Parmenides
Parmenides
1.
Introduction
2. Philosophical
Views
2.1. Method
2.2. On
Nature
2.3.
Statements about Parmenides' Philosophy
1.
Introduction
Parmenides was
supposed to be an older contemporary of Socrates (Plato, Parmenides,
127a-c), which places his birth in the later sixth century, c. 515-10
BCE. He resided in Elea, a Greek city in southern Italy; hence his philosophy
is often referred to as Eleatic philosophy. Parmenides wrote a philosophical
poem entitled On Nature, expressing his views on Being; a significant
portion of this poem has survived as fragments quoted in the works of
others. Thus, the historian is less dependent on secondary sources for
an understanding of Eleatic philosophy; the reconstructed poem provides
one direct access to Parmenides' philosophical method and the results
of its application.
2.
Philosophical Views
2.1.
Method
It is clear from
his poem, On Nature, that Parmenides' philosophical method is
an ancient form of what is known as rationalism (if this is not too anachronistic).
Like all rationalists, he assumes that any proposition that is logically
necessary or self-evident must be admitted as true. By logically necessary
or self-evident is meant that one cannot deny the proposition without
falling into contradiction. This type of proposition is also called an
innate truth. Any logically necessary proposition always has epistemological
priority over any proposition about Being derived from sense data; no
matter how at odds with the world of common sense it may be, a necessary
proposition must always take precedence.
Do you believe
that necessary and self-evident truths exist? If so, could
such truths be diametrically opposed to sense data?
2.2.
On Nature
Parmenides' poem
distinguishes between two "ways," " the Way of Truth" and "the Way of
Opinion." Obviously, the "Way of Truth" is the correct way,
the correct understanding of Being, whereas the "Way of Opinion," the
view of the majority, is illusory, although useful (to be explained later).
What makes the latter illusory is the fact that its proponents naively
accept the testimony of their senses; in other words, they assume wrongly
that Being is as it appears to be. In some cases, it is necessary to fill
in some gaps in Parmenides' arguments.
So what is true necessarily or self-evidently, so that one cannot deny
it without falling into logical contradiction? The most basic, necessary
or self-evident truth from which Parmenides deduces other, corollary truths
is that "It is" (estin). What he means by "It is" is that "What
is, is," which is an application of the what philosophers call the principle
of identity: something is what it is. It seems that he has made
Being or existence into a predicate, so that "It is" means Reality has
Being, from which it follows that Reality cannot not have Being at the
same time, being the application of the principle of identity. Parmenides
says, "Come now, I will tell thee — and do
thou hearken to my saying and carry it away — the only two ways
of search that can be thought of. The first, namely, that It is, and that
it is impossible for it not to be, is the way of belief, for truth is
its companion" (4, 5). According to Parmenides, as contrary to the world
of common sense as this may be, insofar as what is, is, it is impossible
for it not to be. What is, therefore, is necessary: it cannot not be.
To provide further evidence for his position (if any is needed), Parmenides
explains, "The other, namely, that It is not, and that it must needs not
be, — that, I tell thee, is a path that none can learn of at all.
For thou canst not know what is not — that is impossible —
nor utter it" (4, 5). His point is that one cannot conceive of what is
not, since one can neither think nor speak about nothing. Nothing cannot
be, therefore, since it cannot be conceived, and only what can be conceived
can be. He then adds what apparently he considers another necessary or
self-evident truth: "For it is the same thing that can be thought
and that can be" (4, 5). In other words, he espouses the rationalist dictum
that thought and Being are identical, from which it follows that, if one
cannot think or speak about nothing, then nothing cannot be, in which
case it is impossible to hold that something is not or that nothing is. Since
one can think about Reality ("It is"), it follows that Reality must be,
and, if it is, it cannot not be. Conversely, since it cannot be thought
of, nothing cannot exist.
Parmenides continues, "It needs must be that what can be thought and spoken
of is; for it is possible for it to be, and it is not possible for what
is nothing to be" (6). Parmenides asserts that what can be thought must
be insofar as it can be thought; the objects of thought exist as thought.
What is excluded by this is the possibility of thinking and speaking of
objects that do not exist, such as unicorns or cyclops; to think and speak
of about such fanciful objects, contrary to popular opinion, implies their
existence as thought. Later in the poem he reaffirms this position, "The
thing that can be thought and that for the sake of which the thought exists
is the same; for you cannot find thought without something that is, as
to which it is uttered" (8). Thinking cannot think about nothing, since
thinking must have an object; this means that thought must be of something,
even if it does not exist as perceptible, but is only imaginary.
