Natural Hearing (Aristotle's Physics)
Lecture 14: Heraclitus, Change, and the Axiom of Contradiction

Transcript
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Him as a group, DK-49A there, DK-6, DK-126, DK-88, DK-57, and DK-84A, all of them in some way touch upon this apparent, at least, contradiction in change. Notice what he says here in 49A. We step and do not step into the same rivers. I've crossed the Mississippi River many times. I grew up near the Mississippi River. I could get down there on my bike and play in the cliffs around the Mississippi River. And when my son was at West Point, we crossed the Hudson many times. We step into the same river many times, huh? But since the waters are always flowing, in a way we don't step into the same rivers, so we both step and do not step into the same rivers. You see, have you ever stood back there in St. Paul, where I left it? Yeah, I think so. Well, it is and isn't. You might say that, huh? We are and we are not. You and I have changed since last class. Not the same as you were. You lost some hair and so on. Okay? You've changed in some ways, huh? Okay? So you're not the same person, are you? Oh, but yes, you are the same person, right? So we are and we are what? Not, huh? Okay? Now, do Heraclitus really think that there's a contradiction there, but he has another question. We'll come back to that. But he speaks as if there's a contradiction there, right? We are and we are not. He's admitting that something both is and is not, huh? The sun is new every day. The sun itself is changed every day. So change has remained the same? No, it's becoming other. So it's new sun every day. Not the same sun. What do you mean? You know, well, okay, it is and isn't. Same sun, huh? Okay? And also we say about somebody, he's not the same person anymore. You know, sometimes if you're married, he's not the person I married or something, right? But, you know, you know, people have really had quite a change in their life, huh? He's not the same person. I hear people say that. Well, he is and he is not, then. The same person. You might say, well, he is still Joe, I guess, but not really the same person. Now, in DK126 and DK88, these are the most important fragments. Because in these fragments, he starts to point out, on the one hand, that change is between contraries. And we see in DK126 there, he's making or starting an induction, huh? Now, induction is an argument from many particulars to the general. So what is it that becomes warm or hot? It's something that's cold or cool, isn't it? What is it that cools off? Sun is warm or hot, huh? What is it that dries out? Something that's wet. What is it that's moistened? Yeah, see? You don't moisten the ocean. You can't moisten the water here, huh? Moisten something that is dry. What is it that's fine. What is it that's hardened? Something that is soft. What is it that's softened? Something that is hard, right? What becomes sick? Something that's healthy. What becomes healthy? Something that's sick. So inductively, you could see the changes between what? Contraries, huh? And Heraclitus is pointed out, huh? There's still an induction here. Now, if you go to the pupil of the pupil of Heraclitus, to Plato or maybe Socrates, whoever he is, in the Phaedo, right? If you look at the first argument for the immortality of the soul, Socrates is going to use the general statement, the change is between contraries. But he begins first with an induction to show the change is between the contraries. When we go back to Aristotle, as he will eventually here after we get through the fragments here, I will see Aristotle bringing that out, huh? Okay. Okay. And you will find this not only in the Greeks, but you'll find it in the Chinese, and you'll find it even in the modern scientists. The change is by contraries. So it's Hercules that begins his thinking. He's concentrated our mind on the reality of change in the world around us. And now he's starting to bring out that change is by contraries. Change is between contraries. But it's interesting that all of us, to some extent, touch upon those things, and we not only speak of change as being between contraries, but we in fact say that one becomes the other, don't we? We say the hard becomes soft. We say the hot becomes cold. We say the healthy becomes sick. The young become old. We say that one opposite becomes the other, don't we? And maybe we don't mean that. But we say that, and becomes means comes to be. Now if one opposite comes to be the other, then one opposite is the other. And there again you have a contradiction, don't you? The same in us is the living and the dead. The awake and the sleep, the young and the old. For the former having changed are the latter, and again these having changed are the former. Now does he really think that one opposite is the other? Or is he really saying, hey, we all say that one opposite becomes the other. But it becomes means, it comes to be. So he's saying one has come to be the other. On the other hand, if you say no, the sick can never be healthy, then you're going to be always sick if you're sick. Or if you're healthy, you'll always be healthy, because the healthy can never be sick. If they can never be sick, they can never become. You can't come to be something you can't be. Notice the example here. Hesiod is the teacher of most men, the great poet. They believe he knew very many things, who didn't even know