Plato's Cratylus and the problem of the "correctness of names"
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ebert Theodor, "Who beginnt der Weg der Doxa? Eine Textumstellung im
Fragmente 8 des Parmenides," Phronesis.A Journal for Ancient Philosophy
34: 121-138 (1989).
"Taking up a proposal made by Guido Calogero in 1936, the paper argues for a
transposition of Parmenides fr 8, 34-41 behind 8, 52. It is claimed that this
alteration yields a better text on philological as well as on philosophical
grounds. The proposed new arrangement would make fr 8, 34-41 the starting point
of the doxa-part in Parmenides' Poem"
Ferreira Fernando, "On the Parmenidean misconception," Logical Analysis
and History of Philosophy 2: 37-49 (1999).
Finkelberg Aryeh, "The cosmology of Parmenides," American Journal of
Philology 107: 303-317 (1986).
"The argument of the article is that Aetius' account, the main source on
Parmenides' cosmology, is quite intelligible and compatible with Parmenides' fr.
12, and not garbled and confused as usually held. The article is an attempt at
reconstructing Parmenides' cosmology based on Aetius' account and some
additional information found in Parmenides' authentic lines and doxographical
reports." [N.]
Finkelberg Aryeh, "Parmenides' foundation of the Way of Truth," Oxford
Studies in Ancient Philosophy 6: 39-67 (1988).
"The problem of the subject of estin and ouk estin in B 2.3 and 5
is one of the most controversial issues in Parmenides scholarship. The usual
approach is that estin and ouk estin have a subject, which, however,
remains unexpressed. Now by unexpressed subject one may mean that (a) a given
utterance has a logical subject which is not expressed grammatically but is
supplied by the immediate context, or (b) a given utterance has a logical
subject which is neither expressed by means of a grammatical subject nor
supplied by the immediate context. The case (a) is an instance of an ordinary
linguistic phenomenon called ellipsis; the case (b) is either grammatically
nonsensical or an example of unintelligible speech." p. 39
(...)
"Below I argue that einai is the only subject that meets this
requirement. Proceeding from this assumption, I argue that einai should
be distinguished from eon and that the 'ways' of B 2 are not so much
ontological statements as logical-linguistic patterns whose truth and falsehood
are self-evident.
These patterns serve in Parmenides as the basis of the subsequent deduction of
true existential assertions about Being and not-Being, and I try to show that,
if taken in this perspective, all the extant fragments preceding B 8, from B 2
to B 7, constitute a single argument whose detailed reconstruction I propose in
the second section of the article. Finally, in the third section, I examine,
proceeding from the conclusions arrived at, the question of truth and falsehood
in Parmenides in a more general context, which helps to shed light on the
respective logical standing of the two parts of Parmenides' poem, the
Aletheia and the Doxa." p. 42
Finkelberg Aryeh, "Parmenides: between material and logical monism,"
Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 70: 1-14 (1988).
"Studies the import of the conception of monism as it surfaces in the philosophy
of Parmenides, remarking that by introducing the idea of Being as a unitary and
self-existing reality, he was able to sustain the vision of a monistic world, in
which neither non-Being, nor plurality, nor movement can be conceived of as
real. Regards Parmenidean monism as a logical entailment made necessary by the
idea of Being." [N.]
Finkelberg Aryeh, "Being, truth and opinion in Parmenides," Archiv für
Geschichte der Philosophie 81: 233-248 (1999).
"The traditional premise of Parmenidean scholarship is that the theory of Being
renders the phenomenal world merely apparent and the account of this world in
the Doxa, which raises the tantalizing question of the rationale of
Parmenides' supplementing a true theory with a false one. The article challenges
this approach and advances the thesis that Parmenides' Being is consistent with
material heterogeneity and that, accordingly, the two parts of the poem combine
to yield an exhaustive account of reality, the Doxa being a legitimate
continuation and a needful complement of the inquiry that begins with the
Aletheia."
Floyd Edwin, "Why Parmenides wrote in verse," Ancient Philosophy 12:
251-265 (1992).
