Heraclitus

Critical Review of the Research Paper by Dan Chiţoiu: “THE DOCTRINE ON LOGOS BETWEEN HERACLITUS AND THE PATRISTIC HORIZON THE RATIONALITY OF THE WORLD FROM THE HARMONY OF CONTRARIES TO INDEFINITE VIRTUALITY”

By Tope Apoola, Author of the upcoming book, “UNBEQUEATED LEGACY: What the West forgot to tell Africa about the doctrine of Trinity”

Contents

Introduction

Theoretical Framework

Summary

Critique

Conclusion

Bibliography  

Introduction

The history of European thought concerning logos follows a traceable pattern. Dan Chiţoiu, in his paper, expounded on the connection of the works of the Greek philosopher, Heraclitus and the early church fathers on this doctrine. He goes further to illustrate how this approach to knowledge or rationality has echoed in the modern era, metamorphosing into what is today known as a veritable philosophy of science. Logos as a word is originally indicative of „reason‟ or „idea‟ but the ancient Greeks had bestowed upon it, a little more significance by defining it as the primary element of existence. European disposition towards the truth in history is noteworthy and this is why Dan Chiţoiu cannot be said to have erred in using the history of Western civilization in his attempt to map the relationship between ancient philosophy with the church doctrine and consequently, the modern day science. Europe apparently earned a great deal of attention in Dan‟s paper because their „pioneer‟ philosophers, among which Heraclitus is counted, started by asking the right questions. Fortunately, this is what science is all about; questions about what nature is and how the theories of natural realities can be utilized for the benefit of every society. Today, we owe a lot to the ancient Greeks, it is nowadays that we begin to realize the scope and nature of Greek thought, wrote Dan, in its true proportions. Dan couldn‟t have done enough justice to the subject if he had not mentioned the historical significances of many events of the past for it is in the history of Europe that one can really understand the origin of their ideology, policies and politics. It is also by this that we can understand the idea behind many studies, including mathematics, biology and even theology. Every study, however divergent share a common character in starting with the questions of why, how, what, and so on. The love for understanding, what Jean-Luc Marion advocates that we understand philsophia as (Chiţoiu, 2008), is evidently abundant among the scholars of the Middle Age universities.  According to Minougue, they carried on their intellectual activities with passion and devotion that is parallel only to those of the religious monks (Minougue, 1973). Heraclitus‟ grab of the most expedient concern of knowledge represents a good start for the history of almost every study of today. The church father's dynamism and ability to subsume these understandings into their own clerical epistemology expedited the growth of knowledge itself, and even science. Perhaps, it is for this reason that it was the author of The concept of University described universities as being founded on religious soil. The author asserts that since the academic use reason and since reason was also the mode of God‟s creation, the academic could be thought of as inhabiting a world whose remoteness was similar to that of a monk or mystic, and similarly closer to God. The Greek practice of philosophia which has been so described in appreciative terms in Dan‟s paper is “not aimed merely at theoretical knowledge but also knowledge of the most concrete effect on one who acquires it”. Now, we see how the use of „reason‟ or what the Greeks called logos has echoed in modern thoughts. Modern understanding of the nature of reality is today modeled after the ancient Greek thought such that we find the elements of the doctrine of logos in almost every sphere of Western education. The need for dynamism in manufacturing industries, for example, or the expediency of both idealism and material reality in government affairs are perhaps the things that had been leant from this doctrine. If logos can be identified with physical reality, or taken as matter, then it is acceptable to ascribe the characters of elemental particles such as duality or dynamism to logos. What is needed is understanding of things as they are, Jean Bodin advised, not of dreams of what they might be (1925). While Europeans had been able to imbibe this epistemology tactically (Wilson, 1997), we cannot say that many philosophers of science have been able to fathom the similarities of those wide horizons. Dan did well in stating why. The lack of hermeneutic consciousness, he alleged, has  radically deformed the understanding of the history of ideas especially in the European area (See Chiţoiu, 2008). But for the failure of many to examine the history of thought to depth, the correlation of the nature of logos with the development of European civilization wouldn‟t have eluded us. Americans for example, had successfully created a system of thoughts that is stunningly in consonance with the doctrine as found in the horizons of Heraclitus, the church fathers and modernity. They mostly did exactly what Jean Bodin advised, as attested to in The American Ideology, the nature of logos or science, the author said, provides the preeminent explanatory model against which social sciences must measure themselves constitutes the epistemic foundation of the American ideology. It is common knowledge that many fathers of the new nation of America, including Thomas Jefferson were products of the Enlightenment ideology but what is understated is that the Heraclitian idea of reason, or logos as represented in patristic horizon is deep rooted in Scientific method and the American national life and by extension, in the sociology and politics of many nations. It may be alleged, howbeit unfairly, that Europe and America regards dynamism as a positive thing because logos is in flux, entrenches duality of the existence of their nation (in ideals and physical prosperity) because of the duality of matter which may also be attributed to logos or because of the patristic definition of God. One cannot but suspect this on studying the psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud for those two are boldly written as necessary for the existence of any entity.

