Being and Becoming

Being and Becoming

How do we explain change or the lack of change? What is being or becoming? Just some of the questions past Greek Philosophers tried to answer. Exploring Heraclitus idea's of no being just becoming, a continuous change and the unity of opposites. On the other hand Parmenides views on ontology the study of being, "the one and the many". Both postulated a model of nature and the universe which created the foundation for all other speculation on physics and metaphysics.

To make clear each Philosophers views we must explain some ideas of the world. Both studied Cosmology, study of the universe as a rationally ordered system (Cosmos) and Logos the rule according to which all things are accomplished and the law which is found in all things. 2 Heraclitus known as a pure empiricist thought of the universe as an ordered structure and observed constant change. So how could there be a being when everything is every changing? Heraclitus thought only Logos operates in all things, the one true operator consists of all the paired opposites in the universe. The truth is that all things are one, but are united, opposite and are always in a state of tension that depends on them, the universe is in continuous state of equilibrium like the yin and yang. Heraclitus fragment 50, Listening to the Logos rather than to me, it is wise to agree that all things are in reality on thing and one thing only.3 Fragment 12, On those who step in the same river, different and different waters flow. 4

Parmenides known as a rationalist was in conscious opposition with Heraclitus and the idea of for whom it is and is not, the same and not the same, and all things travel in opposite directions. Parmenides wrote the poem On Nature where in a goddess instructs him in the two ways, that of the Truth and the deceptive way of Belief, in which is no truth at all. The first being Truth is the things exist, the illusion in that nonexistence also can be and the second of the world of illusion. It cannot have come into being it must have come from something. It could not have arisen from nothing, there is no nothing. Parmenides thought that the real cannot be attained by the senses they are only appearances and are not real. Seen Being as correct and not-being as a false impression seeing change as false, to change is to become something else. So where would the old state go?

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