Parmenides

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Parmenides of Elea
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Parmenides
Eleatic school
Main interests
Ontology, poetry, cosmology
Notable ideas
Monism, truth/opinion distinction

Parmenides of Elea (

philosopher from Elea in Magna Graecia
.

Parmenides was born in the

Diogenes Laërtius, he flourished just before 500 BC,[b] which would put his year of birth near 540 BC, but in the dialogue Parmenides Plato has him visiting Athens at the age of 65, when Socrates was a young man, c. 450 BC,[c] which, if true, suggests a year of birth of c. 515 BC.[1] He is thought to have been in his prime (or "floruit") around 475 BC.[2]

The single known work by Parmenides is a poem whose original title is unknown but which is often referred to as On Nature. Only fragments of it survive. In his poem, Parmenides prescribes two views of

change is impossible, and existence is timeless and uniform. The second view, the way of "Doxa
", or opinion, describes the world of appearances, in which one's sensory faculties lead to conceptions which are false and deceitful.

Parmenides has been considered the founder of

philosophy of time
.

Biography

Parmenides was born in

Pythagorean, Aminias, whom he preferred as his teacher. Another tradition, dependent on Theophrastus, indicates that he was a disciple of Anaximander.[6]

Chronology

Everything related to the chronology of Parmenides—the dates of his birth and death, and the period of his philosophical activity—is uncertain.[citation needed]

Date of birth

All conjectures regarding Parmenides' date of birth are based on two ancient sources. One comes from

Athens to attend the Panathenaic Games. On that occasion they meet Socrates, who was still very young according to the Platonic text.[8]

The inaccuracy of the dating from Apollodorus is well known, who chooses the date of a historical event to make it coincide with the maturity (the

Guthrie, and Schofield preferred to base the calculations on the Platonic dialogue. According to the latter, the fact that Plato adds so much detail regarding ages in his text is a sign that he writes with chronological precision. Plato says that Socrates was very young, and this is interpreted to mean that he was less than twenty years old. We know the year of Socrates' death (399 BC) and his age—he was about seventy years old–making the date of his birth 469 BC. The Panathenaic games were held every four years, and of those held during Socrates' youth (454, 450, 446), the most likely is that of 450 BC, when Socrates was nineteen years old. Thus, if at this meeting Parmenides was about sixty-five years old, his birth occurred around 515 BC.[9][10][11][12][13][14][15]

However, neither Raven nor Schofield, who follows the former, finds a dating based on a late Platonic dialogue entirely satisfactory. Other scholars directly prefer not to use the Platonic testimony and propose other dates. According to a scholar of the

Phocians, after defeating the Carthaginians in naval battle, founded Elea, and adding the reference to Thucydides I, 13, where it is indicated that such a battle occurred in the time of Cambyses II, the foundation of Elea can be placed between 530 BC and 522 BC So Parmenides could not have been born before 530 BC or after 520 BC, given that it predates Empedocles.[18] This last dating procedure is not infallible either, because it has been questioned that the fact that links the passages of Herodotus and Thucydides is the same.[19] Nestor Luis Cordero also rejects the chronology based on the Platonic text, and the historical reality of the encounter, in favor of the traditional date of Apollodorus. He follows the traditional datum of the founding of Elea in 545 BC, pointing to it not only as terminus post quem, but as a possible date of Parmenides' birth, from which he concludes that his parents were part of the founding contingent of the city and that he was a contemporary of Heraclitus.[15] The evidence suggests that Parmenides could not have written much after the death of Heraclitus.[citation needed
]

Timeline relative to other Presocratics

Beyond the speculations and inaccuracies about his date of birth, some specialists have turned their attention to certain passages of his work to specify the relationship of Parmenides with other thinkers. It was thought to find in his poem certain controversial allusions to the doctrine of

Pythagoreans (fragment B 8, verse 24, and frag. B 4), and also against Heraclitus (frag .B 6, vv.8–9), while Empedocles and Anaxagoras frequently refer to Parmenides.[20]

The reference to Heraclitus has been debated. Bernays's thesis[21] that Parmenides attacks Heraclitus, to which Diels, Kranz, Gomperz, Burnet and others adhered, was discussed by Reinhardt,[22] whom Jaeger followed.[23]

Guthrie finds it surprising that Heraclitus would not have censured Parmenides if he had known him, as he did with Xenophanes and Pythagoras. His conclusion, however, does not arise from this consideration, but points out that, due to the importance of his thought, Parmenides splits the history of pre-Socratic philosophy in two; therefore his position with respect to other thinkers is easy to determine. From this point of view, the philosophy of Heraclitus seems to him pre-Parmenidean, while those of Empedocles, Anaxagoras and Democritus are post-Parmenidean.[11]

