Conspectus of Lassalle’s Book The Philosophy of Heraclitus the Obscure of Ephesus

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The Philospohy of Heraclitus the Obscure of Ephesus

F. LASSALLE.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF HERACLITUS

THE OBSCURE OF EPHESUS,

TWO VOLUMES,

BERLIN, 1858 (pp. 379 + 479)

(Bern: Log. 119. 1) In the epigraph, inter alia, from Hegel—from his History of Philosophy—that there is not a single proposition of Heraclitus that he would not have adopted in his Logic. Hegel. Collected Works, Vol. XIII, p. 328. My quotation from Vorlesun-gen über die Geschichte der Philosophie.

		One can understand why Marx called this work of Lassalle’s “schoolboyish” (see the letter to Engels of...): Lassalle simply repeats Hegel, copies from him, re-echo-ing him a million times with regard to isolated passages from Heraclitus, furnish- ing his opus with an incredible heap of learned ultra-pedantic ballast. The difference with respect to Marx: In Marx there is a mass of new material, and what interests him is only the move- ment forward from Hegel and Feuer- bach further, from idealistic to mate- rialistic dialectics. In Lassalle there is a rehash of Hegel on the particular theme selected: essentially transcribing from He- gel with respect to quotations from Hera- clitus and about Heraclitus. Lassafle divided his work into two parts: “General Part. Introduction” (Vol. I, pp. 1-68), and “Historical Part. Fragments and Evidence” (the remainder). Chapter III in the general part: “Short Logical Development of the System of Heraclitus” (pp. 45-68)—gives the quintessence of the method, of Lassalle’s conclusions. This chapter is sheer plagiarism, slavish repe- tition of Hegel concerning Heraclitus! Here too (and still more in the historical part) there is a mass of erudition, but it is eru- dition of the lowest kind: the exercise set was to seek out the Hegelian element in Heraclitus. The Strebsamer pupil per- forms it “brilliantly,” reading through everything about Heraclitus in all the ancient (and modern) authors, and putting a Hegelian construction on everything. Marx in 1844-47 went from Hegel to Feuerbach, and further beyond Feuer- bach to historical (and dialectical) mate- rialism. Lassalle in 1846 began (Preface, p. III), in 1855 resumed, and in August 1857 (Preface, p. XV) finished a work of sheer, empty, useless, “learned” rehash- ing of Hegelianism!! Some chapters of the second part are interesting and not without use solely for the translations of fragments from Her- aclitus and for the popularisation of He- gel, but that does not do away with all the above-mentioned defects. The philosophy of the ancients and of Heraclitus is often quite delightful in its childish naïveté, e.g., p. 162—“how is it to be explained that the urine of persons who have eaten garlic smells of garlic?” and the answer: “is it not that, as some of the fol- lowers of Heraclitus say, one and the same fiery process of transformation takes place both in the universe and in (organic) bodies, and then after cooling appears there (in the universe) as moisture, and here takes the form of urine, but the transformation (άνδανμίδσις) from the food causes the smell of that from which it has arisen by mixing with it?...” (162-163) On p. 221 ff. Lassalle quotes Plu- tarch, who says with regard to Heraclitus:
		“in the same way as everything is created by transformation out of fire, so also fire out of everything, just as we obtain things				Heraclitus on gold and commodities
		for gold and gold for things....” In this connection, Lassalle writes about value (Wert) (p. 223 N B) |and about Function des Geldes|, expounding it in the Hegelian manner (as “separated
		abstract unity”) and adding: ...“that this unity, money, is not something actual, but something merely ideal (Lassalle’s italics) is evident from the fact,” etc.				incorrect (Lassalle’s idealism)
		(But all the same NB that this was written in a book that appeared in 1858, the preface being dated August 1857.) In note 3 on p. 224 (pp. 224-225) Las- salle speaks in still greater detail about money, saying that Heraclitus was no “po- litical economist,” that money is ((only(??))) a Wertzeichen, etc., etc. (“all money is merely the ideal unity or expression of value of all real products in circulation”) (224), etc. Since Lassalle here speaks vaguely of moderne Entdeckungen auf diesem Gebiet—the theory of value and money, it can be assumed that he has precisely in mind conversations with Marx and letters from him. On pp. 225-228. Lassalle reproduces a long passage from Plutarch, proving further (convincingly) that it is indeed Heraclitus who is referred to, and that Plu- tarch here expounds “the basic features of the speculative theology of Heraclitus” (p. 228). The passage is a good one: it conveys the spirit of Greek philosophy, the na- ïveté, profundity, the flowing transitions. Lassalle reads into Heraclitus even a whole system of theology and “objec- tive logic” (sic!!), etc.