Heraclitus's Misanthropy: An Integral Part of His Philosophical System

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ON HERACLITUS'S MISANTHROPY
Author(s): Georges J.D. MOYAL
Source: Revue de Philosophie Ancienne, Vol. 7, No. 2 (1989), pp. 131-148
Published by: EURORGAN s.p.r.l. - Éditions OUSIA
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ON HERACLITUS'S MISANTHROPY
I wish to explore, ο ver the next few pages, the im

tions, for our understanding of Heraclitus, of viewin
misanthropy as an integral component of his philosop
System. To view it in this fashion means, fîrst, that the
tempt which he displays for ordinary men is to be expla
and justifïed by other elements of his system. It also m
that this misanthropy is not to be seen as an idiosync
trait of his character (not - under the worst interprétati
as emanating from a cantankerous or peevish disposition)
as the rational ourcome of a cool reflection on reality an
men's appréhension of it. It means, finally, that this mis
ropy is to serve as the guiding thread - albeit, a very
one indeed - to understanding an important part of
thought. And since this will not be a philological exe
the only justification for claiming what follows as Herac
meaning will be whatever greater degree of unity we
achieve in our reconstruction of that meaning.
I. It is well known that Heraclitus's contempt for ordin
men is tied to their inability to understand the véritable n
of reality. But this cannot be the sole justification for h
tempt: it would not explain why he is so acerbic in his d
of it, nor would it explain why only he, of all the philoso
who have had something to say about a reality which
itself, is so insistent and so explicit about his contempt.
for instance, was content to note that the ordinary r
mankind had little or no access to reality, and if he felt
contempt on account of this, he did no make it a leit-mo
his writings. But for Heraclitus, the truth is not merely
men fail to understand the Logos, but that, in some way,
failure is reprehensible. It is a failure which, in some
REVUE DE PHILOSOPHIE ANCIENNE, VII, 2, 1989
132 Georges J.D. MOYAL
need not have taken place, and hence also o

men must have the means of overcomin
Heraclitus gives us in the very first fragm
justification of his contempt: in it he discl
been, at first, his bewilderment at men's f
the Logos even after it has been pointed
bewilderment akin to that which later philo
manifested toward a kind of intellectual
truth and refusing to assent to it.
However, Heraclitus treats men's failure b
after the Logos has been disclosed as con
it is within men's capacities to overcome
would also follow that the intellectual appa
they are endowed is amply adéquate to r
in treating both catégories of men (those w
of the Logos and those who have) as equally
suggests that there is no more effort re
the Logos on one's own than is required to hear about it, to
have it pointed out.
The problem for us, therefore, is to détermine what, for
Heraclitus, constitutes this intellectual apparatus. Two or
three things indicate that his conception of it does not include
any more than the faculties of sense-perception. First, of
course, are the fragments in which he reveals his views on the
matter. There seem to be only two however (frr. 55 and
101a), and if one is inclined to think that he may have had
more in mind than sense-perception, one must concédé that
methodological constraints alone require us to avoid ascribing
any more to him. But it is not these considérations alone that
lead us to adopt this view, for we can garner further support
from the quasi-universality of his contempt: not only does it
1. Fragment numbers are those of H. Diels'S Die Fragmente der

Vorsokratiker (hrsg. W. Kranz. 3 bds. Dublin/Zurich: Weidmann,
1966).
ON HERACLITUS'S MISANTHROPY 133
suggest that men are suffîciently endowed to a

Logos, it also suggests that they need not be
means of apprehending it other than those of w
ordinarily aware: sense organs. For - and this
plausible at a time when knowledge and widsd
the apanage of priests, magi, etc., i.e., men tho
special faculties or insights — an ordinary m
not guilty to Heraclitus's indictment by pointin
did not think himself so privileged. Yet noth
ments contains any hint that such an excuse m
coming, and a fortiori, any hint that Heracli
clined to accept it.
Finally, and most important, there is the f
clitus himself does not seem aware of possess
faculty of knowledge by which only he woul
an understanding of the Logos. It is striking th
fragments mentions any intellectual faculty ad
uce understanding; none, at any rate, other
perception. Indeed, fragment 55 establishes a
tween knowledge and sight and hearing, the tw
Heraclitus "honours" most. And though the f
of 'understanding'2, the words it translates nev
faculty but the process or the achievement. As
'soûl', it seems to designate something akin to t
life only. The closest it ever cornes to the noti
intellect is in those fragments in which clear c
the Logos is ascribed to the dry er soul, i.e.,
closely attuned to the everlasting Fire than oth
2. The word is used, in the K. Freeman translat

