

[55:58] Well, if there's a likeness between the premises of syllogism and the equations. In physics, because just as you can deduce a conclusion from the premises, you can deduce the calculation, right? Something else. So they sometimes call it both deduction, but they're really different things, right? And I would call this reasoning, and the other calculating, but there's a similarity between the two. And in fact, the Greek word syllogism comes from the Greek word to calculate.

[56:29] So it's sort of like you know, if I say, I reckon that's so, but reckoning is originally with numbers. I figure that's so, but you're talking about statements now instead of numbers. You know, put two do together. I mean, put this premise together with that premise, and what do you see? But we use the expression because there's a likeness to it, and it's more obvious to us with calculating than there is with syllogizing.

[56:58] So there's some likeness there. So since I compare the equations then to the premises, the equation which you can calculate something. And and what's interesting about the comparison is that you see in the premises of syllogism something like the matter of the conclusion, and something like the maker that put it together. Of

[57:25] course, in the fire of Heraclitus you can't redistinguish them at all, can you? You can see, those two aspects there, but, and as we said before, what makes fire a good mover—it's being so hot—makes it, in some respects, a bad guest for the matter. And so you start to see kind of the incompatibility of matter and mover being the same thing. And in the next thinkers, I say in Empedocles, you'll start to see a distinction between the two, much more.

[57:57] And then in Anaxagoras, most of all, a distinction. Okay. Now, beginning and end are common in the circumference of the circle. And this I think is interesting if you think back of what Anaximander said: "What is the beginning of things is also their what? End." So in the case of a straight line, if I begin here and go down here, the beginning and end are not the same, are they?

[58:30] In the case of a circle, if I begin here, I come back to exactly where I started. And you have a circle there, starting with matter in the sense that something is made out of matter, and then it's broken down again, and you end up with what you started with. And we talk about that on Ash Wednesday when we say, "Dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return."

[58:59] You're made out of dust, so you'll go back to dust. But then later on, when we when we realize that God is the beginning, not in the sense of matter, but as a Father, in the sense of a mover, a maker, and then we find out later on that He's also what the end of all things, in the sense not of their destruction, but of their purpose.

[59:22] Then we see that reality is in a higher way, circular, right? God is the beginning and the end of things. So in a way, things go forward from God, but they're what tending back towards God at the same time.

[59:41] You can see that in Shakespeare's exhortation, right? Because he says, on the one hand, the reason is Godlike. Other hand, he said, sure, he that made us with such large discourse, looking before and after, gave us not the capability of godlike reason to fust in us unused. So he gave us reason to use, right? But reason is Godlike, so when we use it and use it well, we become what like God.

[1:00:08] So we're returning to our what maker. There's a circle there. It's marvelous to see that. Now, what is he talking about when he says the way up and down is one and the same?

[1:00:27] Well, as we'll see later on in Aristotle, you can see it here already. He's thinking of the way the universe appears to us, where you have Mother Earth here in the beginning, in the middle rather, and on top of Mother Earth you've got at least in some places you have water, and then on top of the water you have air, and the way out at the periphery you've got the sun and the stars, which are obviously fire. And as we see that on Aristotle, the thought that seems to run through those who said there was one matter is that you get things by condensing this matter or making it more what rare,

[1:01:22] just like when you go from water to air, like from water to the steam, and then you have the reverse process where the steam condenses into what water, right? And the water maybe condenses into something even thicker, like ice, which is almost like earth, and you get it hot enough, it turns into fire. So he says the way up and the way down is the same, except you're going in what different directions, huh?

[1:01:51] Now he seems to be transcending the idea that fire is the only thing, and he's going to be anticipating what Empedocles will say when he brings in all four of these. So the death of earth is water coming to be, and the death of water is air coming to be, and of air, fire in reverse, as if earth turns into water, like when the ice melts into water.

[1:02:15] We'd say the solid into liquid, and the water turns into what the gas, they'd say air. The death of air. So he uses very concrete words taken from life and death. The next fragment, the same thing is death to souls to become water. That is to say, to air to become water. It's the death of steam, we could say, to be condensed. It's death to water to become earth.

[1:02:43] Water comes to be from earth, and the soul from water. Very interesting how the way he's kind of almost transcending his thought here. So we'll come back to that in the later thinkers. Now this universe, which is the same for all, no good. god or man has made, but it always was and is and will be everlasting fire, kindled in measures and extinguished in measures. Now the Marxists like to quote that, and they say, a good exposition of the rudiments of dialectical materialism, because they think that matter is the beginning of all things, and that matter is what eternal, huh?

