Curd Patricia The Divine and The Thinkable Toward An Account of The Intelligible Cosmos, Rhizomata 2013

DOI 10.
1515/rhiz-2013-0010
RHIZ 2013; 1(2): 217247
Patricia Curd
The Divine and the Thinkable

Toward an account of the intelligible
cosmos
Abstract: There are three components in early Greek philosophy that, while not
explicitly stated by the Presocratics, taken together provide the support for their
confidence about human knowledge. First, there is an analysis of the concept of
divinity, originally found in Xenophanes, but picked up by later thinkers, which
removes genuine divinity from the traditional gods and places it in the cosmos
itself. The second theme, a continuation of the first, is that human beings, having
capacities for perception, thought, and understanding, are able to come to know
things beyond their limited daily experience. The third is the growing elaboration of the concepts of understanding and knowledge, along with a developing
account of intellect and/or soul according to which thinking is an aspect of soul
by which human intellect can latch on to the structure of nature. The paper is
primarily concerned with these notions in Xenophanes and Heraclitus.
Keywords: Presocratic philosophy, Divinity, Knowledge, Soul, Heraclitus, Xenophanes.
Patricia Curd: Department of Philosophy, Purdue University, 100 N. University Street, West
Lafayette, IN 479072098, USA, E-mail: zeno@purdue.edu
Parts of the story I tell here will be familiar, but I want to look at those parts in a
new way; from, as it were, a different angle. What could justify Presocratic confidence in our capacity to discover and to know? That many of the early Greek thinkers had this confidence is clear, and I will not devote much time to arguing for
that. My questions are about the philosophical presuppositions behind the Presocratic view that the cosmos is in principle intelligible to human beings. I argue
for three components in early Greek thought that may not be stated directly by
1This paper derives from my presentation at the 2009 Symposium. It is part of a projected book
about intelligibility and knowledge in early Greek thought. I am grateful to the participants at the
Symposium, and to participants at the 2009 Princeton Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy, where
the earliest versions of this project were presented. Thanks also to Istvn Bodnr and Gbor
Betegh for advice and patience.
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the Presocratic thinkers I discuss, but that taken together, provide the support for
confidence about human knowledge. First, there is an analysis of the concept of
divinity, originally found in Xenophanes, but picked up by later thinkers, which
removes genuine divinity from the traditional gods and places it in the cosmos
itself. The second theme, a continuation of the first, is that human beings, having
capacities for perception, thought, and understanding, are able to come to know
things beyond their limited daily experience. The third is the growing elaboration of the concepts of understanding and knowledge, along with a developing
account of intellect and/or soul according to which thinking is an aspect of soul
by which human intellect can latch on to the structure of nature. These three
aspects of Presocratic thought develop together. Hence, the way I recount this
story is not how Xenophanes or Heraclitus or any other of the Presocratics would
tell it. This is a reconstruction; it seems to me a helpful way to think about the
foundations of Greek philosophy.
I begin with some generalizations about the divine, and then turn to what I
call the predicament: the problem of the very possibility of human knowing. I
then examine some of the early moves toward a solution: Xenophanes on divinity
and knowledge, and Heraclitus on the logos, knowledge, and the divine.
1The divine and the problem of human

knowledge
Greek religion is usually identified with the world of the Homeric and Hesiodic
gods. The gods are most often, but not universally, represented in both literature
and in art as human-like; their appearance and activities are like human ones
although there are things that gods can do that humans cannot (cross space in
almost no time; see further and more sharply than humans, and so on); and both
their anger and their favor take superhuman forms. They are characterized by
their power of control (in the traditional pantheon, each god has a special sphere
of influence; there are also hierarchies of power) and, perhaps most fundamen-
2Modern readers of Greek philosophy, who often begin with Plato, sometimes take for granted
the idea that soul and intellect go together. Yet, the evidence suggests that Heraclitus is the first
to place intellect in the soul. The connection of intellect and soul is not a necessary condition for
the possibility of human knowledge; for instance, does not appear in the extant fragments
of Parmenides, who clearly thinks that human intellect () has the power of knowledge.
3Burkert (1997), p. 16. As Burkert argues, the fact that we start with Homer does not mean that
all we have are Homeric texts: there is other evidence for early Greek views on the divine.

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tally, by their innate immortality. Although they come to be, the gods do not die;
after all, the divide between humans and gods is that between the mortal and
the immortal. While the gods are often represented in human form, power and
immortality are what make these beings gods; when the early Greek philosophers
challenge the conventional conception of the gods, they will reject the behavior
and the bodies of the traditional gods, but they will retain these two fundamental
notions that constitute divinity itself.
The overwhelming power and temporal superiority of the gods are at the root
of the problem of human knowledge. Playthings of the immortal gods, humans
are subject in every way to the divine will: at the opening of the Iliad the rage
of Achilles against Agamemnon is the immediate cause of the horrors of heroic
death and destruction that follow, but the poet makes clear in line 5 that in all of
this, the will of Zeus was fulfilled ( ). Humans are miserable, susceptible to all the ills that gods escape by virtue of their divinity.
The Hymn to Apollo illustrates what may be the greatest difference between
gods and men: Mortals are epistemically feeble. Line 191 describes humans as
: unthinking or reckless. The poets note that the temporal and spatial
limits of human experience are sources of uncertainty:
,
,
.
Archilochus fr. 68 (Diehl) [= frs. 131 and 132 West]
For mortal men, Glaukon son of Leptines, the thumos
that comes upon them is as the day Zeus brings
and their thoughts are such as the deeds with which they happen to meet.
4Iliad XXIV.3530, with its reference to the judgment of Paris and the subsequent enmity of
Athena and Hera for Paris (as well as Poseidons resentment at having been cheated by the Trojans) suggests even more divine interference as the ultimate cause of the Trojan War. (Aristarchus
treated the lines as a later interpolation, claiming that Homer could not have known of the judgment of Paris.) It has been suggested, following Dodds (1951), that the Iliad and the Odyssey give
a more optimistic view of human experience and capacity for knowledge than appears in postHomeric poetry. On this view, the Homeric Hymns and the post-Homerics to whom I refer have, in
comparison with Homer, a deepened awareness of human insecurity and human helplessness
() (as Dodds puts it, p. 29), which takes both religious and epistemic forms. Yet, Iliad
I.5, along with the important role that (literal) divine intervention plays in both the Iliad and the
Odyssey suggest to me that any difference between the attitudes expressed in the epics and in
post-Homer early Greek poetry is a matter of degree and not of substance.
5The Homeric use of (from which is derived) contains the idea of taking
thought, or deliberating.

