Betegh Heraclitus Psychology

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On the Physical Aspect ofHeraclitus Psychology1

Gbor BeteghDepartment o Philosophy, Central European Uniersity,

Budapest, [email protected]

Abstract

Te paper frst discusses the metaphysical ramework that allows the souls integrationinto the physical world. A close examination o B36, supported by the comparative evi-dence o some other early theories o the soul, suggests that the wordpsuchcould unc-tion as both a mass term and a count noun or Heraclitus. Tere is a stu in the world,alongside other physical elements, that maniests mental unctions. Humans, and possi-bly other beings, show mental unctions in so ar as they have a portion o that stu.urning to the physical characterization o the soul, the paper argues that B36 is entirely

consistent with the ancient testimonies that say that psuchor Heraclitus is exhalation.But exhalations cover all states o matter rom the lowest moist part o atmospheric air tothe fre o celestial bodies. I so, psuchor Heraclitus is both air and fre. Te act thatpsuchcan maniest the whole range o physical properties along the dry-wet axis guaran-tees that souls can show dierent intellectual and ethical properties as well. Moreover,Sextus Empiricus, supported by some other sources, provides us with an answer how por-tions o soul stu are individuated into individual souls. Te paper closes with a briediscussion o the question whether, and i so with what qualifcations, we can apply the

term physicalism to Presocratic theories o the soul.

KeywordsHeraclitus, psychology, soul, mind, cosmology

1) Tis paper has grown out o ideas I frst presented at the Symposium PhilosophiaeAntiquae Quintum organised by Apostolos Pierris and then at the Jubilee meeting o theSouthern Association o Ancient Philosophy in Oxord. A modifed version o the origi-

l ill b bli h d i th di th S i Phil hi A ti

Phronesis 52 (2007) 3-32
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4 G. Betegh / Phronesis 52 (2007) 3-32

Te most signifcant and possibly most ar-reaching novelty o Heracli-tus conception o the soul is a considerable extension o the s role.As commentators have emphasized, in Heraclitus aphoristic utterances

the emerges or the frst time as an integrated centre o motor, cog-nitive and emotive unctions.2 Heraclitus thus has a major role in the pro-cess through which the word acquires the broad but airly unifedsense it has in the texts o the Classical and later periods. Tis novel char-acterization o the soul, moreover, is an integral part o what appears to bethe general thrust o Heraclitus entire philosophical project: a shi rom

an impersonal, objectivist description o the physical world, as practicedby his Milesian predecessors, to an approach in which questions aboutthe nature o things in the world on the one hand, and reections on thehuman being who is striving to understand the nature o things, and seeksto communicate his fndings to other human beings, on the other hand,are intimately linked. In such a complex, epistemologically oriented andreexive approach the centre o cognition will naturally acquire a place o

prominence; and Heraclitus takes to be the centre o cognition. Tejoint eect o these developments resulted in a new, and in a sense strik-ingly modern, conception o the sel that has sometimes been comparedto Tomas Nagels objective sel .3

I this is the most momentous eature o Heraclitus philosophical psy-chology, why should we bother too much with the seemingly less exciting

physical aspect o his conception o? Te answer, I maintain, is thatHeraclitus seems to hold at the same time that sel-reection and intro-spection, although important, are not sucient to gain knowledge about

Quintum. At the Symposium, Aryah Finkelberg read a paper (Finkelberg (orthcom-ing)) that overlaps with my discussion at some points, although his main interest is inHeraclitean eschatology. Te greatest bulk o the present paper is new and the rest hasbeen substantially rewritten. I am grateul or the audiences in Ephesos and Oxord.Comments by David Charles, Christopher Gill, Katalin Farkas, Aryah Finkelberg,Charles Kahn, ony Long, Stephen Menn, Malcolm Schofeld, and David Sedley wereparticularly helpul. I owe much to discussions with Roman Dilcher.2) See especially Nussbaum (1972) and Schofeld (1991).3) See Long (1992) and Gill (2001). Because o all these considerations, it would proba-

bly be more appropriate to translate Heraclitus as mind. I continue to render it assoul or reasons o convention.


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G. Betegh / Phronesis 52 (2007) 3-32 5

the soul. Te soul is integrated into the physical world, and reectionsabout the physical world can lead us to some crucial insights aboutthe nature and working o the soul. Understanding the soul is the key

to understanding human nature and the world, and the interrelationo the two; but, on the other hand, understanding the cosmic orderand the major physical processes is vital to gaining knowledge aboutthe soul.4 Heraclitus thus appears to agree with the implication oSocrates rhetorical question in thePhaedrus: Do you think it is possibleto understand the nature o the soul in a worthwhile manner without

understanding the nature o the whole?5

(Phdr. 270c1-2). Te soul ispart o the whole, and cannot be properly understood without having agrasp on the way it is integrated in the physical world.

In what ollows, I shall approach Heraclitus views on the romthe side o its physical and metaphysical aspects. I shall concentrate frston the metaphysical ramework which allows the souls integration intothe physical world and creates the conceptual space or its physical

identifcation. Second, I shall turn to the physical characterization o thesoul and to the way it is integrated into physical processes. In this part, Ishall try to tackle the vexed question whether the soul or Heraclitus isfre or air, say something about the philosophical advantages o the optiontaken by Heraclitus, and briey discuss Sextus report o Heraclituspsychology.

4) Te act that these two aspects o Heraclitus philosophy cannot be severed has rightlybeen emphasized by Dilcher (1995) 53-54, with ootnote 1 containing a criticism oKirks attempt to insulate the cosmic ragments. Dilcher seems to start out by treatingthe cosmic aspect as secondary to the psychic (c. e.g. p. 17), yet he eventually states that[i]t is vital or the argument that man and cosmos illuminate each others structure bythis correspondence. Tereore, this double ocus should not be imbalanced by givingpriority to either side. ( . . .) Both sides are equally essential. (p. 93). I am in ull agreementwith these ormulations, even though I disagree with specifc parts o Dilchers interpre-tation o Heraclitus psychology, on which see below. See also the almost Heracliteanormulations in Long (1992) 271: In disclosing truths about nature, Heraclitus is dis-closing himsel, or rather, in disclosing himsel he is disclosing truths about nature; he isdiscovering the knower in the knowable and the knowable in the knower.5)

;


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Finally, I should add a methodological point. It has sometimes beenurged that because o Heraclitus mode o expression, the intentionalobscurity o his pronouncements, and his apparent reusal to expound his

views in continuous, argumentative prose, the interpreter ought not tryto impute a clear-cut doctrine or theory to him. I would certainly agreethat the interpreter has to show the utmost sensitivity to the ormal, liter-ary and linguistic eatures o the Heraclitean ragments. Yet I would stillnot renounce the idea that Heraclitus by his pronouncements expressed aset o airly worked out and specifc views about the topics he dealt with.

Te celebrated B93 states that Te lord whose oracle is the one in Delphineither declares nor conceals, but gives signals and this statement hascustomarily been taken to describe Heraclitus own mode o expression aswell. But the implication o the apophthegm is neither that Apollo doesnot have a clear and specifc view on the matter at hand, nor that therecipient should renounce discovering what the lord o the oracle thinksabout the matter even i one cannot hope to arrive at a defnitive answer

and dissipate all ambiguity.

