Moravcsic-Appearance and Reality in Heraclitus' Philosophy

Hegeler Institute

APPEARANCE AND REALITY IN HERACLITUS' PHILOSOPHYAuthor(s): J. M. MoravcsikSource: The Monist, Vol. 74, No. 4, Heraclitus (OCTOBER 1991), pp. 551-567Published by: Hegeler InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27903262 .

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APPEARANCE AND REALITY IN HERACLITUS' PHILOSOPHY

The questions that occupied early Ionian philosophers are very general in nature, and are not linked to the various skills and crafts that surface ear

ly in Greek civilization.1 The awe and wonder fuelling these questions were

directed towards large scale phenomena, and?according to the interpreta tion presented in this essay?called for more than mere re-descriptions or

re-labellings of various features of reality. They called for explanations, but the notion of an intellectually adequate explanation took a long time to

develop. Conceptions of adequate explanation were changing throughout Pre-Socratic philosophy. It was left to Aristotle to attempt to capture the various models, and give them a unifying structure within an explicit theory.2

Explanations in modern philosophies are often thought of as human

constructions. We explain one thing in terms of something else to a certain audience. But within Greek thought, up to and including Aristotle, we can

detect another conception that to some extent can be still seen in our own

thinking as well. According to this view, some elements of reality explain or

account for others. An obvious illustration of this conception is the

appearance-reality distinction. We construe some entities as appearances of some other, more fundamental, underlying ones. According to the view of this essay, this way of interpreting experience is very deep-seated, and can

be seen in every phase of Greek thought, including the pre-philosophical, Homeric one.

The appearance-reality distinction, especially when extended to cover

cosmic phenomena, calls for three conceptions: a conception of the nature

of the appearances, a conception of the nature of the underlying reality, and a conception of the relation between the two. This essay places Heraclitus'

thought within the framework of a general conception of Pre-Socratic

thought that interprets this as a succession of proposals for what should be our main explanatory structure; i.e., our main conception of what is ap

pearance, what is reality, and how the two are linked. There are many ways in which one can speculate about the natures of

what one takes to be elements of reality. For example, one might want to ex

plain why something appears to our senses the way it does; why the sun

shines. One might also want an account of what enables some humans to

Copyright ? 1991, THE MONIST, La Salle, IL 61301.



552 J. M. MORAVCSIK

reach high standards of excellence in certain activities. For example, what enables Achilles to be such a magnificent fighter. Still further questions have much wider scope. One might wonder what basic structures such kinds have as numbers, living things, or material stuffs. On an even more general plane, one might wonder about the most general features of change, genera tion, destruction, and persistence.

Explanations do not take place in an intellectual vacuum. They build on previous attempts. They have to take something for granted in order to be able to claim that one thing explains another. For one cannot question everything at the same time. To attempt that would be?to borrow Otto Neurath's felicitous image?like being in a boat at sea, and wanting to tear

up all of the planks at the same time for repair. The ship would sink. Just as we can repair only some of the planks at any given time, so we must keep some elements of our conceptual ship fixed while we question others. We

regard some things self-explanatory and others in need of explanation?on a ship we keep some things fixed, and repair or improve other parts with reference to what is being retained.

With respect to every explanatory pattern we should raise the following three questions:

(1) What is taken for granted? (2) What appears as problematic and calling for explanation? (3) What structure counts as an illuminating explanatory pattern?

For example, we can take some observable features of natural bodies for

granted, and ask for their underlying causes. Or we can take some

presumably unobservable entity, like a deity, for granted, and ask how it ac counts or the observable fact that some humans are capable of outstanding performance. Some of our explanations rest on analogies between everyday experience and large-scale events, while in others we forge concepts that go beyond common sense and do not correlate with everyday conceptions. Some explanations are mixtures of these types; others altogether different. The possibilities are endless.

We can take certain kinds of unities?stuff, genera, forces?for grant ed, and try to account for diversities, or question the unities assumed by common sense by positing underlying diversity. In all of this there is no intellectual coercion on Pre-Socratics, or anyone else, to view common sense either as to be always questioned, or as something to be saved if at all

possible.3 In the following sections we shall see what Heraclitus took for granted,

what he saw as problematic, and what he regarded as appropriate on

tologica! structures with explanatory force, i.e., illuminating what is mere



APPEARANCE AND REALITY 553

appearance and what is reality. His pioneering efforts in carving out?or

discovering??new explanatory patterns rested partly on his dissatisfaction with previous attempts. To explain this, we shall first look briefly at the ex

planatory patterns that Heraclitus' predecessors?and even some of his con

temporaries and successors?employed.