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Any knowledge beyond the immediate circumstances of an individual mortal

life is due to the good auspices of the divine (or to good fortune, which probably
comes to the same thing). The divine inspiration of poets is the most obvious
example. The introduction to the catalogue of the ships in Book II (48492) of
the Iliad stresses the inability of the poet to have knowledge of long-ago events;
he must rely on the divine Muses to tell him who made up the armada bound
for Troy. The Muses are able to instruct the poet because, as divine, they are
omnitemporal and omnipresent () and hence witness and know all,
past, present, and future. The poet, on the other hand, hears only rumor and so
must rely on second hand reports from other mortals. Thus, in Theogony, Hesiod
begins his formal account of the gods with praise of the Muses, who delight with
their songs the great noos of their father, Zeus in Olympus, saying the things that
are, the things that shall be, and the things that are before ( ,
, ll. 3739). In contrast, mortals can know nothing reliably
(other than, perhaps, their own experience). The well-known deceitfulness of the
Muses might account for the flattering picture of them that Hesiod draws in lines
3739 as he begins the story of the gods. As with all divine beings, appeasing them
(or not) can affect ones state, both epistemic and physical.
Nevertheless, although Homer, Hesiod, and other poets often contrast
human and divine knowledge, there seems to be no drastic difference in kind
between the epistemic powers of gods and humans. Because they are immortal,
the gods have more and wider experiences than humans; but Homer and Hesiod
also represent the gods as capable of being fooled or of making mistakes in belief
and judgment. Still, the greater experience of the gods suggests that their beliefs
are wider ranging and more secure than those of humans. Clearly understanding
(whether considered as full-blown explanatory knowledge, or even something
less) is extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible for mortal humans.
6Iliad II.48492: , / ,
, Tell me now Muses, who have dwellings in Olympus / for you are
goddesses and you are present and you know everything
7The implication is present everywhere and at every time.
8An awkward translation, but meant to show that the past is part of the eternal present that
obtains for divine beings.
9Divine errors are usually rooted in the human-like characteristics of the anthropomorphic
gods; divinities who make mistakes are often fooled or distracted by another divine power. On
human misery, see also Solon: Not one mortal () is blessed, but all those mortals ()
on whom the sun looks are in a grievous state (fr. 14 West; Stobaeus, 4.34.23).

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2A way out?
By making claims about the fundamental structure of the cosmos and the principles that govern it, the earliest Presocratic thinkers challenge the assumption
that feeble humans know very little. When Anaximander states that that from
which there is coming to be for the things that are, into that too is their passing
away, for they give justice and recompense to one another for their injustice in
accordance with the ordering of time (12 B1 DK), and Anaximenes proposes
that the earth floats on air (13 A6, A7), they are asserting that their claims are
true. Xenophanes proclaims the power of human understanding: in B2.1012, he
declares that he is far more worthy of glory and prizes than any athlete, for his
(knowledge, wisdom or expertise) is better than the bodily strength of
men and horses. Both Heraclitus and Parmenides suppose that human knowledge is possible (they are their own examples of it), even if quite difficult to attain.
How can these commitments be justified?
Xenophanes recommends investigation or searching as the appropriate
method for humans who want to know about the world:
B18: ,
.
Not from the beginning did the gods intimate all things to mortals,
but, in time, inquiring, they discover better.
Xenophanes suggests that human inquiry is a better path to knowing than

waiting for a divine revelation that will never come. If we are encouraged to
engage in inquiry, he must suppose that searching () can be efficacious.
Thus Xenophanes is likely to be (at least mildly) optimistic about the possibility
of human non-superficial knowledge about the world around us. To explain the
grounds for this optimism, I begin with Xenophanes critique of traditional views
of the gods, and his reformulation of the notion of the divine. From there, I turn
to the emergence of a new view of knowledge and explanation. In Xenophanes
rethinking of the nature of the divine, we can find the roots of the Presocratic
10Even if Xenophanes is not here referring to his philosophical/scientific expertise (see Lesher
1992), he is still claiming that it is his intellectual capacity that fits him for honors, because his
expertise would be better for a city.
11I follow Lesher (1991) in understanding B18 as primarily a rejection of divine revelation rather
than as a hymn to progress.
12Although I think that Xenophanes indeed maintains that human understanding on the basis
of inquiry is possible, B34 and B35 raise complications.

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view of knowledge that underlies the new science that they propose and defend.
The older notions of divinity and soul persist in other Greek literature of the time,
but a new secular philosophical outlook (for want of a better term) emerges in
Xenophanes and Heraclitus. That outlook does not reject the idea that the cosmos
is divine and that there is a divine order at work; but it does reinterpret the notion
of divinity.
3Xenophanean explanations (and their

implications)
For Xenophanes, all meteorological phenomena (occurrences above the surface
of the earth) are cloud: colored, moving, incandescent. Rainbow, the Dioskouroi
[St. Elmos Fire], lightning, etc. are all analyzed as types or stages of cloud. To this
list we can add what Mourelatos calls the astrophysicial metera: all effects of
natural luminescence in the skies, including sun, moon, stars, planets, comets.
While much of this theory must be reconstructed from testimonia, there are some
more direct pieces of evidence. In B32 and A39 we can see a model of explanation
emerge.
B32: ,
.
She whom they call Iris, this too is by nature cloud
purple, and red, and greeny-yellow to behold.
A39: , ,
.
Xenophanes says that the star-like phenomena on ships, which some call the
Dioskouroi, are cloudlets, glimmering because of their kind of motion.
In B32, Xenophanes intent to reduce the rainbow to cloud is signaled by the use
of [is by nature]; no doubt there was some form of [nature] or
in the original of A39 as well. Mourelatos offers a possible reconstruction
of the original claim: What mariners call the Dioskouroi, that too, is in reality a
13Mourelatos (2008), pp. 13638. Mourelatos essay provides the best and most comprehensive
account of Xenophanes views on the heavens.

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small cloud: luminous and agitated. The pattern is repeated in the explanation of the sun: the (or rather, a) sun is (by nature) incandescent cloud, passing
over () the earth and spreading warmth (B31 with A40). Reports in
A38, A43, A44, and A45 all repeat the cloud-theory, stating that for Xenophanes,
stars, moon, comets, shooting stars, meteors are all a cloud, or groups of clouds,
or movements of clouds. As Mourelatos pointed out in the 1980s, Xenophanes
employs a particular pattern of explanation: X (which one might have supposed
to be something else, often something divine) is really Y, where Y reveals the true
nature or character of X; this pattern becomes typical for Presocratic explanation.
In his explanations of phenomena often taken as divine or as signs from the
divine (Iris as the messenger; the Dioskouroi as comfort for sailors, sun as the
god Hyperion), Xenophanes reduction of these phenomena to ordinary natural
occurrences eliminates the divine. By giving unified and coordinated accounts
of a diverse range of entities and occurrences, Xenophanes also deflates and
debunks certain religious views and practices. In B18, for instance, while recommending inquiry as the better route to knowledge and understanding, he claims
that the gods reveal nothing to humans. Meteorological phenomena (such as the
Dioskouroi) conceal no cryptic messages for humans to decipher they are not
an alternative route to knowledge, understanding, or comfort provided by the
gods. They are merely clouds, moving, shining, colored in certain ways. Cicero
noted that Xenophanes was one of the earliest philosophers who thought critically about divination, and that One among those who said that there are gods
rejected divination entirely unus qui deos esse diceret divinationem funditus sustulit (De div. I.3.5 = A52). Since divination involves messages from the gods to
human beings, Xenophanes repudiation of it is consistent with his naturalistic
account of the cosmos and human knowledge. The claims of the cloud astrophysics are both a critique of divination (and other divine communication, such
as inspiration from the Muses) as a way of acquiring knowledge, and examples
of information that can be acquired by inquiry. While Xenophanes clearly thinks
that searching and inquiry are better methods than hoping for divine revelation,
14Mourelatos (1989), p. 282.

15The pine boughs around a well-built house (B17) cannot bestow good luck or protection on
its inhabitants through the intercession or other activity of the gods. See Lesher (1992) on this
interpretation of B17; on this reading, B17 is not an attack on human conceptions of the deity, but
rather part of the general naturalizing project indicated by B32 and A39.
16Here I take it that Xenophanes rejects all forms of divination and cryptic disclosure by the
gods. At the Budapest Symposium Praesocraticum, Shaul Tor argued for a weaker sort of divine
disclosure at work in Xenophanes: the evidence of the physical world is given by the gods for
humans to look upon (see B18, B36, B38). See Dr. Tors paper in this volume.

