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Life and teaching of Heraclitus

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Heraclitus : Biography

Heraclitus lived in Ephesus, an important city on the Ionian coast of Asia Minor, not far from Miletus, the birthplace of philosophy. We know nothing about his life other than what can be gleaned from his own statements, for all ancient biographies of him consist of nothing more than inferences or imaginary constructions based on his sayings.

No Greek philosopher born before Socrates was more creative and influential than Heraclitus of Ephesus. Around the beginning of the fifth century BC, in a prose that made him proverbial for obscurity, he criticized conventional opinions about the way things are and attacked the authority of poets and others reputed to be wise. His surviving work consists of more than 100 epigrammatic sentences, complete in themselves and often comparable to the proverbs characteristic of 'wisdom' literature. Notwithstanding their sporadic presentation and transmission, Heraclitus' sentences comprise a philosophy that is clearly focused upon a determinate set of interlocking ideas.


  
  
  



Heraclitus : Portraits

Heraclitus
Heraclite et Democrite
Heraclitus
Raffaello Sanzio (1483-1520) Scuola di Atene, (1509-1510) Stanza della Segnatura (Vaticano).
Heraclitus
Raffaello Sanzio (1483-1520) Scuola di Atene, (1509-1510) Stanza della Segnatura (Vaticano).

Heraclitus : Links



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