I

The Background.

The use of certain explanatory patterns to account for the unusual is not unique to the philosophic literature. We find it already at the dawn of

any kind of literature. In Homer we find primarily two kinds of facts

represented as problematic. These are: large scale natural phenomena such as the changing of seasons, storms, plagues, etc., and outstanding human achievements such as sustained prowess in fighting, the winning of crucial

duels, or shrewdness. Both kinds of phenomena were construed as explicable in terms of

some posited mode of origin or production. In many contexts such explana tions are still with us today. At times we answer questions like: "Why can he

perform the way he does?" by referring to a parent, ancestor, or producer, and assume the link between product and producer, or originating creature, to be non-problematic. We think that to some extent children have some of the characteristics of their parents, and that the features of some artifacts can be explained by some of the properties of their producers.

This is, then, the productive model of ontological explanation. Within this framework we can explain the prowess of a warrior by reference to his semi-divine origin, and threatening natural phenomena by reference to the

fluctuating moods and attitudes of the gods who are responsible for them. Within this context plagues and achievements are treated as the ap pearances, with divinities and royalty as the more fundamental underlying elements. The links of parentage and artifact production were taken as non

problematic, and processes analogous to these were posited as linking, e.g., the deities, to what was taken as their product or progeny.

Some of the limitations of this model of explanation should be obvious. For example, it does not account for the unity or persistence of some of the

"products". It does not account for the fact that Achilles is a human with various conditions in his nature enabling him to function as a biological unit, and persist under certain circumstances through time. The same ap

plies to unity and persistence conditions for storms or plagues. The most



554 J. M. MORAVCSIK

one can say is: " . . . because this is how the gods wanted it". But while this

might be an answer to the question of why there is a plague here and now, it does not answer questions about general conditions of unity and persistence for storms, etc.

As was suggested above, the nature of the explananda is left as non

problematic. There is no analysis of what corresponds to the true assertion

that, e.g., Nestor is wise. Presumably one would say: Nestor, wisdom, and a connection. But none of these three items receive further analysis.

There are other limitations on this model. The analogies to birth and artifact production fit everywhere?and nowhere. There are no clear con

ceptual constraints on what counts as analogous to procreation and to ar

tifact production. Furthermore, we are not told how in these "analogous" cases, elements or features are transmitted or produced. The model cries out for transmission or transformation principles. Finally, this explanatory pat tern yields typically only singular rather than general lawlike explanations. One can say that this plague was produced by the wrath of that god or

godess, but nobody was willing to say that every plague is produced by some negative feeling of some divine being. Nor did anyone believe that from the putative fact that Achilles' strength and prowess can be linked to his divine mother, one could conclude: "everyone who has a divne mother is a good fighter."

Within this model the notions of change and causality are left pretty much as taken for granted. Everyday modes of production and procrea tion?even if stretched by analogies?are hardly sufficient to yield general notions of change and causal links.

The productive model should also stimulate some to wonder about in finite regress. If is F because it comes from y9 then we should be able to

ask: "what made y an Fi Eventually something has to be taken as self

explanatory. But what sorts of entities should these be? The productive model as it surfaces in early Greek writings is best suited as a candidate to

explain what are intuitively seen as dynamic phenomena. These would in clude human actions, passions, and the manifestation of natural forces such as those of winds, oceans, fires, etc. It is less suited already on the intuitive level to explain why some metals are harder than others, or what makes earth dry at some times and moist at others. These phenomena call for other

explanatory patterns. In presenting this sketch of the first, the productive model, the ex

amples given seem to fit into what would be regarded today as a materialist framework. We must not conclude that it must have seemed this way also




to the ancients. Unless and until one is presented with strong evidence to the

contrary, we should assume that modern ontological dichotomies, like

mateialist-dualist, abstract-concrete, etc. were not parts of the conceptual framework within which the culture under investigation functions. E.g., part of the implicit "ontology" of Homer already includes entities like fear, and the sky; but there is no evidence that one could have gotten an infor mative answer from those living with this sort of epic whether fear was

material or mental, and whether the sky was a material entity. The intellec tual changes are not from a materialist framework to a less materialist one, but rather from an undifferentiated framework to one within which some of the dichotomies referred to above can be drawn.

Modern science uses explanations in terms of origin for a certain class of questions, e.g., those that come up in archeology or in evolutionary biology. But these explanations are couched within a sophisticated framework that includes the acknowledgement of abstract entities like

qualities or attributes. Furthermore, such explanations posit explicitly mechanisms for changes of various sorts.

