Body and Soul in Ancient Philosophy

Heraclitus on measure and the explicit emergence of rationality 105
particular mentalities and ambitions, over-confident that they will succeed.
The future is unpredictable, for we are in no position to know in
advance the fortunes gods will dispense to us.
In a further isolated line (fr. 17), reiterating the “obscurity” of the
gnômosynÞ that encompasses everything, Solon states the pessimistic message
of his long poem as follows: “The mind of the immortals is completely
obscure to human beings (p²mtgi dû !ham²tym !vamµr mºor
!mhq¾poisim).” The Christian source of this line says that here Solon
follows Hesiod, probably with reference to Op. 483 – 4: “The mind
of Zeus is different at different times and hard for mortal men to know.”
There can be little doubt that Solon’s gnômosynÞ alludes to some
kind of divine intelligence or plan, vaguer though this is in its reference
than his Christian sources took it to be. How, then, should we interpret
his fr. 16? Vlastos took gnômosynÞ to apply specifically to human justice.
28 He supported this proposal by reference to Theognis 1171 – 2,
“The best thing gods give mortal men is gnômÞ; gnômÞ holds the limits
of everything”. Theognis, in a clearly ethical context, appears to be alluding
to Solon, but rather than agreeing with his predecessor, as Vlastos
suggested, Theognis has corrected Solon’s epistemological and theological
pessimism by making gnômÞ a divine gift to human beings. I take
Solon to be saying that the mind of the controlling divinity – or the
mind of the gods in general – is virtually inscrutable for mortals.
Does he express nothing more than that quite traditional thought?
The intriguing words are metron and pantôn peirata. Solon postulates a
bounded universe that conforms to the measure of cosmic intelligence.
With these thoughts Solon seems to anticipate Heraclitus so closely
that one is tempted to regard the latter as directly alluding to him, especially
if we compare Heraclitus B 41 on the wisdom of knowing the
gnômÞ that “steers everything through everything” with Solon’s cosmic
gnômosynÞ that holds the limits of everything.
But the allusion, if I am right, is also highly critical. Although Heraclitus
and Solon agree in taking the world to be intelligently governed
according to measure, they disagree on the implications of that fact for
human beings. For Solon human beings have no access to any logos that
makes the divine measure accountable. For Heraclitus, by contrast, the
“obscurity” of nature (B 123) and the superiority of its “non-evident
structure” (B 54, connected with Solon fr. 16 by Vlastos loc. cit.) are
challenges to the human intellect’s powers of discovery. Thanks to
28 Vlastos 1946, 67.