The Art and Thought of Heraclitus

An Edition of the Fragments with Translation and Commentary

Hardcover, 368 pages

English language

Published Dec. 13, 1979 by Cambridge University Press.

ISBN:
978-0-521-21883-2
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OCLC Number:
3869730

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5 stars (2 reviews)

Behind the superficial obscurity of what fragments we have of Heraclitus' thought, Professor Kahn claims that it is possible to detect a systematic view of human existence, a theory of language which sees ambiguity as a device for the expression of multiple meaning, and a vision of human life and death within the larger order of nature. The fragments are presented here in a readable order; translation and commentary aim to make accessible the power and originality of a systematic thinker and a great master of artistic prose. The commentary locates Heraclitus within the tradition of early Greek thought, but stresses the importance of his ideas for topical theories of language, literature and philosophy.

4 editions

The Logos is Dialectics

5 stars

I really need to re-read this at some point, but this is probably the best interpretation of Heraclitus written so far, since it departs from the physicist interpretation of Heraclitus's text regarding fire as the primal element and it proves how opposites and dialectics intertwined in the obscure and riddle filled understanding of a universal theory of things in motion in its most early stages.

If you are interested in Dialectical Materialism, Marxism, Hegelian philosophies and the like, Heraclitus is a must read that can help you understand the dialectical method of thinking in its most natural and everyday form.

The advance requisite and made by Heraclitus is the progression from Being as the first immediate thought, to the category of Becoming as the second. This is the first concrete, the Absolute, as in it the unity of opposites. Thus with Heraclitus the philosophic Idea is to be met with …

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