Anecdotes

Plutarch, Strabo and Diogenes—following the testimony of Speusippus—agree that Parmenides participated in the government of his city, organizing it and giving it a code of admirable laws.[24]

Detail of the pedestal found in Velia. Greek inscriptions were made only in capital letters, and without spaces. Read as follows: ΠΑ[ ]ΜΕΝΕΙΔΗΣ ΠΥΡΗΤΟΣ
ΟΥΛΙΑΔΗΣ ΦΥΣΙΚΟΣ

Archaeological discovery

In 1969, the plinth of a statue dated to the 1st century AD was excavated in Velia. On the plinth were four words: ΠΑ[Ρ]ΜΕΝΕΙΔΗΣ ΠΥΡΗΤΟΣ ΟΥΛΙΑΔΗΣ ΦΥΣΙΚΟΣ.[25] The first two clearly read "Parmenides, son of Pires." The fourth word φυσικός (fysikós, "physicist") was commonly used to designate philosophers who devoted themselves to the observation of nature. On the other hand, there is no agreement on the meaning of the third (οὐλιάδης, ouliadēs): it can simply mean "a native of Elea" (the name "Velia" is in Greek Οὐέλια),[26] or "belonging to the Οὐλιος" (Ulios), that is, to a medical school ( the patron of which was Apollo Ulius).[27] If this last hypothesis were true, then Parmenides would be, in addition to being a legislator, a doctor.[28] The hypothesis is reinforced by the ideas contained in fragment 18 of his poem, which contains anatomical and physiological observations.[29] However, other specialists believe that the only certainty we can extract from the discovery is that of the social importance of Parmenides in the life of his city, already indicated by the testimonies that indicate his activity as a legislator.[30]

Visit to Athens

Platonic dialogue is something that seems impossible.[32] Most modern classicists consider the visit to Athens and the meeting and conversation with Socrates to be fictitious. Allusions to this visit in other Platonic works are only references to the same fictitious dialogue and not to a historical fact.[33]

On Nature

Parmenides' sole work, which has only survived in fragments, is a poem in dactylic hexameter, later titled On Nature. Approximately 160 verses remain today from an original total that was probably near 800.[3] The poem was originally divided into three parts: an introductory proem that contains an allegorical narrative which explains the purpose of the work, a former section known as "The Way of Truth" (aletheia, ἀλήθεια), and a latter section known as "The Way of Appearance/Opinion" (doxa, δόξα). Despite the poem's fragmentary nature, the general plan of both the proem and the first part, "The Way of Truth" have been ascertained by modern scholars, thanks to large excerpts made by Sextus Empiricus[d] and Simplicius of Cilicia.[e][3] Unfortunately, the second part, "The Way of Opinion", which is supposed to have been much longer than the first, only survives in small fragments and prose paraphrases.[3]

Introduction

The introductory proem describes the narrator's journey to receive a revelation from an unnamed goddess on the nature of reality.[34] The remainder of the work is then presented as the spoken revelation of the goddess without any accompanying narrative.[34]

The narrative of the poet's journey includes a variety of allegorical symbols, such as a speeding chariot with glowing axles, horses, the House of Night, Gates of the paths of Night and Day, and maidens who are "the daughters of the Sun"[35] who escort the poet from the ordinary daytime world to a strange destination, outside our human paths.[36] The allegorical themes in the poem have attracted a variety of different interpretations, including comparisons to Homer and Hesiod, and attempts to relate the journey towards either illumination or darkness, but there is little scholarly consensus about any interpretation, and the surviving evidence from the poem itself, as well as any other literary use of allegory from the same time period, may be too sparse to ever determine any of the intended symbolism with certainty.[34]

The Way of Truth

In the Way of Truth, an estimated 90% of which has survived,[3] Parmenides distinguishes between the unity of nature and its variety, insisting in the Way of Truth upon the reality of its unity, which is therefore the object of knowledge, and upon the unreality of its variety, which is therefore the object, not of knowledge, but of opinion.[citation needed] This contrasts with the argument in the section called "the way of opinion", which discusses that which is illusory.[citation needed]

The Way of Opinion

In the significantly longer, but far worse preserved latter section of the poem, Way of Opinion, Parmenides propounds a theory of the world of seeming and its development, pointing out, however, that, in accordance with the principles already laid down, these cosmological speculations do not pretend to anything more than mere appearance. The structure of the cosmos is a fundamental binary principle that governs the manifestations of all the particulars: "the Aether fire of flame" (B 8.56), which is gentle, mild, soft, thin and clear, and self-identical, and the other is "ignorant night", body thick and heavy.[37][f] Cosmology originally comprised the greater part of his poem, explaining the world's origins and operations.[g] Some idea of the sphericity of the Earth also seems to have been known to Parmenides.[3][h]

