The<i>Logos</i>Paradox

Robin Reames University of Illinois Chicago

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn her 2006 article “The Task of the Bow” Carol Poster shows through an analysis of the fragment “For the bow, its name is life but its task is death” that for Heraclitus the instability of the material world also infects language and that investigating the unstable logos—its hidden, double, oblique meanings—discloses this extralinguistic world instability. This article conducts similar analysis of the wordplay in Heraclitus's opening lines, challenging the long-standing debate over the meaning of logos in the first fragment. Through reconsidering the context of Aristotle's references to Heraclitus's paradoxes, this article develops a set of hermeneutic criteria that may be applied to contemporary interpretations of the first fragment. Understood as a paradox, the hidden meaning of this logos must be sought through its primary meaning (speech or discourse), and its fuller interpretation requires an expansion (not contraction) of its possible signification. By such an interpretation, the logos as speech of the first fragment is concomitant with the volatile flux of the material world itself.

Journal
Philosophy & Rhetoric
Published
2013-07-01
DOI
10.5325/philrhet.46.3.0328
Open Access
Closed
Topics

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (0)

No articles in this index cite this work.

Cites in this index (0)

No references match articles in this index.

Also cites 17 works outside this index ↓
  1. Adomenas, Mantas. 1999. “Heraclitus on Religion.” Phronesis 44 (2): 87–113.
  2. Burnet, John. 1892. Early Greek Philosophy. 1st ed. London: Adam and Charles Black.
  3. Cherniss, Harold. 1951. “The Characteristics and Effects of Presocratic Philosophy.” Journal of the History o…
  4. Cole, Thomas. 1991. The Origins of Rhetoric in Ancient Greece. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
  5. Collobert, Catherine. 2002. “Aristotle's Review of the Presocratics: Is Aristotle Finally a Historian of Phil…
  6. English, Robert B. 1913. “Heraclitus and the Soul.” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological…
  7. Frankel, Hermann. 1938. “Heraclitus on God and the Phenomenal World.” Transactions and Proceedings of the Ame…
  8. Glasson, T. F. 1952. “Heraclitus' Alleged Logos Doctrine.” Journal of Theological Studies 3 (2): 231–38.
  9. Guthrie, W. K. C. 1957. “Aristotle as a Historian of Philosophy.” Journal of Hellenic Studies 77 (1): 35–41.
  10. Hoffman, David. 2006. “Structural Logos in Heraclitus and the Sophists.” Advances in the History of Rhetoric …
  11. Kirk, Geoffrey S., John E. Raven, and Malcolm Schofield. 1983. The Presocratic Philosophers: A Critical Histo…
  12. McDiarmid, John B. 1953. “Theophrastus on the Presocratic Causes.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 61:…
  13. Miller, Ed L. 1981. “The Logos of Heraclitus: Updating the Report.” Harvard Theological Review 74 (2): 161–76.
  14. Minar, Edwin. 1939. “The Logos of Heraclitus.” Classical Philology 34 (4): 323–41.
  15. Mourelatos, Alexander. 1965. “Heraclitus Fr. 114.” American Journal of Philology 86 (3): 259.
  16. Poster, Carol. 2006. “The Task of the Bow.” Philosophy and Rhetoric 39 (1): 1–21.
  17. Stevenson, J. G. 1974. “Aristotle as Historian of Philosophy.” Journal of Hellenic Studies 94: 138–43.
CrossRef global citation count: 7 View in citation network →