Abstract

The paper is a conference presentation on the theme of meta-philosophy, which took place in the Philosophy Department of the University of Ottawa, March 2026. The paper discovers the river trope in several figures in the history of Western philosophy (Heraclitus, Plato, Aristotle, Schelling and Hegel) at applies their different fluvial conceptions to the history of philosophy itself. How is the philosophical river ever-changing, yet the same? How are its binary banks involved in its flow? Where is its source? How does it swell? What role does forgetting play (Lethe)?