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the epistemic status he is willing to grant to claims grounded in inquiry remains

to be determined.
Xenophanes discussions of mortal opinions about gods, when read with his
elucidation of the greatest god, reflect his rejection of traditional accounts of the
divine and contain his own positive theory. This new view of the divine will shape
the direction of the development of later Presocratic thought. As with his discussion of metera, Xenophanes explores what people say about the gods, and then
goes on to draw conclusions. He notes anthropomorphic tendencies in conceptions of the gods, and further suggests that horses, oxen, and lions would have
equine, bovine, and leonine gods; he describes the reprehensible actions that the
poets have attributed to the gods.
B14: ,
.
Mortals suppose that the gods are born,
and have their own clothes, and voice, and body.
B15: <> <>
,

<>
<>.
If horses had hands, or oxen or lions,
or if they could draw with their hands and produce works as men do,
then horses would draw figures of gods like horses, and oxen like oxen,
and each would make the bodies
to be of precisely the same frame that each of them has.
B16: < >
< >.
Ethiopians say that their gods are snub-nosed and dark,
Thracians, that theirs are grey-eyed and red-haired.
B11: ,
,
.
Homer and Hesiod have attributed everything to the gods
which are things of reproach and censure among men,
theft, and adultery, and deceiving one another.

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B12: () ,
.
as they sang of many illicit deeds of the gods,
theft, and adultery, and deceiving one another.
B11 and 12 have a strong evaluative character, in that Xenophanes seems clearly to
imply that it is a mistake to attribute these activities to the gods. The Xenophanes
who is the singer of tales of moderation and nobility (see B1s calm and beautiful description of a symposium), and who rates his own sound judgment and
skill () above the strength of men and horses (B2.12) is unlikely to approve
the salacious accounts of the gods to be found in poetry. Further, the claims of
B14, B15, and B16 can certainly be taken together as a reductio of the notion that
it is reasonable to believe that gods resemble mortals (human or otherwise) in
bodily shape. These claims are consistent with Xenophanes naturalized meteorology. A rainbow is neither a god nor a messenger from the gods. The descriptive
claims take on an evaluative aspect when they are supported by Xenophanes
own account of the divine. If Xenophanes can support his revisionary analysis of
divinity, he will have good reasons for rejecting the traditional view of the gods as
found in Homer and Hesiod.
Xenophanes positive accounts of the divine appear in four fragments:
B23: , ,
.
B24: , , .
B26:
.
B25: .
One god greatest among gods and men,
Not at all like mortals in body or in thought.
whole [he] sees, whole [he] thinks, and whole [he] hears.
always [he] remains in the same [state], changing not at all,
nor is it fitting that [he] come and go to different places at different times.
But completely without toil [he] agitates all things by the thought of his mind.
17Xenophanes naturalistic explanations of so-called divine phenomena give him an anti-theistic argument, yet if there are no gods, why object to the stories that are told and to mistaken
representations of the gods? Are these not merely fictions of old ( )
like the stories of Titans and Giants (B1.212)? Such tales are unworthy, perhaps, of serious folk,
but not harmful lies. Of course, like Plato, Xenophanes could argue that these tales indeed harm
those who indulge in them, especially impressionable youths.

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These lines, which I take as belonging together, give an account of Xenophanes

divine principle and point to a justification of that account. This discussion clearly
presupposes some analysis of the nature of divine being. A clue is to be found
in the assertion, in B26, that traveling about (and, one supposes, interfering in
the affairs of mortals) is not fitting [] for the divine. Xenophanes word
here is . As Lesher noted, and have both descriptive
and normative aspects: what something characteristically is (a description) can
have normative features (given that A is an x, A ought to act in certain ways). So,
Xenophanes is giving us the beginnings of an analysis of the nature of the divine:
moving from claims about what the divine is to claims about what it is appropriate to attribute to the divine. How can he justify this?
Xenophanes reliance on the notion of what is fitting is analogous to the explanation of what a thing is by nature. Recall B32: there Xenophanes says what the
rainbow is by nature (). and also begin their history as words
dealing with a characteristic appearance, and go on to acquire normative and regulatory overtones. Determining the nature of a thing can help us see what activities or patterns of behavior are natural or fitting for it; for instance, that because it
is only (or just) a cloud (an entirely physical natural phenomenon), a rainbow is
not, in fact, a medium for messages from the gods. In an analogous way, thinking
about the concept of divinity can help us comprehend which attributes are fitting
and appropriate (or unfitting and inappropriate) for the divine. This is a fundamental insight by Xenophanes, and it is important to note the role of thought or
analysis, for that can help us to avoid misunderstanding Xenophanes strategy.
It has been argued that the appeal to fittingness can have no special place in
Xenophanes discussion of the divine, especially if the notion is taken to depend
on taking to have a primarily moral force. For instance, in a deflationary account of Xenophanes theology, Babut argues that,
il ny a acune raison dattribuer une signification thique et religieuse au critre de la covenance tel quil apparat dans la phrase de Xnophane. Il ny a en effet rien de particulirement choquant se dplacer ici et l, que lon soit dieu ou homme, rien qui soit contraire
la sublimit ou la grandeur morale de la divinit, rien enfin de comparable aux
que dnonce allieurs Xnophane.
18There are arguments to support some of these claims in A30 (the MXG) and A31 (Simplicius
in Phys. 22, 2223, 14, influenced by MXG), but it is hard to know how to evaluate these, given the
status of the MXG). See Palmer (1998) for discussion of the MXG evidence.
19Lesher (1992), p. 111
20See Odyssey X.303ff. on molu. I discussed this passage in some detail in Curd (1998), p. 44.
21Babut (1974), p. 432. Although Palmer finds some role for the notion of fittingness to play, he
refers approvingly to Babuts comment: The excesses of those who would make the argument

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If we think that Xenophanes is using fittingness as an ethical or religious

term and thus is grounding his claims on the moral sublimity of the divine, or
its moral grandeur, we might accept Babuts criticism; yet I suggest that this is
not Xenophanes strategy. Rather he is exploring what he sees as the conceptual
implications of calling something both greatest and god. Babut seems to have
conflated various types of normativity here. Arguing that some characteristic or
property does not belong to something because it is not fitting or it makes no
sense for it to do is not a moral argument. It is rather a claim based on an analysis
of the nature of that thing. Thus, one might argue that because something is a
triangle, it is not fitting or makes no sense that it should have three dimensions.
Such claim is normative, but not moral: it is the sense of what something characteristically is that plays the pivotal role here. Another way we might conceive of
the appeal to fittingness is to interpret Xenophanes use of in terms of
the rationality of accepting a claim, given what the claim is about. On this interpretation we should think of Xenophanes as making a cognitive claim: it makes
sense that this should be true of X, given what X is. This is certainly a possible and
reasonable claim, and is not, I think, ultimately different from the interpretation
I have suggested here. Barnes takes Xenophanes use of fittingness as logical:
the phrase it is not fitting is Xenophanes archaic and poetical version of it is
not logically possible. It does not fit the essential nature of god, or our concept
of what it is to be divine, to imagine that divinities locomote: that is to say God
moves is self-contradictory.
It is the minimalist and shared notion of the divine as controlling, knowing,
and immortal that underlies Xenophanes claims in the god fragments and testimonia. By attributing the various divine powers to the highest degree to a single
divine being, and rejecting the attribution of human or animal characteristics,
Xenophanes avoids the power struggles inherent in a range of gods (as illustrated
in Hesiods Theogony), and avoids the limitations on divine epistemic powers that
appear in Homer. Xenophanes assumes certain characteristics that are essential
to somethings being divine, and in doing so he is positing a new concept of the
divine. He then argues that if the divine indeed has these characteristics, then it
will be very different from the traditional conception of the gods as rather like
humans only bigger and better at what they do. Instead, he claims that there is
based on what is fitting or appropriate () and in keeping with divine dignity the key to
Xenophanes theological critique are criticized by Babut (Palmer 1998, p. 16 n.29).
22See Guetter (2006) who argues that his notion it makes no sense avoids the moral and religious overtones that Babut et al. find unacceptable.
23Barnes (1982), pp. 656

