Page 9 - GALIET THE RIVERING WATERS: Heraclitus IV

In reference to this interpretation of Heraclitus, Aristotle in his Physics,6 posits that some claim that there aren’t things that move and things that do not move, but that all things are in constant motion, which, he adds, escapes our perception. Even if we reject this interpretation of Heraclitus as partial, we cannot exclude from his doctrine the highly known fragments:7
(a) “On those who step into the same rivers ever different waters are flowing.”8 F33
(b) “It is impossible to step twice into the same river,” as Heraclitus says... “it scatters and regathers, comes together and dissolves, approaches and departs.”9 F34
(c) “Heraclitus the obscure says, ‘We step and do not step into the same rivers, we are and are not.’”10 T3
(d) “Heraclitus says somewhere that everything gives way and nothing is stable, and in likening things to the flowing of a river he says that one cannot step twice into the same river.”11 T4
6 Aristotle. Physics. VIII, 3, 253 b 9. Aristotle. The Basic Works of Aristotle. Physics. Ed. Richard McKeon. New York: The Modern Library, 2001.
7 Heraclitus. Fragments. Trans. Brooks Haxton. New York: Penguin Books, 2003.
8 Arius Didymus, fr. 39 Diels. 41
9 Plutarch, On the E at Delphi 392b10-c3 Babbit. 41
10 Heraclitus Homericus, Homeric Questions, 24.10-12 Oelmann 41. On page 317 of Waterfield, see note 41. Waterfield says, “with regards to we are and are not, it is possible that an original single fragment of the river existed from which these testimonies derive.”
11 Plato. Cratylus. 402a8-10 Duke et al. 41. Plato. Complete Works. Cratylus. Ed. John M. Cooper. Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing, 1997.
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