From the Beginning to Plato

100 HERACLITUS
this last text would be to suppose that Heraclitus is scornful of ‘philosophical
men’; the term ‘philosopher’, if genuinely Heraclitus’ own, makes its first known
appearance here. Such people, he might be saying, must, if they are to attain that
status, engage in the kind of research that brings learning but no understanding.
But that is not the kind of thinker that Heraclitus himself respects.
It might be thought that Heraclitus respects only his own judgement: ‘I
searched myself (B101); 96 ‘Of those whose theories I have heard, none has
attained this: to recognize that the wise is distinct from all things’ (B108). 97 Only
one thinker is mentioned with respect, and that is Bias, one of the seven sages,
but since little is known of him nothing can be deduced as to the grounds on
which Heraclitus observes that ‘his logos is greater than the rest’. 98
What can safely be deduced? Heraclitus does not hold that research of the
normal sort practised by philosophers and poets offers a way to an understanding
of the significant truth. There is one truth that all but a few fail to appreciate, and
that is the independence of the one thing that is wise: its detachment from the
great plurality of things into which these other thinkers enquire and the
knowledge of which they amass with such enthusiasm.
One thing, what is wise, to understand the sense in the way in which it
controls all things through all things.
(B41) 99
POLITICS, VIRTUE AND GLORY
Diodotus…says that the treatise is not about nature but about politics
and what it says concerning nature is included as illustrative
examples.
(Diogenes Laertius Lives IX. 15)
Even if we do not subscribe to Diodotus’ extreme view, it is evident that
Heraclitus expressed some opinions on political matters. Predictably something
goes wrong with politics if the choice of leader lies with those who are out of
touch with what matters; Heraclitus explodes about the action of his own citizens
in expelling the one man who was worth having:
It would be worthwhile if the Ephesians were all hanged from the young men
upwards, and left the city to the boys, since they expelled Hermodorus who
was the most valuable man of them all, saying: Let not one among us be
the most valuable; or else let him be elsewhere and among other people.
(B121) 100
What does Heraclitus mean by the ‘most valuable’? The point seems to be that
the citizens have rejected the person who was most effective at the job, purely out