Heraclitus Part I : The Logos Doctrine Continued

In the first part of Heraclitus: The Logos Doctrine we covered the Logos Doctrine and what it meant. This post will give an example on how it works. As we know, the Logos Doctrine was away of connecting with the universe. The Logos was also a means of governing the universe. Heraclitus thought of this very carefully, and what he came up with was to associate the Logos with the laws of the Polis (Greek City State). Heraclitus says:

Men should speak with rational awareness and thereby hold on strongly to that which is shared in common--as a city holds on to its laws, an even more strongly. For all human laws are nourished by the one divine law, which prevails as far as it wishes, suffices for all things, and yet is something more than they.

The first point in this fragment is the universe is RATIONAL. With that being said, the idea of the universe being rational allows for divine law. This divine law is the source for all human laws. Having knowledge of the Greek polis would help further understand what was being said. Heraclitus, like every other Greek in the 6th century, grew up in a polis, or in other words, a city-state. Each individual city-state had its own laws which were important and were strictly imposed on its citizens. Heraclitus, in effect, is saying that these laws goes above the human and into the divine. Since the Logos governs the universe, is unified, and completely rational, then this has a dramatic effect on human law. In part one, i talked about the concept of Rational Communicability (we can talk to the universe and the universe talks to us), this is exactly like that concept. The universe tells us the laws, but only if we gain knowledge, and through this knowledge we can incorporate these divine laws into our own laws. Another important aspect is that this is the beginning of ethical behavior. Since Heraclitus makes the link between divine law and human law, we can see the beginning of a sort of "ethical truth". Because the laws of the polis, is quite like the source of divine laws, the Logos radiates this ethical truth on us. Unfortunately, Heraclitus does not expand on this idea. But those who know anything about Plato, could relate this to the Platonic religion during the Hellenistic Era (A ton more on that later).