day and night. For they are one. Maybe Hesiod said in days and nights, you know, you get up in the day and do your work, and then you go to bed at night and get your sleep, as if day and night are two different things, right? But day becomes night, right? Night becomes day. Therefore, day and night are really the same thing. But notice, if day and night were the same thing, you'd have something impossible. It'd both be light and not be light, huh? Because it's day, it'd be light. Because it's night, it would not be light. And it'd both be dark and not be dark. Be dark as it's night, but not dark as it's day. Changing at rest. That sounds like a contradiction, right? And sometimes I take the example of people who say, well, I find travel restful. Can you hear people say that? Yeah, yeah, sure. You know? They go for a walk, or they go for a drive, or they travel in some way. But travel is not, is a form of motion. So how can travel be restful? There's an apparent contradiction in it, saying really so. How can motion be full of rest? And vice versa, if you've got a little child, a little boy in church or some place, where he's got to sit still for a long time, he becomes very restless. So sitting still makes him what? Restless. Obviously. Contradiction, right? Do you see that? So he's very famous for emphasizing this. Now, how would people take off from that? It's a center, right? Well, in modern times, the followers of Descartes, they're like Hegel, and Marx following Hegel. For Hegel, there is a contradiction in change. And Marx takes it over. And Lenin takes it over from Marx. So when Lenin's defining dialectics in the Marxist sense, he says, dialectic is the study of the contradiction within the very essence of things. I've got a quote later on. so there are some who take the words of Heraclitus and say, yeah, that's the way it is change does involve a contradiction, and therefore they're saying that the same thing both is and what, is not okay Higley's just, you know, he's Heraclitus you just give him a drink, you've all the rest now there's another thinker by the name of what Parmenides, huh who reacts another way to this, huh, he says that's impossible for day to be night, huh, that's impossible for the sleeping to be awake it's impossible for the heart to be soft, and so on therefore, if that's what change involves there can't be real things such as change, change is a what, illusion, right okay, now Parmenides is the first man to bring out and make explicit what we call the axioms of contradiction, right, the axioms of being and unbeing that something cannot both, what be and not be him okay it is impossible both be not be Aristotle in the fourth book of wisdom will take up this again and make it more explicit it's impossible to both be and not be at the same time he'll say in the same way and so on, right okay and then like that something must either be or not be inside of him okay so these are the axioms things of being and unbeing something can't both be and not be at the same time in the same way we might add something must either be or what not be another alternative now Parmenides is the man who says he emphasized this but then because of that he said that change which Hercules is emphasizing as being the most real thing in a way change is a what illusion fake such thing change is an illusion Socrates gets into contradictions when he responds to the questions of Parmenides, like other people get into contradictions when Socrates questions them. So Plato represents Parmenides and Zeno as teaching, in a way, Socrates, what we might call the Socratic method. Now nobody knows whether, time-wise, it was even possible for Parmenides to have come to Athens, and had a conversation with, what, Socrates. But I think that's really beside the point. What's clear is that there's a connection between what Parmenides emphasized here, the axioms here of being and unbeing, the impossibility of a real contradiction, and the Socratic method. Because Socrates' method of examining you is to ask you, what do you think? And then seeing what follows when you think, and see if you in any way, what, contradicts yourself. And if you do contradict yourself, that's a sign that there's some mistake in your thinking. So the Socratic method is in fact based upon the axioms of being. And so whether, historically, Parmenides came to Athens and taught to Socrates, or whether Socrates read Parmenides, or just saw this, right? In fact, Socrates is basing himself upon the axioms of being and unbeing, which Parmenides was the first to talk about explicitly. And Plato speaks of Parmenides, there is a man to be reverenced and a man to be feared, huh? Now, when we talked about the central question of philosophy, we had the great dichotomy there of yes and no, with Plato and Aristotle. And here you have another dichotomy in human thought, between Parmenides and what? Heraclitus, huh? Because Heraclitus is saying just the opposite, isn't he? He's insisting upon the reality of change, all things flow, nothing arrives. But in so doing, he seems to be admitting that day is night, and the sleeping are the waking, and so on, huh? So the one is holding on to the impossibility of a contradiction, and consequently denying the reality of change. The other is holding on to the reality of change, and in words at least, admitting contradictions. They seem to have nothing in common, but the one affirms