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APPEARANCE AND REALITY IN HERACLITUS' PHILOSOPHY
Author(s): J. M. Moravcsik
Source: The Monist, Vol. 74, No. 4, Heraclitus (OCTOBER 1991), pp. 551-567
Published by: Oxford University Press
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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.
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
J. M. Moravcsik
Stanford University
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.

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