Volume 29, Number 8 · May 13, 1982
Message from Heraclitus
By M.F. Burnyeat
The Art and Thought of Heraclitus: An Edition of the Fragments with Translation and Commentary
by Charles H. Kahn
Cambridge University Press, 354 pp., $15.95 (paper)
We are, let us imagine, at Ephesus on the coast of Asia Minor. The date is somewhere around 500 BC, and we have gathered to hear the book or logos (discourse) of Heraclitus, son of Bloson. At this period books—such few of them as exist—are written to be heard rather than perused in solitude, and it is customary for them to begin, self-referentially, with an introductory remark about the logos which is to be read out. So we are not surprised when on this occasion the opening words speak of Heraclitus' logos and of those who hear it. The jolt comes when we realize that we, the hearers of this logos, are being told that we will not understand it:
Review, 3714 words
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