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one greatest and mightiest god, and that it is nothing at all like humans, either in
its being or its thinking.
In B24 Xenophanes asserts of the god that , ,
(whole [he] sees, whole [he] thinks, and whole [he] hears). The use of
implies that Xenophanes single greatest god is constantly and fully aware
and thinking; unlike thought and perception in human beings, divine awareness
and thought are immediate and require no organs, as in the case in humans (and
animals in the case of perception). Although there is no explicit claim that the god
is always sensing and thinking, the emphasis that the god sees, thinks, and hears
as a whole, as well as the use of the present tense certainly suggest divine activity
that is endless with no fits or starts. In addition, the changelessness attributed
to the divine in B26 (discussed more fully below) supports the interpretation,
for beginning or ceasing to think, hear, or see would constitute changes in the
divine.
The stability of Xenophanes god is a crucial difference from the Homeric and
Hesiodic conception of divinity. The first line of B26 claims that the divine always
remains in the same state; it is not changed, altered, budged, or agitated (the
violent aspects of kinein that are to be found in Homer). I take the line to express
Xenophanes claim that change in general is entirely excluded from the concept of
the divine. The second line then turns to the specific case of locomotion: immune
from any sort of change, the divine does not move from place to place, for it is
not fitting (or makes no sense) that it do so. Here is the explicit appeal to the
notion of fittingness; locomotion is inconsistent with the conception of the divine
that Xenophanes develops, for two reasons. First there is the general rejection of
change in the first line: unchangeableness is part of the concept of divinity. Then,
the Xenophanean god has no need to move: it is always aware of all things, and,
as B25 asserts, it effortlessly grounds the changes in the physical world merely by
thought. As the governing principle of the world, it need not travel to know, nor
to affect the world. Aware of all things at all times, Xenophanes god is a cause of
change and motion in other things, while not itself subject to either. These claims
lead to further questions about the Xenophanean god: does it have a shape and
a location?
While B15 and 16 cast doubt on the fanciful notion that gods have the shapes
of their worshippers, B14 suggests that Xenophanes god has no body at all:
24See Mourelatos (1971) on kinein in Parmenides with its Homeric overtones. The same notion
is present in Xenophanes.

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<> .
but mortals are of the opinion that gods are born,
have their own clothes, and voice and body.
With its rejection of mortal views, B14 can be taken to deny that the gods are born,
wear clothes, or have any voice or body. Xenophanes clearly rejects birth for the
gods (see A12), and I see no reason to think that the characteristics in line two
should be treated differently. Although B14 is directed against human conceptions of the gods, B15 and B16 suggest that it is equally ludicrous to suppose the
gods have lion bodies, or that they are a particular color, or that they take any
human form. This train of thought could be expanded to exclude any particular
physical attribute for the divine. There is as little reason to think the god is a
cube as there is to opt for a sphere, or indeed any other shape.
Some scholars have claimed that the notion of an incorporeal or immaterial
substance cannot be attributed to the early Greek thinkers at all, as, according to
these scholars, the only form of existence so far conceivable is bodily substance.
I have argued elsewhere that the conceptual argument cannot be maintained, and
that there are good independent reasons to deny that Xenophanes god is spherical. Removing the problem of the gods and its location allows us to accept
the notion that the gods thinking activity permeates the cosmos (as Palmer suggests) while avoiding the apparent paradox that in effortlessly shaking the cosmos
the god must shake itself (something ruled out by B26). The MXG in A28 and
Simplicius in A31 deny both motion and rest to the god; in A33 Hippolytus says
25McKirahan (2010) takes in line two to refer to humans own clothes and translates
Mortals believe that the gods are born and have human clothing, voice and bodily form. This
might suggest that the gods indeed have clothing, voice, and body, but they are not like those of
humans.
26Lesher says of B14, it seems to say that the gods no more have a demas than they have voices
and wear clothes (1992, p. 100). He adds, Complete incorporeality may be regarded as highly
unlikely, but as to exactly what kind of non-human body god might have, Xenophanes does not
say (p. 100).
27On spherical god: Guthrie (1962), pp. 376ff. Guthrie argues that Xenophanes god is identical
with the universe and spherical in shape. On the impossibility of incorporeality, Guthrie (1962),
p. 280. Guthrie is here discussing Pythagoreanism, but he takes the claim to apply generally (he
thinks Anaxagoras may have had an inkling of the notion of incorporeality). See also Renehan
(1980a) and (1980b).
28I discuss these questions in Curd (2009) and (2013).
29Even if we see the god as inhabiting the outermost edge of the cosmos, there is still the problem of the god shaking itself. It may be for this reason that Granger suggests that Xenophanes
puts god beyond nature (Granger, 2013).

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that Xenophanes claims that the whole is one and outside of change (
this is immediately followed by claims about Xenophanes
account of god). These testimonies that Xenophanes god neither moves nor rests
have often been rejected as being contaminated with later Eleatic arguments. Yet,
even allowing for such contamination (especially in and from the MXG) these
claims may well be grounded in a genuine Xenophanean idea (perhaps Eleatics
are following Xenophanes on this point). If Xenophanes god is bodiless, it indeed
makes sense to deny to it both motion and rest.
B24 does not unequivocally assert that Xenophanes god knows all things,
but when it is taken with B25 we can find support for the idea. B25 notes that
the divine shakes or agitates all things by the will of its mind ( ). The
use of implies intellectual recognition and cognition, and the all-encompassing nature of the divines awareness and intellection is surely part of what
Xenophanes means to impart by the words of B24. Moreover, an uncomprehending force that nevertheless shakes all things by thought would surely be inconsistent with the greatest of beings (compare with Anaxagoras Nous, another mover
by thought). The image of shaking by mere thought as a metaphor for controlling and guiding the cosmos would be obvious to one who wishes to contrast his
account of the divine with the traditional accounts of the Olympian gods. The
thoughts and plans of the Xenophanean divine are always carried out, unlike
those of the Olympians (even Zeus), whose plans can be (and often are) thwarted
or interfered with. Moreover, unlike Zeus who must nod his head, Xenophanes
god need not itself do anything except think to bring about changes in the
cosmos. The crucial point is that Xenophanes conceived of a cosmos that is suffused with divine thought; the cosmos is understood, organized, and managed by
divine intellection which is internal to the natural system itself.
4Xenophanes: Divinity and knowledge

This new account of divinity has implications for Xenophanes view of human
knowledge. The divine is not to be identified with any natural phenomenon (the
sun, the moon, rainbows, thunder, etc.). Neither does it send cryptic messages
30I take it that Leshers work on early Greek epistemology (1983) has shown that the influential
account of and from von Fritz is too restrictive, and that both cognition and understanding are already part of the Homeric (and later) uses of the terms.
31Or: Xenophanes god need not do anything; it need only be its intellect (as Aristotle might
put it?).

