Plato allowed Protagoras to defend himself against a too-hasty refutation. He does not offer the same opportunity to Heraclitus. But perhaps we should.
Plato famously reported, “Heraclitus, I believe, says that all things pass and nothing stays, and comparing existing things to the flow of a river [potamou rhoēi], he says you could not step twice into the same river.”[45] Plato is evidently alluding to Heraclitus’ “river fragment,” fragment 12, which goes like this:
On those stepping into rivers staying the same
other and other waters flow.
Potamoisi toisin autoisin embainousin
hetera kai hetera hudata epirrei.
There are several other alleged river fragments, but on examination, they all turn out to be paraphrases, and inept ones at that, of fr. 12.[46] The nine words of the fragment constitute a veritable masterpiece of composition, including word painting (the first line produces the sounds of a bubbling river), alliteration (the second line), rhyme, chiasmus, syntactic ambiguity, pleonasm, and antithesis.
Plato evidently takes Heraclitus’ utterance to say that you can’t step twice into the same river. But is that what it says? Notice the phrase ‘the same’ (toisin autoisin), the phrase ‘other’ (hetera, twice) in the second line. What Heraclitus actually says is that though other and other (ever different) waters flow, the rivers stay the same. Think about it: if the waters stopped flowing, there would be no river, only a dry streambed or a still pond. Indeed, it is precisely because the waters are always flowing that there are rivers and that they continue to exist. But not only the rivers: Heraclitus has gone to considerable trouble to insert ‘the same’ between ‘rivers’ (potamoisi) and ‘those stepping in’ (embainousin), and it agrees in gender, number, and case with both words, so that it may be construed with either. So if we put a mental comma after ‘rivers,’ we will find that the same persons stepping into rivers encounter ever different waters. Same rivers, same travelers, different waters. (Why would people want to step into rivers in the first place? Well, to get across them; the Greeks built very few bridges, especially in Heraclitus’ time. If you were going to get from one city to another and there was a river in the way, you has to find a place where the water was shallow and ford it there.)
Heraclitus gives us a paradox, but a benign one. Far from saying that you can’t step twice into the same river, Heraclitus is hinting us that precisely because the waters are ever changing, the rivers remain the same; and, by asserting themselves against the ongoing water, those who ford the rivers constitute themselves as independent agents, not helpless flotsam. Same rivers, same travelers because of different waters. Philosophically speaking, stability supervenes on change: low-level flux generates high-level stability.
Heraclitus makes a similar point at the cosmic level:
This world-order (kosmos), no god nor man did create, but it ever was and is and will be: everliving fire, kindling in measures and being quenched in measures. (fr. 30)
Heraclitus’ favorite “element” is fire—not because everything is made of it, for it turns into water and water into earth and vice versa[47]—but because it symbolizes the lively flux of matter. He indicates that every transformation of one stuff into another is balanced by a reciprocal transformation of the second stuff into the first: so much fire is kindled here, so much fire is quenched there.[48] There is ongoing change at a low level, but absolute continuity at the high level. The cosmos itself, because its components are always changing from one element into another and back again, remains everlasting, without birth, without death.
The same scheme applies at the micro level. “If one cuts off the passages of breath,” says an ancient medical writer, “in a brief portion of a day the patient will expire.”[49] Air in, air out fifteen breaths per minute; blood in, blood out, eighty heartbeats per minute. When breath and circulation and metabolism stop, you are dead. While other and other fluids and gases flow and are exchanged, you survive.
Plato’s interpretation of Heraclitus follows those of Parmenides, Hippias, and Cratylus (ch. 21.2* above). But Plato could have done better. Heraclitus anticipated this. In the introduction to his book he wrote, “Of this Word’s being forever[50] do men prove uncomprehending, both before they hear and once they have heard it. For although all things happen according to this Word, they are like the inexperienced experiencing words and deeds such as I explain …” Heraclitus begins his book by insulting his readers: I will tell you how things are, and you will not understand me. Plato’s Heraclitean doctrines are a caricature of the philosopher’s views.[51] But they serve to vindicate Heraclitus in his pessimistic estimation of his readers’ abilities.
[45] Plato Cratylus 402a.
[46] Graham 2013; Kirk 1954: 372-375; Marcovich 2001: 206-211.
[47] Heraclitus fr. 36, fr. 76.
[48] Heracitus fr. 30.
[49] Hippocrates Breaths 4.
[50] Greek aiei. This word can be construed with what goes before or what goes after, which irritated Aristotle no end (Rhetoric 1407b11-18), but which is a conspicuous feature of Heraclitus’ style. See Kahn 1979: 93-95.
[51] Not until the twentieth century of our era would Heraclitus’ message be recovered. See Reinhardt 1916, Kirk 1954, Marcovich (1967) 2001.