the other denies, huh? Now, if you went down through the course of history, you can find many more speaking like Heraclitus than like Parmenides. And so I mentioned how Hegel, right, in the 19th century, and in the Marxist-Thawing Hegel, they speak a little bit like Heraclitus. And sometimes they quote Heraclitus, you know, and say, quote, exposition of the rudiments of tabatum materialism, huh? Anticipation. And they talk about change in them, very real, but they admit in words at least that there are contradictions, and that there's contradictions in the very essence of things. When, if I mean, he follows a Parmenides. But now, how would you, if you had to choose between Parmenides and Heraclitus, whom would it be more reasonable to choose? You'd also accept change. Yeah, yeah. I see. If you had to choose between these two, say, oh, okay, it would be more reasonable to hold on to the impossibility of something both being and not being, and say that then change doesn't exist, or would it be more reasonable to hold on to the reality that change exists, and then say, but it's something that won't be and not being, you see? Well, probably the reason why most thinkers in history would side with Heraclitus in this famous dectotomy is that our knowledge begins with our, what? Senses. What strikes the senses is change, so you might want to hold on to change and then deny this. You find many other people down in history, I'm just saying historically, who've done it, right? But, as Plato says, Parmenides is a man to be feared, a man to be reverenced, and as we're going to meet later on, when Aristotle follows it, we're going to meet a very interesting fragment, I don't have it in this collection, but it's a different collection, but a collection on methods, where Heraclitus says himself, those who speak with understanding must be strong in what is common to all, and we'll see later on when Aristotle tries to follow that out, to become strong in what is common to all. But notice, when two guys disagree, one guy can say, you're mistaken, you don't agree with me, and the other guy can return the compliment, but that way you don't go forward at all, The only way to go forward is to find some common ground that you both share, that you can use to decide between you where you disagree. So, for example, if two scientists imagine a different hypothesis to explain things, well, one could say, well, your hypothesis doesn't agree with mine, so it must be wrong. The other guy could say the reverse. That way they go forward, not at all. But they could think of an experiment that they could both perform and observe, an experiment in which their two theories would predict different things, and they conduct an experiment and see what takes place. They might be able to use that to decide between the two of them, right? Okay? So this is a very important thing. If you and I disagree, I can't resolve this by using that in which we disagree. I've said, well, that is something that's common to both of us. Okay. Now, at first sight you say, well, what the heck is common between these two guys? But the one guy affirms change, the other guy denies, says, his illusion, vice versa. The guy who asserts that something can't be and not be, that guy says, yeah, it's possible. Okay? See? But what, despite all the disagreement, do they have in common, these two guys? At least in their words, huh? Well, in a sense, they're in agreement that you have to choose between these two. Either you hold on to this and reject change, or you hold on to change and reject that, huh? Okay. Okay? So their agreement is that you've got to choose between the two. Okay. Now, if we ask the question, why do you have to choose between the two? Well, if change involves a contradiction, then change obviously contradicts the axiom of contradiction, right? The ball game's over. Paramanides is one. See? The very reason we've got to make a change is what Paramanides says. So in thinking you have to make a change, you're already admitting Paramanides' principle. So the ball game's over. Paramanides is one. See? But nevertheless, I say, down through history, you see, most people follow him. What? Paramanides is because change is so evident to the senses, huh? Okay. Now, I might mention something a little easier to see, but in this context here. As you go down through history, you'll find other people besides Heraclitus who deny the axioms about contradiction, huh? But when you examine them, if they have a reason for denying it, it's because something that they've run into seems to, what, contradict it. Well, you see something illogical about that, huh? They're denying the axiom about contradiction because something, what, contradicts it. They're saying it isn't so because, what, it is so, huh? I can't hold on to it because it's something that I run across somewhere, which I can't see without it, convicts it. You see the absurdity of that? They're saying it isn't so because, what, it is so, huh? It's like when my brother Marcus was defending the fifth postulate of Euclid there, which is really obvious, but not as obvious as some other things. And there have been attempts, you know, from ancient times and more in modern times, to try to prove the fifth postulate. So my brother Mark examined all these famous attempts to prove it, and each one of them involves assuming the very thing you're trying to prove, which makes all the