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to a select few mortals, nor intervene in the world of mortals from outside as the
Olympians do. The natural world is available to all humans as an object of inquiry
and study:
B18: ,
.
Indeed not from the beginning did the gods intimate all things to mortals,
but, in time, inquiring, they discover better.
B38: ,
.
If god had not produced yellow honey, they would say
figs are much sweeter.
B18 suggests that it is proper inquiry that increases human knowledge, and B38
indicates that wider study will result in more (and deeper) knowledge. Having
already removed the gods as bearers of knowledge to humans, denying that the
divine takes an active interest in what mortals can or cannot know, Xenophanes
here suggests that, nevertheless, we are able to discover what is the case (or at
least, get closer to the truth). The conclusion to be drawn from Xenophanes naturalistic interpretation of phenomena is that we are epistemologically autonomous
and must rely on our own capacity for inquiry. That way, we discover better,
as he says. This is a conclusion that suggests that human thought can mimic
divine understanding, at least to some degree. B38, which implies that if humans
were unaware of honey, which is a part of the natural world, they would form an
incomplete and incorrect assessment of the sweetness of figs, gives an example.
Of course, the failure to discover and test honey would leave us with a false belief,
that nothing is, as a matter of fact, sweeter than figs. The state of the world determines which beliefs are true, and the more humans discover about the world, the
more secure their claims become. Xenophanes own practice seems consistent
with the claims of B18, and the testimonia bear witness to his wide-ranging inquiries. His account of the extent of the earth and the details of his cloud astrophysics provide examples of his integrated explanations. The problem is whether or
not human beings, with their limited experience, will ever have enough evidence
to make their claims epistemically secure.
32How do we account for the presence of in this fragment? I take the phrase if god had
not made to be another way to say, if things had been different. Tor links B36 and B38 in his
arguments in support of a naturalistic disclosure (my term, not his) by the divine.

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In B34 Xenophanes appears to cast doubt on the possibility of human

knowing: no man has seen the clear and certain truth, given the limits of human
experience:
B34:

,
.
and of course the clear and certain truth no man has seen nor will there be anyone
who knows about the gods and what I say about all things;
for even if, in the best case, someone happened to speak what has been brought to pass,
nevertheless, he himself would not know, but opinion is ordained for all.
The claim about opinion () in the last line is echoed in B35, where a slightly
more optimistic tone might be found:

Let these be accepted as resembling (or: like) the things that are true
Xenophanes epistemological fragments have received detailed treatment from

scholars. Having removed the divine as a source of knowledge, Xenophanes
faces squarely the limitations of human experience. Although investigation,
study, and searching are better routes to finding things out than waiting for (nonexistent) messages from the divine, those routes cannot provide the clear and
certain truth to which human beings might aspire. Whatever else is in doubt
about B34, this much is clear: Xenophanes is denying that absolute certainty (
) about all things is available to human beings.
33The echo of Hesiod is unmistakable, yet Xenophanes changes Hesiods to

. For a detailed and useful discussion, see Bryan (2012).
34Some regard him as a thorough-going skeptic, but many other epistemic stances have been
attributed to him. See Lesher (1992) for the variety of interpretations of B34. See also Bryan
(2012). I shall not say more about B34 and B35 here. It is unlikely that Xenophanes had a comprehensive epistemological theory; instead, he points to problems and raises challenges about
human knowledge.
35Augustine quotes Varro on Xenophanes: But as Xenophanes of Colophon writes, I will set
down what I suppose, not what I assert. For, about this [claims about the gods] man supposes,
god knows ( sed ut Xenophanes Colophonios scribit, quid putem, non quid contendam, ponam;
hominis est enim haec opinari, dei scire) De civ. dei, VII.17. This looks like Varro has combined a
reminiscence of B34 with Alcmaeon B1.

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Xenophanes makes important new claims about divinity and human knowledge that later philosophers treat with great seriousness. His account of divinity (and especially divine powers of thought) influences later views on thought
and its objects, while his recognition of the limitations of human experience and
knowledge affect later theories about the nature of thought and the possibility
of human knowledge. The Xenophanean greatest god has supreme power and
control over all things; it is not identified with any particular bodily shape or
physical location; it has omni-awareness and can effect change through thought
(which implies supreme knowledge); and it is not subject to change (including,
apparently, coming-to-be and passing-away). It may be identified with the entire
cosmos, which it thus controls. On the question of knowledge, Xenophanes seems
to accept some of the traditional strictures on the limits of human knowing; but
he also clarifies the problem of human knowledge, by distinguishing between
various degrees of epistemic success (sure and certain truth, opinion or belief)
and by showing that limitations need not imply sheer ignorance on the part of
mortal thinkers. He also stresses the importance of active and continued searching and inquiry, with the implications (a) that through these more secure opinion
can be achieved and (b) that the cosmos is susceptible to explanation, i.e., is intelligible in principle. Aspects of these Xenophanean views of divinity and knowledge will reappear in some surprising ways in later thinkers. The first moves will
be made by Heraclitus in his account of the logos.
5Heraclitus and logos: Divinity and intelligibility

It might seem that Heraclitus restricts complete understanding and insight to
the province of the divine. B79 compares humans and divinities: a man hears
himself called childish () by a divinity, just as a child does by a man.
This pessimism about human understanding is clear in B1, the opening of his
book, where Heraclitus suggests that almost all humans lack awareness (and
hence understanding):
36For a good account of this, see Mogyordi (2006).

37While this is certainly an aspect of Heraclitus wider claims about opposites and perspectives,
the main point is the general ignorance and foolishness of humans. As Kahn says, this idiom is
likely to have been chosen with malice aforethought: in wisdom and capacity for hearing, man is
a mere infant (1979, p. 174). In this case, nevertheless, one might suppose that the human who
hears himself called a fool by a divinity may well be hearing correctly.

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Patricia Curd

.
But of this account (logos) which holds forever people prove uncomprehending, both before
they have heard it, and when first they have heard it. For all things happen in accordance
with this account (logos), yet they are like the inexperienced when they experience such
words and deeds as I set forth, distinguishing each thing in accordance with its nature, and
declaring how it is; but other people are unaware of what they do when they awaken, just
as they forget what they do when asleep.
Even those who are supposed to be the wisest of all are not:
Much learning () does not teach understanding ()
or else it would have taught Hesiod and Pythagoras, and again, Xenophanes and Hecataeus.
(B40)
Hesiod is the teacher of many; they are sure () that he knew () many
things, he who did not even recognize ( ) day and night: for they are one. (B57)
Heraclitus criticism of others for their lack of understanding implies that it

is possible for humans to overcome their state of ignorance. B1 claims that
Heraclitus himself understands the logos, and the assumption must be that the
aim of his book is to allow others to discover for themselves what he knows.
Although Heraclitus presents himself as having understanding, he does not say
that he has unique access to the logos: certainly there is no reference to the Muses
or an assertion that a divine agent gave this knowledge to him. If Heraclitus is
similar to (at least some) other humans in his epistemic capacities, then the fact
that he himself has understood the logos indicates that other humans could
have understanding after all. In addition to providing these hints about human
wisdom, B1 introduces several of the fundamental notions that point to the possibility of insight: there is an independent and objective logos, ever-present in
the cosmos that both explains and governs happenings in the world. Each thing
has a nature. Attention to those natures helps to disclose the logos, which itself
38See also B28a: the most esteemed merely suppose; B42: Homer and Archilochus deserve
thrashing; B56 on Homer and the riddle of the lice: people are deceived by the obvious. B81a:
Pythagoras (?) as chief of poseurs; B129: Pythagoras, son of Mnesarchus, practiced inquiry more
than all other men, and selecting from these writings made a wisdom of his own: much research,
evil artifice (on this fragment, see Huffman 2008).