Although he does not say so explicitly, one could say that Parmenides
attributes existence primarily to objects of thought, as opposed to objects
of sense: something is insofar as it is thought. This would commit him
to some form of idealism: the primacy of spirit or mind over the material,
that the cosmos is primarily thought. Parmenides then adds, "For this
shall never be proved, that the things that are not are; and do thou restrain
thy thought from this way of inquiry" (7). Again he asserts that is is
a contradiction to affirm that something that is not, is; one cannot think
about or speak about what is not as if it existed.
Knowing the truth that "what is, is" and "what is not,
cannot be," Parmenides rebukes the ignorant masses, "Undiscerning
crowds, in whose eyes it is, and is not, the same and not the same, all
things travel in opposite directions" (6). The unreflective person, relying
upon the testimony of his senses, affirms that something is and is not;
in other words, something comes into being and then perishes. The
same person will also say that a thing is the same and not the same: insofar
as it changes, something is not the same as it was before it changed,
but insofar as in every change something remains the same (the substratum),
the thing that changes is the same. He concludes, "One path only is left
for us to speak of, namely, that It is." (8) To supplement Parmenides'
explanation of his position, one could say, as Aristotle does, that, for
Parmenides, something cannot come into being nor pass out of being, because:
First, if it comes into being from something, then it does not come into
being at all, since it already exists; second, if it comes into being
from nothing, then it cannot come into being, since something cannot come
from nothing (see Aristotle, Physics 187a 34).
Is
"becoming" an illusion? Is it possible that what you take
as a "given," that things come into being and go out of being
that existing things change "accidentally" is ultimately untrue?
In
the next section of On Nature, Parmenides draws out implications
for his conclusion that what is, is and what is not, cannot be. He
says:
What
is, is uncreated and indestructible; for it is complete, immovable,
and without end. Nor was it ever, nor will it be; for now it is,
all at once, a continuous one. For what kind of origin for it wilt
thou look for? In what way and from what source could it have drawn
its increase? I shall not let thee say nor think that it came from
what is not; for it can neither be thought nor uttered that anything
is not. And, if it came from nothing, what need could have
made it arise later rather than sooner? Therefore must it either
be altogether or be not at all. Nor will the force of truth suffer
anything to arise besides itself from that which is not. Wherefore,
Justice doth not loose her fetters and let anything come into being
or pass away, but holds it fast. Our judgment thereon depends on
this: "Is it or is it not?" Surely it is adjudged, as it needs must
be, that we are to set aside the one way as unthinkable and nameless
(for it is no true way), and that the other path is real and true.
How, then, can what is be going to be in the future? Or how could
it come into being? If it came into being, it is not; nor is it
if it is going to be in the future. Thus is becoming extinguished
and passing away not to be heard of. (8)
If
what is, is, then what is, has always been what it is and will not
cease being what it is. If what is, could be otherwise, then what
is, would not be, which Parmenides has proven is impossible to hold
without logical contradiction. In other words, he has proven that
becoming is impossible, but what is, is eternally the same.
Parmenides also concludes that what is, is indivisible: "Nor is
it divisible, since it is all alike, and there is no more of it in one
place than in another, to hinder it from holding together, nor less
of it, but everything is full of what is. Wherefore it is wholly
continuous; for what is, is in contact with what is" (8). Divisibility
means the separation of what is from itself. What is, could not divide
itself from itself, however, since it is uniform and continuous. Although
he does not say so explicitly, it seems that he holds that, what is,
is also indivisible because nothing could not separate what is from
itself, since nothing cannot be something by which to separate what
is.
Parmenides says further that what is, is not infinite, in the sense of
being unformed or unfinished. Rather, "It is immovable in the bonds of
mighty chains, without beginning and without end." For what is to be "immovable
in the bonds of mighty chains" makes it finite, since, if it were infinite,
it would not be something, but be incomplete and therefore have a lack
in its being. To have such a lack would mean that it is in part nothing,
but nothing cannot be. In fact, he concludes that what is, is a sphere.
He writes:
Since,
then, it has a furthest limit, it is complete on every side, like
the mass of a rounded sphere, equally poised from the center in every
direction; for it cannot be greater or smaller in one place than in
another. For there is no nothing that could keep it from reaching
out equally, nor can anything that is be more here and less there
than what is, since it is all inviolable. For the point from which
it is equal in every direction tends equally to the limits. (8)
As finite,
what is, is complete or finished on every side; since he concludes earlier
that what is, is uniform—"cannot be greater or smaller in one
place rather than another"—Parmenides decides that what is, is
spherical: a sphere is equal in every direction from its center until
it reaches its limits.