Heraclitus likened what he called the primordial element of existence, logos, to fire because the primary idea of reality, to him, was fire, ever changing. To many scholars, it is simply put that Heraclitus said that fire was God. Beyond the theological controversies this may portend, it is shown that there exist a tight relationship between the ideas of this philosopher and that of science. Before we go further into the suggestions of Dan, we must state what will appear  indulgent to the reader at first consideration that the doctrine of logos as passed down through the works of Heraclitus is no where more represented than the contemporary theories of Quantum physics. In modern physics, the primary element of physical reality continues to be represented by increasingly smaller particles, if they can be called particles. While those „somethings‟, the heirs of „atom‟ posses many attributes, they can be said to be in flux, much like logos is said to be. This scientific revelation takes us back to Greek philosophy, making us to pay more attention to what Heraclitus have to say about reality. Not since the dual nature of matter has been uncovered would we want to think this primary element of existence as solely particulate. Matters, and if the reader allows, logos, exists in two forms. They exist as particles and also as waves. The particles are waves and the waves are particles. Even what is supposed to drive the particles of nature are particles themselves. One gets dizzy, the Nobel laureate, Schrödinger said (Schrödinger, 1952). If matter possesses the dual nature of wave and particle, it becomes theoretical admissible to think logos as equally existing both as substance and also as something that is not as tangible, such as idea. This is where the church fathers come in, as they happen to have picked up the broken appendages of human knowledge, making it into one piece. Hermeneutics of the church fathers evinces the knowledge of Heraclitian ideas, for it is said that God is idealistic in agreement with some ancient Greek philosophies and that God also has a body as many nominal scholars understand it. European quest for the nature of reality has come to that point where we can predict what would be the answer to the puzzle of science itself. Nature is consistently found to be rational, as though there is a designer with a clear purpose. The rationality of nature has consequently made scientific discoveries to be possible, mathematics to be applicable and knowledge to be guarded. Many things that are known in one part of reality are also existent in another in such a way that we can dear say that there is a  connection somewhere between any two objects of nature. Listening not to me but to logos, Heraclitus said, it is wise to believe that all things are one (McKirshan, 1994).

Theoretical framework

The Aristotelian teaching that truth may be synthesized from opposing views constitutes the backbone for the theory in this paper. Knowing that it may be extremely exhausting to adopt all but one of the possible viewpoints that this topic potentially parades, the author endeavored not to extenuate the language of human mind, or what is being called „natural language‟ in the paper, for what cannot be conceived in the mind is perhaps useless for deduction process. Linguistics and indeed, experts of Critical Thinking and communication would understand when it is said that researchers must trust their minds better when it is not „stuttering‟ but no one would understand better than who in his work, Dialogues, attempted to study the truth by quizzing. As should be expected, Dan utilized the epistemologies of empiricism, induction, and historicity in his work. The Popperian procedure of non-presupposition is put into use in philosophizing even to indefinite virtuality. The most veritable tool in the hands of Dan, it appears, is historicity, for it is in the history of Renaissance, Enlightenment and modernity that his theory can be recognized as scholarly. Abiding by Karl Popper‟s rules of falsifiablity (See Popper, 1972) portends a little difficulty because the path in which the issues of the paper threaded were sometimes beyond what may be called science. Dan did well, however, in defending his theoretical framework, using the Plato school‟s ideology concerning the source of knowledge or the design of arguments as arsenal. Whatever we could rationally think, Plato said, God could think too (Brace et al, 1997). Those things that constitute irrational elements of the theory are managed in ways that still satisfied Popper‟s definition of what is scientific and we say that those elements can hardly be avoided, for without them, science cannot be fully explained. Even Karl Popper, in explaining the attributes of true science quoted Einstein by saying; every discovery contains an irrational element, or a creative intuition(See Popper, 1972). The paper threaded softly in juxtaposing because, according to Dan, people ought to start from the context in which certain statements are made or certain ideas are argued.

