Reaction Paper On Heraclitus

756 Words4 Pages
Essay One Heraclitus was a Greek philosopher known to criticize his fellow truth-seekers for not understanding that knowledge was gained by unity. Heraclitus was a believer in the fact that opposites were necessary for sustaining life here on earth. Despite them being opposites, they are integrated in the system of balanced exchanges. Heraclitus believed that the world should not be classified by any particular substance, but was a constant process ruled by the law of change. Fire, the river and bow imageries were all used within his writings to connect the balance of exchanges or in other words the balance of life and death. Heraclitus refers to the world as an “everliving fire”. Fire is constantly changing shapes, locations, size, etc. However, fire will always burn and therefore the process of change occurs. Heraclitus quotes, “All things are an exchange for fire, and fire for all things, as goods for gold and gold for goods.” Basically, what Heraclitus is saying is that fire burns things down which represents death, but it also eventually brings new growth which represents life. So, let’s say a forest catches on fire and all the…show more content…
While most of us see certain objects such as a piece of grass or a drop of water we just see it for what it is. Heraclitus was able to view those things as equals. Because for him everything was unified because everything is apart of the balance of exchanges. Heraclitus wanted human beings to be able to challenge themselves and how they view the world and not just stay in the same mindset and therefore Heraclitus teachings were very unconventional at the time. Heraclitus was purposefully not straightforward in his writing because he wanted to force his readers to interpret them. Think of his words like puzzles nd the reader must solve the puzzle in order to discover the
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