There are also very poor uses of this type of explanation to be found in

today's world. Racial or religious prejudice is at a time couched in terms of

alleged explanations that claim that anyone with such-and-such a parentage must have certain negative characteristics, even though there is no scientific

genetic account that would back such wild charges. We see, then, from this brief sketch what the productive model took

for granted, what it took to be problematic, and how it tried to account for the problematic by accounts relying on analogies with production and pro creation.

Within this scheme one can assume that in certain ways the "product" is the same as the producer. Asking what seems like a reasonable question: "How are they the same?" leads to the second explanatory pattern which we

shall call the constitutive analysis. For it answers the question posed above

by positing a common part or ingredient between alleged producer and pro

duct, and goes on to claim that the basic explanatory power lies in analyses that tell you what the constituents or ingredients of an entry are. If two en

tities seem to behave and act the same way, then this model suggests look

ing for a common element as the explanatory factor.4 The notion of a consti tuent admits of several interpretations. Parts, stuff, ingredients, all offer

themselves as candidates, and the distinction between these was not noted

consciously for quite some time after the model came into use. The ques tions: "What is it made of?" and "What does it come from?" admit of a tran



556 J. M. MORAVCSIK

sitional formulation in which "What is it coming from?" is construed as ask

ing for ingredients whose mixture resulted in the entity under scrutiny.5 One cannot tell which version of the constitutive analysis is being used until one sees the implications and further questions that a basic constitutive claim is said to have and raise.

One way to move from the productive to the constitutive model is to

question what the former takes for granted, namely the mode in which

something is supposed to be transferred from parent or producer to "pro duct". According to the constitutive model the transfer must be in terms of common elements being somehow created among entities forming the ex

planatory chains. The underlying constitutive elements do the real explain ing, and eventually some of these have to be viewed as self-explanatory.

The move from the productive to the constitutive model is crucial to the shift from the conceptual framework of Homer and other literary figures to Tha?es and other early Ionians.6 The relatively simplistic constitutive

models of Tha?es and Anaximander were supplemented by more complex versions of the same model in the works of their successors. Some ultimate constituents are stuffs, while others are countable collections of pluralities, such as atoms. In some versions there are only a few basic kinds of consti

tuents, while in others there is an indefinitely large collection of these. Some of the posited basic parts are observable, while in other theories the basic elements are in principle unobservable.

The early versions of the constitutive model have both advantages and

disadvantages. One of the advantages is the severing of the link to an

thropomorphic accounts, and hence the extension of explanations over a much wider range of phenomena. On the other hand, within the new model the following questions arise: how are stuffs transformed into each other?

How do we account for the diversity of constituents? In short, the new

model requires the discovery?or invention?of principles of transforma tion and transmission of its own.

As we saw, the productive model worked particularly well with

dynamic phenomena such as vast forces of nature or human prowess, for it is difficult to ask, at least on the level of sophistication achieved by the Pre

Socratics, "what are these things made of?". The constitutive model does better with what seem like static phenomena such as stability and per sistence, while doing less well with the phenomena of growth and develop

ment.

The shift in explanatory models fits the shift in literary form. The pro ductive model traces origin, and thus the form of historical narrative, found in epic literature and th?ogonies of other sorts is well suited for it. The con




stitutive model focusses on part-whole analyses, and thus sequential nar ratives are not of central interest. The forms of treatise and didactic poetry are more suitable vehicles for this model.

The difference between the constitutive models of, e.g., Anaximenes and Democritus, leads to different views concerning unity and diversity. The basic constituents in the early Ionian analyses like that of Anaximenes are designated by "mass terms"; i.e., terms that do not pluralize and hence do not individuate their ranges of application. On the other hand 'atom' is a

"count-term"; it pluralizes and calls for principles of individuation and per sistence.7

Like any model, this one too has its own key primitive or undefined no

tion, namely that of a constituent. This notion is left on the intuitive level, and it is interesting to see how different conceptions of this notion emerge in the history of Greek philosophy. We must not think that "part" or "consti tuent" had a particularly materialistic flavor to the early Greeks, for the reason mentioned above, e.g., that the required dichotomies for this sort of stance were not yet developed. So the field is wide open: are forces consti tuents? are virtues like justice or courage constituents? what about direc tions of development? The notion of "part" stayed in the tradition for a long time even after the constitutive model is jettisoned. For example, Plato raises questions of relations between what we would describe as abstract attribute-like entities in terms of the part-whole relation.

