Bro. Aldrine G.

Aquino, fmgs
Our Lady of the Angels Seminary College
AB Philosophy

Mr. Henry Robles

Metaphysics
Professor

Discussion Paper on Heraclitus vs Parmenides

Assignment 4

Two of the most well-known pre socratic philosophers are Heraclitus and Parmenides. They both
believed that the universe could be reduced to a single fundamental entity. However, as we
discussed it on the class, they couldn't agree on what that object was.

Heraclitus believed that a divine reason, or logos, was in charge of the universe. The essential
tenant of this thinking was the assumption that the universe was perpetually in a state of flux and
change. Fire, according to Heraclitus, was the incarnation of a divine will that generated all
change in reality, and the one incontrovertible law of the universe was that everything was
always converting into something else.1 While on the other hand, Parmenides held the exact
opposite viewpoint to Heraclitus. Parmenides came to the conclusion that something that exists
cannot also not exist by deductive reasoning. This would result in a logical inconsistency. This
way of thinking would lead Parmenides to believe that emptiness was unattainable. There could
not be a void in the cosmos or in reality. Parmenides therefore came to the conclusion that
nothing could have sprung from nothing, that the universe could not have arisen from an empty
nothingness. Furthermore, nothing that existing could logically cease to exist. As a result,
everything that exists has always existed in some form or another.2

Looking both and reflecting on these two great pre socratic Heraclitus' way of view was
unquestionably the more realistic. I always believed in the saying that there is always a
CHANGE. We as human change our nature change. Everything that we can see is changing. As
we can see in his explanation of the main two points that ““No man ever steps in the same river
twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man”. 3 This means that when you step
into a river, the water is displaced by new water, and the river's nature is forever altered. The
man who is stepping into the river is likewise transforming. Since wading into the river, the man
has lost skin cells, his skin has become damp, and he has aged significantly. Both the man and
the river have undergone minor but inescapable alterations that have caused them to diverge
from their previous states. This would appear to demonstrate Heraclitus’s belief that all things
are changing, and that the one fundamental law of the cosmos was that everything is flux.

1
From Sir Robles Deck Change-vs-Permenance Lesson
2
Ibid
3
Ibid