SCHOLE (Jan 2015)
Philosophical “Optics” in Heraclitus
Abstract
This article starts to explore the problem of the mutual relations of “visible” and “what it is”. Ontology, which is nicknamed “classical”, tends to deny the “visible” as a “false-existing”. The source of this ontology is usually found in ancient philosophy. The author starts studying this problem based on Heraclitus. Heraclitus had initially seen the “visible” and “invisible” as two sides of the cosmic continuum. One cognates the reality by means of physical sight. But a prerequisite for real knowledge is a sort of ascent from the explicit attunement (harmony) to the implicit one. The latter somehow embraces the former, and, although only vision of the universal signifies real wisdom, Heraclitus does not proclaim himself an enemy of the visible and does not declare the visible untrue. Vision “deceives” until the soul have reached an appropriate orderly state, when ‘explicit’ is found in a coordination with ‘implicit’, and a logos becomes visible to his eyes. This asymmetrical harmony of the visible by eyes and the visible by mind (soul) is, according to Heraclitus, the essence of all things as a whole, a genuine subject of ontological knowledge
