A brief history of profound philosophical concepts: Heraclitus

“Turn and face the strange ch-ch-changes”

Heraclitus (540 BCE – 480 BCE) of Ephesus, Anatolia (now Selçuk, Turkey) was a Greek philosopher attributed with the saying “Man cannot step into the same river twice.” The modern interpretation of this phrase is that the river is flowing, and the man is changing, so the exact state of each will never occur again. Like Anaximander, Heraclitus was interested in opposites and first principles, which he referred to as the Logos. Logos is the Greek term for word or reason.

Heraclitus believed that from the Logos all natural events occurred. In a way (no pun intended) how Heraclitus described the Logos, and the interaction of opposites, reminds me of Lao Tzu (c. 500 BCE) and the Chinese philosophy of the Tao. Heraclitus seemed to believe in a yin-yang like tension to nature. Opposites shared a unity and were the same thing as two sides of the same coin.

While this concept of the Logos is profound enough, Heraclitus did not stop there. He also proposed that everything was constantly changing except the Logos. Heraclitus referred to this change as “Becoming.” Heraclitus believed in universal flux, proposing that everything is constantly changing. Greek philosophers such as Aristotle (384 BCE – 322 BCE) of Athens later accused Heraclitus of contradicting himself, however modern interpretations see no contradiction. Heraclitus was pointing out the subtle observation that the way things seem to stay the same was only through change.

Heraclitus’ theory that the unity of Logos was the one from which all things come and that everything appears the same through constant change stood in stark contrast the beliefs of his contemporary Greek philosopher Parmenides (515 BCE) of Elea (Lucania, Italy) who proposed that everything was static and unchanging, or what in philosophy is known as “Being.” Later the famous Greek philosopher Plato (428/427 BCE- 348/347 BCE) of Athens would bring Being and Becoming together unifying the theories of Heraclitus and Parmenides. The philosophical debate about Being vs. Becoming has been with us ever since.