"Parmenides chose verse (instead of prose) for its many resonances highlighting
deception. Prophron at 1.22, for example, has an apparently
straightforward meaning "kindly", but in Homer it is used in contexts of divine
disguise. Later on in Parmenides' poem, the focus on the immobility of Being
(8.37-38) recalls Athena's fateful deception of Hektor in Iliad, book 22.
Even more clearly, Doxa shows the pattern too, since the transition from
Aletheia at 8.52 parallels a context (Solon, fr l.2, ed. West) in which feigned
madness brings about the Athenians's regaining Salamis."
Fränkel Hermann Ferdinand, "Parmenidesstudien," Nachrichten von der
Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen: 153-192 (1930).
Reprinted in: Wege und Formen frühgriechischen Denkens: literarische und
philosophiegeschichtliche Studien edited by Franz Tietze - München, Beck,
1955 (second augmented edition, 1960).
Revised English traslation as: Studies in Parmenides - in: D. J. Furley
and R. E. Allen (eds.) - Studies in presocratic philosophy. Vol. II:
The Eleatics and Pluralists - London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1975 pp.
1-47.
"My intention in the following studies is to correct and extend certain
essential aspects of our present knowledge of the system of Parmenides by
criticism and interpretation of original fragments and testimonia. In so doing,
I shall take particular care to keep dose to the wording of the original text,
as is done as a matter of course in the interpretation of 'pure' literature, but
is easily neglected in the case of a strictly philosophical text, where the
content appears to speak for itself, quite independently of the words which
happen to be used. And yet much will be radically misunderstood, and many of the
best, liveliest and most characteristic features of the doctrine will be missed,
if one fails to read the work as an epic poem which belongs to its own period,
and to approach it as a historical document, through its language.
These studies are presented in such a way that only Diels-Kranz is required as a
companion." p. 1
Frère Jean. Parménide et l'ordre du monde: fr. VIII, 50-61. In Études sur
Parménide. Tome II. Problèmes d'interprétation. Edited by Aubenque Pierre.
Paris: Vrin 1987. pp. 192-212
"La lecture des derniers vers du fragment VIII de Parménide (v. 50-61) pose un
problème difficile. La clôture du discours cernant la Vérité est-elle ouverture
sur les débordements d'opinions erronées? Ce morceau terminal ne concerne-t-il
pas plutôt les étants en leur relation avec l'Être? La nouveauté de Parménide,
depuis le fragment I jusqu'au fragment VIII, v.49, c'est assurément de
s'arracher aux conceptions des penseurs de la physis; Parménide s'y
montre le premier véritable philosophe de l'Être: mais délaisse-t-il pour autant
certains aspects de la physis? La dernière partie de l'oeuvre (fr. VIII,
v. 50-61; fr. IX à fr. XIX) n'est-elle qu'une critique des opinions erronées des
philosophes sur le monde? Ou ne serait- elle pas, bien plutôt, l'articulation de
ce qu'il est possible et légitime d'énoncer sur le monde, en tant que les étants
sont fondés dans l'Être? Ainsi une lecture approfondie des derniers vers du
fragment VIII s'avère-t- elle fondamentale. Déjà les derniers vers du fragment I
suggèrent que les dokounta sont fondés dans l'Être. Dans leur
prolongement, les derniers vers du fragment VIII n'amorcent-ils pas la mise en
place d'une connaissance possible du monde et d'une connaissance possible des
étants par rapport à leur fondement dans l'Être?" p. 192
Frère Jean. Platon, lecteur de Parménide dans le Sophiste. In
Études sur le Sophiste. Edited by Aubenque Pierre. Napoli: Bibliopolis 1991.
pp. 125-143
Frings Manfred, "Parmenides: Heidegger's 1942-1943 lecture held at Freiburg
University," Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 19: 15-33
(1988).
"In what follows, I wish to present a number of essentials of Heidegger's
lecture, originally entitled, "Heraclitus and Parmenides," which he delivered at
Freiburg University in the Winter Semester of 1942/1943. This was at a time when
the odds of World War II had turned sharply against the Nazi regime in Germany.