Heraclitus' immediate predecessors worked with basic stuffs as the key constituents within their constitutive analyses. We shall review now what is

taken for granted, what is problematic, and what is explanatory within

these schemes.8 The basic stuffs are construed as being self-explanatory, or at any rate

not needing explanation. Furthermore, the unity and persistence of the basic

stuffs is also taken for granted. Diversity is interpreted simply as the spatio

temporal scatter of basic stuffs. It is not natural for us or for the early Greeks to ask questions like: "What makes water (air, etc.) one?" On the

surface, it seems that these things just are what they are, and that their per sistence is the function of their having at all times the same parts. From the

phenomenal point of view, a body of water seems to remain the same body of water because it keeps the same parts.

Permanent character, salient causal properties, and qualitative dif

ferences are among the chief explananda of this model. Character is seen as

resting on the basic compositional structure, causal properties are ultimate

ly the function of the powers that basic stuffs have, and qualitative dif

ferences are accounted for by mixing and various transformations of basic



558 J. M. MORAVCSIK

stuff. Some of the key explanans is observable and some unobservable, just as in the productive model.

The constitutive model has its own limitations. First, it is not clear how the unity of entities picked out by count-nouns such as 'human', 'tree', 'mountain', etc. is explained just by analyzing these into key constituents.

Secondly, as mentioned already, it is not clear how the basic stuffs and their

mixings account for growth, and development, and dynamic facts like

plagues. Finally, whether our basic level contains one or many key stuffs, sooner or later one would want to know what their natures are, especially if

they have also causal powers, and obey principles of mixing and separation. In modern disciplines like physics or theories of musical harmony con stitutive analyses are parts of larger frameworks in which attributes are

analyzed and linked together in various ways. This requires more concep tual distinctions, and conceptions like that of an attribute, which were not

yet articulated within the early constitutive models we just sketched.

II

Heraclitus.

The shift from the early Ionians to Heraclitus* thought can be best understood when one reflects on what is taken for granted, what is prob lematical, and what counts as explanation. The practitioners of the con stitutive model focussed?for good reasons, as we saw?on static

phenomena mostly. Heraclitus reaches back to the phenomena around which the productive model centered, and wants to develop a framework within which both the dynamic and the static is given equally adequate treatment. Hence the shift in terms of basic entities from stuffs like earth, or

water, to what one would conceptualize easier as forces such as wind and fire.

Heraclitus thinks that his predecessors have not fully appreciated what one would call qualitative and numerical diversity. He regards the intuition that unity, homomerousness, and qualitative sameness are fundamental, while diversity and change is on the surface, to be explained in terms of what is static, as crude and superficial. For Heraclitus change and stability, diversity and unity are equally fundamental, and co-exist throughout all

regions of reality. This radical conceptual shift does not come without a price to be paid. For once we reject the idea that the underlying reality consists of one or at most few basic kinds of stuff, the unity and persistence of elements of nature becomes problematic. The question: "What enables this to be the




same water as the water that was here before?" does not raise, at least on the

surface, the conceptual questions raised by questions like: "What enables this to be the same human, tree, etc. that was there before?" The former

question can be construed as calling for an answer in terms of sameness of

parts, but the latter forces us to come to grips with dynamic processes in volved in biological maintenance, growth, decay, etc. In the second case we see permanence as forged by forces affecting the substance in question through time, and causing changes obeying principles of regularity. To re

main the same lump of earth might be simply a case of retaining the same

material parts; but to remain the same living thing requires constant

change, and systematic replacement of parts, in order to remain the same

entity. Heraclitus' interest in unity, persistence, and diversity, is a direct

consequence of his seeing the earlier constitutive analyses as inadequate, but his work on these notions raises new problems. The interplay of various forces might be responsible for the persistence of living things, but how will

it account for questions about what holds stuffs like earth or water

together?9 Causality and change remain notions that are taken for granted, and so

is the fact that there are seemingly separate entities scattered over space and

time, with complex natures. A key move in Heraclitus' forging of new explanations is taking certain

elements of human experience such as tension and harmony, and projecting these onto a cosmic scale so as to cover accounts of unity and persistence for

both the static and the dynamic. His underlying elements are also?as in the

earlier model?partly observable and partly unobservable. He wants to ex

plain dynamic phenomena, but without the anthropomorphism of the

earlier productive model. The Heraclitean fragments left to us exhibit once more the close rela

