Abstract

War is the central principle in Heraclitus' thought. War between human beings determines their destinies; even strife between citizens determines the health of their cities. But the war and strife are not lamentable moments of destruction: they are the necessary grounds of all coming to be for Heraclitus. The people, the cities, the cosmos that come to be because of war are bloody and dangerous, but the work of this war is also well balanced, harmonious, and even beautiful. War is not only a principle in the world of mortal affairs; it governs all things, both every being in the cosmos and the cosmos itself as a whole. The strife and opposition between inanimate objects is not different in kind from the wars between mortals; each opposes forces in a logic of conquest, in which each being engages its opposite in an attempt to prevail. This engagement applies not only to individual things but also to their parts, and so accounts for the unity and harmony both in individuals and the whole. The result is a cosmos more marked by harmony and balance than by flux. ;The central role of war in the cosmos determines not only a physics and metaphysics for Heraclitus, but also an ethics and an epistemology. Human excellence requires full engagement in the strife of the cosmos, but not pointless violence. The best men will understand the nature of the world and will think, speak, and act in consonance with it. This kind of excellence is hard for human beings only because their spirits are cowardly and slack. The nature of the world is not obvious, yet all human beings are capable of understanding it. This understanding is terrifying, and so men resist it. Instead of agreeing with the nature of the world, their thoughts turn inward, into a world of the imagination. This flight to ignorance is disgraceful; Heraclitus has nothing but contempt for it