Stalingrad held out and the Germans failed to cross the Volga that winter. Talk
of an impending "invasion" kept people in suspense. Cities were open to rapidly
increasing and intensifying air raids. There wasn't much food left.
It is amazing that any thinker could have been able to concentrate on
pre-Socratic thought at that time. In the lecture, there are no remarks made
against the allies; nor are there any to be found that would even remotely
support the then German cause. But Communism is hit hard once by Heidegger, who
says that it represents an awesome organization-mind in our time.
There are two factors that somewhat impeded my endeavor of presenting the
contents of this lecture:
1. Heidegger had originally entitled the lecture "Heraclitus and Parmenides."
The 1942/43 lecture was followed in 1943 and 1944 by two more lectures on
Heraclitus. 2 When I read the manuscripts of the 1942/43 lecture for the first
time, I was stunned that Heraclitus was mentioned just five times, and, even
then, in more or less loose contexts. I decided that the title of the lecture
should be reduced to just "Parmenides" in order to accommodate the initial
expectations of the reader and his own thought pursuant to having read and
studied it.
2. While reading the lecture-manuscripts for the first time, another troubling
technicality came to my attention: long stretches of the lecture hardly even
deal with Parmenides himself, and Heidegger seems to get lost in a number of
areas that do, prima facie, appear to be irrelevant to Parmenides. And Heidegger
was rather strongly criticized for this in the prestigious literary section of
the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung to the effect that it was suggested
that I could have done even better had I given the lecture an altogether
different title and omitted the name Parmenides."
(Notes omitted).
Frings Manfred, "Heidegger's lectures on Parmenides and Heraclitus
(1942-1944)," Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 22:
197-199 (1991).
"This is a discussion of the coverage of three Lectures Heidegger held on
Parmenides and Heraclitus from 1942 to 1944. It is designed on the background of
his personal experience during the trip he made to Greece in 1962 as recorded in
his diary. The question is raised whether his 1943 arrangement of 10 Heraclitus
fragments could be extended by "refitting transformations" of other fragments.
The three Lectures are seen as tethered to Heidegger's 1966/67 Heraclitus
Seminar. Central to his trip was the island of Delos where he seemingly
experienced the free region of Aletheia. A "fragment" in his diary is suggested
as a motto for all three Lectures."
Fritz Kurt von, "Nous, noein and their derivatives in the
Pre-Socratic philosophy (excluding Anaxagoras). Part I. From the beginnings to
Parmenides," Classical Philology 40: 223-242 (1945).
Reprinted (with the second part) in: Alexander P. D. Mourelatos - The
Pre-Socratics: a collection of critical essays - New York, Anchor Press, 1974;
second revised edition, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1993, pp. 23-85
(on Parmenides see pp. 43-52).
"In an earlier article (1) I tried to analyze the meaning or meanings of the
words noos and noein in the Homeric poems, in preparation for an
analysis of the importance of these terms in early Greek philosophy. The present
article will attempt to cope with this second and somewhat more difficult
problem, but to the exclusion of the nous of Anaxagoras, since this very
complicated concept requires a separate investigation." p. 23 of the reprint.
So far it might seem as if Parmenides' concept of noos is still
essentially the same as that of his predecessors, including his contemporary
Heraclitus. In fact, however, Parmenides brings in an entirely new and
heterogeneous element. It is a rather remarkable fact that Heraclitus uses the
particle gar only where he explains the ignorance of the common crowd.
There is absolutely no gar or any other particle of the same sense in any
of the passages in which he explains his own view of the truth. He or his
noos sees or grasps the truth and sets it forth. There is neither need nor
room for arguments. Homer and Hesiod, likewise, when using the term noos,
never imply that someone comes to a conclusion concerning a situation so that
the statement could be followed up with a sentence beginning with "for" or
"because." A person realizes the situation. That is all. In contrast to this,
Parmenides in the central part of his poem has a gar, an épei, oun,
eineka, ouneka in almost every sentence. He argues, deduces, tries to prove
the truth of his statements by logical reasoning. What is the relation of this
reasoning to the noos?
