Ancient Greek Philosopher Confucius - Research Paper Example

Heraclitus, An ancient Greek philosopher Western thought especially the Greek thought has been very dominant in the field of philosophy. Heraclitus was the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher whose work on the nature of universe and the concept of change laid new foundations for modern philosophy. He was the first noble man in Greek cabinet who introduced classified thought in Greek perspectives. Heraclitus worked on three discourses i.e. universe, politics and science categorized under nature.His philosophy of life revolves around the nature of change ever present in the material universe.

He believes that life is characterized with change as his famous quotation suggests, “No man ever steps in the same river twice”. He believed that change is the constant force of the universe. Everything is changing and even the next second, we are not the same person. Change is elemental in the universal process. He also believes that elements of the universe do change themselves but one element is intertwined with another as he stated once, “To souls it is death to become water, to water death to become earth, but from earth water is born, and from water soul” (Pro and Ilmari, 2012).

He was of the opinion that although elements in universe change but they remain constant in totality due to natural laws. There are harmonizing elements or forces present in nature that does not let happen anything drastic but keep things in equilibrium.Heraclitus was a great believer of war as many philosophers may have expected of him. He stated “War is father of all, king of all. Some it makes gods, some it makes men, some it makes slaves, some free and we must realize that war is universal, and strife is justice, and that all things come into being and pass away through strife.

” These ideas depict that he was of the belief that these are the conflicting ideas that bring lively uniformity in universe (Thomas, 2012).Heraclitus also believed that to exist in society, one good man is worth ten thousand ordinary people as one good man can bring stand out character to the society. It clearly means that he distrust many in society but believes a very few people (Daniel, 2011).Ethical foundations are also found in Heraclitus philosophy. He believes that a man should not be derived by his wishes and should not try to get whatever he wants as it will lose its purification of soul that is the chief ambition of a soul.

Ideas of the Greek Heraclitus were clearly opposed to the concept of dualism. He also believed that there is no after life or death for soul rather it remains evolving itself in a circle. His work had great impact on later philosophic approaches as his theory of moving warm particles may have led to the atomic theory of Democritus (Arash, 2009). The ideas of war and rigid morals clearly define Heraclitus thought that how these forces are needed for society. It also depicts his desire to see the world as a moral and ethical place to live for people.

References:Arash, Farzaneh. Heraclitus and the Philosophy of becoming. Philosophy. 25 February. 2009. 11 October. 2012. http://suite101.com/article/ancient-greek-philosophy-and-heraclitus-a98753Daniel, Graham. Heraclitus. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 29 March. 2011. 11 October. 2012. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/heraclitus/Pro, Gradu and Ilmari, Helin. The one and the Many-In the works of Heraclitus, Parmenides and Lao Zi. 11 October. 2012. http://www.doria.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/63133/theonean.pdf?sequence=1Thomas, Knierim.

Pre-Socratic Greek Philosophy. Greek Philosophy. 11 October. 2012. http://www.thebigview.com/download/greek-philosophy.pdf