Philosopher · Iron Age · Turkey

Heraclitus

c. 535–c. 475 BC

Greek thinker of Ephesus, on the coast of modern Turkey, famous for the doctrine that all things flow. He taught that fire is the first principle and that opposites are one. He lived about 535 to 475 BC, and his one book survives only in fragments.

Facts

Born: About 535 BC, Ephesus, on the coast of what is now Turkey.; Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Heraclitus
Died: About 475 BC.; Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Heraclitus
School: Presocratic natural philosophy, in tension with the Eleatics.; Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Heraclitus
Known for: The flux doctrine, summed up in later reports as no man steps in the same river twice, and the unity of opposites.; Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Heraclitus

Images

Bust traditionally identified as Heraclitus, Capitoline Museums (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA)

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