The central idea behind the theoretical framework is that the universe is rational, and that there exist, as Heraclitus loved to voice, unity in experience. Without this basic assumption, the whole theory will lie flat on its face as it will be alleged that nothing is sane or that human knowledge cannot extend beyond certain boundaries. The logos doctrine itself is premised on this notion; that the universe is rational and that certain definite patterns may be found in the probe of reality.

Summary

Citing the recent arrays of inferences from Quantum physics, the paper begins by purporting that humans share certain connection with the universe. The following two questions were therefore raised.

 How can we know, on the basis of the capacities that are proper to us, that which is truly real?

 Which is even more radical: to what extent this act of knowledge and, in general, our interaction with the world, has an impact on it? (pg. 42)

The questions are noted to be reminiscent of the popular Popper-Khun controversy which is majorly concerned with the limits of rationality and empiricism. The dilemma of whether rationality (represented in the ideas of John Locke) should take precedence over empiricism (as  shown in the notions of Francis Bacon) occupies a centre stage in the contradiction of the modern day theory of knowledge and those of the ancient philosophers. Dan asserts in the paper, the need to be conscious of the perspective or horizon (called „paradigm‟ in some texts) to which each of any two apparently contrasting ideas is set. A certain theory is known to be true, however difficult it is to prove it. Certain things are known to exist in nature and it is the method by which these things are brought into focus that differentiates the various approaches to it. Even in ancient times, there had been diversity in approach to this truth. The difference was one of method, says Everett Knight in the book, The Objective Society, Platonists begin with idea, and Aristotelians make it the goal of their investigations (Knight, 1960). Not until the period of Renaissance can we say the world had learnt what to do with their understanding of nature. Leonardo Da Vinci, for instance, studied the anatomy of man to construct a torso. He did not build his artistic image based on his projection of what it could look like but tried to find out what it actually is like. All these, Leonardo and the likes did comfortably because they trusted nature to be rational and knowledge to be definite. The findings of Quantum physics in the modern world however, is to shake the foundation of their belief system, making them to wonder if everything they knew about their cherished theories of knowledge were really correct. In the middle of this intellectual dilemma, language has come to achieve prominence. Dan alluded to the supposition that language is useful in probing the truth; according to him, language preserves several horizons for a word‟s formation. To learn from history or understand the history of thought, especially the European thought, etymology plays a significant role. The languages of Greek philosophy serve as the evidence of the Greek idea of truth. Unlike the modern approach to the truth, the ancient Greek philosophers probed reality with love. They do not first of all worry about the authenticity of their idea but they „first wish it and then love it‟. Dan stated that  some metaphysicians consider this „love‟ as obstructive to the path of the truth (Chiţoiu, 2008), but he goes ahead to show how they are wrong in condemning the Greek approach. If what is known is useful for the well being and the advancement of the human, then that knowledge, the Greek believed, is worthy. A mention is made of Plato‟s work, The myth of the cave where the author endeavors to communicate certain truths to the people not by concerning himself with what is empirical but what is knowable to the human mind, bringing out from hiding, according to Martin Heidegger and making itself to shine (Chiţoiu, 2008). The Platonist model (See Knight, E., 1960) of knowledge has come to enjoy more attention in recent times and a clear example is found in The American ideology where the author suggested that knowledge should not be understood as the fact we observe but the theories constructed from them (Menger, K.). The freedom of philosophy to express itself in different manners makes it less totalitarian but it also tempts the researcher to confuse many things together without considering the „geological strata‟ in which it is applicable. Dan reports that Logos signifies many things in different cultures at different ages and states that it was Heraclitus who gave the term a more commanding implication. He boldly describes it as both material and idealistic but his in-depth description did little to satisfy the curious mind. This logos holds always, he mockingly said, but humans always prove unable to understand it.