The answer is given by those passages in which the goddess tells Parmenides
which "road of inquiry" he should follow with his noos and from which
roads he must keep away his noema.
These roads, as the majority of the fragments clearly show, are roads or lines
of discursive thinking, expressing itself in judgments, arguments, and
conclusions. Since the noos is to follow one of the three possible roads
of inquiry and to stay away from the others, there can be no doubt that
discursive thinking is part of the function of the noos. Yet -- and this
is just as important -- noein is not identical with a process of logical
deduction pure and simple in the sense of formal logic, a process which through
a syllogistic mechanism leads from any set of related premises to conclusions
which follow with necessity from those premises, but also a process which in
itself is completely unconcerned with, and indifferent to, the truth or untruth
of the original premises. It is still the primary function of the noos to
be in direct touch with ultimate reality. It reaches this ultimate reality not
only at the end and as a result of the logical process, but in a way is in touch
with it from the very beginning, since, as Parmenides again and again points
out, there is no noos without the eon, in which it unfolds itself.
In so far as Parmenides' difficult thought can be explained, the logical process
seems to have merely the function of clarifying and confirming what, in a way,
has been in the noos from the very beginning and of cleansing it of all
foreign elements.
So for Parmenides himself, what, for lack of a better word, may be called the
intuitional element in the noos is still most important. Yet it was not
through his "vision" but through the truly or seemingly compelling force of his
logical reasoning that he acquired the dominating position in the philosophy of
the following century. At the same time, his work marks the most decisive
turning-point in the history of the terms noos, noein, etc.; for he was
the first consciously to include logical reasoning in the functions of the
noos. The notion of noos underwent many other changes in the further
history of Greek philosophy, but none as decisive as this. The intuitional
element is still present in Plato's and Aristotle's concepts of noos and
later again in that of the Neoplatonists. But the term never returned completely
to its pre-Parmenidean meaning." pp. 51-52 (notes omitted)
(1) "Noos and Noein in the Homeric Poems," Classical Philology, 38
(1943), 79-93.
Fritz Kurt von, "Nous, noein and their derivatives in the
Pre-Socratic philosophy (excluding Anaxagoras). Part II. The Post-Parmenidean
period," Classical Philology 40: 12-34 (1946).
Reprinted in: Alexander P. D. Mourelatos - The Pre-Socratics: a collection of
critical essays - New York, Anchor Press, 1974 pp. 23-85; second revised
edition, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1993
Fronterotta Francesco, "Essere, tempo e pensiero: Parmenide e l' 'origine
dell'ontologia'," Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa 24:
835-871 (1994).
Fronterotta Francesco, "Fra Parmenide e Platone: Una nuova edizione francese
del "Parmenide"," Giornale Critico della Filosofia Italiana 76: 382-390
(1995).
"This work is a discussion of Luc Brisson's introduction to a new French
translation of Plato's "Parmenides" (GF-Flammarion, Paris 1995). Brisson thinks
that, as in the first half of the dialogue Parmenides shows the serious
difficulties of Plato's two-level ontology (the world of immortal Forms on the
one hand and the world of sensible things on the other), in the second half
Plato would demonstrate the absurdity of Parmenides' sensible monism: without
the intelligible (and not sensible) Forms, the physical world and the sensible
knowledge have no sense. Brisson's interpretation seems to be contradicted by
the image of Parmenides in Plato's dialogues (the "Sophist" above all), where
the Eleatic philosopher is not represented as a 'sensible' monist, an opponent
of Plato's doctrine, but as a tenant of an ontological conception subscribed and
developed by Plato. It is argued that second half of the "Parmenides" contains
Plato's answers (or possible answers) to the paradoxes of the theory of Forms
discussed in the first half."
Fronterotta Francesco. Some remarks on noein in Parmenides. In
Reading ancient texts. Volume I: Presocratics and Plato. Essays in honour of
Denis O'Brien. Edited by Stern-Gillet Suzanne and Corrigan Kevin. Brill:
Ledien 2007. pp. 3-19
Furley David J. Parmenides of Elea. In Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Vol
VI. Edited by Edwards Paul. New York: Macmillan 1967. pp. 47-51
Furley David J., "Notes on Parmenides," Phronesis.A Journal for Ancient
Philosophy: 1-15 (1973).