The fragments of the section part of On Nature, "The Way of Opinion,"
are less numerous than the first part. It is not difficult to figure out,
however, what characterizes the second way: human beings err, when relying
upon their senses, they conclude that what is, is plural, differentiated
and becoming. Thus, he writes:
Mortals
have made up their minds to name two forms, one of which they should
not name, and that is where they go astray from the truth. They have
distinguished them as opposite in form, and have assigned to them marks
distinct from one another. To the one they allot the fire of heaven,
gentle, very light, in every direction the same as itself, but not the
same as the other. The other is just the opposite to it, dark night,
a compact and heavy body. Of these I tell thee the whole arrangement
as it seems likely; for so no thought of mortals will ever outstrip
thee (8)
He is criticizing
those philosophers who posit two opposite "forms" or principles by which
all things become what they are: the light and darkness; the light
and heavy (or any other pair of opposing principles). It is wrong to think
that things came into being through the interaction of these two opposing
principles; he says that one should not name one of the principles, by
which he means one should not differentiate what is or being from itself.
It is equally wrong to name the things that supposedly came into existence
through the interaction of the opposites, as if they actually existed:
"Thus, according to men's opinions, did things come into being, and thus
they are now. In time they will grow up and pass away. To each of these
things men have assigned a fixed name" (19). What appears to come into
being does not really do so.
In spite of his pronouncement that it is fundamentally erroneous, Parmenides
does seem to allow for a study of "opinion." He does not dismiss appearance
as completely worthless delusion to be ignored and despised. Rather, he
advises that a person know the phenomenal world: "Thou must needs
learn all things, as well unshakable heart of well-rounded truth as the
opinions of mortals in which there is no sure trust" (as quoted by Diogenes
Laertius, Lives, 9.22). This implies that Parmenides worked with
the notion of two "truths," an ultimate and a non-ultimate truth. Although
it is illusion, the latter is still worth knowing for practical reasons.
Is
it possible there are two "truths," which are opposites?
2.3.
Statements about Parmenides' Philosophy in the Writings of Others
There
are several accounts of Parmenides' philosophy in the works of others;
these agree with what is found in his poem, On Nature.
2.3.1.
Plato writes:
I
almost forgot, Theodoros, that there were others who asserted opinions
the very opposite of these: 'the all is alone, unmoved; to this all
names apply,' and the other emphatic statements in opposition to those
referred to, which the school of Melissos and Parmenides make, to
the effect that all things are one, and that the all stands itself
in itself, not having space in which it is moved (Theaetetus,
180d).
Plato's statement that
"the all is alone, unmoved" refers
to the fact that Being is one and eternally the same. Moreover anything
in the phenomenal world that can be differentiated from its source
and from other things and so be named ultimately is the one Being,
which is what he means by the statement "
to this all names apply."
2.3.2.
Aristotle explains that, although he affirmed that one thing exists,
Parmenides still formulated theories to account for the observed facts:
For,
claiming that, besides the existent, nothing non-existent exists,
he [Parmenides] thinks that of necessity one thing exists, viz. the
existent and nothing else (on this we have spoken more clearly in
our work on nature), but being forced to follow the observed facts,
and supposing the existence of that which is one in definition, but
more than one according to our sensations, he now posits two causes
and two principles, calling them hot and cold, i.e. fire and earth;
and of these he ranges the hot with the existent, and the other with
the non-existent. (Metaphysics, 1.5; 986b 28-987a 2)
Aristotle explains that
for Parmenides ultimately only one thing exists, Being, even though
he allows for non-ultimate explanation by appealing to two opposing
principles (called hot or existent and cold or non-existent), so long
as one recognizes that one allegedly knows is merely opinion.
2.3.3.
Theophrastus summarizes Parmenides' view of "twofold truth":
And
succeeding him Parmenides, son of Pyres, the Eleatic—Theophrastos
adds the name of Xenophanes—followed both ways. For in declaring
that the all is eternal, and in attempting to explain the genesis
of things, he expresses different opinions according to the two standpoints:-from
the standpoint of truth he supposes the all to be one and not generated
and spheroidal in form, while from the standpoint of popular opinion,
in order to explain generation of phenomena, he uses two first principles,
fire and earth, the one as matter, the other as cause and agent. (Theophrastos,
Fr. 6 ; Alexander Metaph. p. 24, 5 Bon.; Dox. 482)
Theophrastus indicates
that Parmenides had two types of explanation: truthful and popular
opinion. According to the former, nothing is created or destroyed
but all is one, eternal and spherical. According to the latter, things
are generated and destroyed by means of the interaction of two opposing
principles: earth or passive matter and fire as agent.
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