ments (Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers,
Oxford, 1956), to render the various cognâtes an
'akounein', 'nœin', 'phronein', etc. Cf. frr. 1, 2, 17
104 & 114.
Thus, both because we must avoid anachronisms and be

cause the textual evidence is lacking, we must refrain from
ascribing to Heraclitus a view of the intellect which may well
have never occurred to him. But this need not be, for us, only
a constraining and limiting injunction: although it requires us
to pursue the reconstruction of Heraclitus's thought without
resorting to certain (mainly psychological) concepts, the resuit
of this exercise need not be the présentation of a primitive
and inarticulate system, but of a system whose dominant
characteristics, on the contrary, are its all-encompassingness
and richness by virtue, one might almost say, of the absence
from it of these often problem-ridden concepts.
To a large extent, then, whatever account of knowledge is
to be reconstituted from the fragments will not be based on a
detailed psychology. On the contrary, the absence of concepts
for the cognitive faculties suggests that knowledge and under
standing are, for Heraclitus, still un-self-conscious, diapha
nous expériences in which the subject takes little notice of
himself as knower. The subject's understanding is, at best,
characterized by a kind if isomorphism, viz., the attunement
of the soul to the reality which it apprehends, and which in
creases to the extent that it is "dryer", that it participâtes in
the process which it seeks to know.
What seems to follow from this is that the locus of under
standing and knowledge is the locus which the ordinary man
gives it: sense-perception, i.e., the realm of unreflected-about
experience that ail men have and are capable of. 'Sense
perception' however is a misleading term here; not merely
because the very term suggests the contrast with intellectual
faculties3, but more importantly for us, because it tends to
3. We commit an anachronism, in fact, if we use the désignation

'sense-experience' to distinguish it from something eise; for there is
nothing, in the fragments, to suggest intellectual faculties, or any
thing eise to distinguish it from. Cf. also nn. 5 & 7 below.
restrict our view of its objects to average-size ma

jecte. But for Heraclitus, sense-experience incorporât
standing of what is, not an object, but process;
understanding of what constitutes the structure of r
simply that for him, the senses are the général locu
we would call 'understanding'. It is therefore with
périence that the Logos is to be found; and though f
may require a minimum of attention, it requires
faculty to categorize or organize the manifold pr
the senses. If this is what Heraclitus does have in m
it becomes obvious, at once, why he finds it bewilde
men should continue to ignore the Logos and wh
quently, he feels contempt for them: what there is t
stood is right there, under their noses, and if they
sed it, ignoring it after it has been pointed out t
almost incompréhensible.
Nonetheless, it cannot be entirely incompréhen
we must now explain how it is that, although the
tinues to elude those who have not noticed it, and to
red by those whose attention has been drawn to it,
should hold it to be readily accessible within sense-expe
rience. Here too, we must guard against possible anachroni
sme: for the problem is that of locating what is apparently an
intelligible (and hence, non-sensible) object within sense
experience. For, if the distinction between the intelligible and
the sensible is unavailable to Heraclitus, and if the only ave
nues to knowledge are the senses, then we cannot ascribe to
him the view that the Logos is a pure intelligible. We must,
consequently, attempt to understand how, for him, apprehen
ding the Logos is essentielly a sense-experience.
There is some reason to think that the problem is not inso
luble, even if it leaves Heraclitus (and us) with residual diffi
culties. Essentially, the solution consists in making motion
and change as well as the elements of their analysis, objects
of an unreflective sensory experience. What this requires, in
turn, is a shift in the way in which ordin

