Heraclitus: The Agricultural Revolution

Oedipus’ life is like a bad fortune cookie. He is short of luck and is destined to a bad future. Throughout his misfortune he still exemplifies a few of Aristotle’s “The High-Minded Man” qualities. Aristotle wrote of qualities that only a man of greatness and happiness would acquire. The essay, “The High-Minded Man” by Aristotle reflects characteristics of Oedipus In Oedipus Rex, he displays the high-minded qualities of truth and honor, but lacks in the gift of fortune.

Jean Paul Sartre's Existential philosophy posits that is in man, and in man alone, that existence precedes essence. Simply put, Sartre means that man is first, and only subsequently to his “isness” does he become this or that. The implication in Sartre's philosophy is that man must create his own essence: it is in being thrown into the world through consciounsess intent, loving, struggling, experiencing and being in the world that man is alllowed to define itself. Yet, the definition always remains open ended: we cannot say that a human is definitively this or that before its death and indeed, it is the ultimate nothingness of death that being is defined. The concepts that Sartre examines in Being and Nothingness

Sophocles' Oedipus is a clever man and a sage ruler. Unfortunately, he thinks too much of himself and believes that he knows better than the gods.

Everything that occurs in our lives can be challenged, and Sartre chooses to do this in discussing the story of Abraham. Sartre writes, “But any sane person may wonder first whether it is truly an angel, and second, whether I am really Abraham. What proof do I have?” (26). If an angel comes to an individual, can that person be absolutely certain that what has visited him is an angel? We can say that we are anything, but what makes us that thing? If we are required to prove our existence, how do we prove it? We often use the things around us to verify our own existence - other people, things, our own perceptions - but there doesn’t seem to be a way to actually prove that we exist. This idea could easily make someone question reality and therefore their existence. Sartre mentions sanity - the fact that any sane person would be questioning the situation - and this raises a lot of ideas about existing as a sane person or an insane person. It appears that constant questioning and skepticism is not in fact a problem, but being numb to one’s circumstances is. If this is so, it seems that trapping one’s self in an endless cycle of questioning and thinking is better than not. This can be related to Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am,” which validates Sartre’s idea that if one is thinking, one is existing, or that thinking is a task of our

Sartre’s stance that human existence precedes essence directly ties into his notion of rational freedom and responsibility. Existence precedes essence means that there is no predetermined human essence and that there is no human nature fixed in advance of human existence. Furthermore, if I create my essence then I am wholly responsible for the person that I am. In other words, one could say that humans exist and subsequently make themselves who they are by their actions, choices, as well as creating an image of what men ought to be. “Man simple is” (Sartre 28). When we are born we have no essence, but through experiences

Ancient texts can show modern society many thing, such as how some emotion traits can be good or evil, and why people with the same skills many times achieve vastly different results. Two characters who can be analyze this was are Odysseus from the Odyssey, and Oedipus from Oedipus Rex. The Odysseus is the story of a warrior, Odysseus, who journeys to his native land of Ithaca despite many obstacles and succeeds in driving out suitors who are present in his home/ Oedipus Rex is the story of Oedipus, a man who has accidentally married his mother and killed his father, and learning the truth, becomes blind and is exiled. Odysseus and Oedipus are both intelligent heroes who use their wit to solve their problems, with the former returning successfully home and the latter failing miserably. The reason behind their different outcomes is the morality of the emotional traits which guide them. Odysseus used to be arrogant and hedonistic, as can be examined by look at his interaction with the cyclops and the sirens, but he eventually learns to become humble and less hedonistic, as seen by his interactions in Ithaca and on Calypso’s island. Oedipus has a bad temperament and is quick to anger throughout his life and to everyone, from his youth before he had become king up to and including his current reign, and he has a short temper in reference to both strangers and friends.

This portrait of Mycerinus as a kind ruler is an interesting one and appears again in Diodorus Siculus’ Library of History. However, despite his stated low opinion of Herodotus’ earlier work, Diodorus’ account of Egypt undoubtedly has Herodotean threads running through it and for this reason alone cannot be used to support the story of Mycerinus presented in Herodotus’ Histories. Alan B. Lloyd has suggested that the view of Mycerinus as a benign ruler may have come about due to the relatively small size of his pyramid in contrast to those of Chephren and Cheops. This argument is given further credence when it is considered that one of the theories proposed for the reduction in size of Mycerinus’ pyramid was that the Pharaoh began to devote more resources to the construction of temples. However, Herodotus’ tale of Mycerinus can just as easily be read, albeit in an unusual way, as an example of the dangers of hubris. This tale also contains some of the motifs and anti-motifs of tyrants as described in the speech of Otanes at 3.80. The conventions in Otanes’ speech appear frequently when Herodotus talks about despotic rulers in Histories. This theory of a hubristic Mycerinus character formed as part of a tyrannical tradition in Histories will be dealt with later in this paper.