—in short, Hegel “apropos of” Heraclitus!! An infinite number of times (truly wearisomely) Lassalle emphasises and rehashes the idea that Heraclitus not only recognises motion in everything, that his principle is motion or becoming (Wer- den), but that the whole point lies in understanding “the processing identity of absolute (schlechthin) opposites” (p. 289 and many others); Lassalle, so to speak, hammers into the reader’s head the Hegelian thought that in abstract con- cepts (and in the system of them) the principle of motion cannot be expressed otherwise than as the principle of the identity of opposites. Motion and Werden, generally speaking, can be with- out repetition, without return to the point of departure, and then such motion would not be an “identity of opposites.” But astronomical and me- chanical (terrestrial) motion, and the life of plants, animals and man—all this has hammered into the heads of man- kind not merely the idea of motion, but motion precisely with a return to the point of departure, i.e., dialectical motion. This is naïvely and delightfully expressed in the famous formula (or aphorism) of Heraclitus: “it is impossible to bathe twice in the same river”—actually, how- ever (as had already been said by Cratylus, a disciple of Heraclitus), it cannot be done even once (for before the whole body has entered the water, the latter is already not the same as before). (NB:) This Cratylus reduced Heraclitus’ dialectics to sophistry, pp. 294-295 and many others, by saying: nothing is true, nothing can be said about anything. A neg- ative (and merely negative) conclusion from dialectics. Heraclitus, on the other hand, had the principle: “everything is true,” there is (a part of) truth in everything. Cra- tylus merely “wagged his finger” in answer to everything, thereby showing that everything moves, that nothing can be said of anything. Lassalle in this work has no sense of moderation, absolutelydrowning Heraclitus in He-gel. It is a pity. Heraclitus inmoderation, as one of the founders of dialectics, would be extremely useful: the 850 pages of Lassalle should be compressed into 85 pages of quintessence and translated into Russian: “Hera- clitus as one of the founders of dia- lectics (according to Lassalle).” Something useful could result! The basic law of the world, according to Heraclitus (λόγος, sometimes είμαρ- μένη), is “the law of transformation into the opposite” (p. 327) (= ένγντιοτροπή, έναντιοδρομία). Lassalle expounded the meaning of είμαρμένη as the “law of development” (p. 333), quoting, inter alia, the words of Nemesius: “Democritus, Her- aclitus and Epicurus assume that neither for the universal nor for the particular does foresight exist” (ibidem).
		And the words of Heraclitus: “The world was created by none of the Gods or men, but is eternally living fire and will al- ways be so” (ibidem).
		It is strange that, in rehashing the religious philosophy of Heraclitus, Las- salle does not once quote or mention Feuerbach! What was Lassalle’s atti- tude in general to Feuerbach? That of an idealist Hegelian? Hence Philo said of Heraclitus’ doctrine,
		...“that it” (die Lehre), “like that of the Stoics, derives everything from the world, and brings it into the world, but does not believe that any- thing came from God.” (334) An exam-				NB
		ple of “touching up” as Hegelian: Lassalle translates the famous passage of Heraclitus (according to Stobaeus) on “Das Eine Weise” (έν σοφόν) as follows:
		“However many discourses I have heard, no one has succeeded in recog- nising that the wise is that which is separated from all (i.e., from all that exists)” (344) —considering that the words “beast or god” are an insertion, and rejecting the translations of Ritter (“wisdom is remote from all”) (344) and Schleier- macher “the wise is separated from all,” in the sense of “cognition” dis- tinct from the knowledge of partic- ulars. According to Lassalle the meaning of this passage is as follows: that “the absolute (the wise) is alien to all sensuous determinate being, that it is the negative” (349)—i.e., Nega- tive = the principle of negation, the principle of motion. A clear misrep- resentation as Hegelian! Reading He- gel into Heraclitus. A mass of details on the (exter- nal) connection between Heracli- tus and Persian theology, Ormazd- Ahriman, and the theory of mag- ic, etc., etc., etc. Heraclitus said: “time is a body” (p. 358)... this, Lassalle says, is in the sense of the unity of being and nothing. Time is the pure unity of Being and not-Be- ing, etc.! Fire for Heraclitus, it is said = the principle of motion |and not simply fire|, something similar is fire in the teaching of Persian philosophy (and religion)! (362) If Heraclitus was the first to use the term λόγος (“word”) in the objective sense (law), this, too, is said to be taken from the Persian religion.... (364) — A quotation from the Zend-Avesta. (367) In § 17 on the relation between Δίχη and είμαρμένη, Lassalle interprets these ideas of Heraclitus in the sense of “ne- cessity,” “connection.” (376) NB: “the bond of all things” (δεσός άπάντων) (p. 379) Plato (in the Theaetetus) is al- leged to express the Heraclitean philosophy when he says: “Necessity binds together the essential- ity of Being....” “Heraclitus is ... the source of the con- ception, common among the Stoics, that είμαρμένη rerum omnium necessitas, ex- presses bond and ligation, illigatio....” (376) Cicero: “I, however, call fate what the Greeks call