I feel like, after reading all the Ionians this semester, that Heraclitus makes a lot of the same assertions that we've seen, but I feel like, despite what Kirk, Raven and Schofield call "special difficulties of interpretation" (p. 185) Heraclitus actually makes some more explicit assertions than we've seen so far. Maybe this is because we have more fragments directly from him (or maybe I'm just imagining things), but I feel like a lot of the hypotheses we had about interpretations of other presocratic ideas can be made about Heraclitus, too, but with more supporting evidence.
For example: when we were reading Thales, we asked what was meant by "all things rest on water," and we wondered whether or not we could really say that Thales believed that all things were water (p. 89), were composed of water, etc. With Heraclitus, it seems pretty obvious that he really believes that all things are physically composed of fire, saying "All things are an equal exchange for fire," "This world-order[...] always was and is and shall be: An everlasting fire" and that fire turns into the other elements (earth and sea) (p.198).
Furthermore, in Anaximander, the questions we had about what exactly is meant by the indefinite, out of which things come and into which they go into, we thought about how this idea worked with regard to pantheism, we rejoiced at the possibilities of dynamic change that this idea of passing away into and arising out of the indefinite might allow for. But, for all our hypotheses, we couldn't be sure if Anaximander even called the original substance "the indefinite/ apieron" (pp. 108-10) In Heraclitus, thought, it seems a lot of his ideas that might be similar to what we see in Anaximander are more explicit. Heraclitus talks about the oneness of opposites and the constant strife of opposites, which we should be able to apply to the elements--we saw this idea in Anaximander, who used indefinite to account for the warring elements not being canceled out by one primary substance. He talks about change as inevitable because of strife.
This, of course, recalls to us Anaximenes and his ideas of justice in nature, which requires that a price be paid for meteorological and natural occurrences. Although we struggled with how to read this use of moral or judicial language to refer to the natural world, Heraclitus seems to be more direct and leave less room for questioning. He, like Anamimenes, believes the soul to be made of the same stuff as the world (in his case, fire rather than air). Furthermore, calling war the father and king of all, and saying that "all things happen by strife and necessity" (p. 193), Heraclitus links the natural world which is full of opposites (which are actually one) constantly in strife with one another with human behavior, war.
And of course, like Xenophanes, he is critical of conventional religion, and favors a more pantheistic view of things, while acknowledging god's perspective as the only one of wisdom and man's as limited. His idea of Logos seems to help to understand what exactly his pantheistic leanings might entail. Although he is somewhat obscure in his language, especially concerning his idea of Logos, he seems to somewhat define it. He calls it "common" (p. 187 frag. 195), talks about it as a guiding force or rule, "all things happen according to this Logos" (p. 187 frag 194)--which seems to link it with fire of which he says, "Thunderbolt steers all things" (p. 198 frag 220)--and which reveals the oneness of all things (p. 187 frag 196). So although there's still a lot of room for interpretation in Heraclitus's Logos, he gives much more detail about what it is and how it functions, leading to an almost certainly pantheistic reading of Logos, which is commonly available to all people, presumably through observation, guides all things, and is thereby linked with fire which Heraclitus also says guides all things, and it reveals the unity of all things, including itself if it is identical with fire.
I don't know if this is as Heraclitus really makes his ideas as plain as I'm representing them to be, in contrast to the other thinkers we've studied so far, but I can definitely assert that it seems like we have a lot more text to be accountable to and to hold as authority over our interpretations of Heraclitus. And I wonder if we can read some of these issues as areas in which he was influenced by the other Ionian thinkers, and if so, if his possible development of their ideas might serve as a source of evidence for our interpretations of those other thinkers. I know, of course, it's impossible to say for sure, but it seems like an interesting possibility.
