Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 Heraclitus' conceptions of flux, fire and material persistence
- 2 Epistemology and meaning in Heraclitus
- 3 The dénouement of the Cratylus
- 4 Cratylus' theory of names and its refutation
- 5 Knowledge and language: the Theaetetus and the Cratylus
- 6 Falsehood and not-being in Plato's Sophist
- 7 Forms and dialectic in the second half of the Parmenides
- 8 Aristotle and the more accurate arguments
- 9 Aristotle on the principles of change in Physics I
- 10 Aristotle on natural teleology
- 11 Accidental unities
- 12 Aristotle's concept of signification
- 13 Saving Aristotle's appearances
- 14 Myths about non-propositional thought
- 15 Gods and heaps
- Bibliography of the publications of G. E. L. Owen
- Index locorum
- Index of names
2 - Epistemology and meaning in Heraclitus
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 Heraclitus' conceptions of flux, fire and material persistence
- 2 Epistemology and meaning in Heraclitus
- 3 The dénouement of the Cratylus
- 4 Cratylus' theory of names and its refutation
- 5 Knowledge and language: the Theaetetus and the Cratylus
- 6 Falsehood and not-being in Plato's Sophist
- 7 Forms and dialectic in the second half of the Parmenides
- 8 Aristotle and the more accurate arguments
- 9 Aristotle on the principles of change in Physics I
- 10 Aristotle on natural teleology
- 11 Accidental unities
- 12 Aristotle's concept of signification
- 13 Saving Aristotle's appearances
- 14 Myths about non-propositional thought
- 15 Gods and heaps
- Bibliography of the publications of G. E. L. Owen
- Index locorum
- Index of names
Summary
To further the understanding of the Presocratics, as intelligent beings looking for a theoretical ordering of the world, has been, among the cherished aims of Gwil Owen, one to which he has repeatedly recurred and to which we owe some of his most characteristically illuminating work. To this collection in his honour I offer a set of proposals for the understanding of Heraclitus.
Epistemology: the programme
The hypothesis to be explored claims that at the heart of Heraclitus' thought there lies a remarkable and characteristic epistemology, and that it is this above all that must first be grasped if his account of the world is to be understood. It will help to begin with a statement of what would be agreed about Heraclitus' epistemology by many scholars.
I shall treat as non-controversial the position summarised in the rest of the present paragraph. Heraclitus is deeply interested in the problem of knowledge. He sharply rejects the claims to be guides to knowledge of (a) ordinary common sense; (b) popular and traditional beliefs; (c) much of traditional Greek religion; (d) the older accepted authorities, Homer and Hesiod; (e) more recent claimants of such diverse kinds as Archilochus, Xenophanes, Hecataeus and Pythagoras. Against all these, and in support of his own account of the world, Heraclitus appeals in the first place to the evidence of the senses. ‘All of which the learning is seeing and hearing, to that I give preference’ (B55).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Language and LogosStudies in Ancient Greek Philosophy Presented to G. E. L. Owen, pp. 33 - 60Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1982
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