Słowa i czyny u Heraklita. O teoretycznych podstawach moralnego działania
Speech and Action in Heraclitus. On the Theoretical Foundations of Moral Action

Summary/Abstract: Doesn’t the originality of Heraclitus reside in elaborating, well before Socrates and Plato, a philosophical and theoretical reflection on the foundations of moral and political action? In what ways does Heraclitus envisage the relations between speech and action? The logos (speech) and epos (word) of the philosopher, which are behind the doctrine of the harmony of opposites, don’t they offer a pathway, a stable criterion and norm for individual and collective action? Our contemporaries of the 21th century, conscious of the “crisis of values” affecting our western societies and concerned about the rational foundations of moral and political action, will be surprised perhaps to catch the stimulating character of the statement made on this subject by a poet-philosopher situated at mid-point between Homeric and Hesiodic poetry on the one hand, and the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle on the other. They’ll be surprised to find beside the current ecological concerns, a philosophy situating nature (physis) and the cosmos at the center of its interrogation, and making this nature the ultimate criterion in governing our lives and thoughts.

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