Heraclitus the Tree Hugger

I had the idea for this blog a few months back, but haven't gotten around to writing it until now. In my environmental science class, we learned about the three major ethical views you find among environmental scientist. There's the anthropocentric who is human centered, the biocentric who values living things, and the ecocentric who values whole ecological systems. The easiest way to explain the different views is to explain what each person would do in a given situation, so I'll use the example we got in class.

Imagine you're on a safari and you run across an elephant with its foot stuck in a whole. You know the elephant can't get out by itself and will die either from starvation or attack without any help. At the same time, it would be dangerous for you to help the elephant as you could get seriously hurt in the process. You remember that you have a rifle in your car so you could shoot the elephant and put it out of its misery. What would you do?

The Anthropocentric would say it's best to shoot the elephant because it would be too risky to help it, but they wouldn't want to be left with the guilt of knowing the elephant was later attacked by predators or starved to death. The biocentric would choose to help the elephant despite the risk because certain living things (namely all animals) have value and should be protected. The biocentric still values human life, but they don't necessarily place humans above other living things. The ecocentric would likely leave the elephant, preferring to allow nature to run its course. In their view, everything happens for a reason. If the elephant lives good for it; if the predators find it good for them; if the elephant dies and decomposes good for the soil. Either way, it's not the human’s job to get in the way.

So where does Heraclitus come in? I am convinced that Heraclitus is an ecocentric. Its claims like, "Opposition brings concord. Out of discord comes the fairest harmony" that make me believe he would take the c’est la vie approach of an ecocentric to nature. The claim "out of discord comes the fairest harmony" only makes sense through the eyes of an ecocentric. It's about the checks and balances in place in the natural world. For instance, we all love deer (if you don't, watch Bambi and you'll change), but we don't want them running all over the place causing problems. That's why when Discovery channel shows us a video of a tiger hunting a deer and having it for dinner no one freaks out and calls PETA. We understand that the discord between the deer and the tiger is necessary to maintain harmony. After all, if we went around protecting the deer all the time, they would run amuck and the tigers would die. Heraclitus understood this. That's why he wrote his philosophy around the importance of opposites and opposition.

All this time he we thought he was just throwing around random paradoxes for us to think about. It turns out he was coming out of the closet as a tree hugger.

Okay Pythagoras, I See Where You're Coming From

Here's my take on Pythagoras (Pyth). I don't know if I fully grasp his idea that Number is the arche, but I agree with the theory that everything in the world involves, and can be explained by, numbers. When reading about Pyth I was reminded of a lab I did in my high school physics class. Each team had to roll a marble down an incline, off the edge of the table, and into a cup. The catch was we got everything but the marble to work with. We had to first gather all of the other materials, take a few measurements, make a few calculations, and then place our cup where we thought the marble would land. Once we requested the marble from our professor, we had three chances to make it into the cup. The crazy thing is it actually worked. Every team's marble either made it into the cup or at least hit the rim. When reflecting on the assignment, I suddenly realized that almost everything (if not, everything) in the world could be calculated if you knew how to do it. I think the realization Pyth made was similar to my own, though he took the theory a little further than I did. I'm hesitant to say Number is the under lining, unchanging mover of our world, but I can see why Pyth wouldn't be.

Consider this for a moment. Everything is measurable by numbers (as my professor showed in the experiment). But what are numbers? They're symbols we made up to count things. Then again, the symbols themselves are the only part of numbers that's human made. Even before we had the symbols "1" and "2" we knew if you took a pencil and placed it next to another pencil the result was a larger group of pencils. This idea can be expanded. Even before my class knew how to measure where a marble rolled down an incline would land, the calculation was possible. The marble was always going to land in the same spot. Since the beginning of the universe, that marble has been subject to the laws of gravity, friction, energy, and whatever else. Everything on Earth operates under these laws and measurements and always has. That's how we predict the weather, build bridges, fly... It's easy to see how Pyth came to the conclusion that everything comes from Number. It's always been here. We've always been operating by it. How can it not be the arche?

Here's my answer. To me, the ruling force can't be Number itself. Numbers are not an active thing, they just are. Number may be something the universe acts within, but it doesn't cause the universe to act. The arche needs to be something actively directing and moving the universe. That's at least how I define it. I say the arche made Number and then used it to design the universe. But I see where Pythagoras was coming from.

