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Description
This lecture (transcript edited by Alexander Bazelow), delivered by Heinrich Blücher on May 10, 1967, provides a detailed analysis of the pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus. Blücher characterizes Heraclitus as a "hard, cold, forbidding figure" who created a metaphysical vision that was foundational for Western science and philosophy.
The lecture explores Heraclitus's core principle of "the logos," which Blücher interprets as the human intellect and the foundation for the scientific mind. It examines his concept of a dynamic cosmos in a state of permanent change, governed by strife and the "unity of opposites."
Blücher traces the influence of Heraclitus's process-oriented thinking through later philosophers, including Spinoza, Hegel, and Nietzsche, contrasting this scientific metaphysical tradition with the religious one derived from Hebrew prophets. The lecture concludes by championing the Socratic model of philosophy as a critical discipline that, unlike science or theology, does not claim to know an absolute.
Publication Date
1967
Recommended Citation
Blücher, Heinrich, "06-VI. Heraclitus and the Metaphysical Tradition (1967)" (1967). Bazelow Transcripts. 6.
https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/blucher-bazelow-transcripts/6