tion between form and content. Heraclitus is not just adding new wrinkles

to the constitutive model of the early Ionians, but is challenging us to accept a radically new conception of reality in which the dynamic underlies even

what on the surface looks like static. He demands a conceptual reorienta

tion in which change and lack of change are equally fundamental; this is not

just a matter of additional observational data. Thus a form similar to the

oracular suits his purposes; with the important difference that the whimsical

gods as sources are replaced by the voice of reason.10 His "dark sayings" fall

into the tradition of the oracular, the myth, and other forms suited primari

ly to introduce divine messages. This mode of communication is also used

by Parmenides and Plato, among others, when they are about to introduce

radical conceptual change. In all of these cases form and content support

each other.



560 J. M. MORAVCSIK

The Heraclitean conceptual revolution consists basically of three main

steps. First, he posits a steady and only partly observable stream of constant

change as fundamental to reality. It is anachronistic to ask about the precise conceptual ingredients of this fundamental change, as apparently Plato did.11 Any analysis of change as the gaining or losing of attributes, or of links between instants and minimal temporal intervals was beyond the con

ceptual arsenal available to Heraclitus. Heraclitus' interest in time and

change was not related to the potential infinite divisibility of the temporal. His fascination arose from the observation that change is not always destructive of persistence and stability, but is in many cases a necessary condition for these states. This insight was recovered later by Aristotle and built into his view of the dynamics of substantial persistence.

Secondly, Heraclitus posits basic interplays of tensions among vast natural forces and a resulting harmony that holds together the smaller elements of reality as well as the larger ones, and within this hierarchically holistic cosmology, the whole of reality as well. His chosen primary ele

ment, fire, is much more suitable to play this role in this sort of dynamic cosmos than the stuffs of his predecessors such as earth or water. The latter can be seen as collections of parts, where the whole is the mere sum of parts. But it is more difficult to think of fire in this way. Fire is not just bits of stuff

sitting in space and time. Nor is it simply a force like heat or cold. It is associated with life and yet not confined to the realm of the organic. Thus it is ideally suited to be the kind of cosmic glue that underlies the harmonies of tensions associated with each unity within the Heraclitean universe.

Thirdly, Heraclitus has a new approach to numerical and qualitative diversity and sameness. Heraclitus and other Greek philosophers up to Aristotle operate with a notion of qualitative sameness that admits of

degrees and the limiting case of which is what we should call identity. In this

way it foreshadows Leibniz's conception of identity, i.e., sameness in terms of sameness of all qualities. Thus in this framework complete difference would be for two things not to have anything in common. Heraclitus would

deny that this could ever take place. Modern logicians echo the Heraclitean

insight by pointing out that any two entities have some predicate or other in

common, no matter how remote this might be from common-sense descrip tions.

With regard to "complete sameness" Heraclitus has two theses: (i) At any given time the sameness or unity of a real thing depends on it being also "not the same", i.e., having a complex nature held together by tension and balance between a number of forces that inhere in the thing. In paradoxical ways?that apparently Heraclitus loved?one could say that for him things




were the same by not being the same. A thing without qualitative diversity and changes involved in growing, living, and decaying could not exist, or "be what it is", (ii) An element of reality, be it a human or a river or a larger unit, can persist ("remain the same") only if over time it changes its parts. It

gains some parts, loses some parts, "according to measure". Again, in a more paradoxical mode, a thing can remain the same (as itself) only if it does not remain (qualitatively) the same (as itself). Thus for Heraclitus sameness and difference are intrinsically interwoven and mutually depen dent. This complex state of "interwovenness" was later analyzed by Plato in

precise and non-paradoxical ways, in the Sophist, while retaining a stable and fixed fundamental layer of reality?something that would have

displeased Heraclitus. A detailed and thorough examination of these points is beyond the con

fines of this paper, but a few remarks may be appropriate. A world con strued as basically scattered stuff through space and time, with mechanical causal interactions between otherwise inert bits, is easier to interpret con

ceptually in such modern terms as succession of states and the interplay of relational properties. Heraclitus' world of hierarchical holism in which units are more than mere sums of parts, and forces create constant tension and

balance, has in its logical analysis as the basic notion that of opposition. This was at this stage not reduced to separate logical, metaphysical, and

physical species.12 Heraclitus' view brought him into conflict with the common-sense in

tuition, shared by many philosophers as well, that persistence should be at some level the sameness of parts. A common-sense answer to a question like: "What makes this puddle of water the same puddle as the one that was

