The philosopher Heraclitus has been renowned for a great amount of time. Despite that fact the remaining fragments of his work have just recently been assembled to the composed form they have today. Among these fragments there are a couple of terms that stands out amongst others; one of them is the term logos. The main focus of this thesis is devoted to the mystery and usage of the term logos, which comes into a great display in fragment number 50. The ambition of the thesis is to evaluate and compare three interpreters’ readings of Heraclitus while having a close focus on his usage of the word logos in fragment 50. One of these interpreters, Martin Heidegger, may have the most radical reading of Heraclitus’ logos among the three. Because of his philosophical standpoint he interprets Heraclitus in a way which has never been done before. The other two do not have Heidegger’s phenomenological perspective, by which Heidegger broadens our understanding of Heraclitus fragments, which isn’t as the thesis will show unproblematic. The other two interpreters G.S. Kirk and Charles H. Kahn both do a thorough reading and translation of all the fragments, whereas Heidegger is more selective in his reading of the fragments. Heidegger doesn’t have the same intention in his interpretation as Kirk or Kahn; therefore may he be said to be more selective in his reading of Heraclitus. While Kirk and Kahn depict a more naturalistic ethic tendency in Heraclitus, Heidegger illustrates an ontological tendency which speaks about being and its’ constitution and expression as such. At the end of the thesis there is an analytic part which compares and investigates the possible difficulties in comparing the three readings. The thesis acknowledges the possibility of impossibility in ever understanding the extent of Heraclitus thoughts around logos; the three interpreters hopefully show the scope of understanding Heraclitus’ thoughts around this term.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:sh-18693 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Forsström, Adam |
| Publisher | Södertörns högskola, Institutionen för kultur och lärande |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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