Online research in philosophy

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 the first great master of artistic prose. The commentary locates Heraclitus within the tradition of early Greek thought, but stresses the importance of his ideas for contemporary theories of language, literature and philosophy.

This paper focuses on Anaximander's pinax, the first map according to Western tradition. Its aim is to demonstrate that it is only after the realization of the pinax that it was possible to distinguish between Being and beings in a Heideggerian sense, that is to pose the question of the ontological difference. Consequently, all the history of Western thought is nothing but the history of the raising of cartographical representation, and of reason here embodied, from the dark rigidity of death to the rarefied splendours of Pure Reason.

Gathers fragments of the writings of early Greek philosophers, including Hesiod, Anaximander, Pythagoras, and Zeno.

The latest computerized reconstruction of the “Antikythera mechanism” reveals a striking similarity to the model of the universe of Anaximander of Miletus.

The famous early fragment (B1 D-K) of Anaximander, Greek thinker of the sixth century B.C.E., was transmitted to us by Byzantine Alexandrian authors of the sixth century C.E.: the pagan Simplicius in his commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, and the Monophysite Christian to whose earlier Physics commentary Simplicius was replying, John Philoponus. When these commentators were writing, the Mediterranean world was polarized by the Monophysite-Chalcedonian theological controversy. First Philoponus adduced some of Anaximander’s words in his argument for a single principle of the universe, in keeping with his own theological position. Then Simplicius gave a fuller form of the text, reproving Philoponus for what he considered “uncultured” Christian views. This transmission tells us something about Byzantine theological attitudes as well as preserving archaic philosophical formulations.