proofs, what, invalid, huh? You can't prove something by itself, huh? But my brother Mark, you know, besides drawing that first conclusion that the arguments are no good because they assume the very thing they're trying to prove. But it's at the same time, the fact they don't realize that they're assuming the very thing they're trying to prove is a sign that they really, it's kind of obvious even to them. They assume without thinking of it, right? You see? Well, you can say something like this, I think, in this regard. When someone says, I run across something that seems to involve contradiction, I don't see any way out of it, therefore I have to reject this. It's because this thing that they've run into seems to contradict this, right? And their mind really thinks, well, the critics, they can't believe it too, right? So he's already, right, in his mind really accepting this, huh? Yeah, similar things like that, you know, when you get into the ethics and you say, should we live by our emotions or should we live by our reasons, see? And I say you should live by your reason. And someone else said, no, I think you should live by emotions. And I say, well, why? And he tries to explain why you should live by emotions. Well, he's using his reason to decide whether one should live by reason or by emotions. Well, you've already admitted you should live by reason then, right? Do you see that? You use your reason to decide whether you should live by reason or by emotions, you're already admitting that you have to use reason to decide how to live. You've already lost, isn't it? Now, Aristotle, coming on the scene after this, right, says, okay, if you had to choose, you have to choose parmenides, huh? Because this is more certain than that, huh? But at the same time, it's obvious that change does exist. Therefore, the contradictions that we see in change must not really be there. That must be, what? An apparent contradiction, but not a real contradiction. And so he will set out to untie, unravel the appearance of contradiction. So like you say, changing at rest. Well, I find travel restful. But what that means is that when my body is in motion, my emotions come to rest. Is that a contradiction? No. It's not the same thing that's at rest and in motion, huh? When little boy is made to sit still with his body, his emotions become what? Agitated, huh? Well, contradiction means that the same thing both is and is not in motion at the same time, huh? So it's not really a contradiction, is it? Now the one about one contrary become another, though, is something we'll see Aristotle in time when we go back to the readings from Aristotle, huh? Okay? Now, it may be that Heraclitus didn't really think that day is night. He didn't really think that, see? But maybe he wanted to point out that in our, in change, and in our very way of speaking about change, where we say that love turns into hate sometimes, right? Day becomes night. We seem to be admitting a contradiction in what we're saying. You just wanted to point that out. Okay? Now, we have a fragment that I have among another collection there, the fragments on method, huh? And so on. And we have a fragment of Heraclitus where he says, we should not act and speak like those asleep. Obviously, he sees a difference between being awake and being asleep, huh? So he says the sleep and the waking are the same, right? Maybe he's just trying to point out in apparent, what, contradiction, what we say. We're more subtle than we think, Heraclitus, huh? Okay? We just take those words that we just looked at as they stand. He seems to be in words that day and night are the same thing. We are and we are not, right? He seems to be a two-headed mortal, as Permanentis would call him, right? But maybe he's not really thinking that day is night, but he wants to say, well, why do we say day becomes night if it isn't night? You see? It's hard to be explained there, right? Now, you see, have you got any evidence of that, broadcast? Well, let's look now at the next couple, two or three fragments here. The hidden harmony is better than the apparent. And notice, huh? If you're familiar with Socrates, most people are walking around in a state of, what, apparent harmony. They think that everything they think is something they can think. But actually, some of the things they think lead to the contradiction of the other things they think. Now, you lead them out of that apparent harmony into a, what? Contradiction, right? And hidden under that, what? Contradiction, is a true, what? Harmony, right? Take the simplest example you take in Plato's Babylon. Socrates speaks to the slave boy and he says, we've got a square, remember this, whose side is X, let's say. You want to get a square twice as big. How much longer does the side have to be? Well, twice as long, obviously, right? Now, as you know, that's not true. But the slave boy is in a state of apparent, what? Harmony. He thinks he can think that the square whose side is twice as long will be twice as big, right? As if that's going to fit together. Harmony, incidentally, comes in the Greek word, harmadzo, which means to fit together. So, he thinks that what he thinks about this, you know, that the side twice as long will give you a square twice as big, he thinks that's, as far as you know, doesn't harm anything else he thinks as a man. But now, if you take an example of that, and make a simple example, suppose you had a