their expériences, a shift of attention from
undergo change to the change itself; from t
experience which appears (provisionally) s
of that stability, to its limits, to the points
begin or cease to be. The ordinary man ca
stand the Logos by attending to the fissure
both in space and time, where a given ob
ther begins. The next step, for him, consist
that even what constitutes a relatively perm
his experience (that which has edges, as for
tinuously flat surface of this desk), is itself
a fissure as well, the meeting point of oppo
librium. Achieving this second step should
nary man of the fundamentally transient c
is part of his experience, and thus reveal
universality of the Logos. None of this re
the Logos anywhere eise than in his everyda
it requires a shift of attention, a shift akin,
to the shift which perception psychologis
can see now one figure, now another, in
drawings, or in those drawings where va
"hidden" in the outlines of the more pers
shift consists in viewing change as funda
sional) stability as its by-product, rather th
about. But the shift is radical, for the fund
ge entails that nothing can be resorted to as
that which undergoes change.
In attempting to describe, in the preceding
manner in which the ordinary man is to sh
have had to resort to the metaphors of 'ed
'limits' in our experience. Unfortunately, th
remain imagistic for part of its meaning:
whether the fissures are to be found in the
themselves (their natural locale), or in the w
of them (where they become images). The reas

that we have no justification for ascribing to He
tinction between objects and ideas, far less a d
tween things and sense-data. To attempt to extra
fragments an answer as to which of these two re
the Logos would not only be to commit yet an
ronism, it would also impoverish our understan
clitus. For, again, the most likely view we can
him is that of an un-self-conscious notion of exp
kind of experience had by the ordinary man who
that he apprehends the world out-there directly.
to insist on the distinction would impoverish o
the fragments, since it would impose limits on w
be instead, the unlimited pervasiveness of the
be well to recall here an important insight pro
Hölscher: "For Heraclitus, the thing one looks at
riddle. It is difficult to décidé whether sea-water...is simile or
phenomenon for him; the phenomenon is simile"4. And if the
phenomenon is simile, then understanding the phenomenon
reveals both the way in which the Logos is présent in it and
the way in which it is présent in that for which the phenome
non serves as simile. Similarly, it would be wrong to attempt
to separate the knowing soul from what it knows: the know
ing soul knows by virtue of being in-formed by the Logos,
in the same way that what it knows is governed by the Logos.
The similarity which obtains between the subject and the ob
ject is the similarity which obtains between any other two ob
jects. In short, we must resist the temptation of setting the
world to which the subject belongs apart from the world
4. Uvo Hölscher, "Paradox, Simile and Gnomic Utterance in

Heraclitus", translation, by M. R. Cosgrove and A.P.D. Mourelatos,
of various passages of his Anfangliches Fragen: Studien zur frühen
Griechischen Philosophie; in A.P.D. Mourelatos ed., The Pre
Socratics (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1974), p. 233.
which contains its objects; the Logos gov

in the same way throughout. And so, perh
that can be given to whomever would pres
this: the least that can be said is that the L
in the world out-there, but the world out-
appréhension we have of it; and since this
unreflective one, it ought to include an a
Logos in ail its pervasiveness, both beca
there for ail to apprehend, and because it p
including, therefore, ail soûls. Of course
distinguish the two ways in which the Log
sent in the knowing soul. But Heraclitus can make no such
distinction if we are right to believe that the world of the
subject is identical (and therefore, conceptually continuous)
with that of its objects.
To be sure, such an appréhension is conceptual — or so we
would say — and hence, it is the appréhension of an abstrac
tion. But two or three things need to be said about this. First,
Heraclitus uses only the vocabulary of sense-perception to re
fer to this appréhension. In this, he follows the ordinary usage
which enables us to speak of seeing not only colours, but also
the motion of an object, or the changes it undergoes (cf. for
instance Descartes's Meditation II, on 'seeing' that the piece
of wax changes, that it is the same throughout its changes,
that it is capable of an infinité number of shapes etc.). These
'seeings' are akin to our 'seeing' the conséquences of our ac
tions, their moral signiflcance or their appropriateness. It is
not that Heraclitus is guilty of equivocation, nor that he is
unable to draw the distinction between the two types of see
ing. It is at least, rather, that he does not have the appropri
ate lexicon at his disposai, and if we are right, that in any
case, the 'conceptual' seeing is inextricably woven into the
sensory: there is no other way to discover the Logos than by
looking5. It may be perhaps a bit more than this, namely, that
5. My distinguished colleague, H.S. Harris, to whom I am greatly
Heraclitus cornes to hold the view he does (of the means of

