Heraclitus of Ephesus is, you might say, the ultimate Pre-Socratic. He brings together many of the features we associate with Greek philosophy before Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle came along. For instance, most of the thinkers we’ve looked at so far wanted to reduce the whole cosmos to one fundamental principle: Thales chooses water, Anaximenes chooses air, Anaximander has his more abstract principle, the unlimited. Heraclitus too has his basic element, namely fire. Another