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contains the accounts of those natures. He asserts (B112) that To be of sound

mind () is the greatest excellence; and wisdom () is to speak and
act what is true, understanding in accordance with the nature ( ) [of
things]. Heraclitus will ultimately claim that humans can overcome epistemic
limitations and acquire insight (although few actually do so). Even if complete
or absolute understanding belongs to the purely divine, Heraclitus suggests that
some mortals can become divine-like in their understanding. One clue to the possibility of a connection between human and divine knowing may be found in B79
itself. The comparisons between child and man, man and god indicate a continuum along which the three are arranged: a human being can turn out to be
child-like and god-like, both foolish and wise, depending on the point of view,
and depending on the degree to which a person works to acquire knowledge.
Heraclitus continues the Xenophanean reworking of the notion of divinity, agreeing with Xenophanes in moving away from the traditional conception of the
gods (while at the same time, and characteristically, using language that masks
the change). For Heraclitus there is a similarity of structure between the divine
logos that guides and steers all things and the capacity for understanding that
Heraclitus locates in the human soul. The logos provides the connection between
the soul and the world in a way that makes the divine and intelligible cosmos
something that can be grasped and understood by human beings. Heraclitus is
thus the first who brings together the new philosophical notions of divinity, intelligibility, and human thought in a way that allows for a reasoned account of how
humans could have genuine knowledge of the cosmos.
The link between the logos and humans begins with the roles the logos plays
in Heraclitus thought and the crucial Heraclitean notions of the wise, wisdom,
and understanding. In the following passages, Heraclitus begins by asserting
the authority of the logos, and stresses that his own account has as its content
that which accounts for the way things are. Additionally, in the progression of
fragments below, the idea of wisdom, or the wise, unfolds to characterize both
the logos itself as that which accounts for order in the world (that which makes
the world a kosmos) and the understanding hearer of the logos:
39Kahn (1979) and Robinson (1987) argue, against Marcovich (2001) and Kirk (1954), that there
is no reason to doubt the authenticity of B112.
40B2: The many (hoi polloi) live as though they had a private understanding.
41Kahn (1979) is right to see malice here, I think, but there is also a degree of optimism. B79
can be read as a version of the unity of opposites thesis: humans can turn out to be both childlike and god-like, both a fool and a wit, depending on the point of view (compare to the road up
and the road down).
42For a discussion of Heraclitus terms for knowing and knowledge, see Lesher (1983).

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B50:
Patricia Curd
,
.
Listening not to me, but to the logos,
it is wise to agree that all things are one.
B41:
, ,
.
The wise is one, to know the intelligent plan
by which all things are steered through all.
B32:
.
The wise is one alone unwilling and willing [to be called by] the name of Zeus.
B64:
.
Thunderbolt steers all things.
B30:
[]
.
The ordered world, the same for all, no one of gods nor men made, but always was,
is, and will be, fire everliving, being kindled in measures and being extinguished in
measures.
B118: .
Gleam of light: the dry soul, wisest and best.
Heraclitus claims that thinking ( ) is common to all (B113). If he can

connect (good) human thought and the logos, Heraclitus will have grounds for
castigating those ordinary people who fail to reach understanding. The logos, the
plan or order that steers the cosmos is, itself, a rational order. This means not only
that it is non-capricious and so intelligible (in the sense that humans can, at least
in principle, come to understand it), it is also itself an intelligent system: there is
an intelligent plan () at work, if only in the sense of the cosmos working
itself out in accordance with its own rational principles. Note that this is an inter-
43The text is corrupt at this point. Here I follow Kirk, Raven and Schofield (1983), p. 202.
44Kahn (1979) provides an extended discussion of the textual variants, authenticity, and interpretation of this fragment. See also Betegh (2007), pp. 1314, with references to Bollack and
Wismann on the structure of the sentence.

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nal rather than external guidance; the logos is not external to the natural world
that it steers. The logos is both the plan and the account of this self-regulation,
in the same way that we can speak of the laws of nature and descriptions of the
laws of nature, both of which can be objects of thought. The order or plan as
such is unchanging and unified, but the content of the logos is that things change
and there will be many changes for which the logos will account. The sign of the
unchanging order of the eternal system is fire: just as it is with the logos that is the
order and rules all things, so it is with fire. Fire is always changing and always the
same, and its actually being fire (as opposed to being a picture or representation
of fire, or being an artificial fire) is connected with its always changing.
Using fire, itself a fundamental part of the natural order, as the symbol of
both the divine and the logos, Heraclitus can connect them. As we have just seen,
fragment B41 claims that the wise is a single thing: to know the intelligent plan
by which all things are steered through all; B64 adds that thunderbolt steers
all things. So the fiery thunderbolt is connected with the intelligent and wise
plan (which is the logos) which steers all; B32 completes the connection by saying
that the wise is one alone, both unwilling and willing to be called by the name
of Zeus, who is himself identified with the thunderbolt. B1 asserts that the logos
holds forever, B30 drives home the point that this world, as ordered by the logos,
no one of gods nor men made, but it always was, and is, and will be (
), fire everliving. This is the language that belongs to the divine.
The traditional gods immortality is a defining characteristic, as is their ordering
and ruling capacity. Heraclitus, like Xenophanes, posits a divinity greater than
the gods; in Heraclitus case, it is the logos and the cosmos as ordered by it. The
logos, as the eternal, and as the principle and explanation of all things, fits the
description of divinity: it always was, is, and will be, and it controls all things. It
can be called by the traditional name of the king of the gods, but that would misrepresent the nature of the logos. In treating the kosmos as a self-regulating, intelligent system that is divine, Heraclitus adopts a view that is consistent with that
of Xenophanes and is as radical as Xenophanes about the nature of the divine.
45See Graham (2007) on the exchange for fire; Nehamas (2002) on the unchanging order of
change.
46In recent discussion about Heraclitus views on traditional religion, several scholars have
argued that Heraclitus claims about religious practices (claims which at first reading appear to
condemn or ridicule them) are actually neutral explanations of these practices, and that Heraclitus is not arguing for a different conception of divinity than that which is present in his contemporary Greek society. See for instance, Osborne (1997) and Adomnas (1999), and the contributions by Rowett and Most in this volume. So, for example, it is claimed that, in B5, Heraclitus is
not criticizing those who purify themselves with blood, or pray to statues. Rather than thinking

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Patricia Curd
Heraclitus may be more conservative in his attitudes to contemporary religious

practices than I have claimed; nevertheless, he, like Xenophanes, is a radical in
the sense that he posits a greater divinity in the logos and the ordered cosmos, for,
while fulfilling the ruling aspect of a conventional notion of the greatest god, the
logos is clearly different from and superior to the traditional Homeric or Hesiodic
conception of Zeus.
6Heraclitus on soul and knowledge

Heraclitus innovation is that he treats the soul as a knower. Consider Heraclitus
distinction between the wise and those ordinary people who live like those asleep
(B1, B2 with B89, B72). According to Heraclitus, to be in the ordinary human epistemic state is to be like a dreamer, supposing that one has a private understanding. For the dreamer, whatever fantastic things chance to happen in dreams seem
to be real. A feature of the dream experience is that further analysis does not
make the dreamer any the wiser: the dream world is as it seems to be and has
no rationale (logos). For the ordinary person, the world is like that, for he fails to
speak the language of the cosmos (B107) and fails to grasp the logos that reveals
the objective truth about the world. According to Sextus (A16), Heraclitus says
that in sleep we are cut off from the surrounding logos and become forgetful; it
is only when we awake and again draw in the logos from outside that we again
become rational (). Heraclitus is the first to treat the soul as the locus for
all three of perception, emotion, and knowledge; unsurprisingly, what he says is
both schematic and enigmatic. Several fragments treat aspects of soul:
someone mad who does these things, we can now understand the rationale behind the behavior.
In the same way, we can see B15 as an example of the connection of opposites. Processing and
singing in honor of the phallus may seem shameless and disgusting (Robinsons term), yet,
once we understand that these actions are performed in honor of a god, we see that there is
nothing shameful at all. Hence, the fragment should be read in the same way as B61: just as sea
water is foul for humans, fair for fish, so certain behavior is foul from a human view, fair from the
gods-eye view. Moreover, since B15 also claims that Dionysus and Hades are the same, we have
another unity of opposites puzzle to work out. See Osborne (1997), pp. 9395; Adomnas (1999),
pp. 9294. Supporters of this sort of view must say that for Heraclitus, the problem with traditional religious practices is that most people have no idea of their true significance; thus in religious
as well as secular contexts, most people live as though they are asleep, and have no grasp of the
logos. On the account Osborne gives, this seems implausible: surely most people would be able
to distinguish between the contexts of formal ritual behavior and of ordinary actions, and to have
the appropriate responses and attitudes.