Apparently, it is the Heraclitian concept of logos together with that of Philo of Alexandria‟s that provided the framework for the theology of John the evangelist. Philo had said sometimes in the first century of the new Christian religion that logos was the highest of the intermediary divine beings, the first born of God (Copleson, F., 2003). Philo‟s effort at subsuming Greek philosophy to the emerging contemporary thinking of his own time served to develop a new brand of philosophy which will later become the element of the world‟s most potent worldviews. Thanks  to John the evangelist, Logos came to be understood not only as God but also as what the Stoics took it for; the active reason pervading the universe and animating it. Asides the fact that this system of thought actually gave birth to the Christian doctrine of Trinity, it had also found its way into the consciousness of many European societies in which the Romans once had influence. Knowing that there must have been unity at a time in the history of existence, more people came to consider reality as rational. They admitted that there must have been a reason for everything since logos itself was reason both in the ideological and the material sense. This thinking steadily sank into the studies of physics, biology and other subjects. Plato had said in the past that perfection existed in the mind of God, a mind of such infinite power that all conceivable things must exist in it. If humans, then, with their less than perfect minds could think of something, then God could think of it too, and if God think of something, it must therefore exist. Today, we see some scientists quoting freely from Plato, assuming a rather strange epistemology to the benefit of all.

In answering the questions posed by this paper, Dan discussed the various notions of reality, from the Stoics‟ to those of Christianity and Science. He mentioned „personal reality‟, stating how it could be different from the reality of a whole system of the world. Personal reality mustn‟t conform to the actual reality, he explained but there exists the possibility of each personal reality sharing certain familiarities or interacting with the actual reality in some form.  

Critique

Dan‟s discussion opens by asserting that there exists some relationships between the human and the universe. While the reasons for his non-persuasiveness is understandable, it remains to be seen how one, especially people who share a somewhat different view for other reasons can readily throw away their own notions to take his‟. Dan did not only conclude so early in his paper on this matter, but also employed the greatest elements of his argument prematurely. Quantum physics, as an evidence could have done well in the paper, coming at an advanced stage of the argument or as the climax.

Dan‟s level-headedness shows where he described the Renaissance as being responsible for the change in the human approach to knowledge that swept through Europe at some point in their history, a change that culminated in the Age of reason, known as the Enlightenment era. What Dan failed to do; however is to structure the paper in such ways that the argument can be followed judiciously. Perhaps, it would have been better, if he had started with Heraclitus, tracing the impact of his philosophy in the European world to the Church fathers, the Enlightenment era, down to modernity. The crux of his argument, which is the relationship between the human and the universe appears not to have enjoyed enough attention in the paper.

Conclusion

Heraclitus had said several hundred years back that logos or God was war and peace, hunger and fullness, winter and summer, pain and joy. His ideas, which may be understood by some as being pantheistic constitutes one of the main ideologies of the Christian religion- consequently, the  

sociological leanings of Europe. Now, in answering the question of whether the human can know and to what extent can be known, the Stoics had invented a word known as Scintilla diviniatis, stating that the mind was a subset of the „world mind‟ (Barret, 1980). The unity of experience, glowingly represented in Quantum physics attests to the notion and this unity brings us to understanding the rationality of the universe. The effect of this ideology on science and the general system of thought of Europe was massive for many scientific methods were premised on this maxim of a rational universe. It has been said that religion has an etymology that indicates „tying together‟ (See Barret, 1980). One should therefore not be surprised that the patristic horizon shares stunning similarities with the ancient philosophy of Heraclitus and the very recent ideas expressed in Quantum physics. Many subjects could be tied together theoretically because there exists certain relationship between them, because humans indeed interact with their universe.

Bibliography

Minogue, K.R (1973) The Concept of Universities, Birkenhead: Willmer Brothers Limited, pp. 42

Chiţoiu, D. (2008) The doctrine on logos between Heraclitus and the patristic horizon the rationality of the world from the harmony of contraries to indefinite virtiality, European Journal of science and Theology, 4 (4), 45, August, 4

(1926) The Social and Political thoughts of great Thinkers of the 16th and 17th Century: A series of lectures delivered at King’s College, University of London during the session 1925-26, London: Dawson of Paul Mall, pp. 43

Wilson, H.T (1997) The American Ideology, Rouledge& Kegan Paul Limited, pp. 16

McKirshan (1994), Philosophy before Socrates, Hackett

Popper, K. (1972) The Logic of Scientific discovery, The Anchor press Limited

Brace, C.L, Montagu A. (1997) Human Evolution: An Introduction to Biological Anthropology, pp. 13

Knight, E. (1960) The Objective Society, NewYork, pp. 12

Copleson, F. (2003) A History of Philosophy, 1, 458-462

Barret, D.C (1980) Understanding the Christian faith, New Jersey: Prentice Hall Inc., pp. 184

