HERACLITUS
Heraclitus was pre-Socratic Greek philosopher of whom we only have second-hand
information. According to the reports of others, he argued that fire was the
primal substance from which the universe and all matter is formed - but there
does not remain any fundamental "stuff" from which everything in the universe is
made.
Other preserved reports indicate that he used paradoxes to demonstrate that the
world is in a constant state of flux - he even argued that the apparently
unchanging hills were changing, just too slowly for people to readily notice.
The most famous of these was his metaphor of the river.
Acording to Heraclitus, because a river is always flowing and always in flux, it
is impossible to ever step into the same river twice. It may look to us like the
same river, but obviously the water has changed entirely and continually does so
from second to second. The only thing which does remain the same is the cosmic
balance of everything in motion.
Heraclitus was pre-Socratic Greek philosopher of whom we only have second-hand
information. According to the reports of others, he argued that fire was the
primal substance from which the universe and all matter is formed - but there
does not remain any fundamental "stuff" from which everything in the universe is
made.
Other preserved reports indicate that he used paradoxes to demonstrate that the
world is in a constant state of flux - he even argued that the apparently
unchanging hills were changing, just too slowly for people to readily notice.
The most famous of these was his metaphor of the river.
Acording to Heraclitus, because a river is always flowing and always in flux, it
is impossible to ever step into the same river twice. It may look to us like the
same river, but obviously the water has changed entirely and continually does so
from second to second. The only thing which does remain the same is the cosmic
balance of everything in motion.