1

B36 is the central ragment or locating the souls place in physicalprocesses:

For souls it is to die to become water, ,or water it is to die to become earth, ,rom earth water is being born, ,rom water soul. .

Te frst remarkable point about this ragment is that soul appears here

together with two main elemental masses, water and earth, in such a waythat soul seems to be treated on a par with the two physical stus. Tisobservation may appear obvious, but will receive some refnement later.Te statement links the three terms, soul, water, and earth, by speciyingthe way they transorm into each other so that the series o changes cre-ates a cycle. Tat the ocus is on the changes, and not merely on the states,becomes especially evident when we realize that the word reersnot to the state o being dead, but to the event o dying. Apart rom phil-


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ological considerations,6 this rendering is strongly recommended in thiscase by the act that Heraclitus explains by the verb . Itry to indicate this act by translating by the infnitive to die,

instead o the more usual noun death. Te translation is being bornin the latter part o the ragment tries to capture the continuous aspecto the present indicative and the contrast with the aorist o.

Te use o the terms to die and is being born to describe the transor-mations between soul and water and water and earth is doubly provoca-

tive. First, it is challenging to apply these terms to stus like water andearth that are usually considered lieless. Second, it is possibly even moreintriguing to speak about the dying and birth o the soul. Surely, the has strong connections to lie in the traditional, Homeric, concep-tion so much so that it is customarily called in the literature the organo lie. Yet in the traditional conception it is not the that does theliving, but the organism is thought to live as long as the is present

and active in it. Correspondingly, it is the organism, not the , thatdies when the departs rom it.7 Similarly, it is highly unusual tospeak about the birth o the as such, distinct rom the organism it ispart o just as we would not normally speak about the birth o either themind or the brain as such.8

Te interpreter can respond to these challenges by depleting the signi-

fcance o the words dying and being born to arrive at the innocuousmeanings cease to exist and come into being. Te more interesting alter-native, however, is to accept that Heraclitus attaches (some orm o ) lie

6) Hussey (1991) 518-519 gives a very helpul concise review o the Homeric and Hes-iodic occurrences o the word . By this overview Hussey seeks to show, to my

mind successully, that standardly reers not to a state but to a process or event,and should hence be translated by dying rather than death. Hussey does not discussB36, which he thinks originally consisted only o the our words (529, n. 18), which he translates as It is death to souls to becomemoist.7) Tis has been excellently brought out by Nussbaum (1972). For the same pointin Plato, see Kark (2004). For urther elaboration on this point, see Betegh (orth-coming).8) For urther discussion o this point, see Betegh (orthcoming).


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to stus that are not usually conceived as living. When this latter optionis taken, it becomes signifcant that the ormulation o the cycle is notsymmetrical. Describing the way down, rom to water, rom water

to earth, Heraclitus speaks about dying into the next phase o the pro-cess, whereas on the way up, rom earth to water, rom water to , hedoes not mention dying, only becoming or birth (). When, on theway down, souls transorm into water, the souls die and this is how watercomes into being (or is born). When, on the way up, water transormsinto soul, soul comes into being and is born. By this transormation water

ceases to be but I doubt that Heraclitus would describe the same trans-ormation as the dyingo water; water dies only on the way down, whenearth is born rom it, but not on the way up, when it is transormed intosoul. Dying characterizes the way down.9

Incidentally, i it is true that only things that live can die, in Her-aclitus ceases to be the bearer o lie. For water is distinct rom , yetit has to have some orm o lie i it is to die when earth comes into being

rom it.Te wording o the ragment shows a urther notable point. Te frst

and last words o the sentence reer to soul. Tis is clearly an indication othe cyclical nature o the transormations captured in the ragment. Tereis a dierence, however. In its frst occurrence, the word is in the plural,whereas in the second it is in the singular. In the ollowing analysis, I shall

assume that this shi rom plural to singular is signifcant;10

I base it onthe conviction that Heraclitus uses language with utmost care and his or-mulations show a remarkably high level o consciousness. Te shi romplural to singular shows, frst o all, that when we get to the end o thesentence we have not as yet made the ull circle o the cycle o transorma-tions. o close the circle, we still need to get to the plural rom thesingular . As we shall see, much hangs on the way we account or the

9) B36 has many variants and paraphrases, 14 listed in Marcovich (1967)ad loc. Amongthese there are only three that speaks about dying on the way up as well: Plut. de E392C;M. A. 4.46.1; Max. yr. 41.4, all three listed by Diels under B76. I agree with thosecommentators like Marcovich (1967)ad loc., Kahn (1979)ad loc. and Dilcher (1995) 67n. 1, who take these to be (Stoicizing) paraphrases. Contra: Pradeau (2002) 284-285

and 296.10) So also Finkelberg (orthcoming).


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dierence between the plural and the singular orm, and how we conceiveo the process that leads rom the singular to the plural, individu-ated . We may ask, or example, what type o process is the one that

delivers plural rom the singular ? Does it already involve ameasure o dying as the processes on the way down? Or is it primarily anevent o birth as is characteristic or the processes o the way up? Or is ita completely dierent type o process?

Moreover, this dierence between singular and plural calls attention toa semantic eature that may have important metaphysical bearings. Te

terms water and earth reer in the ragment to elemental masses, and cor-respondingly unction as mass terms (or non-count nouns as linguists pre-er to call them).11 Tey do not reer to individuated things with defniteborders but to stus. Te plural o is all the more signifcant becauseit shows that Heraclitus here uses the term as a count noun just aswe would expect, because we are accustomed to think about souls as indi-viduated entities. Tis means that we should qualiy our preliminary con-

tention that Heraclitus treats soul on a par with water and earth: not quite,because the word souls reers to individuated things, whereas water andearth reer to stus. We can accordingly pinpoint a dierence betweenthe frst two phases o the series o transormations. Te frst phase reersto the process through which souls conceived as individuated things losetheir identities and cease to exist as they dissolve in an unindividuated

stu, water. Te second phase in contrast reers to a process in which somepart o water is transormed into another stu, earth.But what about the singular with which the ragment ends? I

would maintain that at the end o the sentence is used as a massterm, much like water and earth, and not as a singular count noun stand-ing or a class o things, souls. I it were not so, Heraclitus could have usedthe plural here as well. I assume, thereore, that what is described in the

last colon o the sentence is not the way individuated souls are born romwater but rather the way some part o water is transormed into anotherstu, soul. Te death o individual souls in the frst colon o the ragmentmay or may not correspond to the death o individual human beings,

11) Admittedly, count noun and non-count noun or mass term are our categories. Yet

these linguistic categories clearly apply to Greek as well (c. Kchner and Gerth 348 onthe use oStofnamen, and the way they can used in the plural).


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depending on whether Heraclitus believed in the post mortem survival oindividual souls a question on which I would suspend judgement.12 Tebirth o soul in the last part o the ragment, in contrast, does not reer to

the birth o individual human beings but to the way soul stu is gener-ated.13 Te missing link in the cycle, the shi rom the singular tothe plural , is the way we get individuated souls rom soul stu.

