The Strength of the Invisible: Reflections on Heraclitus

Abstract

Heraclitus seeks to indicate the meaning and power active but invisible in the rich spectacle of the sensible world. In his effort of discovery and description he is one with the earlier poets, who sang tales of gods and godlike heroes; with the Ionian natural philosophers, who proposed a unity encompassing the patterns and processes all about them; and with subsequent philosophers who envision eternal Ideas and underlying essences. Yet Heraclitus stands apart both from the poets and from other philosophers through his acceptance, indeed appreciation, of an ever-changing, strife-filled experience. The onrush of experience is not to be tamed by stories dear to human imagination, not to be explained by a material first principle with subsequent processes, and not to be constrained within universal conceptual schemes. Rather, the events in turmoil flowing through our lives need to be freely met and examined in themselves if we are to glimpse a meaning and concord hidden there. If we approach experience preoccupied with our own purposes, we will overlook much that is there for us to find. Heraclitus admonishes, Unless you expect the unexpected you will not find the unexpected, for it is undiscovered and unexplored . 1