Plato and Aristotle both attribute to Heraclitus the doctrines that
1) Everything is always changing
2) There is an identity of opposites, such as hot and cold.
Plato and Aristotle argue that these two doctrines are self contradictory because they entail that everything both is and is not at the same time.
Heraclitus, however, probably did not hold to a strong universal flux theory (textually evidenced), nor did he hold to a strict identity of opposites theory (also textually evidenced). Rather, it seems that Heraclitus held to a more moderate flux theory (while the water ever flows, the river itself stays the same and is in fact defined by the flowing water); and he held to a unity of opposites theory, as opposed to an identity of opposites theory. In other words, it is not the case that hot is equal to cold, but that hot and cold are united in their exchange. X can go from hot to cold and back again. It does not go from hot to apricot and back again. Hot and cold are in fact a unity.
What Heraclitus gives us then is not a contradiction, but, rather, a more interesting question regarding persistence through change, i.e., identity. What are the conditions for x to persist through change.
No comments:
Post a Comment