apprehending the Logos) because of the unavailability of the
appropriate lexicon.
Second, Heraclitus gives us no indication that there is room
for abstractions in his Weltanschauung, especially since that
Weltanschauung does not stand apart from what it is a Welt
anschauung of. And so, it would not occur to him that the
ordinary man is to be excused for not understanding the Lo
gos, on the grounds that he (the ordinary man) is incapable of
abstract thought (as Plato, on the contrary, was only too Wil
ling to concédé). Finally, we must resist the temptation to
think that if the Logos is an abstraction, it is that by virtue of
its occult character, of its hiddenness6; any hiddenness it has
is more akin to camouflage than to concealment: what is
camouflaged is directly available for inspection, it is out-there
to be seen, nothing standing between it and us7. So that if we
indebted for his valuable criticisms and comments on an earlier draft

of this paper, has drawn my attention to the fact that Heraclitus's
very use of the word 'Logos' (and insistence that it is one), makes
the distinction between the sensible and the intelligible. Harris beli
eves the distinction to be only just made, and made by a still name
less faculty (which we might call 'attention', perhaps) which appre
hends what comes to eyes and ears.
I have attempted to make this draft more articulate on this point
than the one to which Harris's comments were addressed; and while
I agree with him, I would insist, nonetheless, (i) on the fact that the
conceptual character of Logos-apprehension is nowhere explicit in
the fragments and (ii) on the fact that this appréhension remains 'in
fused' into sensory experience. Cf. also n. 7, below.
6. Cf. fr. 123: "Nature likes to hide".
7. I am, of course, not suggesting that Heraclitus expects us to see
a thing, in the external world, that bears the name 'Logos'. To 'see'
it can only be a matter of understanding. But he has no distinction
between the senses and the understanding: there is only one faculty
which, if it reveals things (and not sense-data), reveals also the
find difficulty with this way of conceivin

large part because we are heirs to a long tr
with Plato or perhaps Socrates, and find
deal with reality without resorting explicitl
of a concept or of an abstraction. But Hera
discovery of the Forms, and in all likelihoo
known what anyone meant who would h
cepts or abstractions in his presence8. T
Heraclitus is the totality of what présents
ence undijferentiated from that experien
experience cannot be set off from what
of), it has no occult or noumenal aspect,
structure of their arrangement. The ordinary

shift from the primordiality of things in his
their arrangement.
Nor am I suggesting that Heraclitus's doctrine
interpreting it as I do — is problem-free, far
blems it faces are problems we are more likely
he is, because we naturally tend to find in it di
is now steeped into.
8. Accordingly, it is not surprising that his p
we have of it, is empty of any detailed analysi
culties. So that the onus falls on us to reconstr
rely within the domain of sense-experience, on
refraining, on the other, from seeing in his Sy
of ulterior developments: more is gained from
mitive or as 'groping' for further concepts, bu
recreate instead the fullness with which it prese
distort it otherwise.
Incidentally, the absence from the fragments
introspection or of anything remotely resemb
additional support to the thesis regarding th
self-conscious aspect of sense-experience, and h
the absolute homogeneity of the world which
re: there is no sense in which the subject consc
from the world of its objects.
sible to all. Having said this, however, we must g

thinking that Heraclitus's is a phenomenalist conc
this drags with it a certain mind-dependency for
is no evidence in the fragments9.
Accordingly, it becomes clear why we must
any attempt to find a notion of substance (as the
of change) in the Heraclitean world-view. The t
do so is great; so great, in fact, that Aristotle,
was led to write that "They [îc., the earliest na
phers] held that in général everything is in a state
and flux, and that nothing is stable, but that
substance which persists, out of which ail thes
evolved by natural transformations. This seems t
the meaning both of Heraclitus of Ephesus and
ers"'°. And to this extent, at least, Guthrie is q
point out that Aristotle's remarks "are vitiated
ken assumption that Heraclitus's system was es
sian"11. Indeed, Heraclitus allows us to conceive the world
only as a process, in spite of the conceptual difficulties we
experience when we are forbidden to fall back upon any
substratum of this process other than the multitude of proces
ses that make it up. That is what Heraclitus's identification of
the Logos with the Great Fire seems to amount to: just as
fire, to the naked eye, appears as continuous motion, and ap
pears as made up of a number of small fiâmes, so too the
9. Nor, incidentally, should we be tempted to find any of the other

