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One of the most controversial debates in philosophy has been over the nature of being. In the Pre-Socratic era the dispute focused on whether change was constant while our human perceptions made static separations so that we could make sense of our environment, o ....

Middle of Essay
.... An accurate metaphor for his rationale is a river. It’s location remains basically the same. One can walk away from it, and return with the confidence that it will still be there. However, the exact water that flows through it is never the same. One can’t tell the difference between the water in the river now and the water in the river earlier and yet this transience of matter does not detract from the identity of the river. Heraclitus would say that all of what we experience is like the river, forever changing in a process of erosion and creation. Heraclitus’ successor, Parmenides, believes that Being must exist virtually in th ....