Heraclitus's Psyche : The First Centre of Personality?

Abstract: This paper focuses on an investigation of the phenomenon of psyche in Heraclitus and its connection with reason, knowledge, and moral action. Heraclitus's psyche likely was neither identical with reason, nor was reason its constitutive part. It also was not the opposite of the body, as it had some corporeal features. The meaning of psyche in different fragments probably varies, which makes the common translation "soul" problematic. Heraclitus was not interested in human individuality or the centre of the human personality, and if he used the word psyche to denote some psychic phenomenon, it was probably a phenomenon of a nonindividual nature.