square, you can use... The side was 2. Well, then you say that the square, which is twice as long, namely 4, would be twice as what? Big, right? And the slave boy knows that 4 is twice as much as what? 2. Now, if you stop and calculate out this, it's 2 by 2, the area would turn out to be what? 4. And if it's 4 by 4, the area would turn out to be what? 16. Now, you said the square, which is twice as long, is twice as big. So, therefore, this square is twice as big as that. Therefore, 16 is twice 4. Well, that doesn't fit together, does it? And even the slave boy would see that 16 is not double of what? 4, right? But 4 is double of 2. So, these three thoughts are not compatible, are they? That 4 is double of 2, 16 is not double of 4, but the square, whose side is twice as long, is twice as big, huh? So, which of those is the weak point? Well, it's pretty sure that 4 is double of 2, right? And 16 is not double of 4. Therefore, it must be wrong that the square, whose side is twice as long, is twice as big, huh? So, Socrates leads the little slave boy out of a state of apparent harmony into a, what? Contradiction. Not to lead him there, but to recognize his arrogant state, right? Now, hidden under that is the, what? True harmony, huh? Which is that, if you take the diagonal square, you'll get a, what? The side of the square is twice as big, huh? You know, Socrates shows it with the, with the four squares together and so on, huh? So, the hidden harmony is better than the, what? Periharmony. We have another fragment in the methodological fragments there, of, uh, where Titus says, Men do not understand the things they eat every day, although they think they do. Well, maybe in a way it's anticipating what we see in Socrates, huh? So maybe it's trying to, you know, you think you understand change, huh? I mean, like the wet becoming dry. Yeah, the wet does become dry. Yeah, that's what I think. But what does become mean? It comes to be. Okay, well, if the wet comes to be dry, then the wet would be dry. That's what comes to be means. Now, if the wet was dry, it'd both be wet, because it's wet, and not be wet, because it is dry. And both be dry, because it's dry, and not dry, because it's wet. You see? You don't even understand what you're talking about. You see? Maybe that's what he's trying to do, huh? You see? And this is a beautiful thing here. Later on, we'll talk about the, the role of contradiction in the development of our knowledge, huh? And this fragment here is a marvelous introduction to that. Now, take the next fragment here. They do not understand how that which is opposed agrees with itself. As if there can be, what? Things could be, in some way, appear to be opposed, but they're really, what? Not. There's a harmony of opposites, as in the case of the bow and the leer. Now, take the example there, the bow. Maybe it's easy to see. If I push forward with this hand against this glass, huh, and I pull back with this other hand on the other side, the glass, you could say that my two hands are working at cross-purposes, aren't they? One hand is trying to push it forward, and one is trying to pull it back, and then it goes nowhere. They're both frustrated, right? But now, with the bow, I'm pulling back with, what? The right hand, and I'm shoving forward with the left hand, right? Just like I was doing there, right? So they're working in opposition to each other, right? Actually, they're working together to make the arrow, what? Go forward with more force, and go right through his armor there, that you can see protecting him. It's the battle of Ajin for it, or something. And, you see? So, when one hand is pushing forward, and the other is pulling back, it would seem they're working to cross-purposes. But are they? With the bow? No. That's the way to make the arrow go forward with great... force and maybe direction. Do you see that? So that's a hint, that maybe there are things that seem to be opposed that are not really opposed but are really working together. And then in the next fragment, the opposite is useful. That's an extremely general statement, isn't it? But brevity is the sole wit. The opposite is useful. I tell the students that the whole American way of life is based on this one statement. And I say, take our legal system. We have one lawyer trying to prove that he's guilty, another lawyer trying to prove he's what? Not guilty, huh? We think that's the way to do it, huh? If you just had one lawyer in court trying to prove he's guilty, they may have a lot more convictions, but maybe that's what's justice, right? If you just had a lawyer trying to prove he's not guilty. You might get more people off, but again, justice would not be served so well. So we think it's useful for justice to have both a prosecutor and a what? Defendant. The opposite is useful in the courtroom. Now how about our political system, huh? Well as you know in the 20th century, one party states have usually been what? Tyrannies, huh? You need what? An opposing party, huh? And the opposing party will point out the faults and the corruptions and other things that are wrong with the other party and vice versa, so they keep each other to some extent from what? Completely ruling the country. The trouble here in Massachusetts, it's too much of a one party, you know? Democratic, huh? And is our economic system based upon this? Yes. We think competition is useful? Yeah. Yeah. If I have a monopoly, I