positions concerning substance, not even neutral monism, since, as
we shall see in the next paragraph, there is no problem of substance
in Heraclitus which would require him to come down on any side of
the issue.
10. Aristotle, De Caelo, 298b29. (Quoted in W.K.C. Guthne;
see n. 11 below).
11. W.K.C. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy (Cambridge:
the University Press, 1962). Vol. 1, p. 451.
world must be conceived as one great proc

multitude of small changes12. Thus, ther
tion of substance in Heraclitus; and this,
ging reasons: not only the absence of abs
conceptual apparatus and the ensuing abs
jecte of knowledge, but also the fact that th
substance would undermine the keystone of
the absolute fundamentality of change. Th
cannot be usurped by the notion of substan
envisage instead a homœomereity of cha
somehow understand that for Heraclitus,
lyzed into nothing other than further chang
thing eise in our experience to resort to.
II. We must now reverse the direction of o
ask how, on this interprétation, we must
misanthropy, how it must be fleshed out w
Misanthropy is justifïed to the extent that
priate for the man who fails to see a glarin
when it is pointed out to him. Some contem
of stupidity, of dullness. But that is hardly
nearly universal misanthropy: for the conte
proportional to the degree of stupidity, and
from stupidity in varying degrees; Heraclit
however, is not so proportioned; it is evenly
12. But cf. Guthrie who writes, "Fire was parti

to embody this law. A flame may appear steady
in a candie, but it is constantly renewing itself b
the fuel and giving off heat and sometimes smo
Greek Philosophy, vol 1, p. 461). I am tempted t
particularly well suited but for the opposite rea
fîre-place is, on the contrary, the closest thing t
and (ii) it is best used as an image by itself (i
recourse to the fuel and its by-products, both o
the idea of a substance undergoing change).
There is, however, another justification for Her

contempt, if what is proposed here about the Lo
rect. The Fire-Logos raies over human soûls as it
everything eise; but it is thwarted, to some extent,
trary, water; the wet soul is unconscious in varying
the drunk, the man asleep, and even the dead man su
wetness. By contrast, "The dry soul is wisest and
118). Its wisdom is, of course, a matter of having
ded the Logos, the only available object of know
this presence of the Logos in it is not to be viewe
matter of appréhension; it is also a matter of partic
the Logos, in change. Hence, the dry soul's attune
matter both of correct appréhension of its surround
of the appropriate activity which these constantly
surroundings demand. The soul's attunement can
cordingly, as a kind of harmony with its environ
difficult, as a resuit, to escape the conclusion that
goodness is a matter of both intellectual and moral v
two being, therefore, inextricably connected), and t
very least, the soul which falls short of this harmon
fiably contemptible for being not only stupid, but i
well13. (We would thus have, within the Heraclitean
13. It is very tempting to conclude to the absence of ye

distinction from the Heraclitean world-view: the distinction between
active and passive aspects of the constituents of the universe (and,
of course, of the soul as well). This world-view seems to include
only various degrees of activity, but no passivity. At tl>e very least,
passivity would have to be a problematic attribute since it can only
characterize what cannot be a part of the world: a slippery slope
would lead us from ascribing it to what is dead to ascribing it to
what has no being, to what is not. Not a surprising resuit in view of
the fundamental character of change; but one which, by an ironie
conceptual twist, brings to mind Parmenides's characterization of
Not-Being: here, what does not participate of change by not being
active, simply is not, and thus, cannot be conceived.
forerunner of the Socratic équation betw

