Parmenides

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Parmenides of Elea (c. 515 B.C.E. – c. 450 B.C.E.) was a Greek pre-Socratic philosopher, born in Elea, a Greek city on the southern coast of Italy. He is reported to have been a student of Xenophanes, a teacher of Zeno of Elea, and a major thinker in Eleatic school.

Earlier pre-Socratic philosophers identified the ultimate principle of the world with its elements (“water” in Thales; “air” in Anaximenes; and “number” in Pythagoras) or unspecified element (“undermined” in Anaximander). Parmenides comprehended both existential and logical characteristics of the principle, and formulated them as a philosophical doctrine. Earlier pre-Socratics presupposed that the principle was logically identical with itself (the principle of self-identity) and it exists by itself (self-subsistence) as immutable, immobile, eternal being. Although earlier thinkers implicitly presupposed these ontological and logical characteristics of the principle, they never conceptualized and presented them in an explicit form.

Parmenides conceptualized the self-existence and logical self-identity as the first principle of philosophy. In other words, Parmenides established self-reflexivity and self-sufficiency of truth, that is, truth exists by itself without change for eternity.

He ascribed perfection and permanence as the qualifications to the true being or existence. Evaluating from this criterion, Parmenides disqualified all beings that were subject to change and alternation as non-being or mere appearance but not true existence.

Parmenides characterized the ultimate reality as “one” and “whole.” Individuals and diversity we experience in phenomenal world are, according to Parmenides, illusory perception of mortals.

His insight to the self-subsistence of eternal being as the ultimate reality may also be comparable to the idea of God as a self-subsisting being in monotheisitc traditions.

Parmenides separated philosophical inquiries into two ways: “the Way of Truth” and “the Way of Seeming or Opinion.” The former is the sphere of ontology and logic, permanent and unchanging, accessible by reason alone. The latter is the sphere of phenomena, change and alteration, accessible by senses and ordinary perceptions. Only the “Way of Truth” is a path to truth and the “Way of Seeming” is that to false beliefs, illusion, and deception. Parmenides interpreted previous philosophers as those who belonged to the latter path.

The sharp distinction of the world of unchanging true reality and that of changing phenomena was succeeded by subsequent philosophers such as Plato and Democritus. Plato identified immutable, permanent true reality with Ideas, and Democritus atoms. Parmenides’ concept of existence as permanence shows a sharp contrast with that of Heraclitus who conceived existence as a process or a flux.

Parmenides is known as the first philosopher who brought the question of ontology and logic into the foreground of philosophical investigations.

Life and works

Much of Parmenides’ life is unknown. In Parmenides (dialogue), Plato portrayed Parmenides visiting Athens and having a dialogue with young Socrates. Its historical accuracy is uncertain. In Theaetetus, Plato described Parmenides as noble and reverend. Diogenes Laertius and Plutarch also reported that Parmenides legislated for the city of Elea (DK. 28A1). Plutarch wrote:

<blockuote> Parmenides set his own state in order with such admirable laws that the government yearly wears its citizens to abide by the laws of Parmenides.

Parmenides wrote “On Nature,” and presented his philosophy in an epic poetry in hexameter verse, the same poetic form as those of Homer and Hesiod. The poem consisted of three parts: the prologue, the “Way of Truth,” and the “Way of Seeming or Opinion.” 155 lines survive in Simplicius’ commentary to Aristotle’s physics. Deals and Kranz estimated ninety percent of the “Way of Truth” and ten percent of the “Way of Seeming” survived. The poem describes a mythical story of Parmenides’ journey to the world of light and the message of goddess revealed to him. Commentators agreed on the difficulty of interpreting and translating Parmenides’ poem.

Philosophy

Reality and Appearance

The distinction between the “Way of Truth” and the “Way of Seeming” is the first attempt in Greek philosophy to distinguish the reality and the appearance or the essence and the phenomena, which had lasting effects on subsequent history of western philosophy.

In the “Way of Truth,” Parmenides presented his ontology: real being is timeless, immobile, immutable, permanent, unborn, imperishable, one and whole. Parmenides did not discuss “what” was that which exists permanently, but highlighted the fact of existence as the truth.

There is only one other description of the way remaining, (namely), that (What Is) Is. To this way there are very many sign-posts: that Being has no coming-into-being and no destruction, for it is whole of limb, without motion, and without end. And it never Was, nor Will be, because it Is now, a Whole all together, One, continuous; for what creation of it will you look for?

One should both say and think that Being Is; for To Be is possible, and Nothingness is not possible.

Parmenides represented the real being as a sphere which is a symbol of perfection for Greeks.

But since there is a (spatial) Limit, it is complete on every side, like the mass of a well rounded sphere, equally balanced from its center in every direction; for it is not bound to be at all either greater or less in this direction or that;

In the “Way of Seeming,” Parmenides dismissed changes and motions as illusory, which we experience as “real” in everyday life. In everyday parlance, we speak absence, void, and non-being (non existence) as if they are “real.” Coming into being is perceived as a process from non-being to being, and disappearance from being to non-being. For Parmenides, non-being in a genuine sense is a total absence or a sheer nothing which cannot be in principle an object of thought. What we can think of has an existence by the fact of being thought. The moment one thinks something, an object of thought is posited as a being. Thinking inherently involves positing an object of thought.

To think is the same as the thought that It Is; for you will not find thinking without Being, in (regard to) which there is an expression.

Being and Knowledge: a correspondence theory of truth:

Parmenides presented a view of truth, which is known as a correspondence theory of truth. In this view, truth is defined as the accordance of idea with reality. Since Parmenides conceived the eternal and unchanging being as the sole reality, true knowledge is a realization of this being and this knowledge is attainable not by senses but by reason alone.

For this (view) can never predominate, that That Which I Not exists. You must debar your thought from this way of search, nor let ordinary experience in its variety force you along this way, (namely, that of allowing) the eyes, sightless as it is, and the ear, full of sound, and the tongue, to rule; but (you must) judge by means of the Reason (Logos) the much-contested proof which is expounded by me.

In our everyday discourses, we distinguish beings according to its kind, mode, and sense of existence. Diversity of beings is established based upon the difference of these existential characteristics. What is common to all beings is the fact of existence. Parmenides conceived the fact of existence as the common denominator to all beings and conceptualized it as the One. True knowledge is the realization of the fact of to-be as the first principle of being. Our perception of diversity of beings is, for Parmenides, merely a view of mortals in the “World of Seeming.”

Works

On Nature (written between 480 and 470 B.C.E.) [1]

References
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Text

Diels, H. and Kranz, W. (eds), Die Fragmente der Vorsocratiker (Berlin: Weidmannsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1960) (This is the standard text for pre-Socratics; abbr. DK)
Freeman, K. (ed), Ancilla to the pre-Socratic philosophers (Cambridge:Harvard University Press, 1983)( a complete translation of the fragments in Diels and Kranz. Quotations were taken from this text.)
Kirk, G. S., Raven, J. E. and Schofield, M. The Presocratic Philosophers, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1983).
Taran, L. Parmenides (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965)

Secondary Sources

Barnes, Jonathan. The Presocratic Philosophers, vol. 1 (London: Routledge, 1979)
Furley, David. and Allen, R. E. (ed), Studies in Presocratic Philosophy, vol. I (New York: Humanities Press, 1970)
Hicks, R. D., Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, 2 vols., The Loeb Classical Library, 1925)

External Links

General Philosophy Sources

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