Simply deeming him ambitious, courageous, egotistical would do him no justice. The complexity he presents is unprecedented today, it is as though he is constantly see-sawing between good and evil, virtuous and unethical, affectionate and inconsiderate. Thus, in order to wholly understand the essence of his character it is eminent to glimpse into the patterns of behavior presented- that is to say that pattern of behavior is truly the essence of one’s character rather than a single act in and of itself. Moreover, as an illustration of how complex of a character Alcibiades developed, it proves especially useful to harken back and compare him to a more concrete ethos- Pericles. For, as Aristotle theorized, each vice has a virtuous

In his play, No Exit, Jean-Paul Sartre examines basic themes of existentialism through three characters. The first subject, Garcin, embraces existentialist ideas somewhat. The second character, Inez, seems to fully understand ideas deemed existential. Estelle is the third person, and does not seem to understand these ideas well, nor does she accept them when they are first presented to her. One similarity amongst the three is that they all at some point seem to accept that they are in Hell for a reason.

Throughout Western Civilization many people, creations and works have impacted us and helped society strive today. We have been so greatly influenced by all these findings. One being Heraclitus’ great works and wonders. Heraclitus was an ancient Greek Pre-Socratic philosopher in the 500 BC. In the book Expect the Unexpected, author Von oech uses some of Heraclitus’s epigrams and greater explains them and keeps readers thinking.

What Heraclitus can agree with the Milesians on, is that everything is in flux. The Milesians explained the world and its phenomena as to how everything came from the original stuff, such as Thales' water or Anaximenes' air. Heraclitus follows this pattern of explanation when he refers to the world as "an everliving fire". Fire is constantly changing and so is every other stuff. One thing is transformed into another in what is a cycle of changes. What is constant is not some stuff but the overall process of change itself. There is a constant law of transformations, which can probably be identified with Logos

He wrote on the topics of ‘in-itself’, consciousness or being, and also ‘for-itself’, which is the nothingness that encounters being, and has no self-awareness. ‘In-itself’ lays beyond the existence we as humans know, however ‘in-itself’ is the basis according to Sartre, which consciousness and a world will emerge. On the other end he also described ‘for-itself’. This is understood as the nothingness of being, or lack of being. It could also be understood as a being that distinguished itself by not being of the world that is of consciousness, and therefore ‘for-itself’ cannot be determined for sure. According to Dr. Christine Daigle on- https://philosophynow.org, this means Sartre, thinks that the ‘for-itself’ is entirely free to become through its actions. It can freely break from its past or even from social or historical conditioning and affirm itself through its actions. We also discussed the sun as a metaphor for pure being; this is an extension of the divided line. Seeing the sun is pure being, it is unchanging reality and also goodness. Here the being is also the cause, and God and the One are the source of all morality. Here for anything to exists all of the parts must work together and function of the good. The sunlight radiated into the darkness, or also the nothingness. The idea is that the closer to the sun you are the more real you are. This goes for objects as well. On the other hand the further away from the sun you

This view, which is shared by fellow French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, is that humanity must

He summed up human nature as “existence precedes essence”. In his book, Existentialism and Human Emotions, he explained what he meant by this. “It means that, first of all, man exists, turns up, appears on the scene, and, only afterwards, defines himself. If man, as the existentialist conceives him, is indefinable, it is because at first he is nothing. Only afterward will be something, and he himself will have made what he will be 4”. After watching 12 Angry Men, the prominent view on human nature that is best portrayed in the movie is that people are free to be whatever they want because as Sartre said, “people create themselves every moment of everyday according to the choices they make 5”.

Heracleitus deliberately composed a list of fragments, or proverbs, in which he touches upon various subjects, such as moral, political and knowledge theories. Heracleitus believed that the universe was constantly changing, as stated in one of his most renowned fragments, “It is not possible to step twice into the same river” (91). He accompanied this position with the concept of a unity of opposites in the world, stating that “Immortals are mortal, mortals are immortal: (each) lives the death of the other, and dies their life” (62).