The PreSocratic Sophos,The Sophists: Protagoras

Running Head : Being and Becoming : Becoming by Being

Being and Becoming : Becoming by Being

Reconciling the Heraclitus ' Theory of Becoming

And

Parmenides ' Theory of Being

Pre-Socratic era was marked by periods from Thales of Miletus until that period when Socrates philosophy was yet to be born . It was during this period when the fundamentals of science (both natural and social were being founded using scientific research and inquiry , and where philosophy and practical science were still married . Sophos tried to understand and explain the origin , nature , elements , development and

workings of the universe by way of argumentative reasoning , critical inquiry and justifications

Pre-Socratic philosophy was mainly characterized by its elements such as essence , change /absolute , harmony and its effort to understand the essential substance of a thing that caused its existence and the dynamic movement it undergoes (changes ) to be known as what it is today . Among the famous thinkers of this period were Thales , Heraclitus , Anaxagoras Empedocles , Democritus and Parmenides

Whereas pre-Socratic philosophers have had formulated a common line of thought , disparity was inevitable . Among the arguments that showed differences of the philosophy of that period was Parmenides ' theory of Being and Heraclitus ' theory of Becoming . Heraclitus argued that the existence of everything was brought about by nothing and that it continuously exists through constant change or by undergoing a dynamic transformation . What is more striking about the concept of change for Heraclitus is the concept of change within . According to him , it is that contradiction of elements /substance within the object that caused it to transform and that to cause its change , an external intervening need not to be imposed . Accordingly , for Heraclitus , the world is a continuous struggle and strife , hence it needs change . In contrast while the internal aspect of an existing element undergoes alterations the process by which an element transforms is ever constant . Through the understanding of the nature of an element , Heraclitus recognized that the fixed states of being are all part of the varied state of perpetual becoming1 . In humans , the processes of giving birth , living dying and rebirth are all changes that a person passes through However , such pattern is a never-ending cycle , after all . What will become ' of a matter is a product of the dynamic development it subjects itself through a never ceasing rhythm

Contrary to Heraclitus , while Parmenides likewise argued that an object exists because it does exist (that no other factor that may explain the causality of its existence , he failed to recognize if it ever underwent an evolutionary state , thus making it the being ' as it is today Because Parmenides believed - and apparently refuted Heraclitus - that the universe was already at the state of stability , why should it be basking on the process of modification ? Everything is what it is because it is what it is and it cannot become what it is not

Both arguments are of much interest specifically in understanding how do we become ' or what make us came to being . Later on...