can charge you what I want to. But if I've got someone else competing with me, well, he might charge less than I do, so I've got to come down, huh? Or he puts out a better product, so I better improve my product or I'm going to be out the window, huh? So our economic system and our political system and our legal system is all based on this idea that the opposite is, what? Useful, huh? And that's also why we have debates and things of that sort, huh? We think this is somewhat useful to get to what the truth is, huh? Mm-hmm. So maybe Heraclitus, you know, has in mind also this business about most men do not understand the things they meet every day, huh? And they're in a state of apparent harmony. And when you give them a little bit of opposition, contradictions, so on, this is useful to them to stop and think and try to understand the hidden harmony, the way things really are. Now the opposite is useful, of course, could be applied to the development of character, too. If you brought up an easy street, your character probably doesn't develop very much. But hardiness, huh? Comes from some kind of opposition. So I told the girls to play hard to get, huh? Mm-hmm. If he thinks he's the only guy asking you out, he's not going to try so hard to please you, but if he's competing with somebody else, he's kind to... Okay? But even God, in the way, observes it, doesn't he, huh? With the saints, huh? He plays hard to get, so to speak. And from those differing comes the most beautiful harmony. There's a lot of truth to that, isn't there? See, the moonlit sky, or the, you know, the starry sky at night is very beautiful, but you have the stars against the, what, black sky. If the whole sky was black, or the whole sky was illuminated, it'd be garish. But it's the stars against the black that is, what, beautiful. My mother used to say that a diamond ring looks better under candlelight than under, say, this kind of light. Candlelight, you have, what, darkness, and so on. You have the diamond kind of glittering, and it looks more beautiful. And if they show you a diamond in the Chewy store, they'll put it, maybe, in a black cloth, huh? it'll look better than if they put it on a white cloth. You see? From opposites comes the most beautiful harmony. And you see that like in a painting, you know. I always take the example of the man with the helmet there, say, of Rembrandt. You've seen that picture of the man with the helmet. Well, if the whole painting was flooded with light, it would not be beautiful. If everything was in shadow and darkness, it would not be beautiful. But you have that contrast of light and dark. And that's why usually the most beautiful time of the day as far as the sun is down when it's, you know, right above us, shining down, illuminating everything. But it's in sunrise or sunset, we have kind of an alternation of light and dark and so on. And so from opposite comes the most beautiful harmony. Since I was taking a line, I said, now, what would he think of these homosexual marriages, I say? He must be ugly, right? Because they're not from opposites. I'd stick to those things once in a while to get a little bit of that moral education. And all things come to be by strife. Well, now he's starting to say something that has a long history in human thought, too. But it's said more explicitly now in the next fragment. War is the father of all things, the king of all things. And these he has shown gods, but those men. These he has made slaves, and those, what? Free him. Now, what kind of a cause is he talking about here when he says father? Origin. Yeah. It's not the form, is it? Well, it's not the matter either, is it? And we saw before how the first opinion about matter is Mother Earth. And the word for matter in Latin, materia, comes from mater, or mother. So he's thinking of the, what? Mover or maker. So it's very significant that he uses the word father. And later on, when you see our style of talking about the third kind of cause, he'll use again the word father as an example. And again, as I explained to the students, why do we call God our father rather than our, what? Mother, huh? Well, if you called God our mother, you'd be thinking of God as a cause in the sense of matter. But God is not a cause in the sense of matter, but in the sense of the mover or the maker. So that's why he's appropriately called a father. There. I'm not going to get any flack yet about that. It makes much sense, right? You can see so clearly when you go from Mother Earth to this here idea. Now, you'd expect again, Heraclitus, that he's the man who most of all emphasized the reality of motion or change in the world around us. So it's not surprising that he should begin to look for the cause called the, what? Mover, huh? So that's, obviously, that emotion has a cause, huh? Okay. Now, the next fragment expresses that same kind of thought. We must know that war is common and strife is justice, that all things come into being by strife and faith. Now, you see, the Marxists in the 20th century, the official name of Marxist philosophy is dialectical materialism. And materialism means that matter is the beginning of all things, the source of all things. But by dialectical, you don't mean dialectical in the sense of, you know, that part of logic called dialectical, but there's some connection there. And, in fact, when Aristotle talks about dialectical reasoning in the book on sufficient reputation, he