Heraclitus wrote only one work, a scroll of papyrus that has been lost, although many fragments of said work have been quoted by a plethora of other authors, proving his undeniable influence not only on contemporary thinkers (notably Plato and Aristotle), but als...

Many different answers have been proposed throughout history, and two of these answers were very prominent during the pre-Socratic period in Ancient Greece: the flux of Heraclitus and the stasis of Parmenides.

The confrontation of these t...

Many philosophers from the pre-Socratic period made their own cosmological systems and theories, and their work was foundational for Western philosophy, paving the way for the development of what we now call the scientific method, therefore leading to the creation of science as we kno...

After presenting both the philosophy of flux and the philosophy of stasis, Plato then claims that they are, in fact, not mutually exclusive at all. If according to Parmenides everything has an innate and immutable essence, and according to Heraclitus all things a...

The direct confrontation between the two opposite lines of thought happened in a dialogue recorded by Plato called Sophist.

This dialogue’s objective is to define through dialectic the difference between sophists and philosophers, being a...

Heraclitus, born in the year of c.535 BC, was a native of a city called Ephesus, which was located inside the territory of the Persian Empire, and not much is known about his life. Some of the stories and registered recollections about him are now proven to be fabricated; however, it

In order to fully understand the discussion between Heraclitus and Parmenides, it is important for us to understand the pre-Socratic period as a whole.

The pre-Socratic period, or early Greek philosophy, encompasses all the philosophers between Thales of Miletus (c. 624/623...

The juxtaposition between the views of Heraclitus and Parmenides and its later conclusion marks a transition in the ancient Greek tradition, from the pre-Socratic period to the Platonic era, and offers a bridge between cosmology and metaphysics.

It...

Such as Heraclitus, Parmenides only wrote one known work, often referred as On Nature, and only some fragments of this work have survived the test of time as well. The writings of Parmenides are credited for containing the first sustained argument of phi...

The philosophy of Parmenides is based around the concept of stasis, which means that the universe is in constant balance, that things either exist or do not exist, and they cannot change. Everything exists as part of an unchanging nature, and what we may observe as trans...

The roots of philosophy, or the Greek Tradition, can be traced back to one of the most profound questions posed by mankind: what is the quintessential characteristic of all things in this world? What is the common trait that we can identify in any object, creature, element or force?

Whenever we see a river, taking the example from Heraclitus, it is never the same river, because the water keeps ever flowing, changing, moving. However, our perception of that river is guided by the unchangeable concept of a river. Our changeable perceptions...

This conclusion became the origin of Plato’s philosophy of Forms or the Theory of Ideas, which explores the concept that the world exists in two separate spheres: The Physical Realm and the Realm of Forms. The Physical Realm is how we perceive things, constantly changeab...