virtue).
Still, this does not account satisfactorily for the quasi
universality of Heraclitus's contempt. What we have so far
does not justify more than the accidentai contempt any one
might show for people guilty of these failings. We must there
fore try to explain why, almost a priori, mankind is contemp
tible.
The best resuit we can obtain here must be ambiguous,
however. For, on the one hand, if Heraclitus lacks the voca
bulary of concepts, he can have no explicit concept of man,
the essence of which would include something akin to original
sin along with its conséquences (as, e.g., blindness to the
truth). Hence, Heraclitus's misanthropy is bound to appear as
a generalized personal attitude, an accidentai one at that, of
no particular interest, save to the extent that it feeds the
stock of anecdotes about the man.
On the other hand, this général condemnation itself enables
us to unearth somewhat more about his misanthropy. For if it
is possible to escape his contempt then, at least in principle,
some recognizable change must occur once the individual has
acknowledged the Logos and attuned himself to it. The chan
ge would consist, presumably, not only in participation in the
Logos (since the Logos rules all things in any case), but in
doing so consciously and explicitly as well: one's very speech
should reveal that the change has taken place. Yet fragment 1
testifies to the fact that men do not understand the Logos
even after they have heard it. One reasonable guess as to
what this indicates is that men continue to use the vocabulary
at their disposai as they did before hearing the Logos; i.e.,
they continue to show, by the way they speak, that they hold
things (substances) to be the permanent constituents of reali
ty, and changes its accidents. Nothing to be surprised at, Ari
stotle would have argued, since it is the very structure of the
language they use which provides them with these catégories.
Their conversion should be manifest, howeve

cated language as Heraclitus himself does, if
they gave expression to paradoxes and contr
would reflect the fact that they had understoo
this hypothesis the more plausible is that there
way to express Heraclitus's vision save throug
paradoxes and contradictions which constitute t
fragments. But since few ever can or do ta
gramme, it becomes easier to understand w
contempt is so evenly distributed to ail.
Still, we cannot be sure that this is what Hera
as a sign of understanding. At least, not that t
test; for the Heraclitean vision is - though ai
quite complex, and several doctrines are tied *·
hence the paradoxical character of the language one uses may

not be suffïcient to show that one has understood the Logos.
On the other hand, there are indications that Heraclitus is
prepared to accept some sign of one's having seen the con
nection between some of his doctrines, or a paradoxical form
of utterance (tied to some of his insights), as evidence that
one has understood. This would explain why he praises Bias
of Priene who shares with him some contempt for mankind
("Most men are vile"), perhaps also the link between stupi
dity and immorality ("Be neither stupid nor evil"), and even
some paradoxical forms of expression ("Love your friends as
if they are to become your enemies and hate your enemies as
if they are to become your friends"). One might perhaps even
add that the prudential character of Bias's injunctions is not
very distant from the ideal of modération which one finds in
Heraclitus.
Inversely, Heraclitus singles out for special attention those
whose réputation for wisdom would lead us to expect them to
have uncovered the Logos and who failed; hence Heraclitus's
sharp words for Homer (fr. 56) for having failed to solve the
riddle of the lice. Here it is not so much that Heraclitus ex
pects a transformation of Homer's mode

that for all his wisdom ("the wisest of
Homer showed himself impervious to a
pression of the Logos14. That Homer sho
stood shows the extent to which he was
mon déception, and the extent to which th
most men, an effective obstacle to under
even if, as may happen, they are the wises
As for the fragments in which Hesiod,
thagoras are mentioned, they are fairly ex
lymathy which brings on Heraclitus's w
has made a strong case for thinking that
tedness of things which their polymathy e
Heraclitus's ire against them. For polymath
a failure to see the commonality of any pr
Logos in its unifying aspect; it reveals
conception of reality as consisting of a mu
which undergo changes, and, most impor
14. Cf. the lucid account Charles Kahn gives o

lice, and particularly of the simplicity with wh
bedded in it. (in The Art and Thought of Herac
University Press, 1979, pp. 111-112).
15. Ibid., pp. 108-110.
16. H.S. Harris has suggested to me that Herac
may well stem from wider ethical and political
selves governed by a soul-saving concern; th
that the human city should be a conscious e
Heraclitus cares about the universalization of h
would differ from the Milesians, for instance,
Potential fellow-workers or from Plato, who th
universalization doomed to fail). Ail this, on th
have enough in the fragments to warrant extr
some idea of these ethical and political concern
lity of such an extrapolation Harris is rather pe
failure to identify what every man's experienc

as fundamental because it is inherent in that ex
pervasiveness of change. Thus, it is not that
struse points of doctrine, but still the fundam
cessible truths on which their alleged wisdo
been grounded, that explains Heraclitus's con
predecessors.
On our reading then, Heraclitus's misanth
spectable foundation within his doctrine. It i
nected only to the anecdotal material concern
the very core of his system. The fact that mis
Still two things must be said about his suggestion.

