Ephesian School
The Ephesian
School is a Greek Pre-Socratic school of philosophy of the 5th Century
B.C., although essentially it refers to the ideas of just one man, Heraclitus
(who did not have any direct disciples or successors that we are aware of), a
native of Ephesus in the Greek colony of Ionia.
Along with
his fellow Ionians of the Milesian School, he looked for a solution to the problem
of change, but his view was that the world witnesses constant change,
rather than no change at all. The aphorism "everything is in a state of
flux", often attributed to Heraclitus, was probably not actually his,
but it does give a reasonable summary of his views. The transformation
of material from one state into another does not happen by accident, he
held, but rather within certain limits and within certain time and according to
law or "logos", according to which all things are one.
He considered that the basis of all the universe is an ever-living fire
(although this is used more as a symbol of change and process, rather
than actual fire), so that the world itself consists of a law-like interchange
of elements, symbolized by fire.
He also
made the apparently logically incoherent claim that opposite things are
identical, so that everything is, and is not, at the same time. This
he exemplified by the idea that, although the waters in it are always changing,
a river stays the same.
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