Heraclitus' riddle

     As we know, P. Schuster was the first scholar to attempt, in 1873, an ordering of the surviving fragments of Heraclitus, taking into account their content. There he placed above all other fragments the anecdote that Diels and Kranz would later catalogue as B56: the riddle Homer heard from some child fishermen who were picking lice, and which Homer, in spite of his reputation as “the wisest of the Greeks”, was unable to solve. A short time afterwards (1877) and in marked contrast with P. Schuster, I. Bywater did not consider the fragment worthwhile, to the degree that he decided to exclude it from his own ordering. I believe, however, that reason is on Schuster’s side in this matter, since the passage sheds light on another passage of capital importance in the thought and doctrine of Heraclitus, as we shall soon see.

   In B56, Heraclitus says that “with regard to the knowledge of apparent things, men are deceived just as was Homer”, who did not understand the boys’ statements; in other words, Homer did not understand that which was manifestly assumed in those statements and which had to be taken into account to solve the riddle. Setting this matter aside for a moment, however, I would like to refer to another “thing”, perhaps less “apparent”, that seems nonetheless to loom up from between the lines of B56. I am referring to the glimpse of Heraclitus’ fundamental purpose in inserting this passage in his book: His intent is most certainly not to question Homer’s reputation as “the wisest of the Greeks” because of his failure to solve the riddle, but to present the anecdote as an illustrative example of a similar situation in which he places his readers, a situation that Heraclitus challenges us to confront and successfully resolve. And we should anticipate this in our reading by expecting a passage that shows, although not expressly, but  in agreement with the characteristic style of the Obscure Philosopher of Ephesus, a riddle similar to that of the child fishermen. We should anticipate and expect this meaningful, capital passage, since as Heraclitus himself states, “If you do not hope, you will not win that which is not hoped for”. If we do not expect the riddle, we shall not find it, and the passage that includes it will lose for us its true content and correct interpretation.

     Of course, given the absence of Heraclitus’ original book, we do not know if the passage precedes or follows the fragment we know as B56; therefore we must search for it in both directions among the surviving fragments. We can assume, in addition, that the desired passage has been preserved as a doctrinarian aspect, regardless of whether or not the source has understood its meaning and hidden nature.

  

Which passage would represent this challenge? We might “expect” it to be the fragment we know as B1, which we know as the Ephesian’s opening passage of the book, which poses several questions: What is the discourse (= logos) to which “although it is accurate, men make always  themselves insensible, both before they have heard it and after they have heard it for the first time”? What are those “words and actions that men experience (daily)”? Are these the same actions of which “men are ignorant when awake”, since preceding lines have stated that “they resemble those who do not have any experience, (although) they experience” such actions?

    Nonetheless, the passage that seems to have more of the form and character of a riddle, similar to the riddle Homer heard from the children who went to the river to “fish” lice, is  B30,  the passage that begins with: “This order, the same of all, neither any of the gods nor any man has made…” First of all, I must state that for this initial phrase of B30 to be understood as a riddle, which is the way I believe it should be understood, kósmos must be taken simply as “order”; understanding  kósmos as “the order of the world” would be a premature interpretation. On the other hand, the genitive hapánton should be taken as such, and not translated as a dative: “the same for all”. This first part of the passage is the part that most reminds me of the riddle of  B56. In that case, the question to answer is: What do the boys bring back from their fishing? In the second case, the question is: What order is this, which was not generated by any deity or man? The habitual manner of understanding Heraclitus’ first phrase of B30 assumes gratuitously, as does Homer in his case, that the object at hand is “there” on the other side and not “here” on this side, which is truly the case. Why do the boys bring what they could not see or hold? Because they already had that thing “here” on their heads. Why has this “order”, the same of all, not been generated by any deity or man? Because neither men nor deities, from their inception, can create something that they already have by nature in their heads! The issue is thus internal order. The second part of Heraclitus’ passage continues with “but it always was, and is, and shall be, an ever living fire, kindled in due measure, and in due measure extinguished”. We are interpreting this “always” (aeí) as having the same meaning as we have interpreted it in relation to B1; that is, as “successively”, “in turn”, “each time”, so that the internal order referred to in the first part of the passage persists as such in us, “successively” throughout human generations, which were, are, and shall be. In addition, it is an “ever living” fire that always shares the life of the person who has that fire within, “kindled in due measure, and in due measure extinguished”. Therefore this “fire”, understood symbolically, is a Light that illuminates the minds of men, understood not only as light but also as a process that encompasses certain mental “works” (érga, B1) that give rise to human knowledge, that is “kindled” if certain “measures” or limits are respected, but “extinguished” if such respect is lacking. These same “works”, returning to B1, generate certain “words” in our daily experience—experience that goes unnoticed as “men act as though they had never had any experience” (apeíroisiv eoíkasi); in other words, as idiots, since men are ignorant of what they do when awake, as Heraclitus states at the end of B1. And this also takes us back to Schuster since it seems to support his affirmation that the Ephesian was an empiricist philosopher. In addition, the second part of B30 is a reminder of B94, which replaces “fire” with Hélios: “The sun will not overstep his bounds, for if he does, the Erinyes, helpers of justice, will find him out.” This “for” (gár) is meaningful, since it is a reminder of B30 (Did B94 follow B30 in Heraclitus’ book? Or if not, did the author include gár as that point to motivate his reader to relate the two passages? ). The inner fire will not overstep its bounds either, since in such a case the Erinyes would extinguish it. The indication is that the light of human knowledge has certain limits or bounds, since man cannot know everything. And the passage thus seems to be related to B83:                 “The wisest of men compared with God appears an ape in wisdom”.

   This meaning of kósmos as an “internal or mental order” can also be observed in B89: “To those who are awake, there is one (mental) order in common, but of those who are asleep, each is withdrawn to a private order of his own”. This passage transmits the idea that when we are awake, we have a mental order in common (“the same of all” of B30) that makes us understand each other in our everyday relationships, while those who are asleep, in contrast, suffer from a very strange ordering of thought, unique to dreams. And this mental order that allows us to understand each other and live is what Heraclitus studied    (“I have inquired of myself”, B101).    And since Heraclitus, a man as we are, studied himself, it is very sensible to state that:  “It pertains to all men to know themselves and to be learned”, B116.  Yet, what comprises this mental order that we can study and investigate, and on which our intelligence depends? Such a mental order seems to consist of all that we “do” in our daily experience without taking notice   (“men act as though they had never had any experience”, as B1 states); in other words, it consists of the ability of our intelligence to associate and disassociate   (“It disperses and gathers”,  as Heraclitus states in B91), allowing us to generate our knowledge of things …

 Thus we could state that the predominant area in Heraclitus’ thinking and doctrine is in gnoseology.

   Perhaps what you have read has prompted the following reaction: “What you present here has the disadvantage of going against the well-known archaism of Heraclitus”, although if this is only a “disadvantage”, I would have no doubts in exclaiming, “Wonderful! Let’s go against these pretenses!” My reasoning would be that the “well-known” archaism attributed to Heraclitus and the other pre-socratic philosophers arises from the influence that the authority of Aristotle and Hegel have had on us, who believed that the first philosophy lacked experience (Aristotle) or concretion (Hegel). But if we take into consideration that such evaluations arise in turn from deceptive subjectivities in individual thinking, it will be easy for us to free ourselves from this influence to study, in an objective, unprejudiced manner, the surviving texts from the earliest and greatest Greek philosophers.

    In conclusion, dear readers, these are some of the thoughts that are residing in my mind and which have made a visit to your own.