At least since Hegel identified Heraclitus as a philosopher who dealt with becoming, it has seemed obvious to perhaps most scholars that he was in some way a philosopher of process rather than a philosopher of being. ...At least since Hegel identified Heraclitus as a philosopher who dealt with becoming, it has seemed obvious to perhaps most scholars that he was in some way a philosopher of process rather than a philosopher of being. （For the views of Hegel and some early interpreters, see Graham 1997, 46-50.） Indeed, ancient sources say that for him all things are in flux, and one cannot step twice into the same stream. Yet for all that, many interpreters of Heraclitus perhaps unwittingly portray him in ways that are inconsistent with his being a process philosopher. And there are those who wish to downplay the role of flux in his system as well. In any case, to call him a process philosopher remains a vague claim until an interpreter specifies in what sense he is committed to process. Even more important, perhaps, is the question whether Heraclitus can maintain a coherent theory of process, given interpretations both ancient and modem that portray him as violating the principle of non-contradiction---often precisely because of his theory of flux. In this paper I shall attempt to argue that Heraclitus is indeed a process philosopher, and more importantly to spell out in what way he is, and to defend his theory as a consistent and indeed philosophically sound starting point for understanding the world as a process; I will end by pointing out some ways in which his theory accords with modem scientific explanations of the world.展开更多
文摘At least since Hegel identified Heraclitus as a philosopher who dealt with becoming, it has seemed obvious to perhaps most scholars that he was in some way a philosopher of process rather than a philosopher of being. （For the views of Hegel and some early interpreters, see Graham 1997, 46-50.） Indeed, ancient sources say that for him all things are in flux, and one cannot step twice into the same stream. Yet for all that, many interpreters of Heraclitus perhaps unwittingly portray him in ways that are inconsistent with his being a process philosopher. And there are those who wish to downplay the role of flux in his system as well. In any case, to call him a process philosopher remains a vague claim until an interpreter specifies in what sense he is committed to process. Even more important, perhaps, is the question whether Heraclitus can maintain a coherent theory of process, given interpretations both ancient and modem that portray him as violating the principle of non-contradiction---often precisely because of his theory of flux. In this paper I shall attempt to argue that Heraclitus is indeed a process philosopher, and more importantly to spell out in what way he is, and to defend his theory as a consistent and indeed philosophically sound starting point for understanding the world as a process; I will end by pointing out some ways in which his theory accords with modem scientific explanations of the world.