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B117:
239
, ,
o , .
A man when he is drunk, stumbling along, is led by a child of tender years,
not knowing where he is going, since its soul is moist.
B36:

For souls, to become water is to die
B118: .
Gleam of light: the dry soul, wisest and best.
B107: .
Eyes and ears are bad witnesses for those with barbarian souls.
Consider the various functions and characteristics that Heraclitus places in the
soul. B117 gives us a memorable picture of a sozzled and tottery gentleman led
along by a young boy (cf. Xenophanes B1.1718). That this is caused by drunkenness is clear, but what Heraclitus shows us is the importance of the soul in both
action and thought. Because the drunks soul has been heavily moistened, he has
lost control both of his limbs and of his thought. His legs are so wobbly that he
must be led, as an adult helps a child learning to walk, and his adult understanding has been so diluted that the man must rely on a child. Heraclitus specifies
that it is the dampness that has caused the damage, and the opening of B36 reinforces the point: enough moisture and the result is death. In contrast, the dry
soul, said to be a fiery gleam of light, is wisest and best: the hot dry soul gleams
with intelligence (however it is that a soul reaches this state). The key term in B118
is wisest. Whether metaphor or literal, Heraclitus comparison makes the connection needed between wisdom and the fiery soul. The fiery soul is intelligent;
as is often the case in Greek thought, intelligence includes what we would term
both intellectual and practical capacities. The drunk neither knows nor is able to
decide where he is going; the cosmos is governed and steered by an intelligent
plan, which is exactly what the drunken man lacks. The well-functioning soul
in a human being mirrors the functioning of the thunderbolt in the cosmos. The
fragments suggest that the knowing soul becomes like the divine.
47See discussion of this fragment by Dilcher (1995), pp. 7680.

48The rest of B36 places soul in the cycle of changes: ,
, , (For souls to become water is
to die, for water, to become earth is to die; from earth water is born, from water, soul).

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Heraclitus radical view is that understanding gives to humans the epistemic

power that had been traditionally attributed to the divine. Aspects of this claim
are explored in a series of intriguing recent papers by Herbert Granger. According
to Granger, Heraclitus contrasts the wise and wakeful watchers (those who grasp
the logos) with the ordinary person who lives like a sleepwalker in a dream (B1, B2
with B89, B72). Unlike the sleepwalkers, a knowing person will become like the
divine. Granger points out that souls, like everything except the immortal logos,
are subject to change and death (B36), and so the knowing human cannot be like
the divine in being unborn and undying. It can only approximate the divine, and
this is done through the extent and duration of his or her knowledge of the divine
truth. What form does this enhanced life take? Granger suggests that the wise
live life at a higher pitch, but their being more alive or preeminently alive
implies an almost quantitative notion, which makes little sense. Perhaps he
means an enhanced sense of ones own vitality, but it is not clear that wisdom is
necessary for this: the Homeric heroes certainly do not lack that sense, but most
clearly lack anything that Heraclitus would call wisdom or understanding of the
logos. Another alternative is that for the wise, greater understanding makes for a
more interesting life, as knowing something about geology makes a walk through
a gorge more fascinating. This may be on the right track: I suggest that Heraclitus
does not mean to say that those few humans who have wisdom have more life;
rather what they have is the very condition of knowledge that was reserved for the
divine. One who genuinely grasps the logos and all that it implies has what was
previously denied to humans by the human poets: she has knowledge concerning
the unseen; her mind is not at the whim of whatever a Homeric god chooses to
send her way; she need not rely on a divine messenger or muse to know the truth.
This notion of the approximation and hence the appropriation of the divine
represents an important step. Heraclitus removes knowledge from the exclusive
province of the divine and offers its possibility to (some, exceptional) humans.
The key is a kind of similarity between the soul and the cosmos. Just as the cosmos
is ordered and intelligible, so the hot dry soul is ordered and intelligent. (The
link seems to be the hot fiery exhalations that constitute soul stuff; the more like
the fiery cosmos, the more the soul knows.) The divinization of the cosmos and
the ruling principles (the logos) that the human soul can take in and understand
49Granger (2000), p. 279; Grangers Heraclitus is not optimistic about the fate of the knowing
mortal: the wise recognize only too well that they live surrounded by the intellectually dead
(p. 280). See also Granger (2004).
50I leave aside any question of immortal souls in Heraclitus; like Granger, I think that Heraclitus rejects the notion that souls are immortal.

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explains how humans can know what is beyond them in time and space something that had hitherto been the exclusive province of the gods.
Underlying this discussion is the question of the mechanism by which some
humans can come to have knowledge. The similarity of structure between soul
and cosmos means that soul in the proper state could thus be a recipient of
the logos by matching the structure of the steerer of the cosmos. Recent work by
Betegh on the physical aspect of Heraclitus account of soul could help to explain
what this would mean. As illustrated in B117, Heraclitus clearly thinks that soul
can be affected by stuffs; the most extreme case is B36: for souls, to become
water is to die. This suggests that soul itself is a kind of stuff, and commentators
have tended to opt for either fire or air as the soul stuff. In a careful analysis of
the evidence about psuch in Heraclitus, Betegh suggests that we should take seriously the ancient reports, including Aristotles, that the stuff of soul is a kind of
exhalation (Aristotle, de An. 405a2426), and he emphasizes that the evidence
shows that the interpretation of exhalation should not be limited to air alone.
Betegh argues that for Heraclitus, soul is the exhalation that rises from water and
extends to the sky and the fire of the celestial bodies. The differences among
the strata of stuffs in this range are determined by moisture and heat. Thus,
can be connected with a variety of states along the wet/dry and cold/hot continua. This would be consistent with much of what Heraclitus says about soul.
This account endorses a physical conception of soul that is more subtle than the
mere identification of soul with fire or air since it allows for different levels of
intelligence, cognition, and so on, depending on the degree of heat/dryness in a
soul. This in turn depends on the amount and the quality of the contact an indi-
51Long (2009) on ratio and rationality is particularly helpful here.

52Betegh (2007).
53Air: Kahn (1979, pp. 23840), followed by Robinson (1987, pp. 1045). Fire: Guthrie (1962,
pp. 432ff.), Schofield (1991, pp. 20ff.), Nussbaum (1972, pp. 154 ff.). A problem with opting for
air is that air does not appear in the fragments describing the basic masses of the cosmos. See
B31 and B36, which pointedly puts psuch where we might expect air. B76 (variants are given in
Maximus of Tyre, Marcus Aurelius, and Plutarch) explicitly includes air, but there are good reasons for doubting the authenticity of the fragment in all its versions. See Kahn (1979), pp. 15455
for a good discussion of the problems; although Kahn thinks that air must have been part of
Heraclitus system, he rejects the authenticity of the fragments. Betegh (2007), p. 15 n.25 adds to
the analysis and gives further reasons for thinking the versions of B76 are reminiscences of B36.
54Betegh (2007), p. 21.
55Although Betegh does not note this, another reason for finding this view attractive is its connection with the Xenophanean theory of exhalations. Xenophanes own views on soul are obscure: Diogenes Laertius (IX.19) claims that Xenophanes was the first to identify soul and breath
(); this could well include exhalations.