Critical Review of the Research Paper by Dan Chiţoiu: “THE DOCTRINE ON LOGOS BETWEEN HERACLITUS AND THE PATRISTIC HORIZON THE RATIONALITY OF THE WORLD FROM THE HARMONY OF CONTRARIES TO INDEFINITE VIRTUALITY”

By Tope Apoola, Author of the upcoming book, “UNBEQUEATED LEGACY: What the West forgot to tell Africa about the doctrine of Trinity”

Contents

Introduction

Theoretical Framework

Summary

Critique

Conclusion

Bibliography  

Introduction

The history of European thought concerning logos follows a traceable pattern. Dan Chiţoiu, in his paper, expounded on the connection of the works of the Greek philosopher, Heraclitus and the early church fathers on this doctrine. He goes further to illustrate how this approach to knowledge or rationality has echoed in the modern era, metamorphosing into what is today known as a veritable philosophy of science. Logos as a word is originally indicative of „reason‟ or „idea‟ but the ancient Greeks had bestowed upon it, a little more significance by defining it as the primary element of existence. European disposition towards the truth in history is noteworthy and this is why Dan Chiţoiu cannot be said to have erred in using the history of Western civilization in his attempt to map the relationship between ancient philosophy with the church doctrine and consequently, the modern day science. Europe apparently earned a great deal of attention in Dan‟s paper because their „pioneer‟ philosophers, among which Heraclitus is counted, started by asking the right questions. Fortunately, this is what science is all about; questions about what nature is and how the theories of natural realities can be utilized for the benefit of every society. Today, we owe a lot to the ancient Greeks, it is nowadays that we begin to realize the scope and nature of Greek thought, wrote Dan, in its true proportions. Dan couldn‟t have done enough justice to the subject if he had not mentioned the historical significances of many events of the past for it is in the history of Europe that one can really understand the origin of their ideology, policies and politics. It is also by this that we can understand the idea behind many studies, including mathematics, biology and even theology. Every study, however divergent share a common character in starting with the questions of why, how, what, and so on. The love for understanding, what Jean-Luc Marion advocates that we understand philsophia as (Chiţoiu, 2008), is evidently abundant among the scholars of the Middle Age universities.  According to Minougue, they carried on their intellectual activities with passion and devotion that is parallel only to those of the religious monks (Minougue, 1973). Heraclitus‟ grab of the most expedient concern of knowledge represents a good start for the history of almost every study of today. The church father's dynamism and ability to subsume these understandings into their own clerical epistemology expedited the growth of knowledge itself, and even science. Perhaps, it is for this reason that it was the author of The concept of University described universities as being founded on religious soil. The author asserts that since the academic use reason and since reason was also the mode of God‟s creation, the academic could be thought of as inhabiting a world whose remoteness was similar to that of a monk or mystic, and similarly closer to God. The Greek practice of philosophia which has been so described in appreciative terms in Dan‟s paper is “not aimed merely at theoretical knowledge but also knowledge of the most concrete effect on one who acquires it”. Now, we see how the use of „reason‟ or what the Greeks called logos has echoed in modern thoughts. Modern understanding of the nature of reality is today modeled after the ancient Greek thought such that we find the elements of the doctrine of logos in almost every sphere of Western education. The need for dynamism in manufacturing industries, for example, or the expediency of both idealism and material reality in government affairs are perhaps the things that had been leant from this doctrine. If logos can be identified with physical reality, or taken as matter, then it is acceptable to ascribe the characters of elemental particles such as duality or dynamism to logos. What is needed is understanding of things as they are, Jean Bodin advised, not of dreams of what they might be (1925). While Europeans had been able to imbibe this epistemology tactically (Wilson, 1997), we cannot say that many philosophers of science have been able to fathom the similarities of those wide horizons. Dan did well in stating why. The lack of hermeneutic consciousness, he alleged, has  radically deformed the understanding of the history of ideas especially in the European area (See Chiţoiu, 2008). But for the failure of many to examine the history of thought to depth, the correlation of the nature of logos with the development of European civilization wouldn‟t have eluded us. Americans for example, had successfully created a system of thoughts that is stunningly in consonance with the doctrine as found in the horizons of Heraclitus, the church fathers and modernity. They mostly did exactly what Jean Bodin advised, as attested to in The American Ideology, the nature of logos or science, the author said, provides the preeminent explanatory model against which social sciences must measure themselves constitutes the epistemic foundation of the American ideology. It is common knowledge that many fathers of the new nation of America, including Thomas Jefferson were products of the Enlightenment ideology but what is understated is that the Heraclitian idea of reason, or logos as represented in patristic horizon is deep rooted in Scientific method and the American national life and by extension, in the sociology and politics of many nations. It may be alleged, howbeit unfairly, that Europe and America regards dynamism as a positive thing because logos is in flux, entrenches duality of the existence of their nation (in ideals and physical prosperity) because of the duality of matter which may also be attributed to logos or because of the patristic definition of God. One cannot but suspect this on studying the psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud for those two are boldly written as necessary for the existence of any entity.

