Note 418 — Chapter III · HERAKLEITOS OF EPHESOS

Plato’s exposition of the relativity of knowledge in the Theaetetus (152 d sqq.) can hardly go back to Herakleitos himself, but is meant to show how Herakleiteanism might naturally give rise to such a doctrine. If the soul is a stream and things are a stream, then of course knowledge is relative. Very possibly the later Herakleiteans had worked out the theory in this direction, but in the days of Herakleitos himself the problem of knowledge had not yet arisen.