Te idea o using soul or mind as mass terms, and the correspondingidea o conceiving soul or mind as stus, is quite alien or us. Yet it wasnot so in archaic and later philosophical texts. As I cannot provide a

detailed survey o the relevant texts within the limits o the present paper,let me only mention some notable examples. Anaxagoras clearly uses theword as a mass term when he says in B12 mind is all alike, both thelarger and the smaller [o it] ().14 Similarly, when Diogenes o Apollonia maintains in B4 thathuman beings and the other animals live by means o the air as theybreathe. And this is or them both soul and intelligence (.

12) For the most recent deence o the survival o individual souls, see Finkelberg (orth-coming).13) Te shi rom the plural to the singular must pose a problem also or interpreters like

Marcovich (1967) 362 and Dilcher (1995) 67-69 who take the ragment to reer exclu-sively to processes within human beings. I the ragment describes the microcosmic cyclewithin the living human being, it is unclear to me why it speaks about the death o soulsin the plural and then switches to soul in the singular. Dilcher thinks that the only alter-native to the microcosmic interpretation is eschatological, one that ascribes Heraclitusthe view that the soul frst leaves the body, lingers around or a while and then dies intowater. It may well be that the frst phase o transormation, rom souls to water, happenswithin the human being, but that does not oblige us to say that all the transormationsdescribed in the ragment occur within the microcosmos: the ragment speaks aboutthese transormations in general terms. For a critique o Marcovichs physiological inter-pretation, see Schofeld (1991) 15-21. Kirk (1954) 341, ollowed by Marcovich (1967)361, states that even i the main thrust o the ragment would suggest that standsor cosmic fre, parallel to the other two cosmic masses, the plural o rules this out.I agree that to be the case at the beginning o the ragment, but nothing hinders thatthings change with the second, singular, occurrence o the word.14)

So also Menn (1995) 26: We may begin by recalling the undeniable act that Anax-agoras uses nous as a mass term. Menn argues that expressions like are not


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) he treats air as a stu that enters the body with breath-ing, but which, on the other hand, unctions as soul and intelligence in us.It is more striking to see that Socrates, in both Xenophon and Plato,

entertains a similar conception o soul and mind. In the MemorabiliaSocrates tries to corner the irreligious Aristodemus by the ollowing salvoo questions:

Do you think you have some intelligence (),15 but there is nothing intelli-gent anywhere else at all? And this, when you know that you have in your body onlya tiny measure o earth which is so huge, and a little bit o the large extension owaters, and that your body was constructed by receiving only a minute portion o allthe other things which, surely, exist in great quantities? But as to mind (), whichis thus the only thing that does not exist anywhere else, you think you managed bysome happy chance to snatch it, and you believe that those immensely great andinfnitely many masses are in such a well-ordered state due to something lackingintelligence? (1.4.8)

Just as our bodies contain some measure o the stus earth and water, wealso have a measure o mind in us. Much like Anaxagoras, XenophonsSocrates treats mind as a mass term that we can have a measure o. PlatosSocrates develops a strikingly similar argument in the Philebus to theeect that just as fre, earth and other material components o us comerom, and are nourished by, the respective cosmic masses, so our soulcomes rom its cosmic counterpart.16 Finally, we can think o the imaeusas well, where the imagery o soul stu, its mixing, moulding, and por-tioning by the Demiurge is particularly conspicuous.

Greek or have a mind but rather or something like have reason or be reasonable,so that nous or Anaxagoras and other authors is reason (a mass term) and not mind(a count noun). My point is rather that Anaxagoras just as some o his predecessors,contemporaries and successors could use words like and as both count-nouns and mass terms. I shall continue to translate as mind even i the Englishword cannot capture this double usage.15) My translation ollows the text in Bandini and Dorion (2000) who, ollowing Mure-tus, based on Bessarions Latin version, delete the words -.16)

Phlb. 29a-30d, esp. 30a about the soul. Te relationship between the arguments in theMemorabilia and the Philebus, and the possibility that they go back to the historical


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Te gist o what I have said about Anaxagoras, Diogenes o Apolloniaand Socrates argument in the Memorabilia may be present already inAnaximenes. Te only relevant text is B2: Just as our soul, which is air,

keeps us together, so do the breath and air encompass the whole world;yet the wording, authenticity and interpretation o this ragment is toocontested to draw any frm conclusions.17

From the point o view o terminology, these passages are largely incon-gruent as they speak about ,, , and. What con-nects them is the underlying metaphysical assumption according to which

that which is the bearer o mental unctions in us is a stu that occurs alsoelsewhere in the world in smaller and larger quantities. Human beingsshow mental unctions, and live, in so ar as they have a share in that stu.In this respect and are like other elemental constituents in us,and can be used as mass terms just like fre or earth. and at thesame time unction as count nouns in the same texts in reerring to indi-viduated portions o and stu.

A possible corollary o this approach is that the stu in question doesnot need to be in a human, or animal, body to show mental unctions.More exactly, i a theorist wants to hold that this stu shows mental unc-tions only when it is in a human (or animal) body, he needs to providespecifc reasons why this should be so.18 A urther corollary is that thecosmic mass o soul (or mind) can be assigned cosmological roles because

it can also be described as the greatest individuated portion o soul, ormind, stu. Indeed, rom this aspect the cosmic mass o this stu canunction as a cosmic divinity. Te ambiguity between an elemental massand a corresponding cosmic god is a amiliar phenomenon that we canobserve or example in the cases o Okeanus and Gaia, or water and earth.

Socrates, are interesting questions that cannot be discussed here. See D. Frede (1997) 215n. 183 and Sedley (orthcoming).17) Te most detailed discussion o this ragment is in Alt (1973) who concludes that ithas mistakenly been attributed to Anaximenes. For a much more optimistic view, see e.g.Laks (1999) esp. 252. Schofeld (1991) 23-24 provides a balanced assessment o the rag-

ment and compares it to Heraclitus views on the soul. See also Betegh (orthcoming).18) Aristotle makes this point explicit inDe An. 1.5 411a8-23.


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Te characteristics o this cosmic god will be those that we assign to soul,or mind, in a human being: control, motor and cognitive unctions andso orth.

It is time to come back to Heraclitus. By analyzing B36, I hope to havebeen able to make a case or the point that the ragment starts out byspeaking about individual souls, but ends in speaking about soul con-ceived as a stu. A very brie historical survey has shown that such a con-ception is ully in line with some representative theories o the archaicand classical periods. Tis constitutes the general metaphysical rame-

work or the physical interpretation o the Heraclitean soul. B36 indi-cates that Heraclitus agrees with those who think that soul can transorminto other stus, but apparently stands apart in describing that process interms o dying. Te central questions that have emerged rom the preced-ing discussion are the ollowing: (Q1) What is in physical terms?(Q2)How can we conceie the shi om soul to souls?

