Greek philosophers
Heracleitos of Ephesus
Heracleitos of Ephesus was a Greek philosopher who was born in 540 BC in Ephesus (present-day Turkey) and died in 480 BC in Athens. He is sometimes called "The Dark One" or "The Weeping Philosopher" through his disparaging remarks about people. His most famous quote is "Thou shalt not step twice into the same river".
Heracleitos was from the royal family of Ephesus and was therefore a high aristocrat. However, it is not entirely clear who his father was (Blosón, Hérakont, Bauber, Blysón). But it is also possible that all these names depict the same man.
From his youth, Heracleitos astonished with his statements, claiming to know nothing. When he grew up, he claimed to know everything. He was not a disciple of anyone, but said he had searched himself ("I have searched myself and learned everything from myself."). Other sources, however, state that he listened to Xenophanes and Hippasus. This is not likely to be true of Xenophanes, who was supposed to have left the city before Heracleitos was born.
Heracleitos later withdrew to the temple of Artemis in Ephesus. Why he did so is not known, although the fundamental conjecture is that he left because his comrade Hermodóros was driven out of the city. Moreover, Heracleitos had a prominent place in the temple as a descendant of the Ephesian royal family. Subsequently, he also received an offer from Athens to move there, but gratefully declined.
In Ephesus, he was asked to write laws, but he refused them as well, because the community was said to be already under a bad constitution. Here he was to write his most famous book, On Nature, which unfortunately has not survived, although many other authors (such as Aristotle) quote it, and so parts of it are known. The book was to be given as a gift to the sanctuary of Artemis. The book itself was to be divided into three parts (on the universe, political and theological).
The teaching of Heracleitus himself is interesting: "Everything moves and nothing lasts." Analogies of this quote are, "Thou shalt not step twice into the same river." or "The sun is always new." This quote is also mentioned by Plato.
"The origin and essence of the world is fire." Heracleitos does not consider it to be a prelude. He claimed "all that exists is formed from fire by its condensation and dilution." Fire, according to him, is "active", "eternal", "self-nourishing" and "rising". By its greater and greater compression, first air, then water, and finally earth are created.
He was a great critic of society: "The best choose one thing instead of all, imperishable glory instead of transience; but many are as fat as cattle.", "Those who cannot listen cannot even speak.", "Human opinions are children's toys." He also criticized his predecessors Homer, Hesiod and Pythagoras. He even criticized his countrymen: "The Ephesians deserve to have all the adults put to death, leaving the city to the immature, because they have driven out the most useful, Hermidorus."
Exactly how Heracleitus of Ephesus died is unknown, but the most likely explanation is illness. What is important is that he had a great influence on later philosophers (Plato, Aristotle, Clemens of Alexandria, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, and others).