this additional dimension of Heraclitus's concerne, t
sented here of his misanthropy becomes the more l
simplicity of the conversion which Heraclitus asks
undertake for their own good. It would be because t
at once so close at hand and yet almost universally i
those to whom the Way has been shown) that He
more justifïed to vent his contempt. Second, if I di
Harris on this, it would be bacause any proposed
clitus's misanthropy should be able to stand indepen
clitus's ethical and political commitments. Socrat
justifïed to expect more if, after men had thoroughl
lives, they had found that they must be lived otherw
expected, and corne to différent conclusions about what consti
tutes the good life. Similarly, Heraclitus can only direct his contempt
at the reluctance to attempt the road to salvation, especially if that
road runs close by; he cannot be justifïed if the attempt shows salv
ation to lie elsewhere than in the perception of the Logos. To be
sure, neither in Socrates's nor in Heraclitus's case do the means to
salvation differ from the salvation itself. But the uninitiated cannot
know this. What they can know is that Heraclitus's contempt is am
ply justifïed by their reluctance to even attempt the conversion; and
they can only be held responsible for what they know, not for what
they know not.
a personal psychological attitude should not deter us from

making this connection. Indeed, Heraclitus's contempt for
mankind parallels, in many ways, Socrates's irony: both are
grounded on men's failure to attempt the examination of their
world or of themselves; both have to do with ignorance and
immorality. But Socrates proclaims his own ignorance and
Heraclitus knows that he sleeps and must die; thereby, Hera
clitus knows somewhat more: he knows that he necessarily
lapses and falls short, as all men must, of a constant or com
plété consciousness of the Logos. Consequently, both Socra
tes',s irony and Heraclitus's misanthropy are, in ail likelihood,
self-directed17. If so, then Heraclitus is probably the first to
have both noticed and spoken of the defect in men's nature
which makes them see things as through a glas s , darkly; but
then, he too could only speak of it darkly.
Georges J.D. Moyal
17. The self-directedness of Heraclitus's misanthropy, if it is ever

confirmed, should not be cause for great surprise: one fïnds echoes
of the same kind of self-contempt in the misogyny of Medea and
Antigone: both lament and hate women's essential weakness, and
their conséquent inability to avenge themselves as men, in similar
circumstances, would.

Heraclitus's Misanthropy: An Integral Part of His Philosophical System

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Heraclitus's Misanthropy: An Integral Part of His Philosophical System

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EURORGAN s.p.r.l.

I wish to explore, ο ver the next few pages, the im

need not have taken place, and hence also o

1. Fragment numbers are those of H. Diels'S Die Fragmente der

suggest that men are suffîciently endowed to a

2. The word is used, in the K. Freeman translat

Thus, both because we must avoid anachronisms and be

3. We commit an anachronism, in fact, if we use the désignation

restrict our view of its objects to average-size ma

turn, is a shift in the way in which ordin

of them (where they become images). The reas

4. Uvo Hölscher, "Paradox, Simile and Gnomic Utterance in

which contains its objects; the Logos gov

Heraclitus cornes to hold the view he does (of the means of

indebted for his valuable criticisms and comments on an earlier draft

find difficulty with this way of conceivin

structure of their arrangement. The ordinary

sible to all. Having said this, however, we must g

9. Nor, incidentally, should we be tempted to find any of the other

world must be conceived as one great proc

12. But cf. Guthrie who writes, "Fire was parti

There is, however, another justification for Her

13. It is very tempting to conclude to the absence of ye

forerunner of the Socratic équation betw

Their conversion should be manifest, howeve

hence the paradoxical character of the language one uses may

pects a transformation of Homer's mode

14. Cf. the lucid account Charles Kahn gives o

failure to identify what every man's experienc

Still two things must be said about his suggestion.

a personal psychological attitude should not deter us from

Georges J.D. Moyal

17. The self-directedness of Heraclitus's misanthropy, if it is ever

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