Legacy

As the first of the

the One also influenced Plotinus and Neoplatonism.[citation needed
]

Notes

Fragments

  1. ^ Diogenes Laërtius, (DK 28A1, 21)
  2. ^ Diogenes Laërtius (DK 28A1, 23)
  3. ^ Plato, Parmenides, 127a–128b (DK 28A5)
  4. Against the Mathematicians (DK 28B1
    )
  5. ^ Commentary on Aristotle's Physics (DK 22B8)
  6. ^ (DK 28B8.53–4)
  7. ^ Stobaeus, i. 22. 1a
  8. ^ DK 28B10
  9. ^ (DK 28A5)
  10. ^ Sophist, 241d
  11. ^ Plato, Theaetetus, 183e
  12. ^ Aristotle, Metaphysics, i. 5; Sextus Empiricus, adv. Math. vii. 111; Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, i. 301; Diogenes Laërtius, ix. 21
  13. Praeparatio Evangelica Book XIV
    , Chapter XVII

Citations

  1. ^ Curd 2004, pp. 3–8.
  2. ^ Freeman 1946, p. 140.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Palmer 2020.
  4. ^ (DK) A1 (Diogenes Laert, IX 21)
  5. ^ The testimony of the link between Parmenides and Xenophanes goes back to Aristotle, Met. I 5, 986b (A 6) and from Plato, Sophist 242d (21 A 29)
  6. Suidas
    (A 2).
  7. ^ Diogenes Laertius, IX, 23 (DK testimony A 1).
  8. ^ Plato, Parmenides 127 BC (A 5).
  9. ^ a b Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, pp. 169ff.
  10. ^ Cornford, Plato and Parmenides, p. 1.
  11. ^ a b Guthrie, History of Greek Philosophy, II, p. 15ff.
  12. ^ Raven, The Presocratic Philosophers, p. 370.
  13. ^ Schofield, The Presocratic Philosophers, p. 347.
  14. ^ Plato, Parmenides (ed. Degrees), p. 33, note 13
  15. ^ a b Cordero, Siendo se es, pp. 20-23
  16. ^ R. Hirzel, Der Dialog, I, p. 185.
  17. ^ Eggers Lan, The pre-Socratic philosophers, p. 410ff.
  18. ^ Eggers Lan, The pre-Socratic philosophers, pp. 412ff.
  19. ^ Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, p. 43, no. 106 of Torres Esbarranch.
  20. ^ Raven, The Presocratic Philosophers, pp. 370s; 385s; 381.
  21. ^ Bernays, Ges. Abh., 1, 62, n. 1.
  22. ^ Reinhardt, Parmenides, p. 64.
  23. ^ Jaeger, The Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers, p. 104.
  24. Geography VI 1, 1 (A 12); Plutarch., Adv. Colot. 1126a (A 12); Speusippus
    , fr. 1, in Diog. L., IX, 23 (A 1).
  25. ^ "IG XIV".
  26. ^ Marcel Conche, Parménide : Le Poème: Fragments, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1996, p. 5 and note.
  27. ^ P. Ebner, "Parmenide medico Ouliádes", in: Giornale di Metafisica 21 (1966), pp. 103-114
  28. ^ Poema, intr. by Jorge Pérez de Tudela, p. 14
  29. ^ Poema, comment by Jorge Pérez de Tudela, p. 230 and note ad. loc.
  30. ^ N. L. Cordero, Being one is, p. 23.
  31. ^ Plato, Parmenides 127 BC (A 11).
  32. ^ Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae XI 505f (A 5)
  33. ^ See Theaetetus 183e; Sophist 217c; see also «Introduction» to the dialogue Parménides by M.ª Isabel Santa Cruz, p. 11
  34. ^ a b c Curd 2004, I.3.
  35. ^ Kirk, Raven & Schofield 1983, p. 243.
  36. ^ Furley 1973, pp. 1–15.
  37. ^ Guthrie 1979, p. 61–62.
  38. ^ Sedley 1998.

Bibliography

Ancient testimony

In the Diels–Kranz numbering for testimony and fragments of Pre-Socratic philosophy, Parmenides is catalogued as number 28. The most recent edition of this catalogue is:

Diels, Hermann; Kranz, Walther (1957). Plamböck, Gert (ed.). Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (in Ancient Greek and German). Rowohlt.

ISBN 5875607416
. Retrieved 11 April 2022.

Life and doctrines

Fragments

Modern scholarship

Further reading

Extensive bibliography (up to 2004) by Nestor-Luis Cordero; and annotated bibliography by Raul Corazzon
  • Schmitt, Arbogast (2023). Die Frage nach dem Sein bei Parmenides. Hannover: der blaue reiter.
    ISBN 9783933722850
    .

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