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Patricia Curd
vidual maintains with the exhalations through breathing, and through perception, i.e., by literal contact with the bright fiery exhalations that constitute our
external atmosphere. Those who are asleep lack that contact, except through the
breath, and the dead, of course, take in no exhalations at all. Beteghs analysis ties together several Heraclitean fragments, and gives a coherent account of
Heraclitus concern that the one who knows must be (literally) in touch with the
world. Yet, just as the piling up of facts produces only a polymath, not one who
understands, so merely having a soul in the proper receptive condition cannot
guarantee insight. What is needed is insight and, as B40 makes clear, polymathy cannot teach that. Nor, I suspect, is it simply to be identified with a soul on
the higher ends of the hot/cold and dry/wet scales. This is an attractive position,
but the texts that link soul and exhalations are too persuasive; psuch must be
both part of the natural world and able to provide the link to the account of the
logos that constitutes knowledge and understanding. Insight and understanding,
the states of grasping and holding the logos may depend on the presence of the
appropriate state of soul, but they are not, I think, to be reduced to it.
B45 claims that one could never discover the limits of soul, and I take this
claim to include the idea that one will never be able to understand it completely:
[] .
He who travels every road will not find out the limits of soul [as he goes], so deep a logos
does it have.
56Betegh: It is the prerogative of only some people to become truly intelligent, and breathing
will clearly not suffice to attain that state. For a more intelligent functioning of the soul we need
to be in contact through the senses with what surrounds us and what is permeated and physically transformed by the sun in daylight. It is only through perception, and primarily through
sight, that we become in contact with the bright and the fiery (2007, p. 27). Compare this with
Grangers comments on sleep and death in Granger (2000).
57As others have seen (including Betegh), contact with the fiery intelligent stuff is a necessary
condition for understanding, but it cannot be sufficient. At the end of his analysis, Betegh makes
a suggestive claim, that Heraclitus is primarily concerned with more or less standing conditions
or dispositions such as being wise, being morally excellent, and so forth, which can be expressed
on the wet-dry axis; Betegh (2007), p. 30. This seems right. I suggest that the presence of the
hot/dry/bright exhalations can make a soul susceptible to understanding, giving the soul the capacity to know. One who wishes to understand the cosmos would do well to avoid drunkenness
or the escape into excess sleep, and to take every opportunity to explore the world (be an inquirer
into many things, perhaps). This will keep the soul in a state in which it can come to know.
58Text and translation from Betegh (2009), p. 404. Beteghs article justifies both text and translation.

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As scholars have noted, many layers of interpretation are possible here. I want to
focus on two things. First, there is the surprise of noting that it is the logos of soul
that is deep or high, not the soul itself. Second, the fragment does not discourage wide inquiry. About the first point: If we read logos here as belonging to the
soul, we find that the account of it is so deep that its limits can never be reached.
Although the use of (limits) suggests the spatial end of a thing, it need not
be interpreted literally. Heraclitus could well mean that soul is the sort of thing
that will not ever yield to full explanation; there will always be some mystery
about the workings of soul in consciousness and knowing. Whatever account we
give of the soul, there will be more to say (soul has a logos that increases itself,
B115). Heraclitus could also mean that each time the soul acquires some new
knowledge it changes, and so whatever account we give of the state of any particular soul, there will always be more to add to the account of that very soul. My
preference is for the first version, but the second may be intended as well.
The second point is that in this fragment, Heraclitus recognizes that inquiry
is a legitimate method for finding out about things. Even though the one who
travels many roads may not find the limits of soul, he will perhaps find out something about soul (and his own soul). This is indicated by Heraclitus claims that
he prefers first-person scrutiny to hearsay or second-hand wisdom (see B55, 101a);
and B107 does not deny that eyes and ears can sometimes be good witnesses (to
those with souls that speak the language of the logos). One must have the noos to
interpret what the senses say about the world. The amount of work that Heraclitus
expects of one who knows indicates that knowing cannot just be the passive reception of intelligent hot/dry stuff through perception and breath. The one who seeks
gold digs up much earth and finds little but he does not find nothing (B22). After
all, B101 notes that Heraclitus inquired into himself ( ), and
surely Heraclitus logos is part of the outcome of that inquiry.
Nonetheless, his recognition of inquiry as legitimate suggests a problem for
Heraclitus. Although there is a divine plan in and for the cosmos that is contained
in the logos, and although some of us can apparently reach a semi-divine state of
knowledge through coming to grasp and understand the logos, what Heraclitus
says in the fragments leaves it open whether we can be certain that we have
reached genuine understanding. Heraclitus insists that he is not the authority on which we should accept the account, so we cannot accept the possibility of genuine knowledge simply on his testimony. Rather, there is a connection
between the divine sphere of the nature of things and the human capacity for
knowing through the soul, and that assures us that such knowledge is possible
(if difficult to attain). Yet Heraclitus describes or refers to no signs that would
indicate when we have achieved the sure and certain truth. There is little evidence
that Heraclitus himself saw this as a problem. He apparently accepts that empiri-

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Patricia Curd
cal evidence, properly interpreted, can lead to understanding: B101a (eyes are
better witnesses than ears) and B55 (as many as are objects of sight, hearing,
experience, these I prefer) suggest the importance of direct evidence rather than
hearsay. That the mere piling up of experience is not the route to understanding
is clear (see B40), but with care, the evidence of the senses can be translated
into knowledge. Although eyes and ears are bad witnesses for those with barbarian souls (B107), not least because one can be deceived by the obvious (B56),
someone who has learned to speak the language of the cosmos and has thereby
grasped the logos comes to understand (as Heraclitus himself has presumably
done). Yet we are left wondering: how will one know one has successfully grasped
the logos? Self-deceit is a common theme in the fragments, and ignorance of
ones own incomprehension is not unknown. Many people do not comprehend
() things in the way they encounter them, nor, experiencing them, do
they recognize them, but they themselves suppose () that they do (B17).
The necessary analysis will be found, I think, not in Heraclitus, but in Parmenides.
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RHIZ 2013; 1(2): 217247

The Divine and the Thinkable

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1The divine and the problem of human

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The Divine and the Thinkable

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Any knowledge beyond the immediate circumstances of an individual mortal

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The Divine and the Thinkable

Xenophanes suggests that human inquiry is a better path to knowing than

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3Xenophanean explanations (and their

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The Divine and the Thinkable

14Mourelatos (1989), p. 282.

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the epistemic status he is willing to grant to claims grounded in inquiry remains

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The Divine and the Thinkable

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These lines, which I take as belonging together, give an account of Xenophanes

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The Divine and the Thinkable

If we think that Xenophanes is using fittingness as an ethical or religious

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The Divine and the Thinkable

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4Xenophanes: Divinity and knowledge

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The Divine and the Thinkable

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In B34 Xenophanes appears to cast doubt on the possibility of human

Xenophanes epistemological fragments have received detailed treatment from

33The echo of Hesiod is unmistakable, yet Xenophanes changes Hesiods to

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The Divine and the Thinkable

5Heraclitus and logos: Divinity and intelligibility

36For a good account of this, see Mogyordi (2006).

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Heraclitus criticism of others for their lack of understanding implies that it

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The Divine and the Thinkable

contains the accounts of those natures. He asserts (B112) that To be of sound

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Heraclitus claims that thinking ( ) is common to all (B113). If he can

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The Divine and the Thinkable

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Heraclitus may be more conservative in his attitudes to contemporary religious

6Heraclitus on soul and knowledge

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The Divine and the Thinkable

47See discussion of this fragment by Dilcher (1995), pp. 7680.

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Heraclitus radical view is that understanding gives to humans the epistemic

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The Divine and the Thinkable

51Long (2009) on ratio and rationality is particularly helpful here.

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