Page 13 - GALIET THE RIVERING WATERS: Heraclitus IV

water, it becomes water and water is made of souls. When water perishes then earth comes to be and becomes the very source of water, which is the very source of soul. “Earth is the source of water, and water is the source of soul,”23 he ends. Being and not being participate in the same cycle. While in the same river, we are; while not, we are not. Water, to Heraclitus, is the soul’s source, the very water that is the source of the soul-making river. 24
Heraclitus’ doctrine of perpetual flux is conditioned by the unity of opposites and by the law of order, unity and measure, which regulates the incessant firing up and extinguishing of the cosmos. The flux doctrine can be broadly subsumed in Heraclitus’ notions of opposition and conflict stressed in many of his fragments. “It makes no difference which is present: living and dead, sleeping and waking, young and old. For these changed around are those and those changed around are again these.”25 In view of this and other fragments, Aristotle says that for Heraclitus the same thing is and is not.26 Even if Heraclitus was pleased with this contraposition, the statement feels more like a contrast than a contradiction. These contrasts have two aspects. First, they are predicates that are contrasted when they are applied to two different subjects: “Sea:
23 F 44 Clement. Miscellanies 6.17.2 Stahlin/Fruchtel. 44
24 This needs to be interpreted in light of other translations and further research.
25 Ps.-Plutarch, Letter of Consolation to Apollonius 106e3-6 Babbit. 39
26 Aristotle. Metaphysics, Book 4, Chapter 3, 1005b, 25. Aristotle. The Basic Works of Aristotle. Metaphysics. Ed. Richard McKeon. New York: The Modern Library, 2001.
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