Practice question · Multiple choice
Why does Heraclitus say you cannot step twice into the same river, when he also insists it remains the same river?
Hints
- Ask whether he thinks the river is or is not the same river.
- It remains a river precisely because it flows, a river that stopped would be a lake.
Show the answer
A. Stability is constituted by change rather than opposed to it
Why
The river persists because its water moves on. Heraclitus is not denying stability but explaining it: persistence is a pattern maintained through change, and a river that stopped flowing would cease to be a river at all.
Practise Heraclitus
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