είμαρμένη, i.e., the order and sequence of causes, when one cause linked with another produces the phenomenon out of itself” (p. 377). Thousands of years have passed since the time when the idea was born of “the connection of all things,” “the chain of causes.” A comparison of how these causes have been understood in the his- tory of human thought would give an indisputably conclusive theory of knowledge. Volume II. Speaking of “fire,” Lassalle proves, by repeating himself a thousand times over, that this is a “principle” for Heraclitus. He insists especially on the idealism of Heraclitus (p. 2 5—that the principle of development, des Werdens, in Heracli- tus is logisch-präexistent, that his phi- losophy = Idealphilosophie. Sic!!) (p. 25). ((Squeezing into Hegelian!)) Heraclitus accepted “pure and absolute- ly immaterial fire” (p. 28 Timaeus, on Heraclitus).... On p. 56 (Vol. II) Lassalle introduces
		a quotation |from Clemens Al., Stro- mata V; Chapter 14| about Heraclitus, which, translated literally, reads:
		“The world, an entity out of everything, was created by none of the gods or men, but was, is and will be eternally living fire, regularly becoming ignited and reg- ularly becoming extinguished....”				NB
		A very good exposition of the principles of dialectical materialism. But on p. 58 Lassalle provides the following “freie Über- setzung” of this passage: “The world — — was, is and will be con- tinuous becoming, being constantly, but in varying measure, transformed from Being into (proceeding) not-Being, and from the latter into (proceeding) Being.” An excellent example how Lassalle verballhornt Heraclitus, representing him as Hegelian, spoiling the liveliness, freshness, naïveté and historical integ- rity of Heraclitus by misrepresenting him as Hegelian (and in order to achieve this misrepresentation Lassalle presents a rehash of Hegel for dozens of pages). The second section of the second part (“Physics,” pp. 1 - 262!!!, Vol. II) is ab- solutely intolerable. A farthingsworth of Heraclitus, and a shillingsworth of rehash of Hegel and of misrepresentation. One can only leaf through the pages—in order to say that it should not be read! From Section III (“The Doctrine of Cog- nition”) a quotation from Philo:
		“For the One is that which consists of two opposites, so that when cut into two				NB
		the opposites are revealed. Is not this the proposition which the Greeks say their great and famous Heraclitus placed at the head of his philosophy and gloried in as a new discovery....” ((265))				NB
		And the following quotation also from Philo:
		...“In the same way, too, the parts of the world are divided into two and mutual- ly counterposed: the earth—into moun-
		tains and plains, water—into fresh and salt.... In the same way, too, the atmos- phere into winter and summer, and like-
		wise spring and autumn. And this served Heraclitus as the material for his books on nature: borrowing from our theologian				NB
		the aphorism about opposites, he added
		to it innumerable and laboriously worked- out examples (Belege)” (p. 267).
		According to Heraclitus the criterion of truth is not the consensus omnium, not the agreement of all (p. 285)—in that case he would be a subjectiver Empiriker (p. 284). No, he is an objectiver Idealist(285). For him, the criterion of truth, independent of the subjective opinion of all men, is agreement with the ideal law of the identity of Being and not-Being (285). Cf. Marx 1845 in his theses on Feuerbach!Lassalle is here reactionary. Here it is clear- ly seen that Lassal- le is a Hegelian of the old type, an idealist. On p. 337, quoting, inter alia, Büch- ner (note 1), Lassalle says that Her- aclitus expressed a priori “the very same thought” as “modern physiology” (“thought is a movement of matter”). An obvious exaggeration. In the quotations about Heraclitus it is merely said that the soul is also a process of transformation—that which moves is known by that which moves. A quotation from Chalcidius (in Ti- maeus): ...“Heraclitus, however, links our rea- son with the divine reason that guides and rules the world, and says that, on account of inseparable accompaniment, it, too, possesses knowledge of the governing decree of reason and, when the mind rests from the activity of the senses, it predicts the future” (p. 342). From Clemens (Stromata V.): ...“owing to its incredibility it—namely, the truth—escapes from becoming cog- nised....” (347) Heraclitus, Lassalle says, is “the father of objective logic” (p. 351), for in him “natural philosophy” umschlägt into the philosophy of thought, “thought is recognised as the principle of existence” (350), etc., etc. à la Hegel.... The moment of subjectivity is said to be lacking in Heraclitus.... § 36. “Plato’s Cratylus”,pp. 373-396 In the § on “Cratylus,” Lassalle proves that in this dialogue of Plato’s Cratylus is represented (not yet as a sophist and subjectivist as he subsequently became, but) as a true disciple of Heraclitus, who really expounded his, Heraclitus’, theory of the essence and origin of words and language as an imitation of nature (“imitation of the essence of things,” p. 388), the essence of things, “the imitation and copy of God,” “imitation of God and the universe” (ibidem).