here two hours ago?" is: "because nothing has changed; it is still made up of the same material and same parts as before." We have the same intuition about other entities like piles of sugar or coal. Heraclitus confronts us with two claims. First, this story is not true and indeed cannot be true of living things. Secondly, even in the cases of seemingly less dynamic phenomena this conception is inadequate. A river, an illness, or civic life in a communi

ty, require the same dynamic structure of unity and persistence as the

organic. Hence the need and subsequent explanatory value of positing a

constant flow of change.13 This flow is required also for giving fire the

privileged position that it receives from Heraclitus. For, as was pointed out

before, it is difficult to construe the persistence of fire as the retaining of the same parts. Its persistence seem to fit better in the dynamic structure that is

part of Heraclitus' overall conceptual framework.14



562 J. M. MORAVCSIK

The choice of fire as fundamental, and the overall dynamic conception of reality, underlying deceptively static appearances, is complemented in

the Heraclitean scheme by the notion of tension and opposition. Is his point about sameness and difference, hot and cold, etc. a point of logic, or what he took to be a necessary truth about reality, or what we would call today a

principle of physics?15 A modern philosopher today would probably say that the notion has to be analyzed in terms of a variety of concepts, some

metaphysical, some logical, and some physical, and then the examples distributed among the various precise modern concepts. But while such a

move may clarify, it could also destroy and distort. Heraclitus has a unitary vision of the laws of reality; perhaps we are unable today to recapture this kind of vision.

Heraclitus' positing?or discovering?a dynamic reality that underlies static surface phenomena brings him into clashes with the common sense of his time as well as that of ours. Our explanations, be these scientific or

philosophical, tend to take the stable and unchanging to be the explanatory, and take the dynamic to be the explanandum. Furthermore, his hierarchical structure of wholes and parts clashes with the common view held

today?perhaps conditioned by the earlier successes of mechanistic ex

planations in physics?of the world as separate scattered bits of matter.16 In these ways Heraclitus changed the Ionian intellectual landscape by turning certain commonly accepted ways of viewing the appearance-reality distinc tion upside down. It took further reflection on the part of his successors to see that laws of dynamic but regular processes are themselves instances of the fixed and unchanging.

Heraclitus' conception has its own difficulties. He leaves key notions like those of opposition and change unanalyzed. Not surprisingly, these cry out for analysis; both Plato and Aristotle offered attempted clarifications of these concepts in subsequent philosophy. Furthermore, within his own view there are principles and rules governing dynamic processes, but the nature and ontological status of these principles is never made clear.

In spite of these difficulties, one can safely conclude that Heraclitus showed some of the weaknesses of the constitutive model as employed by his predecessors and contemporaries. In order to cover all of the

phenomena that Heraclitus rightly insists must be parts of the explananda, the constitutive model has to stretch the notion of constituent beyond what

any analogy with our pretheoretic intuitions would bear. Furthermore, even in any extended reformulation of the constitutive model, the analysis of complexes into simple parts cannot do all of the explaining. There must be principles governing the various changes and lawlike processes that




yields harmony and stability, even among the dynamic phenomena. Hence Heraclitus' insistence on "logos" and "metron" as the "ruling" elements.

Though Heraclitus does not offer a precise and sophisticated ontology, his treatment of logos and measure indicates that he?rightly?did not see these as just additional constituents.

The next pattern of explanation emerges ?s a result of seeing that it is the logos and metron that offer the final explanations. These are the self

explanatory. Hence, why not do what the other models did also; namely to

identify that which is ultimate from an explanatory point of view with what is ontologically most fundamental? The principles of harmony and tension

must be a separate realm from that which they govern. Why not make them a separate ontological category, and regard this as the underlying reality, regardless of what this does to our everyday convictions about the experien tial being in some sense the most fundamental?

This next pattern is worked out by Plato. It is subsequently modified

by Aristotle, and then reworked repeatedly in the history of philosophy. One of its versions is the medieval theory of universals; i.e., the view that there is an abstract entity not in space or time called a universal, associated with every predicate. This is not Plato's view, and clearly could not have been the view of Heraclitus. The Platonic version of this explanatory model involved a detailed characterization of the ontological nature and status of

what gives and constitutes order, as well as the relation between these elements and the world of space and time in which order is?according to Plato imperfectly?reflected. This involves, among other things, hammer

ing out the conception of what became known as the attribute-instance con

figuration. But the basic intuition underlying it is that of order and ordering principles on the one hand, and a world of dynamic changes in which order and structure is reflected not merely the contrast between universals and

particulars. Thus we shall call this the ordering-structuring model. It would be anachronistic to expect of Heraclitus that he should have

built what became known as the Platonic building blocks of the ordering structuring model. That would have required him not only to focus on

dynamic phenomena, but at the same time to see also mathematics as the

paradigm of sciences, and the status of numbers as well as their relations to numberable collections as the key ontological notions. One "big move" at a

time, is all we can expect of pioneers. This presentation of Heraclitus differs from standard modern versions.

