Time for a Change: A Polemic against the Presentism–Eternalism Debate

Both Heraclitus and Parmenides, each in his own way, denied the possibility of change. A thing, in going from having P , and thus being a P -thing, to lacking P , apparently becomes what it is not, namely a nonP -thing. Since, according to Parmenides, nothing can become what it is not, no thing can change. Heraclitus seems to have found nothing to complain about in Parmenides’ argument. Yet, he held that change was a pervasive feature of reality; he held that changes are constantly occurring. So, he needed to sever what seems to be a connection between the idea that a thing changes and the idea that a change occurs , a connection expressed by the claim that a change occurs just in case some thing changes. 3 The connection can be 2 Time for a Change: A Polemic against the Presentism–Eternalism Debate