Ergo:T h e h i s t o r y o f p h i l o s o p h y Greek Philos- ophy indicated all these moments ” ” the separate sciences ” ” the mental development of the child ” ” the mental development of animals ” ” l a n g u a g e NB: + psychology + physiology of the sense o r g a n s

these are the fields of knowlege from which the theory of knowl- edge and dialectics should be built kurz, the history of cognition in general the whole field of knowledge

...“We have shown—says Lassalle—that the” (above-mentioned) “conceptual iden- tity (precisely identity, and not merely analogy) between word, name and law is in every respect a principled view of the Heraclitean philosophy and of fundamental importance and significance in it....” (393)
...“Names are for him” (Heraclitus) “laws of being, they are for him the common element of things, just as for him laws are the ‘common element of all’”.... (394)				NB
And it is precisely Heraclilean ideas that Hippocrates expresses when he says: “Names are the laws of nature.”				very important! NB
“For both laws and names are for the Ephesian ... equally merely products and realisations of the universal, both are for him the achieved, purely universal, ideal being, freed from the stain of sensuous reality....” (394) Plato analyses and refutes the philos- ophy of Heraclitus in his “Cratylus” and “Theaetetus,” and in so doing (especially in the latter) he confuses Heracli- tus (the objective idealist and dialectician) with the subjective idealist and sophist Protagoras (man is the measure of all things). And Lassalle proves that in the development of ideas there has actually stemmed from Heraclitus 1) sophistry (Pro- tagoras) and 2) Platonism, the “ideas” (objective idealism). One gets the impression that Las- salle, the idealist, left in the shade the materialism or materialistic tendencies of Heraclitus, misrepre- senting him as Hegelian. (IV. Ethik, pp. 427-462.) In the section on ethics—nil. On pp. 458-459 Lassalle writes that Ne- mesios said that Heraclitus and Demo- critus denied prevision (προνοίαν), whereas Cicero (De Fato) said that Heraclitus, as also Democritus and others (including Aris- totle), recognised fatum—necessity.
...“This fatum is intended to signify only the immanent natural necessity belonging to the object, its natural law....” (459)				Naturnot- wendigkeit in Lassalle
(The Stoics, according to Lassalle, took everything from Heraclitus, making him banal and one-sided, p. 461.) The index to Lassalle’s book is compiled in a learned, pedantic manner, but senselessly; a heap of names of the ancients, etc., etc. In general, ΣΣ, Marx’s judgment is correct, Lassalle’s book is not worth read- ing.