PARMENIDES (C. 515 -)

Parmenides was born in Elea, a Greek colony in southern Italy, and was the son of Pyres. He came from a distinguished family.

He wrote a book in hexameter verse (not prose, like the Milesians) modeled on the Homeric Odyssey with its tale of a single man's heroic voyage. It consists of a 'proem' or prologue in which the author, in his chariot, is met by the two daughters of the Sun, who bring him to a goddess. She tells him that he will learn "all things" and assures him that what she will tell him is sure and certain, but adds that he must assess the argument for himself.

The poem is divided into two sections, one called Truth (or Reality) and one called Doxa (Opinion). The first section advances what may be called Eleatic monism. The second is a cosmogony in which fire and night play the central role. (It remains a matter of controversy why Parmenides provides this second section, since it apparently contradicts the first section; some even claim that it is an illustration of how not to proceed.)

Reason is the way of Inquiry

1. "But you, bar your thought from this way of inquiry, do not let habit born from much experience compel you along this way to direct your sightless eye and sounding ear and tongue, but judge by reason the heavily contested testing spoken by me."

-- Sextus Empiricus, Against the Mathematicians (7.114)

Whatever is true of Thinking (Knowing) is true of Existing

1. 'For the same thing is for thinking and for being.'

--Clement, Miscellanies (6.23)

Only Two Ways of Inquiry/Thinking/Knowledge

1. '...the only ways of inquiry there are for thinking: the one, that it is and that it is not possible for it not to be... the other, that it is not and that it is necessary for it not to be..."

2. 'For <I bar> you from this first way of inquiry ['It is not'], but next from the [third ?] way on which mortals, knowing nothing, two-headed, wander... for whom both to be and not to be are judged the same and not the same'

-- Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's Physics (145.1)

Problem with Second Way of Inquiry ('It is not')

1. '...neither may you know that which is not... nor may you declare it'

-- Proclus, Commentary on Plato's Timaeus

2. 'That which is there to be spoken and thought of must be. For it is possible for it to be, but not possible for nothing to be'

-- Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's Physics (86.27-28)

3. 'For in no way may this prevail, that things that are not, are.'

-- Plato, Sophist (242a)

4. 'it has been named all things mortals have established, persuaded that they are true -- to come to be and to perish, to be and not <to be>, and to change place and alter bright color.' 

-- Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's Physics

Success of First Way of Inquiry ('It is ')

1. ''There is still left a single story of a way, that it is.'

-- Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's Physics (145.1)

It cannot be created (nor destroyed)

1. 'that being ungenerated it is also imperishable... Nor was it ever nor will it be... For what birth will you seek for it? How and from where did it grow? I will not permit you to say or to think <that it grew> from what is not; for it is not to be said or thought that it is not. What necessity would have stirred it up to grow later rather than earlier, beginning from nothing? Thus it must either fully be or not... How could what is be in the future? How could it come to be? For if it came into being, it is not, nor if it is ever going to be... In this way, coming into being has been extinguished and destruction is unheard of.'

-- Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's Physics

It is indivisible, continuous, full

1. 'Nor is it divided, since it is all alike; nor is it any more in any way, which would keep it from holding together, or any less, but it is full of what is. Therefore, it is all continuous, for what is draws near to what is.'

-- Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's Physics

It is unchanging, complete, fixed, one

1. 'But unchanging in the limits of great bonds... Remaining the same in the same way and by itself it lies and so stays there fixed; for mighty Necessity holds it in the bonds of a limit, which pens it in all round, since it is right for what is to be not incomplete, for it is not lacking; if it were, it would lack everything.'

-- Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's Physics

It is spherically symmetrical

1. 'But since there is a furthest limit, it is complete, on all sides like the bulk of a well-rounded ball, evenly balanced in every way from the middle; for it must be not at all greater or smaller here than there. For neither is there what is not -- which would stop it from reaching its like -- nor is what is in such a way that there could be more of what is here and less there, since it is all inviolate; for equal to itself on all sides, it meets with its limits uniformly.'

-- Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's Physics