Statement of the Question About Identity in Ancient Greek Philosophy

The article analyses the formulation of the question of identity at the early stage of the formation of philosophy. The problem of self-identity first arises among the pre-Socratics. Already Heraclitus of Ephesus formulates the problem in the aphoristic expression “everything flows, everything changes”. The paradox of the variability of existence and the ability of our perception of the world as a whole and stable also appeared in the teachings of the sophists. However, the breakthrough in solving the problem of self-identity occurs only in the philosophy of Plato. It is in Plato that we see the revelation of the social and philosophical dimension of the previously purely ontological theory of identity.