Thus it is worth sketching briefly how this presentation handles what is one

of the most often discussed fragments of Heraclitus, namely the river

fragments. Contemporary debates center on whether these were supposed



564 J. M. MORAVCSIK

to show total flux, or only the kind of dynamism that is exemplified already by some everyday phenomena. Within our presentation, that issue could not have been the main focus for Heraclitus. For we see Heraclitus as a tran sitional figure between different conceptions of unity and persistence. The river fragments read best if we take them to be Heraclitus showing how sameness of parts is not a guarantee of persistence, and in many cases would work actually towards destruction.17

The fragments dealing with what happens when we step into a river deal with the following facts: (i) we step into a river once or twice within a certain period of time; (ii) we step into "different waters", i.e., not into the same parts of the water of the river as we perform these actions; (Hi) the

persistence of the river and changes in the constituency of the water of the river are not in conflict; on the contrary, the former requires the latter.

Our common-sense conception of a river covers up many of its com

plexities. A river is a combination of water and riverbank, but this cannot be described as a mere juxtaposition of parts. It is a whole greater than the mere sum of these elements, for without the water the riverbank is not a riverbank but only bulges within a landscape. On the other hand, without the river-bank the water is not river-water, but just watery stuff. The water

must change if the river is to survive; without such changes the river is not a river but a mere stagnant body of water.

In order to make these Heraclitean points we need not assume that he had a very precise notion of what counts as parts of the water; water at cer tain places, water at spatio-temporal points, or water molecules traceable down the river. At a certain time, t', we step into a river; i.e., into water that is between riverbanks. At a later time, t", we step into the same river, but in virtue of this, into a different sum of waterparts. The water that con

stitutes the river at t ' is not identical with the mass of water that constitutes

the river at t ". The same point can be made also if we consider only one

stepping into the river, since such an action takes time, and what was just said is true as long as an action or actions take place over a time interval. Thus the "experiment" shows that we cannot define the persistence of the river in terms of retaining the same water parts. Underlying the picture is the suggestion that the changes in water are necessary for the survival of the river.

The main point is, then, negative and critical. Heraclitus tells us what does not account for the persistence of the river. His positive view must be inferred from other fragments; indicating that the persistence of the river is a matter of changes in water constituency according to certain principles of

measure.




It is easy to see how what is said about the river can be generalized to cover all parts of reality. Humans and other organic entities too need con stant replenishment of parts in order to persist, and the same holds, though less obviously, of artifacts, mountains, or even rocks. Some changes are

more on the surface than others; some are slower than others. Mountains

change shapes, rocks lose parts. In all such cases neither: "What holds it

together?" nor "What enables it to persist?" can be answered adequately by reference to the parts that something has and its rentention of these.

Ill

Heraclitus: A Lonely Voice, or a Transitional Figure?

Given the interpretation presented we can see Heraclitus as seeing the

shortcomings of the constitutive analysis without yet having forged what became the ordering-structuring model of explanation. But we can see in

embryonic form the elements of that model in various parts of Heraclitus'

philosophy. We can see it, above all, in his conception of reality and ap pearance. For his reality is not literally "underneath" the observable things and events, as perhaps in Democritus and Anaxagoras, but more like Plato, "above" the warring elements and processes. His "logos" and "metron" can be seen as the forerunners of Plato's Forms. This is the part of Heraclitus'

philosophy that prevents the historian from classifying it as "merely" a

dynamic version of the constitutive model.

Still, we should not underestimate the importance of the emphasis on

the dynamic not only with reference to the explananda but also as included in the explanans. For just as the "logos" can be seen as what evolved later in to the realm of Forms, so the tensions and wars of opposites can be seen as

what was harnessed within Aristotle's theory of matter as potentiality, and

potentiality as a key ingredient in what leads to persistence. The ordering model does not necessarily give an analysis of all kinds of

change, but it does analyze regular change that is constitutive of the func

tioning of some natural unit as the inherence of ordering elements?certain

attributes??in the flux of time. This model also helps with persistence by

construing the order of causal sequences leading to growth and then what is

necessary for persistence, as a configuration of abstract elements con

stituting order under ideal circumstances, being reflected in space and time.

