Heraclitus on Religion
Phronesis 44 (2):87 - 113 (1999)
| Abstract | The article sets out to reinterpret Heraclitus' views on religion and, by implication, his position in the context of the Presocratic philosophers' relationship to the Greek cultural tradition. It does so by examining the fragments in which Heraclitus' attitude to the popular religion of his time is reflected. The analysis of the fragments 69, 68, 15, 14, 5, 96, 93 and 92 DK reveals that the target of Heraclitus' criticism is not the religious practices themselves, but their popular interpretation. Heraclitus' fragments are simultaneously shown to identify the underlying structure of the 'unity of opposites,' inherent in various religious practices. Heraclitus appears to reinterpret religious practices in terms of the conceptual structures of his own philosophy. On the other hand, religion provides him with the categories for the construction of his philosophical theology. Thus Heraclitus' treatment of religion is shown to be analogous to his treatment of ethics and politics, which he also tries to incorporate into his highly integrated vision of reality. In contrast to Xenophanes' radical critique of the traditional religion, Heraclitus emerges not as a reformer or an Aufklärer, but as an interpreter, who tries to discern the structures of meaning inherent in the existing practices, and to assume them into his own philosophical project. | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,653 |
| External links |
  Try with proxy. |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articles Heraclitus (1981). The Art and Thought of Heraclitus: An Edition of the Fragments with Translation and Commentary. Cambridge Univ Pr.
Shawn Loht (forthcoming). On the Concept of the Human Body in Heraclitus. Proceedings of the Southeast Philosophy Congress.
Theodoros Christidis & Demetrius Athanassakis (2010). On Heraclitus' Concept of Λόγοϛ. Philosophical Inquiry 32 (3-4):61-71.
Dror Post (2009). Heraclitus's Hope for the Unhoped. Epoché 13 (2):229-240.
Catherine Osborne (1987). Rethinking Early Greek Philosophy: Hippolytus of Rome and the Presocratics. Cornell University Press.
Shawn Loht (2012). Heidegger's Phenomenology of the Greek Gods. Philosophy Today 56 (4):419-33.
Shawn Loht (2011). Being Alive, Being Conscious, and Being: An Existential Reading of Heraclitus' Fragment 101. Proceedings of the Southeast Philosophy Congress 4:116-26.
Heraclitus (1954). The Cosmic Fragments: A Critical Study. Cambridge University Press.
G. B. Kerferd (1970). The Fragments of Heraclitus M. Marcovich: Heraclitus. Greek Text with a Short Commentary. Pp. Xxix + 665. Merida, Venezuela: Los Andes University Press (Oxford: Parker), 1967. Cloth. [REVIEW] The Classical Review 20 (03):305-307.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2009-01-28Total downloads67 ( #13,206 of 548,984 )Recent downloads (6 months)1 ( #63,327 of 548,984 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
