Heraclitus and the Philosophy of Becoming

The Universe in Constant Flux, Natural Laws and Logos

Feb 25, 2009 Arash Farzaneh

Heraclitus was among the first pre-Socratic philosophers to propound a materialistic view of the world that influenced other great philosophers and philosophic movements.

“No one ever steps in the same river twice” was one of the most famous sayings of the Greek philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus (540-480 BC ). He believed that the universe is constantly changing and is never the same. Nothing in this world is constant except change or becoming. His theory stands in direct contrast to Parmenides, another pre-Socratic Greek philosopher who believed that the changes or “becoming” we perceive with our senses is deceptive and that there is a pure perfect and eternal being behind nature, which is the ultimate truth.

Change Subject to the Natural Laws and the Logos

Change or Becoming does not happen randomly or capriciously; it happens according to established natural laws. One of his beliefs was that the phusis or physis, the natural element that existed in all nature, was fire and not water as Thales of Miletus used to believe. As a result, a stone was nothing but a condensed surface of rapidly moving and warm particles.

Apart from following natural laws, every change is kept in a state of balance and equilibrium. Although the universe may be dynamic there were forces that kept everything in harmony so that there would not be sudden drastic changes in nature; in fact, everything was governed by these harmonizing forces in nature. The universe was guided by the “Logos” or universal reason, which acted as a binding force of unity. As a result, both good and bad forces need to exist in the world as they are part of the whole of nature.

Consequences and Influences of the philosophy of Heraclitus

As mentioned earlier, the ideas of Heraclitus are opposed to the dualism and idealism of Parmenides and other philosophers like Pythagoras and Plato. Heraclitus believed that the sensorial perceptions and experiences of the world ought to be trusted and hence are free from error, an approach that would later lead to empiricism and science.

A further consequence of the beliefs of Heraclitus was the fact that he denied any possibility of an afterlife of a personal soul. His views tended towards materialism, denying the existence of a personal Deity who could willingly interfere in the process of nature.

The philosophy of Heraclitus had impact on various later philosophers and philosophic movements. His ideas about compressed and moving warm particles may have inspired the later atomic theory of Democritus, while his empiric approach to nature was later elaborated more substantially by Aristotle. Furthermore, the idea of a governing principle of natural laws and equilibrium of the Logos was embraced by the highly influential movement of Stoicism, while the latter ended up having a tremendous impact on the ideology of Christianity.

Sources

Gaarder, Jostein. El Mundo de Sofia. trans. Kirsti Baggethun and Asunción Lorenzo. Mexico City: Ediciones Siruela, 2001.

Hardy Leahey, Thomas. A History of Psychology: Main Currents in Psychological Thought. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1997.

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Heraclitus