Logos In Heraclitus 'The Riddler'

Heraclitus is a Greek philosopher also known as “the Riddler” because he often contradicted himself and insulted other historians and philosophers. He was interested in “exploring questions about knowledge and the human condition as in exploring cosmological issues” (24). Heraclitus believed that logos was the divine law of the universe which controlled the cosmos. Logos is something said, an account, word, and/or logic. He argued that everyone had the ability to understand this principle but instead act as if they are asleep. Therefore, by contradicting himself, it forced his readers to make up their own minds. Heraclitus was able to represent unity through opposites, he believed that “despite the fact that there is universal change, there is a single, unchanging, law of the cosmos-the logos which both underlines and governs these changes” (24). For Heraclitus, the sign of logos was fire, an element which is “always changing, yet always the same” (24). Heraclitus uses abstract statements such as “the same thing is both living and dead, and the waking and the sleeping, and young and old; for these things transformed are those, and those transformed back again are these” (31) to get his readers thinking. Without each of these things young and living you would have old and dead. In this statement he hints that there is harmony in

Both rivers and fires are always changing yet still the same. Heraclitus argues that there is harmony in opposites because if it weren’t for opposites the other things wouldn’t exist. More importantly, Heraclitus used contradictions to force readers to make up their minds. He states that readers shouldn’t just believe what they hear, they should see it in order make sense of it on their own. All of these things are part of a system that is ever-changing. Therefore, things are always flowing along. Heraclitus uses rivers and fires to demonstrate this change and