2

A number o ragments show that Heraclitus, in conormity with whatthe metaphysical ramework allows, ascribes mental unctions and char-acteristics not only to human beings, but to natural cosmic phenomena aswell. I there is a stu that intrinsically shows mental unctions, it will

show mental unctions also when it is not in a human body. In B118 Her-aclitus states that A gleam o light: dry soul, the wisest and the best ().19 A natural phenomenon that canbe a beam o sunlight or a thunderbolt is identifed as soul, and describedin superlative epistemological and ethical terms. When in B64 Heraclitusasserts that Te thunderbolt steers these things, all o them ( ) he ascribes to the thunderbolt the governing, co-ordinating unction that other ragments (e.g. B117) assign to the humansoul. I we accept that the rhetorical question in B16 How will one escape

19) Te philological arguments marshalled by Bollack and Wismann (1972) 325-327

show I think conclusively that the subject o the sentence is and the predicate is, qualifed by the adjective .


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the notice o that which never sets? (;)reers to cosmic fre,20 we can see that Heraclitus also ascribes (some ormo ) cognition to the cosmic mass o fre.

What is common in these ragments is that psychic unctions areattributed to fre or fery things in natural phenomena. But does thisentail that is simply to be identifed with fre? Te standard inter-pretation holds that this is so, whereas the alternative interpretation,championed in the most developed orm by Charles Kahn, maintains incontrast that is, or is primarily, air.21 Note that this interpretative

choice has important bearings on my overall thesis about the metaphysi-cal ramework. For i it is true that the human soul is air, while the bearero psychic unctions on the cosmic side is fre, then it is a serious threat tomy whole story about explaining mental unctions in human beings bysaying that we have a share o the stu that has mental properties in gen-eral and also on the cosmic scale.

Te question o the material identifcation o the soul, whether it is fre

or air, is intimately bound up with the question whether or not Heracli-tus theory o elemental masses included air as a distinct stage in the cycleo transormations. We have seen that B36 mentions only three stages inthe cycle: soul, water, and earth. Fragments such as B30 and B90, togetherwith the entire doxographical tradition starting with Aristotle, make itcertain that fre had a place o prominence in Heraclitus teaching, and

thus clearly secure the place o fre.22

o this we can also add B31A:

urnings o fre: frst sea, o sea hal earth, , ,

the other halprstr. .

20) C. e.g. Kahn (1979) 274-275.21) See Kahn (1979) 238-240. Kahns view has been accepted also by Robinson (1987)104-105.22) It is an interesting but rarely remarked act that not all ancient sources agreed that freis Heraclitus principle. C. Cicero ND 3.35:sed omnia estri, Balbe, solent ad igneam imreerre, Heraclitum ut opinor sequentes, quem ipsum non omnes interpretantur uno modo.

Aenesidemus, or example, took air to be Heraclitus principle. C. S.E.M. 10.233, withdiscussion in Polito (2004) 154-161.


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Tis ragment, just as B36, speaks about the transormations linking cos-mic masses and phenomena. Te transormations in this case are notdescribed as dying and being born, but reerred to as the turnings ()

o fre. Moreover, accepting that , notoriously dicult to trans-late, reers to some fery atmospheric phenomenon,23 we have yet againa cycle in which the frst and last terms are closely related but are not quiteidentical. Earth is common to B31A and B36, whereas seawaterin B31A reers to the cosmologically most prominent part o water men-tioned in B36.

All these ragments seem to deliver a coherent image according towhich the third element beside water and earth is fre. Te word onlyoccurs in the dierent variants listed under B76, o which I quote hereonly the version transmitted by Maximus yrius:24

Fire lives the dying o earth, ,and air lives the dying o fre;

water lives the dying o air, ,and earth that o water. .

Tis text, however, has customarily and I think with good reasons been described as a Stoicizing paraphrase o B36.25 Shall we conclude,then, that air is missing rom Heraclitus system altogether? Against sucha conclusion, some powerul arguments have been raised. o begin with,

it is unclear how one could claim that water immediately turns into fre

23) For arguments or this view, see e.g. Kirk (1954) 330-331.24) Te word is missing rom MarcovichsIndex erborum. Other versions o B76 arein Plut.De E392 C and M. A. 4.4625) So also Kahn (1979) 153. Note that dierent versions o B76 are much less careullyormulated than B36. Tey do not indicate the cycle by ending the ragment with(a version o ) the frst word as B36 does and do not indicate the chain o transormationsby always repeating the outcome o the previous process which becomes the startingpoint o the next phase o transormation. Instead, Marcus Aurelius adds the words at the end o the ragment. Remarkably, Plutarchs version has only three terms,fre, air and water, as he omits earth. Note also, that i the version o Maximus yrius, orthat o Marcus Aurelius, is genuine, it invalidates the observations I have made above

about dying being characteristic o the way down. Tis is however not true o Plutarchsversion, which preserves this aspect o B36.


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in B36.26 Moreover, I think Charles Kahn is simply right in insisting thatHeraclitus cannot have oered a theory o the natural world in which theatmosphere was omitted.27 And this is especially so, I would add, or

someone writing aer Anaximenes, who made air his principle, andXenophanes, who was pre-eminently interested in various atmosphericphenomena and clouds. Simply ignoring what he does not agree with is, Ithink, wholly uncharacteristic o Heraclitus. It remains true, on the otherhand, that the relevant ragments consistently list only three stages in thecycle, and I do not think that adherents o the our element interpreta-

tion o Heraclitus have been able to address this question in a satisactoryway. Te ideal solution should be able to account or the act that Hera-clitus preers to speak about three terms in the processes o transorma-tion without, however, excluding atmospheric air. But how could that bedone i the places o fre, water, and earth have already been secured?

When we come to the more specifc question whether the human soulis air or fre,prima acie it seems more probable that it is to be identifed

with fre. First o all, we have just seen that fery phenomena, such as agleam o light and the thunderbolt, have psychic unctions. Tere is alsothe orce o analogy with other ancient theories. In all other early, and notso early, theories, when there is a primary orm o matter, the, or thebearer o the most important psychic aculties, is identifed with thatorm o matter.28 Tis interpretation can also align some ancient doxo-

graphical reports on its side.29

26) One might reer to instances when a liquid, such as the oil in a lantern, is burning, andthis is how fre is being born rom something liquid. But then one should just as wellreer to cases when something solid, earth-like, such as wood or coal, is burning.27) Kahn (1979) 140.28) Some urther arguments o less orce have also been adduced. Vlastos (1955) 364-365or example reerred to the observable act that the living body is warm whereas thecorpse is cold. Tis, however, is not based on any o the surviving texts o Heraclitus.KRS 204, on the other hand, state that while Anaximenes built on the Homeric view othebeing some kind o breath, Heraclitus abandoned this idea in avour o anotherpopular conception o the soul, that it was made o fery aither. I was unable to fnd anyclear evidence or such an assumedly popular conception prior to Heraclitus.29)

Teodoret., Gr. af. cur. 5.18: (sc. ) .


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Yet, once again, the alternative view can reer to some ancient interpre-tations, including that o Philo o Alexandria.30 Just as important, it canalso present some powerul internal arguments supporting the view that

soul is air and not fre. First o all, there are ragments in which we hearabout wet souls, such as the soul o the drunken man in B117:

A man when he is drunk ,is led by a beardless boy, staggering, ,not knowing where he steps, ,having his soul wet.