says, it's reasoning from probable opinions even to contradictory conclusions. And you have an example of that, say, in the Mino, huh? Where Socrates doesn't yet know fully what virtue is. So you're going to look on both sides. Can it be taught or can it be taught? And he reasons with some probability, huh? That virtue can be taught, huh? And then he reasons with some probability that virtue, what? Cannot be taught. And that would be in the Mino. So he's reasoning from probable opinions to contradictory conclusions, huh? But notice, when you reason to opposite things, and you have this developed very... Much in the Middle Ages, what they call the questionas disputate, and we have many sets of questionas disputate, say, of Thomas Aquinas. Questionas disputate, de veritate, de maro, and all kinds of things, de potencia. But in the beginning of each question of disputate, we have maybe 10 or 15 arguments on one side, and another 10 arguments on the other side. So you have a kind of a what? A war going on there, right? And then the master has to come in and resolve this war, and so on. So when the Marxists speak of dialectical materialism, they mean that matter is the beginning of all things, but everything develops out of matter to a war, so to speak, right? To a struggle of opposites that are found in matter. Of course, we talked about there being contraries or opposites and change already. And so Herakias suggests that the struggle of these opposites gives rise to things, and you can see that, of course, in human history. But you have the same idea then taken over by the moderns, not only the Marxists, but sometimes by the biologists and other people. Now in the next fragment, you see something that's relevant to all these thinkers up to this point, and including Heraklitus. They're all looking for one matter of which all things are made. And we mentioned that it's reasonable to look for one matter, for one cause, in part because reason is naturally inclined to that. Well, notice what he says in this fragment, it is wise, listening not to me, but to reason, to agree that all things are one. It's reason itself that leads man to look for unity. And one way of manifesting that through something perhaps more known is everybody who's ever talked about reason realizes that reason looks for order. And order is based on something one. So reason naturally looks for unity. And when we look at these secondary readings here, we'll see that the modern natural scientists have that same tendency, huh, to look for unity. You've got to copy this, right? When we finish Heraklitus, we'll turn and look at these for a little bit, huh? But here you see Heraklitus' own fragment, huh? And sometimes I take his exhortation there by itself, listen not to me, but to reason. And somebody might say, well, what do you mean? Isn't he talking? What do you mean, listen not to me? But, no, listen to me only insofar as I listen to what? Reason myself, huh? Now, to stop a moment on that interesting exhortation, just taking it by itself, listen not to me, but to reason. You might ask yourself, what does that mean, huh? What does that mean? Because sometimes in daily life, we use that phrase too, we'll say about somebody, he won't listen to reason. Don't you hear people say that? Uh-huh. Okay. Now, somebody might say, well, what are you saying? I mean, there's my reason and your reason and the next man's reason. What's this reason you're going to listen to, rather than, you know, me or you or somebody else's reason, huh? So what does it mean to listen to reason? Is there a reason out there besides your reason or my reason or the next person's reason? Is there something out there separate from your reason and my reason? Huh? What does it mean to listen to reason? Or someone might say, there is no reason out there apart from your reason, my reason, the next man's reason. So all we can do is listen to reason, my reason or your reason or someone else's reason. So what does it mean, really, to listen to reason? So in your best, if you say it and I say it, then it's not mine, it's not yours. I know, I know, I know. See, what it means is to listen to what is common to your reason and my reason, huh? And then you're listening to what reason, naturally. And then you're listening to what reason, naturally. And then you're listening to what reason, naturally. And then you're listening to what reason, naturally. And then you're listening to what reason, naturally. And then you're listening to what reason, naturally. You're listening to what reason, naturally. You're listening to what reason. what? Knows, huh? And that goes back to this other fragment we mentioned of Heraclitus, where he says, those who speak with understanding must be strong in what is common to all. That's why if you and I disagree, we have to go back to something common and use that to resolve our disagreement. That's what it means to listen to reason. To listen to what is common to your reason, my reason. And that's what's natural to reason. So listen to nature. And we have another fragment of Heraclitus where he says, wisdom is to speak the truth and to act in accord with nature, giving ear thereto. So to listen to reason means to listen to what is natural to reason. And that's what's common, therefore, what's natural to reason is common to your reason and my reason. And vice versa, what is common to your reason and my reason goes back