Heraclitus likened what he called the primordial element of existence, logos, to fire because the primary idea of reality, to him, was fire, ever changing. To many scholars, it is simply put that Heraclitus said that fire was God. Beyond the theological controversies this may portend, it is shown that there exist a tight relationship between the ideas of this philosopher and that of science. Before we go further into the suggestions of Dan, we must state what will appear  indulgent to the reader at first consideration that the doctrine of logos as passed down through the works of Heraclitus is no where more represented than the contemporary theories of Quantum physics. In modern physics, the primary element of physical reality continues to be represented by increasingly smaller particles, if they can be called particles. While those „somethings‟, the heirs of „atom‟ posses many attributes, they can be said to be in flux, much like logos is said to be. This scientific revelation takes us back to Greek philosophy, making us to pay more attention to what Heraclitus have to say about reality. Not since the dual nature of matter has been uncovered would we want to think this primary element of existence as solely particulate. Matters, and if the reader allows, logos, exists in two forms. They exist as particles and also as waves. The particles are waves and the waves are particles. Even what is supposed to drive the particles of nature are particles themselves. One gets dizzy, the Nobel laureate, Schrödinger said (Schrödinger, 1952). If matter possesses the dual nature of wave and particle, it becomes theoretical admissible to think logos as equally existing both as substance and also as something that is not as tangible, such as idea. This is where the church fathers come in, as they happen to have picked up the broken appendages of human knowledge, making it into one piece. Hermeneutics of the church fathers evinces the knowledge of Heraclitian ideas, for it is said that God is idealistic in agreement with some ancient Greek philosophies and that God also has a body as many nominal scholars understand it. European quest for the nature of reality has come to that point where we can predict what would be the answer to the puzzle of science itself. Nature is consistently found to be rational, as though there is a designer with a clear purpose. The rationality of nature has consequently made scientific discoveries to be possible, mathematics to be applicable and knowledge to be guarded. Many things that are known in one part of reality are also existent in another in such a way that we can dear say that there is a  connection somewhere between any two objects of nature. Listening not to me but to logos, Heraclitus said, it is wise to believe that all things are one (McKirshan, 1994).

Theoretical framework

The Aristotelian teaching that truth may be synthesized from opposing views constitutes the backbone for the theory in this paper. Knowing that it may be extremely exhausting to adopt all but one of the possible viewpoints that this topic potentially parades, the author endeavored not to extenuate the language of human mind, or what is being called „natural language‟ in the paper, for what cannot be conceived in the mind is perhaps useless for deduction process. Linguistics and indeed, experts of Critical Thinking and communication would understand when it is said that researchers must trust their minds better when it is not „stuttering‟ but no one would understand better than who in his work, Dialogues, attempted to study the truth by quizzing. As should be expected, Dan utilized the epistemologies of empiricism, induction, and historicity in his work. The Popperian procedure of non-presupposition is put into use in philosophizing even to indefinite virtuality. The most veritable tool in the hands of Dan, it appears, is historicity, for it is in the history of Renaissance, Enlightenment and modernity that his theory can be recognized as scholarly. Abiding by Karl Popper‟s rules of falsifiablity (See Popper, 1972) portends a little difficulty because the path in which the issues of the paper threaded were sometimes beyond what may be called science. Dan did well, however, in defending his theoretical framework, using the Plato school‟s ideology concerning the source of knowledge or the design of arguments as arsenal. Whatever we could rationally think, Plato said, God could think too (Brace et al, 1997). Those things that constitute irrational elements of the theory are managed in ways that still satisfied Popper‟s definition of what is scientific and we say that those elements can hardly be avoided, for without them, science cannot be fully explained. Even Karl Popper, in explaining the attributes of true science quoted Einstein by saying; every discovery contains an irrational element, or a creative intuition(See Popper, 1972). The paper threaded softly in juxtaposing because, according to Dan, people ought to start from the context in which certain statements are made or certain ideas are argued.