Te controlling, motor unctions o the drunken mans soul are severelyimpaired because his soul is wet. Te question naturally arises how couldHeraclitus maintain both that the is fre and that it can get wet?Answering this objection by claiming that in such cases part o the souldies, does not quite convince.31 For B117 speaks not about someone

who has a reduced size fery, because part o his soul has died, butsomeone who has a wet . Replace with its assumed physicaldescription, fre, and we are back to the absurd idea o wet fre. Consideralso B77:

he says that or souls it is pleasure, not dying, ()to become moist

Tis ragment, preserved by Porphyry quoting Numenius, has oen beenconsidered spurious or corrupt. Marcovich, or example, treated it only asa reaction to B36. Many others have retained it, but oered various emen-dations. So some have bracketed as an interpolated gloss.32Another option, oered by Diels and ollowed by numerous scholars, is

30) Philo,De Aet. Mundi 21 quotes the frst part o B36 and then states that: , . Aenesidemusalso thought that the soul is air or Heraclitus. On this point, see below.31) See Schofeld (1991) 29: When the soul becomes moist or wet its fre is put out itdies (r. 36) either entirely or in part, as in drunkenness, r. 117, or in sleep, r. 26. On theinterpretation o as fre Heraclitus does not need to be seen as committed to the

absurd concept o wet fre.32) So, e.g., Gigon (1935) 106.


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to emend the transmitted into , with the result that becoming wet ispleasure ordeath or souls. Te motivation or emending this otherwisewell-transmitted and intelligible text is clear: editors and interpreters

have tried to harmonize B77 with B36 on the assumption that becomingwet is death or souls. But as Jaap Manseld has pointed out in his deenceo the transmitted wording o B77, , becoming wet, isnot the same as , becoming water.33 And the same pointapplies also to the drunken mans soul in B117. When the soul becomesmoist or wet, it approaches water without becoming water as yet; it

approaches dying without dying as yet. So B77 in its transmitted orm isperectly compatible with both B36 and B117 but only i soul is some-thing that can become wet, which fre surely cannot do.

Te discussion in this section adds two urther questions to the liststarted at the end o the previous section: (Q3)How can we nd a place orair in a system that apparently counts with only three major cosmic masses?and (Q4) How could we account or the act that some maniestations oor Heraclitus are ery whereas others are wet?

3

When we contrast the terms o the modern discussion about the physicalidentifcation o the Heraclitean soul with the earliest and most detailed

ancient testimonies, one point becomes striking. Te earliest accounts donot identiy the Heraclitean with either air or fre, but say that soul,or Heraclitus, is exhalation ().34 And they do so even whenone would really expect them to identiy soul as one o the elements. Tisis a conspicuous eature o Aristotles account o the physical characteriza-tion o the Heraclitean soul inDe Anima 1.2:

Diogenes, like some others, [held the soul to be] air because he believed it to be themost fnely grained and the principle; this is the reason why the soul knows andmoves, in so ar as it is primary, and the other things are rom this, it knows; in so ar

33) Manseld (1967) 9.34)

Arist. De An. 1.2 405a24; Aet. 4.3.12.; Cleanth. apud Ar. Did. r. 39.2 Diels =Heraclitus B12 DK.


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as it is the most fnely grained, it originates movement. Heraclitus says too that theprinciple is soul, since it is the exhalation rom which the others are composed.(De An. 1.2 405a21-6)

Aristotle is entirely happy in this context to say that or Diogenes the soulis air, just as or Democritus spherical atoms, or Hippo water, or Emped-ocles the organ o cognition is a mixture o the our elements. He evensays that or Heraclitus, just as or Diogenes, is the principle what he does not say is that it is fre, even though elsewhere (e.g. inMeta-physics 1.2 984a7 = Heraclitus A5 DK) he identifes Heraclitus principle

as fre. On the other hand, he does not say that soul or Heraclitus is air,even though it would have been quite an obvious move considering thathe is just pointing out the strong parallels between Heraclitus and Dio-genes on the question o the material identifcation o. Aristotlecould jolly well identiy Heraclitus soul with either air or fre in thiscontext, but he did not do so. Instead, he said that soul or Heraclitus is

exhalation.35

At this point I need to discuss very briey what Aristotle may havemeant when he stated that soul or Heraclitus is exhalation. Exhalation isa central concept in ancient meteorology in general, but is particularlyimportant in Aristotles theory. Indeed, Aristotle explained most atmo-spheric and meteorological phenomena by taking exhalations to be thematerial cause o these phenomena.36 Aristotle amously distinguished

between two kinds o exhalation, dry and moist, both starting rom theearth.37 Dry exhalation arises rom the earth heated by the sun and reachesup to the fery sphere in the sky, situated between the sphere o airand that o aither. Moist exhalation, in contrast, arises rom the water inand on the earth and, being heavier, rises only up to the sphere o air

35) Tis eature o Aristotles testimony has clearly caused some uneasiness or Kirk. Aerhaving quoted Aristotle, he continues by saying that Tis occurs in a context in whichAristotle is anxious to fnd a common term or soul and ( . . .); byherehe means a kind o fre, but has deliberately chosen a vague term or it (Kirk (1954) 275).But why would Aristotle preer to use a vague term in this context, where fre or air wouldclearly better suit his purposes?36) For the most recent comprehensive discussion, see aub (2003) 88-92.37)

Tere is a discussion in the literature whether both exhalations are hot, or the moistexhalation is cold, but this point does not need to concern us here.


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(Mete. 1.3). On this view, then, exhalations extend rom the level imme-diately above the earth, through the layer o air, up to the uppermost feryregion which is contiguous with the divine aither. Moreover, dierent

fery phenomena in the sky, such as shooting stars, lightning, torches(), and goats (), are explained as ignition o dry exhalations.

Clearly, not all o Aristotles own theory o exhalations can be ascribedto Heraclitus. o begin with, Aristotles insistence that exhalations ariserom earth is in obvious contrast with what we have seen in B36: i Hera-clitus is indeed exhalation, this exhalation must arise rom water

and not rom earth. B31A, quoted above, also implies that transorma-tions to and rom earth must go through a liquid state o matter, water orsea, and that the fery atmospheric phenomenon o again comesrom water/sea and not earth.

A urther complication comes rom Diogenes Laertius doxographicalreport in 9.9-11, going back to Teophrastus, according to which Hera-clitus had not only a bright exhalation arising rom the sea and nourishing

the sun, but also a dark exhalation coming rom the earth so that this darkexhalation produces the darkness o night and winter. But as Kirk (1954)270-6 has, to my mind, convincingly shown, the ascription o an earthlyexhalation to Heraclitus is the result o some conusion with the Aristo-telian theory.38 Te main objection to Diogenes report, I think, is thesame as above: the ragments that speak about the transormations

between elemental masses show that earth only transorms into water andthen water transorms into urther fery atmospheric phenomena and. Diogenes testimony, on the other hand, contains an additionalpiece o inormation, not mentioned by Aristotle. Diogenes says that thecelestial bodies are bowls () in which some part o the exhalationcoming rom the sea is burning.39 Tis doctrine corresponds to the idea

38) We encounter a urther level o conusion in Atius 2.17.4 = Heraclitus A11 DK whosays that it is the exhalation coming rom the earth that nourishes the stars, even thoughin 2.20.16 he says that the sun is nourished by the exhalation arising rom the sea, and in2.28.6 he says that both the sun and the stars are nourished by the bright exhalation com-ing rom the sea. Te idea that the stars are nourished by dark exhalations is also contra-dicted by D.L. 9.10. One may wonder whether this conusion comes rom that part othe doxography that connects the dark exhalations with night.39)

Kirk (1954) 269-279 and Kahn (1979) 291-293 come to opposite conclusions aboutthe dierent elements o the Teophrastean doxography. For Kirk, the doctrine o


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that exhalations extend rom the mist lingering on the surace o waters tothe fery phenomena in the upper sky.

