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Heraclitus: Plato
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According to the traditional view, Plato was aware of this doctrine of flux, but because he tended to oppose the views of Heraclitus to those of Parmenides, he confused the flux doctrine of Heraclitus with the more radical doctrine of Cratylus. Though in the passage above, Aristotle makes this mistake -- elsewhere he manages to avoid it -- Plato, quite plausibly, recognized that while Heraclitus affirmed the ever-changing nature of the cosmos, he ... believed in the identity of processes. A river is a process, indeed the same process, though the river is different now than it was a moment ago. At least Plato wrote a similar view into Socrates' speech on love in the Symposium:
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According to both Plato and Aristotle, Heraclitus held extreme views that led to logical incoherence. For he held that (1) everything is constantly changing and (2) opposite things are identical, so that (3) everything is and is not at the same time. In other words, Universal Flux and the Identity of Opposites entail a denial of the Law of Non-Contradiction. Plato indicates the source of the flux doctrine: "Heraclitus, I believe, says that all things go and nothing stays, and comparing existents to the flow of a river, he says you could not step twice into the same river" (Cratylus 402a = DK22A6).
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Ever since Plato, Heraclitus has been seen as a philosopher of flux. The challenge in interpreting the philosopher of Ephesus has always been to find a coherent theory in his paradoxical utterances. Since Hegel, he has been seen as a paradigmatic process philosopher–perhaps with some justification.
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