Editing Heraclitus (section)

==== Pre-Socratics ====
It is unknown whether or not Heraclitus had any students in his lifetime.{{sfn|Graham|2019|loc=§7}} Diogenes Laertius states Heraclitus's book "won so great a fame that there arose followers of him called Heracliteans."{{efn|name=DiogLae}} Scholars took this to mean Heraclitus had no disciples and became renowned only after his death.{{sfn|Finkelberg|2017|p=24}} According to one author, "The school of disciples founded by Heraclitus flourished for long after his death".{{sfn|Mitchell|1911}} According to another, "there were no doubt other Heracliteans whose names are now lost to us".{{sfn|Bett|2003|page=132}}

In his dialogue ''Cratylus'', Plato presented [[Cratylus]] as a Heraclitean and as a [[Cratylism|linguistic naturalist]] who believed that names must apply naturally to their objects.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Dell'Aversana|first=Paolo|year=2013|title=Cognition in Geosciences: The feeding loop between geo-disciplines, cognitive sciences and epistemology|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=o_ReAgAAQBAJ|publisher=Academic Press|isbn=9789073834682}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Attardo|first=Salvatore|date=2002|title=Translation and Humour: An Approach Based on the General Theory of Verbal Humour (GTVH)|url=http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13556509.2002.10799131|journal=The Translator|language=en|volume=8|issue=2|pages=173–194|doi=10.1080/13556509.2002.10799131|issn=1355-6509|s2cid=142611273}}</ref> According to Aristotle, Cratylus went a step beyond his master's doctrine and said that one cannot step into the same river once. He took the view that nothing can be said about the ever-changing world and "ended by thinking that one need not say anything, and only moved his finger".<ref name="Aristotle">{{cite book|author=[[Aristotle]]|title=[[Metaphysics (Aristotle)|Metaphysics]]|chapter=Γ|at=1010a}}</ref> To explain both characterizations by Plato and Aristotle, Cratylus may have thought continuous change warrants skepticism because one cannot define a thing that does not have a permanent nature.<ref>Logic by Wilfrid Hodges, p. 13</ref> Diogenes Laertius also lists an otherwise historically obscure Antisthenes who wrote a commentary on Heraclitus.{{NoteTag|Not to be confused with [[Antisthenes|the cynic]].{{efn|name=DiogLae}}}}

The [[Pythagoreanism|Pythagorean]] and comic writer [[Epicharmus of Kos]] has fragments which seem to reproduce the thought of Heraclitus, and wrote a play titled ''Heraclitus''.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Heidel|first=William Arthur|date=1913|title=On Certain Fragments of the Pre-Socratics|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zhOCAAAAIAAJ|journal=Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences|issue=48|pages=709}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0104%3Aalphabetic+letter%3DE%3Aentry+group%3D4%3Aentry%3Depicharmus-bio-1|title=Epicharmus|website=perseus.tufts.edu|via=A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology}}</ref>

===== Eleatics =====
[[File:Busto di Parmenide (cropped).jpg|thumb|[[Parmenides]], a contemporary who espoused a doctrine of unchanging Being, has been contrasted with Heraclitus and his doctrine of constant change.]]
[[Parmenides]] of Elea, a philosopher and near-contemporary, proposed a doctrine of changelessness, in contrast to the doctrine of flux put forth by Heraclitus.{{sfn|Nehamas|2002}}{{sfn|Graham|2002|pages=27–30}} He is generally agreed to either have influenced or been influenced by Heraclitus.{{sfn|Graham|2019|loc=§7}}{{sfn|Graham|2002|pp=27–30}} Different philosophers have argued that either one of them may have substantially influenced each other, some taking Heraclitus to be responding to Parmenides, but more often Parmenides is seen as responding to Heraclitus.{{sfn|Graham|2002|pages=27–30}}<ref>Popper, Karl (2012). The World of Parmenides: Essays on the Presocratic Enlightenment. (n.p.): Taylor & Francis. p. 249</ref> Some also argue that any direct chain of influence between the two is impossible to determine.{{sfn|Graham|2002|pp=27–30}} Although Heraclitus refers to older figures such as Pythagoras,{{efn|name=DiogLae}}{{efn|name=DiogL40}} neither Parmenides or Heraclitus refer to each other by name in any surviving fragments, so any speculation on influence must be based on interpretation.{{sfn|Graham|2002|pp=27–30}}

===== Pluralists and atomists =====
The surviving fragments of several other pre-Socratic philosophers show Heraclitean themes.{{sfn|Graham|2019|loc=§7}} [[Diogenes of Apollonia]] thought the action of one thing on another meant they were made of one substance.{{sfn|Stokes|1961|p=480}} The [[Pluralist School|pluralists]] may have been influenced by Heraclitus. The philosopher [[Anaxagoras]] refuses to separate the opposites in the "one cosmos".{{sfn|Stokes|1961|p=480}} [[Empedocles]] has forces (arguably the first since Heraclitus's tension)<ref name="Cambridge Encyclopedia of Philosophy" /> which are in opposition, known as Love and Hate, or more accurately, Harmony and Strife.{{sfn|Stokes|1961|p=480}} Democritus and the [[Atomism|atomists]] were also influenced by Heraclitus.{{sfn|Graham|2019|loc=§7}} The atomists and Heraclitus both believed that everything was in motion.<ref>Aristotle, Physics Book 8</ref><ref>Early Greek Philosophy. (2013). United States: Catholic University of America Press. p. 44</ref>{{efn|name=plato1}} On one interpretation: "Essentially what the atomists did was try to find a middle-way between the contradictory philosophical schemes of Heraclitus and Parmenides."<ref>Oldroyd, D. R. (1996). Thinking about the earth: a history of ideas in geology. London: Harvard University Press. p. 13</ref>

===== Sophists =====
The sophists, including [[Protagoras]] of Abdera and [[Gorgias]] of Leontini, may also have been influenced by Heraclitus. Sophists in general seemed to share Heraclitus's conception of the ''logos''.<ref name="Hoffman" /> One tradition associated the sophists' concern with politics and preventing party strife with Heraclitus.<ref name="reread" /><ref>Liberal Temper in Greek Politics, by Eric Havelock, p. 290</ref>[[File:Plato Silanion Musei Capitolini MC1377.jpg|thumb|Plato's [[Theory of Forms]] was a result of reconciling Heraclitus and Parmenides.|160px]]Heraclitus and others used "measure" to mean the balance and order of nature; hence Protagoras' famous statement "man is the measure of all things".<ref>Schiappa, E. (2013). Protagoras and Logos: A Study in Greek Philosophy and Rhetoric. United States: University of South Carolina Press. p. 119</ref> In Plato's [[Socratic dialogue|dialogue]] ''[[Theaetetus (dialogue)|Theaetetus]]'', Socrates sees Protagoras's "man is the measure" doctrine and [[Theaetetus (mathematician)|Theaetetus]]' hypothesis that "knowledge is perception" as justified by Heraclitean flux.<ref>Reshotko, Naomi. "Heracleitean Flux in Plato's 'Theaetetus.'" ''History of Philosophy Quarterly'', vol. 11, no. 2, 1994, pp. 139–61. {{JSTOR|27744617}}. Accessed 25 May 2024.</ref>

Gorgias seems to have been influenced by the ''logos'', when he argued in his work ''On Non-Being'', possibly parodying the Eleatics, that being cannot exist or be communicated. According to one author, Gorgias "in a sense ... completes Heraclitus."<ref name="reread">[https://books.google.com/books?id=gqKZ5Or119kC&pg=PA44 Rereading the Sophists by Susan Jarratt] p. 44</ref>