Retaining the core o Aristotles testimony, but stripping o what is

incompatible with what we fnd in Heraclitus original ragments, weget that or Heraclitus is the exhalation that rises rom water andextends to the sky and the fre o the celestial bodies.40 Te frst part othis conclusion is reinorced by the apparently independent inormationprovided by Cleanthes, preserved by Arius Didymus, that, according toHeraclitus, souls, too, come out o moisture by exhalations (

Ar. Did. r. 39.2 Diels = Heraclitus B12DK), whereas the connection between and stellar matter, is sup-ported by the testimonies o Macrobius and Galen.41

I we accept that Aristotle, our earliest doxographical source on Hera-clitus psychology, was basically correct in saying that is exhalationor Heraclitus, we get clear and coherent answers to three o the questionsI have ormulated above. Let us start with (Q1): What is in physicalterms?Te is all states o matter covered by exhalations rom thelowest level o atmospheric air to the uppermost layer o celestial fre. Tisgeneral answer in turn eortlessly oers solutions to the two puzzlesraised at the end o section 2: (Q3) How can we nd a place or air in asystem that apparently counts with only three major cosmic masses? I weaccept that , one o the three terms o the cyclical transormation

described in B36, covers the whole spectrum o matter covered by exhala-tion, then this term will include celestial fre, all kinds o fery phenomena

celestial bowls is a secure piece o inormation, because this is such an unusual idea, sodierent rom the sort o thing which would be invented by Teophrastus (270), whereasin Kahns view one must suspend judgement on the authenticity o the doctrine o. Kirk, on the other hand, tries to reute the double exhalations, whereas Kahnsays that this is what seems most authentic in Teophrastus report (293). As shouldhave become clear, on the assessment o this part o the doxography in D.L., I tend to sidewith Kirk.40) In a way, the line o interpretation I am taking is closest to the one proposed byRobert B. English in a paper published in 1913. Englishs paper, as ar as I am aware, iscompletely ignored in more recent discussions.41) Macr. S. Scip. 14.9 = Heraclitus A15 DK: (animam) scintillam stellaris essentiae.

Galen 4.758.10 Khn, not in DK. For the possible eschatological implications o thisdoctrine, see Finkelberg (orthcoming).


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andatmospheric air. On the interpretation that ollows Aristotles testi-mony, it is correct both to say that Heraclitus distinguished three maincosmic massesandto accept that he did not ignore atmospheric air. More-

over, because the phenomenon o exhalation produces a gradual shi inthe dierent physical properties o matter (rom wet to dry, rom cold tohot, rom dark to bright), the entire cosmic region rom the lowest part oatmospheric air to heavenly fre orms a continuum. Tat there is no suchclear borderline between air and fre as there is between air and water orwater and earth can receive some empirical justifcation. In the language

o B36, it means that the continuum extending over the range o exhala-tion is not punctuated by death and birth, whereas in the language oB31A, we can say that the gradual shi rom fre to atmospheric air doesnot involve a turning. O course, a more refned analysis can distinguisha variety o dierent states o matter and phenomena within this spec-trum: mist is not the same as the thunderbolt, a cloud is not or and so orth.

Note also that it is not specifc to , understood as exhalation, thatit designates one basic mass o matter within which dierent parts can bedistinguished. Te cosmic mass o water comprises brine, the resh waterso springs, rivers and lakes, while the cosmic mass o earth can be analysedinto sand, soil, rock and so orth. Tis point makes it easier to understandthe apparent inconsistency between the terms o B36 and B31A. Earth is

common to both, but in the case o the remaining two terms B36 speaksabout the more general, comprehensive cosmic masses ( and water),whereas B31A mentions only the cosmologically, or cosmogonically, moreimportant parts o these masses (fre and sea).

Te above answer to (Q3) immediately provides a solution to (Q4) aswell:How could we account or the act that some maniestations o soul orHeraclitus are ery whereas others are wet?We have just seen that within

the range o matter covered by exhalation, there are misty, oggy, wetparts, but drier, brighter and ferier parts as well. Indeed, it is the basicidea behind the concept o exhalation that it connects qualitativelydierent states o matter located in the atmosphere and the heavenlyregion. Note, again, that showing contrary properties is not particular to. Te mass o earth also covers a wide range o states that can mani-

est opposite physical properties rom the dry, so, bright and barren sandthrough the moist, dense, dark and ertile soil to dry and hard rocks.


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Dierent orms o water also show contrary absolute and relational prop-erties; just to mention one, salty seawater is lethal or human beings, butthe resh water o springs is healthy.

Incidentally, these considerations should remind us o the act that theterms o the transormations described in B36 are not the elements aslater philosophers in the wake o Empedocles conceived o them. Earthand water in B36 are not elementary orms o matter with a fxed set oproperties,42 but large masses that comprise also contrary characteristics and this applies to as well.

Te view that encompasses a wide continuum o physical statesoers considerable theoretical advantages or Heraclitus philosophy.First o all, it is an unmistakable eature o Heraclitus thought, that he,more than any other Presocratic, emphasizes the dierences in the episte-mological and moral states o people. On the one hand, his diatribeagainst the lamentable stupidity and wretched baseness o the many is acentral element o his whole discourse. Fragments to this eect abound

and there is no need to quote them here. Yet, on the other hand, Heracli-tus clearly implies that this is not only what is available or humans, orpeople would have the possibility to improve themselves, and there aresome, including o course Heraclitus himsel, who have actually attaineda much higher state in becoming wise and morally excellent. It remainstrue however that the perection o the divine is beyond the limitations o

the human condition.Now, as we have seen, the soul is the centre o cognition and ethicalbehaviour. Moreover, we have also seen that the moral and intellectualproperties o the soul are correlative to its physical properties, in particu-lar whether it is wet or dry. Maintaining that the can maniest oppo-site intellectual and moral properties andmaintaining at the same timethat these intellectual and moral properties are correlative to the relevant

physical properties, entail that the soul stu must be such that it can man-iest opposite physical properties. Te soul can be oolish and wise, virtu-ous and wretched, because it can be both dry and wet. So it is not the casethat part o the soul dies when one debases onesel by being stupid, drink-ing too much, or being wicked, as the identifcation o with fre

42) So also KRS 204, n. 1.


