"[T]he absence of anything to show that Herakleitos spoke of a general ... becomes more patent when we turn to the few fragments which are supposed to prove it. The favourite is fr. 24, where... Fire was Want and Surfeit. [I]t has a perfectly intelligible meaning on our interpretation... confirmed by fr. 36. [I]t seems... artificial to understand the Surfeit as referring to the fact that fire has burnt everything else up, and... more so to interpret Want as meaning... fire... has turned into a world. The next is fr. 26 where... fire... will judge and convict all things. There is nothing... to suggest... fire will judge... at once rather than in turn, and... the advance of fire and water... we have seen... is... limited... These appear to be the only passages... the Stoics and the Christian apologists could discover, and... cannot bear the weight of their conclusion... [T]here was certainly nothing more definite to be found."
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Philosophers from GreeceNatural philosophersPhysicists from GreeceCosmologistsPresocratic philosophers
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Heraclitus
Heraclitus of Ephesus (Ἡράκλειτος, Herakleitos; c. 535 BC – 475 BC) was a Greek philosopher, known for his doctrine of change being central to the universe, and for establishing the term Logos (λόγος) in Western philosophy as meaning both the source and fundamental order of the Cosmos.
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