The development from productive models to constitutive models to

ordering-structuring models is just as important a development in Western

thought as the journey "from myth to logic".



566 J. M. MORAVCSIK

So from one point of view Heraclitus is a transitional figure. But from

another point of view we can see him as a lonely voice crying in what

seemed to him an intellectual desert. For Heraclitus would not have been

happy with either the Platonic or the Aristotelian solutions to the concep tual problems they inherited. Neither of these philosophies have the total

organic unity and interrelatedness that is essential to Heraclitus, view of

both appearance and reality. Plato's two-world ontology and Aristotle's

dichotomies between the essential and accidental and the potential and the

actual violate the unitary and holistic nature of Heraclitus' vision. Heraclitus might have borrowed?had it been available to him?a phrase from T. S. Eliot, and described the philosophies that came after him

as?from his point of view?"a heap of broken images". Heraclitean

metaphors of war, strife, tension, etc. are turned by his successors into more precise technical expressions, but in the course of this his unitary vi

sion is lost. This unitary aspect of his vision is perhaps responsible for his being

able to look out over the Aegean, and see in the sea and the islands not only strife and harmony that for him was intelligible, but also a world in which

he can feel at home. He has not explained away the conflicts and suffering, but can see these as aspects of larger harmonies, thus providing him with an

interpretation of reality that construes this as a place where the thoughtful person can find a home. Many centuries later the German poet, Novalis, wrote: "Philosophie ist eigenlich Heimweh; der Trieb ?berall zu Hause zu

sein." ("Philosophy is fundamentally a yearning for a home; the striving to

be able to feel at home in all parts of reality"). This characterization applies well to Heraclitus. His contempt for common sense and efforts to present us

with a radically new and different conception of reality has its roots partly in his striving towards what he thought was not only a true picture, but one

within which honest souls can find a home.18

Stanford University

J. M. Moravcsik




NOTES

1. For an early description of arts and crafts see the Iliad bk. XVIII, lines 409-605; the making of the shield.

2. On this see Moravcsik, J., "Aristotle on Adequate Explanations", Synthese, 28 (1974), 3-17.

3. My interpretation in terms of Heraclitus' overall conceptions differs both from Popper, Karl, "Back to the Pre-Socratics", Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society m.s. 59 (1958-59), 1-24, and Kirk, G. S., "Popper on Science and the Pre Socratics", Mind n.s. 69 (1960), 318-39.

4. I use 'part' and 'constituent' in a very broad intuitive sense; including parts of trees or animals as well as parts of stories or arguments, without any prejudice in favor or against materialism and its rival ontological views.

5. I am indebted to Jonathan Barnes on this point for discussion. 6. In stressing these aspects of conceptual shift in Pre-Socratic thought, I do not

mean to belittle the interesting insights, compatible with my interpretation, that can be found in Bruno Snell's "From Myth to Logic" in The Discovery of the Mind translated by T. G. Rosenmeyer (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1953), ch. 9.

7. For an elucidation of the count-mass term distinction see Gabbay, D., Moravcsik, J., "Sameness and Individuation", Journal of Philosophy, 70 (1973), 513-26.

8. These conceptual shifts in terms of explanatory structure are not to be con fused with the Kuhnian shifts in so-called paradigms.

9. A possible interest in persistence questions?but only on a cosmic scale?can be seen in Anaximander's introduction of the notion of a vortex. I am indebted to Professor Robert Bolton for discussion on this point.

10. For more discussion of the difference between knowledge and insight see my

"Understanding", Dial?ctica, 33 (1979), 202-16. 11. Cratylus 402a. 12. On opposites see especially Diels' fragments B58, 61, 63, 88, and 126. 13. On constant change see B6, 12, 49a.

14. Concerning fire, see B30, 31, and 76; also Kahn, Charles H., The Art and Thought of Heraclitus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979).

15. Concerning tension, see B48, 53, and 80; also Kahn, Op. cit., pp. 195-200.

16. B8 and 10. 17. B12 and 49a; my interpretation is independent of recent controversies con

cerning the exact text and number of the river fragments. 18. I am indebted to Professor Brad In wood and Professor Jonathan Barnes for

useful comments on an earlier draft. Needless to say, they are not responsible for the

resulting changes.



Moravcsic-Appearance and Reality in Heraclitus' Philosophy

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