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would require. Te soul in becoming wet clearly approaches death, beingon the way to water, but has not as yet died. Nor is it the case that the soulbecomes something else, a dierent stu, not-soul, when it reaches

an excellent, divine state, as the identifcation o with air wouldrequire.43 Te most fery, and hence best state o the soul is reserved orthe cosmic fre, and or the fre burning in the heavenly bowls. But theseorms o fery show the same type o mental, intellectual, ethicalproperties as the more airy human does only on a much higherlevel. Tis connection was clearly seen by Galen when he writes:

For those who hold that the soul is the orm o the body will be capable to maintainthat it is not dryness, but the equality o mixture, that makes it more intelligent; inthis they dier rom those who hold that as much as the mixture becomes dryer, somuch will also the soul become more intelligent. But should we not agree with Her-aclitus ollowers that dryness is the cause o intelligence? For also he himsel said: Agleam o light (): dry soul, the wisest,44 again esteeming that dryness is thecause o intelligence. Indeed, one must hold this superior doctrine, considering the

act that the stars, which are luminous () and dry, possess the highestorm o intelligence. (4.785-6 Khn)

4

Tere is only one question rom our list that has not as yet received an

answer: (Q2)How can we conceie the shi om soul to souls?Te gist othe answer, I would maintain, may come rom a doxographical report bySextus. Te frst part o the most elaborate ancient discussion o Heracli-tus psychology inM. 7.127-30 runs as ollows:

(127) But what this [Heraclitus common and divine reason] is must be explainedconcisely. It is a avourite tenet o our Physicist that that which surrounds us is ratio-

nal and intelligent. (128) [Sextus lists poets who assumedly held the same doctrine

43) So I cannot agree with Kahn (1979) 251 when he says that What he [sc. Heraclitus]probably meant, thereore, but what would be dicult to say (sincepsychmeans lie) isthat the passage o the psych into celestial fre might be both the death o psych and atthe same time its attainment o the highest orm o lie.44)

Galen omits the last word o the ragment () presumably because he con-centrates on the cognitive capacities stemming rom dryness.


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beore Heraclitus] (129) According to Heraclitus it is by drawing in this divine rea-son () in respiration that we become endowed with mind (),and in sleep we become orgetul, but in waking we regain our senses. For in sleep

the passages o perception are shut, and hence the mind () in us is separatedrom its natural unity with the surrounding medium; the only thing preserved is theconnection through breathing, which is like a root. So when separated, our mindloses its ormer power o memory. (130) But when we awake it goes out againthrough the passages o perception as through so many windows, and by contactwith the surrounding medium it regains its rational power. Just as coals that arebrought near the fre undergo a change and are made incandescent, but die out whenthey are separated rom it, just so does the portion o the surrounding medium

which resides as a stranger in our bodies become nearly irrational (alogos) as a resulto separation, but by the natural union through the multitude o passages it attainsa condition which is like in kind to the whole. (trans. based on Polito and Kahn)

It has usually been maintained that this testimony contains practicallynothing that we could attribute to Heraclitus. Kahn (1979) 293-6 dis-cusses the text in an Appendix and concludes that the heavily Stoicizing

interpretation preserved by Sextus is without any authority or the mod-ern interpretation o Heraclitus (p. 269). In the most recent extensivetreatment o this passage, Roberto Polito,45 on the other hand, lists pow-erul arguments, some o which go back to Diels, against the idea that theHeraclitus doxography in Sextus is o Stoic origin. Admitting that theidea o a cosmic Reason (logos) is indeed Stoic, he points out that there is

no reason why a Stoic would interpret this cosmic Reason to be air orattribute such an idea to Heraclitus. Moreover, it is not a Stoic idea thatwe partake in the rational principle by breathing in the atmospheric airthat surrounds us. Finally, the view that in sleep we are separated romReason and our minds are inactive is un-Stoic, and indeed there is evi-dence that the Stoics had a dierent interpretation o the state o sleepin Heraclitus.46 Polito then argues orceully that the source o Sextus

is Aenesidemus interpretation o Heraclitus. Polito seeks to explainthe admittedly Stoic elements in the text (such as divine Reason) bysuggesting that Aenesidemus himsel was working not on Heraclitusbook, but on an authoritative, systematic, word-by-word commentary on

45)

Polito (2004) 149-172.46) Calcidius, Comm. in Plat. im. ch. 251, p. 260 W.


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Heraclitus, or which he thinks Cleanthes exegesis o Heraclitus is themost plausible candidate.47

Now what is it that we can still attribute to Heraclitus rom this

account? In particular, how shall we assess the role assigned to breathing?Is there anything Heraclitean in it? Although Polito provides a detailedanalysis o the Hellenistic medical pedigree o the breathed-in-soul doc-trine, and the reasons why Aenesidemus espoused it, he tentatively leavesopen the possibility that it was present in Heraclitus as well. He, however,points out that it is somewhat problematic to square this with the idea

that soul or Heraclitus is fre or fery.48

But this is not any longer a prob-lem when we accept that everything rom the lowest part o atmosphereto the heavenly fre counts as soul or Heraclitus. And we can know romDiogenes o Apollonia B4 and Aristotle that there were pre-Hellenisticversions o the idea o a breathed-in-soul.49 Te doctrine o breathed-in-soul, together with the idea that dierent layers o exhalation showdierent levels o intellectual powers in connection with the dierences

in the relevant physical properties, can explain the description o sleep inSextus as well. Because in sleep we are only in connection with the lowestlayers o air through breathing, our souls are only nourished by the leastintelligent part o external soul stu. It is sucient to keep us alive, and tomaintain our souls in a stand-by position, as it were. Note also that whenthe text says that through breathing we become , it cannot mean

that we become intelligent in the strong sense o the word. As the rest othe passage makes it clear, to become intelligent it is not enough to keepbreathing. I thus agree with Polito (2004) 153 that the expression mustmean something like breathing supplies us with psychic matter orendowed with mind; in other words breathing is a necessary but not asucient condition or becoming intelligent. Tis may, by the way, applyalso to Cleanthes testimony preserved by Arius Didymus r. 39.2 Diels =

Heraclitus B12 DK, according to which . Te meaning cannot be that the souls continuously ()

47) Polito (2004) 167.48) Polito (2004) 146-148.49)

Arist. De An. 1.5 411a17-21. Te doctrine is attributed specifcally to the Orphicwritings in 410b27-30.


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become intelligent. It is the prerogative only o some people to becometruly intelligent, and breathing will clearly not suce to attain that state.For a more intelligent unctioning o the soul we need to be in contact

through the senses with what surrounds us and what is permeated andphysically transormed by the sun in daylight. It is only through percep-tion, and primarily through sight, that we become in contact with thebright and the fery.50

Te same passage in Sextus also tells us that the soul or mind in us isseparated rom its natural unity with the surrounding medium and that

it is a portion o the surrounding medium which resides as a stranger inour bodies. Tis, I think, provides us an answer to the remaining question(Q2)How can we conceie the shi om soul to souls?Te move rom thesingular soul to the plural souls occurs when part o the continuous butlayered soul surrounding us and extending to the sky gets drawn in andtrapped in our bodies through breathing. Moreover, the passage in Sextusalso implies that this process can be conceived as a partial dying o the

soul. Tis interpretation, as Aryeh Finkelberg, has recently shown, isconfrmed by a passage inPH3.230 where Sextus explicitly attributes toHeraclitus the view that our souls are dead and buried in us. Philo who,as we have seen above, is one o those ancient interpreters who thoughtthat the Heraclitean soul is airy, attributes a very similar view to Heracli-tus. Philo in his interpretation o Heraclitus B62 says that, according to

Heraclitus when we live the soul is dead and buried in the body as a tomb(Leg. Alleg. 1.108.2-5).51 According to this interpretation, then, the shirom the common, universal, singular soul to the particular, individual,private souls is already part o the way down and is characterized by dying.It seems to me that even i the wording and some details o Sextus testi-mony inM. 7.127-30 show the traces o Stoic and Aenesidemean inter-pretation, the basic idea and the general thrust are entirely congenial to

Heraclitus and are perectly compatible with what I have tried to recon-struct rom other sources.

