INTRODUCTION.

time the drop reaches the earth, that spot has been filled by it.
The drop has a 'where,' though we can never define the 'where.'
Thus throughout the teaching of Herakleitos Heraclitus of Ephesus (c. 535 – c. 475 BC), the "Weeping Philosopher," famous for the doctrine that change is central to the universe. the 'is' is confronted
by 'is not.'

Result of Herakleiteanism.

§ 4. In the preceding paragraph I have confined myself
within the limits of the actual teaching of Herakleitos: the Platonic
developments of it will occupy our attention later on. What then
is the actual result—the contribution to the philosophical capital
with which Plato had to start? We have conceived change as
continuous, that is, we have conceived Becoming. And Becoming is negation of stable Being. Also since change is a
transition, it involves motion: therefore in affirming Becoming we
affirm Motion. And since change is a transition from one state
to another, it involves plurality. So in affirming Becoming we
affirm Multitude. Becoming, Motion, Multitude—these are three
aspects of one and the same fact: and this is the side of things
which Herakleitos presents to us as the truth and reality of
nature. The importance of this aspect cannot be exaggerated,
neither can its insufficiency.

Impossibility of knowledge the necessary inference from Herakleitean teaching.

§ 5. For where does this doctrine leave us in regard to the
acquisition of knowledge? Surely of all men most hopeless. Let
us set aside for the present the question of the relation between
subject The person who knows and object The thing being known as elaborated in the Theaetetus A Platonic dialogue concerning the nature of knowledge (epistemology)., and confine
ourselves simply to the following considerations. The object of
knowledge must exist: of that which is not there can be no
knowledge. But we have seen that according to Herakleitos it is
as true to say of everything that it is not as to say that it is:
therefore at best it is as true that there is no knowledge as
that there is. Again the object of knowledge must be abiding:
how can the soul have cognisance of that which unceasingly
slips away and glides from her grasp? For it is not possible
that we cognise our elemental substrate The underlying substance or "stuff" of the universe. now in one form, now
in another, since change is continuous: there is no footing
anywhere; for each thing the beginning of birth is the beginning
of dissolution; every new form in the act of supplanting the old
has begun its own destruction. In this utter elusiveness of fluidity
where is knowledge to rest? Plato sums up the matter in these
words: "For if this very thing, knowledge, does not change from being knowledge, then knowledge would always remain and there would be knowledge; but if even the very form of knowledge changes, it would at the same time change into another form of knowledge and there would be no knowledge; and if it is always changing, there would always be no knowledge." original: "εἰ μὲν γὰρ αὐτὸ τοῦτο, ἡ γνῶσις, τοῦ γνῶσις εἶναι μὴ μεταπίπτει, μένοι τε ἂν ἀεὶ ἡ γνῶσις καὶ εἴη γνῶσις· εἰ δὲ καὶ αὐτὸ τὸ εἶδος μεταπίπτει τῆς γνώσεως, ἅμα τ' ἂν μεταπίπτοι εἰς ἄλλο εἶδος γνώσεως καὶ οὐκ ἂν εἴη γνῶσις· εἰ δὲ ἀεὶ μεταπίπτει, ἀεὶ οὐκ ἂν εἴη" — This is a quote from Plato's Cratylus 440a, discussing the impossibility of knowledge if the objects of knowledge are in constant flux.