The central idea behind the theoretical framework is that the universe is rational, and that there exist, as Heraclitus loved to voice, unity in experience. Without this basic assumption, the whole theory will lie flat on its face as it will be alleged that nothing is sane or that human knowledge cannot extend beyond certain boundaries. The logos doctrine itself is premised on this notion; that the universe is rational and that certain definite patterns may be found in the probe of reality.

Summary

Citing the recent arrays of inferences from Quantum physics, the paper begins by purporting that humans share certain connection with the universe. The following two questions were therefore raised.

 How can we know, on the basis of the capacities that are proper to us, that which is truly real?

 Which is even more radical: to what extent this act of knowledge and, in general, our interaction with the world, has an impact on it? (pg. 42)

The questions are noted to be reminiscent of the popular Popper-Khun controversy which is majorly concerned with the limits of rationality and empiricism. The dilemma of whether rationality (represented in the ideas of John Locke) should take precedence over empiricism (as  shown in the notions of Francis Bacon) occupies a centre stage in the contradiction of the modern day theory of knowledge and those of the ancient philosophers. Dan asserts in the paper, the need to be conscious of the perspective or horizon (called „paradigm‟ in some texts) to which each of any two apparently contrasting ideas is set. A certain theory is known to be true, however difficult it is to prove it. Certain things are known to exist in nature and it is the method by which these things are brought into focus that differentiates the various approaches to it. Even in ancient times, there had been diversity in approach to this truth. The difference was one of method, says Everett Knight in the book, The Objective Society, Platonists begin with idea, and Aristotelians make it the goal of their investigations (Knight, 1960). Not until the period of Renaissance can we say the world had learnt what to do with their understanding of nature. Leonardo Da Vinci, for instance, studied the anatomy of man to construct a torso. He did not build his artistic image based on his projection of what it could look like but tried to find out what it actually is like. All these, Leonardo and the likes did comfortably because they trusted nature to be rational and knowledge to be definite. The findings of Quantum physics in the modern world however, is to shake the foundation of their belief system, making them to wonder if everything they knew about their cherished theories of knowledge were really correct. In the middle of this intellectual dilemma, language has come to achieve prominence. Dan alluded to the supposition that language is useful in probing the truth; according to him, language preserves several horizons for a word‟s formation. To learn from history or understand the history of thought, especially the European thought, etymology plays a significant role. The languages of Greek philosophy serve as the evidence of the Greek idea of truth. Unlike the modern approach to the truth, the ancient Greek philosophers probed reality with love. They do not first of all worry about the authenticity of their idea but they „first wish it and then love it‟. Dan stated that  some metaphysicians consider this „love‟ as obstructive to the path of the truth (Chiţoiu, 2008), but he goes ahead to show how they are wrong in condemning the Greek approach. If what is known is useful for the well being and the advancement of the human, then that knowledge, the Greek believed, is worthy. A mention is made of Plato‟s work, The myth of the cave where the author endeavors to communicate certain truths to the people not by concerning himself with what is empirical but what is knowable to the human mind, bringing out from hiding, according to Martin Heidegger and making itself to shine (Chiţoiu, 2008). The Platonist model (See Knight, E., 1960) of knowledge has come to enjoy more attention in recent times and a clear example is found in The American ideology where the author suggested that knowledge should not be understood as the fact we observe but the theories constructed from them (Menger, K.). The freedom of philosophy to express itself in different manners makes it less totalitarian but it also tempts the researcher to confuse many things together without considering the „geological strata‟ in which it is applicable. Dan reports that Logos signifies many things in different cultures at different ages and states that it was Heraclitus who gave the term a more commanding implication. He boldly describes it as both material and idealistic but his in-depth description did little to satisfy the curious mind. This logos holds always, he mockingly said, but humans always prove unable to understand it.