50) Te exceedingly enigmatic B26 may support such an interpretation. Note also the useosbnnuntai, central to B26, in Sextus text.51)

Finkelberg (orthcoming). Finkelberg argues that the amoussma-sma doctrine inPlatos Gorgias 492d-493a is also Heraclitean.


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5

Let me wrap up now with some methodological and terminological

considerations on the question whether or not, and i so with what quali-fcations, we can use technical terms coming rom contemporary phi-losophy o mind in our interpretation o the Presocratics in general and oHeraclitus in particular.

Although everyone seems to agree that the Presocratics thought thatthe bearer (or bearers) o mental unctions are bodies o some sort thathave physical properties, it has sometimes been questioned whether it is

appropriate to describe the Presocratics, and Heraclitus in particular, asmaterialists or physicalists.52 Some commentators have maintained that itis not quite legitimate to apply these terms because the view that the bear-ers o mental unctions are bodies showing physical properties remaineduncontested all through the period. On this view, the dualist, i.e. Pla-tonist, alternative has to be already on the table so that physicalism may

emerge as an option consciously chosen and vindicated against a rivaltheoretical position.53 I would certainly agree that the ormulation o thedualist position had an important role in the theoretical elaboration othe physicalist position, but I do not think that the presence o dualism asa theoretically elaborated alternative is necessary or characterizing a viewas physicalist. I that were the case, one could just as well claim that it isillegitimate to label ancient ethical theories eudaimonist, because the

eudaimonist assumptions remained uncontested and there was no theo-retically elaborated alternative on oer. Moreover, the appearance o thePlatonic position in itsel shows that dualism was an available conceptualpossibility, and when Plato ormulates his dualism, he ormulates it in

52) I use the somewhat awkward ormulation bearer (or bearers) o mental unctionsbecause dierent Presocratics use dierent words (such aspsuch, nous, nosis, andphrn)to describe this entity, and may distribute dierent psychic and cognitive unctionsamong more than one o these. Materialism and physicalism is sometimes used inter-changeably. For some authors, materialism is the broader term because it applies also tosome pre-theoretical views (see below). Physicalism, by contrast, is broader in the sense

that it accommodates orces etc. which are physical but not necessarily material.53) C. Barnes (1982) 475; Gill (2001) 170.


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opposition to the philosophical views o his predecessors and contempo-raries. All in all, I would stick to the idea that, quite simply, a conceptionor theory can legitimately be called physicalist i it satisfes our defnition

o physicalism. So the question is whether or not the views we can assignto the Presocratics, such as that the bearer o mental unctions is a physi-cal entity, satisy our avoured defnition o physicalism.

Another, connected, worry has been that only a suciently explicit,theoretically elaborated position can appropriately be described as physi-calist, while the pronouncements o the Presocratics had not as yet reached

that level o explicitness and theoretical elaboration. As to the frst com-ponent o this objection, I would agree with erence E. Horgan, who inhis entry on physicalism in BlackwellsA Companion to the Philosophy oMindhas emphasized the importance o distinguishing between (i) cer-tain vague, partially inchoate, pre-theoretic ideas and belies about thematter and hand; and (ii) certain more precise, more explicit, doctrines ortheses that are taken to articulate or explicate those pre-theoretic ideas

and belies.54 In making this distinction Horgan does not question that(i) can be called physicalist or materialist.55 So even i the views o thePresocratics, and especially what is available to us rom them, are certainlylacking in explicitness and theoretical elaboration, I do not think thatanyone can deny that they satisy at least (i).

Tings get o course immensely more complicated once we try to be

more specifc, because, frst, there is no non-contested general defnitiono physicalism and, second, on any account, the term covers a bewilder-ingly great variety o dierent theories and conceptions. It is thus desir-able to speciy, frst, what we mean by physicalism in the case o thePresocratics in general and, second, more important, how to characterizethe individual Presocratic texts in this respect.

Let me now try to speciy what I take to be the most important dier-

ence between Presocratic and modern theories. Te question that domi-nates modern discussions in philosophy o mind is whether or not, and i

54) Horgan (1994) 471.55)

With an avowedly arbitrary terminological decision, Horgan then reserves material-ism or (i) and uses physicalism or (ii).


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so how, mental unctions and phenomena are related to anatomically rec-ognized parts and physical constituents o our bodies. Te ancient texts Ihave reerred to approach this question rom a dierent angle. Tey start

rom the assumption that there is a stu in the world that is responsibleor mental unctions and lie, and that we show mental unctions and livebecause this stu, along with other stus, is present in us.56 Te ancientauthors then ormulate alternative hypotheses what this stu is and howit works in human beings and in the world at large. Some authors, e.g.Diogenes o Apollonia and probably Anaximenes, identiy this stu with

an elemental mass, whereas other authors such as Anaxagoras and theSocrates o the Memorabilia and the Philebus, treat mind and soul asstus apart. A connected point o contention is whether or not the sturesponsible or vital and mental unctions participates in the transor-mations among dierent stus. Diogenes o Apollonia and Anaximenesthink that it does, whereas Anaxagoras, Socrates and Platos imaeus holdthat it is insulated rom transormations among other stus. Te central

question o the ancients is not how a physical stu can under certain con-ditions show also mental properties, but rather they take it or grantedthat there is such a stu, material or otherwise, and that it inheres in us aswell.

Heraclitus, more specifcally, has repeatedly been called an identitytheorist.57 As must have been clear rom what I have said above, I also

agree that, or Heraclitus, ones moral and intellectual condition is iden-tical with the physical state o ones soul. But due caution, and somequalifcation, are in order here as well. Modern type-identity theorists aregenerally interested in the relationship between the mental properties ointentional states and sensations, such as having a certain thought or hav-ing a certain sensation, and the corresponding bodily states. Heraclitus, incontrast, seems to be much more concerned with more or less standing

conditions or dispositions such as being wise, being morally excellent andso orth, which can be expressed on the dry-wet axis. He certainly treated

56) As im Crane has reminded me, the closest modern analogy may be Henri Bergsonsvitalism.57)

So e.g. Kirk (1949) 392, ollowed by Kahn (1979) 249, quoted also by Schofeld(1991) 15.


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drunkenness in this context, but I wonder i he went any urther and ana-lyzed particular mental states, such as having a particular thought, desireor sensation in terms o the physical properties o the soul. It may be

signifcant in this respect that Teophrastus has practically nothing to sayabout Heraclitus in his extensive discussion o Presocratic theories operception.58

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58) Te point about Teophrastus has been made by Laks (1999) 254. Teophrastusonly claim, i.e. that Heraclitus, together with Anaxagoras, thinks perception to be by

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