Episode 13: The Obscure: On the Philosophy of Heraclitus

Heraclitus of Ephesus was one of the great pre-Socratic thinkers. Called the Obscure and the Weeping Philosopher, he left behind a collection of fragments so mysterious and pregnant with meaning that they continue to puzzle scholars to this day. In this episode, Phil and JF use a random number generator to select a number of fragments and speculate about their content. By the end, they will also have disclosed the bizarre contents of JF's tenth-grade "hippie bag," outed Oscar Wilde as a Zen Buddhist, and taken a walking tour of a city that exists only in Phil's dreams. REFERENCES Pierre Hadot, What is Ancient Philosophy? (https://www.amazon.com/What-Ancient-Philosophy-Pierre-Hadot/dp/0674013735) Northrop Frye, The Great Code (https://www.amazon.com/Great-Code-Bible-Literature/dp/0156027801) Northrop Frye, Words with Power (https://www.amazon.com/Words-Power-Literature-Collected-Northrop/dp/0802092934) I Ching: The Book of Changes (http://www.akirarabelais.com/i/i.html) Oxford World Classics, The First Philosophers: The Presocratics and Sophists (https://www.amazon.ca/First-Philosophers-Presocratics-Sophists/dp/019953909X) Wikisource page for Heraclitus (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Fragments_of_Heraclitus) James Hillman, The Dream and the Underworld (https://www.amazon.com/Dream-Underworld-James-Hillman/dp/0060906820) Dogen Zenji, [Genjokoan](http://www.thezensite.com/ZenTeachings/DogenTeachings/GenjoKoan8.htm)_ Mark Johnson, The Meaning of the Body (http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo5417890.html) Gilles Deleuze on Spinoza (http://deleuzelectures.blogspot.com/2007/02/on-spinoza.html) Benedict de Spinoza, Ethics (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3800/3800-h/3800-h.htm) Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Grey (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/174/174-h/174-h.htm) Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols (http://www.handprint.com/SC/NIE/GotDamer.html) Neil Gaiman, [Seasons of Mist](http://sandman.wikia.com/wiki/SeasonofMists) (the fourth arc of the Sandman series) Deleuze on Dreams (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Klhi6S6G-OY)