Apparently, it is the Heraclitian concept of logos together with that of Philo of Alexandria‟s that provided the framework for the theology of John the evangelist. Philo had said sometimes in the first century of the new Christian religion that logos was the highest of the intermediary divine beings, the first born of God (Copleson, F., 2003). Philo‟s effort at subsuming Greek philosophy to the emerging contemporary thinking of his own time served to develop a new brand of philosophy which will later become the element of the world‟s most potent worldviews. Thanks  to John the evangelist, Logos came to be understood not only as God but also as what the Stoics took it for; the active reason pervading the universe and animating it. Asides the fact that this system of thought actually gave birth to the Christian doctrine of Trinity, it had also found its way into the consciousness of many European societies in which the Romans once had influence. Knowing that there must have been unity at a time in the history of existence, more people came to consider reality as rational. They admitted that there must have been a reason for everything since logos itself was reason both in the ideological and the material sense. This thinking steadily sank into the studies of physics, biology and other subjects. Plato had said in the past that perfection existed in the mind of God, a mind of such infinite power that all conceivable things must exist in it. If humans, then, with their less than perfect minds could think of something, then God could think of it too, and if God think of something, it must therefore exist. Today, we see some scientists quoting freely from Plato, assuming a rather strange epistemology to the benefit of all.

In answering the questions posed by this paper, Dan discussed the various notions of reality, from the Stoics‟ to those of Christianity and Science. He mentioned „personal reality‟, stating how it could be different from the reality of a whole system of the world. Personal reality mustn‟t conform to the actual reality, he explained but there exists the possibility of each personal reality sharing certain familiarities or interacting with the actual reality in some form.  

Critique

Dan‟s discussion opens by asserting that there exists some relationships between the human and the universe. While the reasons for his non-persuasiveness is understandable, it remains to be seen how one, especially people who share a somewhat different view for other reasons can readily throw away their own notions to take his‟. Dan did not only conclude so early in his paper on this matter, but also employed the greatest elements of his argument prematurely. Quantum physics, as an evidence could have done well in the paper, coming at an advanced stage of the argument or as the climax.

Dan‟s level-headedness shows where he described the Renaissance as being responsible for the change in the human approach to knowledge that swept through Europe at some point in their history, a change that culminated in the Age of reason, known as the Enlightenment era. What Dan failed to do; however is to structure the paper in such ways that the argument can be followed judiciously. Perhaps, it would have been better, if he had started with Heraclitus, tracing the impact of his philosophy in the European world to the Church fathers, the Enlightenment era, down to modernity. The crux of his argument, which is the relationship between the human and the universe appears not to have enjoyed enough attention in the paper.

Conclusion

Heraclitus had said several hundred years back that logos or God was war and peace, hunger and fullness, winter and summer, pain and joy. His ideas, which may be understood by some as being pantheistic constitutes one of the main ideologies of the Christian religion- consequently, the  

sociological leanings of Europe. Now, in answering the question of whether the human can know and to what extent can be known, the Stoics had invented a word known as Scintilla diviniatis, stating that the mind was a subset of the „world mind‟ (Barret, 1980). The unity of experience, glowingly represented in Quantum physics attests to the notion and this unity brings us to understanding the rationality of the universe. The effect of this ideology on science and the general system of thought of Europe was massive for many scientific methods were premised on this maxim of a rational universe. It has been said that religion has an etymology that indicates „tying together‟ (See Barret, 1980). One should therefore not be surprised that the patristic horizon shares stunning similarities with the ancient philosophy of Heraclitus and the very recent ideas expressed in Quantum physics. Many subjects could be tied together theoretically because there exists certain relationship between them, because humans indeed interact with their universe.

Bibliography

Minogue, K.R (1973) The Concept of Universities, Birkenhead: Willmer Brothers Limited, pp. 42

Chiţoiu, D. (2008) The doctrine on logos between Heraclitus and the patristic horizon the rationality of the world from the harmony of contraries to indefinite virtiality, European Journal of science and Theology, 4 (4), 45, August, 4

(1926) The Social and Political thoughts of great Thinkers of the 16th and 17th Century: A series of lectures delivered at King’s College, University of London during the session 1925-26, London: Dawson of Paul Mall, pp. 43

Wilson, H.T (1997) The American Ideology, Rouledge& Kegan Paul Limited, pp. 16

McKirshan (1994), Philosophy before Socrates, Hackett

Popper, K. (1972) The Logic of Scientific discovery, The Anchor press Limited

Brace, C.L, Montagu A. (1997) Human Evolution: An Introduction to Biological Anthropology, pp. 13

Knight, E. (1960) The Objective Society, NewYork, pp. 12

Copleson, F. (2003) A History of Philosophy, 1, 458-462

Barret, D.C (1980) Understanding the Christian faith, New Jersey: Prentice Hall Inc., pp. 184