Panta rhei
The formula panta rhei (Greek: πάντα ῥεῖ, "everything flows") is an aphorism traced back to the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, but created later.
Origin
In this form, however, the panta rhei is only quoted by Simplicius, a late antique commentator on Aristotle's writings.[1] The connection to Heraclitus is established by Plato, who quotes the sentence in a linguistically different form:[2] Πάντα χωρεῖ καὶ οὐδὲν μένει ("Pánta chorei kaì oudèn ménei", "Everything moves on and nothing remains."). Heraclitus compares being to a river by saying that no one can step into the same river twice. The sentence panta rhei thus represents a shortening and at the same time an interpretation of Heraclitus' statements.
Only a few fragments of Heraclitus' work have survived, three of which are quotations that establish the doctrine of the flow of all things:
- "Whoever gets into the same river, other and again other water flows to him."[3]
- "We get into the same river and yet not into the same river, we are and we are not."[4]
- "You cannot get into the same river twice."[5]
Philosophical classification
The flow doctrine is to be understood in the context of Heraclitus' doctrine of the unity of all things:
- "Connections: Whole and Not-Whole, Converging and Diverging, Harmony and Discord, and Out of All One and Out of One All." [6]
Plato's quotation Pánta chorei kaì oudèn ménei is the most succinct formulation of Heraclitus' doctrine of flux, which states: everything flows and nothing remains; there is only an eternal becoming and changing. However, his interpretation is problematic: it led to the fact that in the tradition of the Platonic formulation, Heraclitus' teaching was interpreted only as one of becoming and passing away (in this sense, for example, Hölderlin, Hegel or Nietzsche, who saw the core of his teaching in the "affirmation of passing away"). According to the flux doctrine, the primary experience of the world lies in the perpetual change of matter and form. It is a metaphor for the processuality of the world. Being is the becoming of the whole. Accordingly, being is not static, but is to be grasped dynamically as eternal change. Yet behind and at the same time in the ceaseless flux stands unity: unity in multiplicity and multiplicity in unity.[7]
Literature
- Wilhelm Capelle: Die Vorsokratiker. Kröner, Stuttgart 1968
- Hans Joachim Störig: Kleine Weltgeschichte der Philosophie. Fischer, Frankfurt a. M. 1996, ISBN 3-596-13520-6
- Ute Seiderer (editor): Panta rhei. Der Fluß und seine Bilder. Ein kulturgeschichtliches Lesebuch. Reclam, Leipzig 1999
References
- ↑ Hermann Diels: Simplicius, In Aristotelis physicorum libros quattuor posteriores commentaria. Reimer, Berlin 1895 (reprint de Gruyter 1954), (Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca 10) p. 1313.
- ↑ Cratylus 402A = A6
- ↑ Fragment 12 DK, translation following Wilhelm Capelle, Die Vorsokratiker, p. 132
- ↑ Fragment 49a DK, translation following Wilhelm Capelle, Die Vorsokratiker, p. 132; B 49a is, however, considered to be only vaguely based on the original text, with the entire second part not being authentic; Held: Heraklit, Parmenides und der Anfang von Philosophie und Wissenschaft, p. 326
- ↑ Fragment 91 DK
- ↑ Fragment 10 DK, translation followingWilhelm Capelle, Die Vorsokratiker, p. 132
- ↑ Cf. Störig: Kleine Weltgeschichte der Philosophie, p. 136 with further evidence
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