HERACLITUS's HOMEPAGE

Heraclitus

Heraclitus is the earliest Greek philosopher from whom enough material survives for us to be able to get a more or less clear idea about what he stood for philosophically.   We know that he was from the Greek colony of Ephesus, one of the several Greek city-states which were flourishing then on the Mediterranean coast of what is now Turkey, the area known in his time as Ionia. We know, too, that he was active philosophically around 500 B. C.  Otherwise, we know very little about him.  Heraclitus either wrote a book in which he set forth his philosophy, or authored a series of less integrated sayings.  If there was, indeed a book of Heraclitus, it is now lost.  However, during ancient times, other writers cited many passages from Heraclitus's teachings in their own texts, which did survive, and from these quotations a series of about 130 "fragments" was eventually compiled.  These short snatches of text are the basis of all our knowledge of Heraclitus's thought.

In your Greek Coursepack, on pages 32-37, you will find one version of the fragments, in a good translation and in acceptable, numbered order.  Unfortunately, the typescript format is cramped and unpleasant to read, and the fact that page 33 has been blurred by the copy-center xerox machine does not add its charm. 

To make the fragments of Heraclitus easier to deal with, a better printed version is now available on a Fragments page here.  Unfortunately, the order and numbering is different from the Coursepack version, and the translation, by a very fine but now somewhat antiquated scholar named John Burnet, is both different from the Coursepack version and, in spots, less accurate.  The issue of readability seems so important, however, that it seems worthwhile to make the Burnet translation available to you.