Why I'm a Philosopher, Not a Storyteller

I'll skip the introductions and jump right into my ideals. Besides, the best way to know someone is finding out what they believe they know.


In my ancient philosophy course at Baylor, we started the year with Hesiod and Homer. That is to say, we read enough of their works to know where they were coming from. We also got an introduction to David Roochnik, the author of our text book Retrieving the Ancients and found out what he thinks of Hesiod and his myths. Now I've only read the first 17 pages, but I think I'm going to like this Roochnik character. There is one big point that we both agree on, myths are not philosophy.

In his text Roochnik started off by saying that in the west, philosophy started with Thales because Thales correctly predicted an eclipse in 585. At first I was confused. What does an eclipse have to do with philosophy? If Thales had discovered the meaning of life he would have had something. As I read on and reflected on the reading it became clearer. Philosophy isn't just unknown questions, its answers too. Of course, unless you're in my head that last statement makes little sense, so I'll explain.

When I see the word philosophy I think of it in the today's sense which is finding answers to questions like "What it the reason for life?" or "What does it mean to be moral?" Basically, philosophy’s finding the answer to questions that don't seem to have answers. What I forget is that the unanswered questions of today are not the same as the questions of 585. Whereas today I would classify the cycle of solar eclipses as science back then it was a mystery. They didn't have NASA around to tell them it was simply the moon trying to upstage the sun, and I'm sure there were a whole lot of Homers and Hesiods around saying the gods are doing it. What separated Thales from the rest is that he didn't settle for some casual explanation. Anyone could take an afternoon to make up a story, say the Muses told them, and go on about their day. But Thales didn't. He went after the truth because he was a lover of truth, a lover of knowledge, a lover of wisdom. Now that we have the answer, it's easy to say that an eclipse falls under the rim of science, but back then it was just as perplexing as the meaning of life. As a question without an answer, it fell (and still falls) under philosophy. That's what I mean when I say philosophy is unknown questions AND answers because it includes the answers to questions previously unknown.

To bring my wondering mind back to the point of this post, I am a philosopher and not a storyteller because I, like Thales, search for truth. Homer and Hesiod were storytellers, Hesiod especially. For class we read lines 1-139 of Hesiod's Theogony. This guy starts off by saying that this story isn't his own, but rather it was given to him by the Muses. I'm not sure about the rest of the world, but if someone's telling me a story and starts off by saying his beliefs are not his own, but something he heard from a mythical creature in the middle of a field somewhere, I'm thinkin' shady. To make it worse, these very same Muses told Hesiod they could be just as soon be lying as telling the truth. This is quintessential storytelling. Roochnik put it well when he wrote, "By invoking the Muses the poet [Hesiod] denies ultimate responsibility for, and therefore knowledge of, his own poem." It's as though Hesiod was adding that disclaimer you find at the front of fictional novels saying all of the characters of the story are the product of the author (the muses) whether or not they reflect the real world. Hesiod was simply the publisher.

The difference in a philosopher is there is no disclaimer. When a philosopher tells you something they are taking full responsibility over what they say, be it right or wrong. They don't feel a need to disconnect themselves from the belief by saying they heard it somewhere else because what their telling you isn't something they just made up. Where a storyteller comes up with an answer, a philosopher finds an answer. They search for what they want to know. Even when they think they have it right, they give their new found answer careful consideration and, if possible, testing before they share it. That's why when Thales predicted the eclipse he was christened a philosopher. It was obvious he had thought about and discovered the eclipse’s true cause as opposed to just coming up with something.

Every question won't be as black & white as "What is the cause of a solar eclipse?” Inquiries about the source of a person's moral or ethics for instance are quite gray. You can't determine if your answer is right by simply looking at the sky. So how does one consider and test these answers to ensure that they are philosophizing, and not just telling stories? By sharing what they know, without qualification. You know you're talking to a philosopher when they will willingly take responsibility for their answers and tell you where they're coming from. Not only that, but if you expose a flaw in their reasoning, their answer changes. Some people call this wishy-washy, but I call it smart. If you find out something you believe to be true is in fact not, why would you continue believing it? That's just stupid.

I end this post by saying, I am a Philosopher. What I post I have considered, if possible tested, and take full responsibility for. If you leave a comment that exposes a flaw in my thinking, I revise my thought and thank you for making me that much closer to the truth.