1.1 What is Heraclitan Relativism?
Heraclitan of Ephesus was an Ancient Greek, pre-Socratic, Ionian philosopher, remembered for his cosmology, in which fire forms the basic material principle of an orderly universe (Britannica.com).
Heraclitan Relativism can be interpreted by everything’s indefinability. Two ways to explain why things are undefinable are the limited perspectives used to interpret the definition of a thing and the constantly changing state of everything in the world.
What is Heraclitan Relativism?
Heraclitan Relativism can be interpreted by everything’s indefinability. Ways to explain why things are undefinable include the limited perspectives used to interpret the definition of a thing and the constantly changing state of everything in the world.
According to Heraclitus, all things can be defined differently, and the definitions can be totally against each other. The same thing is both living and dead, both awake and asleep, and both old and young (78). A thing differs when we see it from different perspectives. For example, a small amount of seawater is not toxic to humans, but it could become toxic when one’s body is unable to get rid of the salt that comes from seawater.
In addition, seawater is generally toxic to some species such as leeches, so seawater is both toxic and not toxic depending on the perspectives from different species we refer to and the amount of salt that comes from seawater. Human’s lacking knowledge limits the perspectives we can potentially embody when defining things.
If we only have access to the reality that we experienced as humans, we only explained things that satisfy human beings. Heraclitus thinks that people do not understand what they thought they understood, and humans only learned and understood things from one perspective (25). We stop getting real knowledge when we think that we know but we actually don’t know. Accordingly, everything has been relatively defined.
Also, the always-changing state of things makes them undefinable. Heraclitus says that it is impossible to step into the same river twice, just like the sun we see today is different from the sun we saw yesterday (38). Things are inherently contradictory. Which river I am stepping into depends on what time I am stepping into it, and even at the time I am stepping into it, it’s already different. So, there is no way we can achieve the real definition of things. Nothing in the universe is absolute and unchanging.
In conclusion, Heraclitan Relativism claims that things that are fundamentally undefinable are normally defined by us from humans’ perspectives and from a single moment's perspective.
-- Reflection, written by Heidi, April 2019; Ancient Greek Philosophy
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