to what is natural to reason. And if you look at the fragments of Parmenides, he sees something of that because he says, no matter what I say, I always come back to this, it's common. This axiom about contradiction, huh? And someone who denies that, he said, is a, what, two-headed mortal, huh? As I say, make a little joke in class, I say, in this case, two heads are not better than one. A two-headed mortal is a, what, monster, huh? Right? But isn't that beautiful, huh? A monster is the opposite of something natural. So someone who denies the axiom of contradiction, a man who thinks something can both be and not be, they have to be a two-headed mortal to really think that. They have to be a monster. It's so unnatural. You see? So to listen to reason is to listen to what reason naturally knows. It's to listen, therefore, to what is common to your reason and my reason. Heraclitus is really very profound, huh? You see, well, he's a central thinker because he emphasizes that listening to what is common, listening to reason, listening to nature. And what reason naturally knows it, including all things we know? What do you call natural, I call, usually natural understanding, but Aristotle calls it just nous, or in Latin they call it delictus, huh? That particular virtue reason. The whole is larger than what? Part, yeah. Everybody naturally knows that, huh? Now somebody says, you know, you say, I don't know that. You're lying, huh? But if you say you don't know it, I say, well, I'm going to give you part of your salary this week, huh? And when you order your dinner in the restaurant, we'll give you, you know, part of your meal that you ordered. And when you buy a car, we'll give you part of the car. Because for you, there's, you don't see any difference. You got, you know, rave and rant and so on. And you feel that you do know it, huh? You see what I mean? But you see, sometimes somebody will attack one of these obvious statements with an objection that somebody can't, what, solve, huh? The whole is bridging the part, huh? I give the students this sophistical objection to it sometimes in class and I say, did I give it to you before? I think I gave it to you before, yeah. But I'll say to them, you know, what is man, huh? Well, man's an animal, right? But is man just an animal? No, that's only a part of what man is. So man's an animal with reason, huh? And I'll tell them how my mother didn't like it when I'd say man's an animal. I'd say, well, mother, I don't mean man is just an animal. Well, okay. So animal's only a part of what man is. So they all agree to that, see? And I say, yeah. But does an animal include besides man, dog, cat, horse, elephant? So what is only a part of man includes much more than man. So sometimes a part is more than a whole, right? Yeah, I guess it is true sometimes, they say. Now, how have I deceived them in this case? Yeah. You have two kinds of whole here. The universal whole, which is a set of its parts. And the universal whole is always a set of more than any one of its parts. And then you have the, what, composed whole. And one kind of composed whole, which is the definition of it. The definition always includes more. It's always put together for more than one of its parts. So when I compare animal to man, dog, cat, and horse, I'm talking about universal whole in comparison to its particulars. When I talk about animals as a part of the definition of man, I'm talking about another kind of whole. But they don't see the distinction between these senses, so I cut them. Now, in the next fragment, Heraclitus is expressing his opinion about what is that one matter of which things are made. And he says, all things are exchanged for fire and fire for all things. He makes an economic comparison. Just as goods for gold and gold for goods, huh? Or he could say goods for money and money for goods, huh? But notice, in the economic order, don't exaggerate that likeness because obviously you don't turn the money into what you buy, do you? But there's some likeness there, huh? You can turn all these things into money and then use money to get other things, huh? So it makes a little interesting comparison there. Now, you may see later on there that Heisenberg said if you substitute the word energy for fire, you've got what we're saying. But anyway, we'll come back to that. Now, let's compare the guests here of fire with those that have gone before. And in particular, if you take Mother Earth, and we saw how water is a better guest than Mother Earth, because it's thinner and finer, and that air is an even better guest than water. Now, we also saw air is a better guest than water because it's more formless in its qualities, huh? You said water is more formless than Mother Earth, huh? Now, is fire a better guest than air and water, or not? Or is it not as good? Seems to have more qualities. Yeah. So in terms of qualities, you'd say, well, fire is a worse guest than air and even than water. Because fire is more definitely hot and dry than water is cold, huh? So what the hell is this central thinker here in thought, you know, suggesting fire instead of that, right? Now, in terms of being thinner and finer, could you argue that fire is the thinnest of all things? is the third thing that's going to do? So what the hell is this central thinker So what the hell is this central thinker So what the hell is this central thinker So what the hell is this central thinker