Joel Wilcox

Many fragments show that Heraclitus was interested in epistemological issues. However, scholars have been reluctant to attribute a theory of knowledge to Heraclitus, presumably because to do so would be anachronistic. This study shows that Heraclitus did, in fact, have a theory of knowledge, by describing Heraclitus' epistemology, and by showing that it was a response to skepticism. Early skepticism had claimed that "seeming" obscures the nature of things--but Heraclitus claimed to know the nature of "each thing." Early skepticism held that only the gods had knowledge: Heraclitus denied this view by positing a "logos" that was at the same time a principle of rationality, a universal law, and a component of all psychai. Early Greek thought assumed a principle of "like-to-like," according to which only "similar" things may interact. Xenophanes appears to have based his skepticism in part upon like-to-like: he stated that the cosmos is "utterly unlike" mortals, and that the nature of the cosmos is unknowable. Heraclitus was careful to build "similarity" into his views: psychai could become fiery, like the logos, which informs the fiery cosmos; hence, psychai could, in principle, interact with the logos. The Greek view of knowledge is based on "direct acquaintance"; hence, knowledge is impossible if "seeming" precludes direct acquaintance with reality. Heraclitus countered the "veil of seeming" by holding that logos is universal, and that all psychai have a share in logos; hence, knowledge is possible via introspection. Heraclitus retained "seeming"--as was necessary, to account for the possibility of error--but transferred it from the cosmos to persons who fail to understand the cosmos

Heraclitus DK107 reads as follows: κακοὶ μάρτυρεσ ἀνθρώποισιν ὀφθαλμοι και ὦτα βαρβάρουσ ψυχὰσ ἐχόντων. It is readily translated: “Eyes and ears are bad witnesses for those with barbarian psychai.”However, this fragment is not readily interpreted. The problem is that we do not know what the phrase “barbarian psychai” means; and as long as this phrase remains uninterpreted, the import of DK107 is unclear. I shall argue that no previous interpretation of the phrase “barbarian psychai” is satisfactory; and I shall offer a more adequate interpretation of that key phrase. First, however, a few preliminary comments