[1:03:22] So it's anticipation of the great thought of Karl Marx and so on. Now the next fragment is a real puzzle, and again there's obviously an apparent contradiction there. The most beautiful universe is a heap piled up at random. Now

[1:03:51] we talked before about the connection between unity and order, and kind of a supreme example of this is if you look at these two words. One of which the Greek word, a Greek derived word, cosmos, and then the what? Chaos. No, universal. Okay. Now in modern science, when you study the universe as a whole, they call that what? Cosmology.

[1:04:25] But you know, in books of cosmology, they'll refer to the cosmos. Sometimes as a cosmos, and sometimes as the what? Universe. Huh. Now the Greek word cosmos has a sense of a beautiful ordered whole. So I tried to you know catch that a little bit in the translation there.

[1:04:49] As I explained to the girls in class, that's where we get the word cosmetics. That same word in Greek, a beautiful ordered whole. So cosmos is taken from the idea of beautiful order. What universe is taken from? One. Universe means turned into one. Okay. Isn't interesting? Huh. There's a connection between order and unity. Order is based on unity.

[1:05:27] Now it's striking that Heraclitus had said in that fragment we saw on the previous page, it is wise listening not to me but to reason to agree that all things one. Huh. Reason naturally makes us look for unity. But reason also naturally makes us look for order. And this is a prime example of that. But now he's saying, and it's very striking, the Greek word cosmos, as they say, is taken from order rather than from one.

[1:05:56] And now he's saying that the cosmos, this beautiful ordered whole, is a heap piled up at random. Well, again, maybe he's trying to get us to think about something. Maybe he himself is a bit puzzled by this. If the universe is a result of a mindless matter, a mindless mover matter, like fire, what would you expect? Mindless creation, a mindless result. Yeah. Yeah, I know people saw it, but you know that you know it's on the TV all the time.

[1:06:32] These the towers there, the twin towers there in New York. You saw pictures of it as well. Can't avoid it. Been on everywhere. I think. What did fire do? Make a beautiful ordered whole. And this mindless fire raging through the building, it left a destruction. A heap piled up at random. Yeah. You see. So everybody up to this point has been talking about a mindless matter or a mindless matter mover that's the origin of all things.

[1:07:01] So what should the universe be? A heap piled. Yeah. And that's kind of it's the very origin of the word, which is a reflection of a common understanding of something beautiful about the universe. Um, aside to Warren very, the Davis said, you know, that the English word, what's it? Word. The Latin word mundus, I guess. Yeah, mundus has a sense of more like a cosmos being a beautiful ordered whole.

[1:07:35] Um, it's funny because I was I had been thinking of buying a book there by by a scientist, string theory scientist, book in a bookstore recently. The name of the book is The Elegant Universe. Yeah. Elegant Universe. And anyway, I was looking up at his conversation with Warren. Murray was looking up the the word mundus there in the Greek, the Latin dictionary, and the first meaning, you know, elegant.

[1:08:05] Elegant. It struck me because I did, you know, thinking of putting out 30, 40 bucks in this book. But you see, that's a reflection of what the scientist sees when he studies the world. It's a beautiful ordered whole. It's uh uh suggests mind as Einstein would say. you know.

[1:08:25] But if you say that the origin, the first cause of all this is some mindless matter or some mindless matter mover like fire, then the universe should be a heap piled up at random. So he's leaving us with a problem, isn't he? Now later on we get the Anaxagoras. Anaxagoras will be the first thinker to introduce the idea that there's a greater mind responsible for the cosmos, the ordered universe.

[1:08:57] And Socrates and the Phaedo talks about how enthusiastic he was when he saw this in Anaxagoras. And Aristotle expresses his admiration by saying that he seemed like a sober man among drunk men.

[1:09:12] He said, "But they're all drunk because what they think about the beginning of all things is something mindless, and therefore what they call the cosmos should really be a heap pile of it random. So maybe he's forcing us then. Opposition is useful. There's something wrong or incomplete about our thinking. There's something hidden to us.

[1:09:38] Why is it a cosmos? Why is it elegant? Why is it a beautiful ordered whole? If there isn't a what mind? Now, when you look at the great fragment of Anaxagoras about the mind, you'll notice the first thing he says about the mind. I'm just going to just want to look at the beginning of it. Look on page eight there, the bottom big large fragment. The first thing he says about the mind is that it's un what limited, huh?

[1:10:16] On page eight, do you have that? Okay, the large fragment DK12. But mind is unlimited, huh? We'll be coming back to that. I just mentioned that because look at the fragment now, the last fragment of Heraclitus in terms of the mind of it. He says, "One could not find in going the ends of the soul, having traveled every road. There's something what infinite about the soul. What is it?

[1:10:46] So deep is the reason it has. So Heraclitus is anticipating in this fragment here the thought of Anaxagoras, the man who really brings out the mind that the mind is something infinite, huh? But we'll have to find out.