Supplementary vol. I: Exegesis and argument. Studies in Greek philosophy
presented to Gregory Vlastos - Edited by E. N. Lee, A. P. D. Mourelatos, R. M.
Rorty - Assen, Van Gorcum.
Reprinted in: D. J. Furley - Cosmic problems - Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press, 1989 pp. 27-37.
"There is a set of problems, much discussed in the literature, concerning the
nature of the journey described in B1 of Parmenides, its destination, the
revelation made to him by the goddess, and the connection between the symbolism
of B1 and the two forms, Light and Night, which are the principles of the
cosmology of the Way of Doxa. Some of these problems, I believe, have now been
solved. The solution, which is mainly the work of scholars writing in German,
(1) has been either overlooked or rejected by the English-speaking community,
(2) and it seems worthwhile drawing attention to it and developing it." p. 1
(1) The essential suggestion was made, without much argument, by Morrison
(1955). For detailed arguments, see Mansfeld (1964) 222-61, and Burkert (1969).
(2) For example, by Guthrie[1965] II, Tarán (1965), myself (1967a), Kahn (1969),
and Mourelatos (1970), 15 and n. 19.
Furth Montgomery, "Elements of Eleatic ontology," Journal of the History
of Philosophy: 111-132 (1968).
Reprinted in: Alexander Mourelatos (ed.) - The Pre-Socratics. A collection of
critical essays, Garden City, Anchor Press, 1974; second revised edition:
Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1993 - pp. 241-270.
"The task of an interpreter of Parmenides is to find the simplest, historically
most plausible, and philosophically most comprehensible set of assumptions that
imply (in a suitably loose sense) the doctrine of 'being' set out in Parmenides'
poem.' In what follows I offer an interpretation that certainly is simple and
that I think should be found comprehensible. Historically, only more cautious
claims are possible, for several portions of the general view from which I
'deduce the poem' are not clearly stated in the poem itself; my explanation of
this is that they are operating as tacit assumptions, and indeed that the
poem is best thought of as an attempt to force these very assumptions to the
surface for formulation and criticism-that the poem is a challenge. To be sure,
there are dangers in pretending, as for dramatic purposes I shall, that ideas
are definite and explicit which for Parmenides himself must have been tacit or
vague-that Parmenides knew what he was doing as clearly as I represent him; I
try to avoid them, but the risk must be taken. I even believe that not to take
it, in the name of preserving his thought pure from anachronous contamination,
actually prevents us from seeing the extent to which he, pioneer, was ahead of
his time-the argument works both ways. So let me hedge my historical claim in
this way: the view I shall discuss could have been an active- indeed a
controlling-element of Eleaticism; to suppose that Parmenides held it not only
explains the poem, but also helps explain the subsequent reactions to Eleaticism
of Anaxagoras, Democritus, and Plato (though there is not space to elaborate
this here). In addition, it brings his thought astonishingly close to some
contemporary philosophical preoccupations.
In the first of the following sections, I lay down some sketchy but necessary
groundwork concerning the early Greek concept of 'being.' Then in Section 2 an
interpretation is given of what I take to be the central Parmenidean doctrine,
that 'it cannot be said that anything is not.' This section is the lengthiest
and most involved, but it also contains all the moves that appear to be
important. Of the remaining sections, Section 3 explains the principle: 'of what
is, all that can be said is: it is,' Section 4 deals briefly with the
remaining cosmology of "The Way of Truth," and Section 5 considers the question
whether Parmenides himself believed the fantastic conclusions of his argument.
There is a short postscript on a point of methodology." pp. 111-112
Gadamer Hans-Georg, "Parmenides oder das Diesseits des Seins," Parola del
Passato 43: 143-176 (1988).
Gadamer Hans-Georg. The beginnings of philosophy. New York: Continuum
1998.
See chapter 9: Parmenides and the opinions of mortals pp. 94-106 and
chapter 10: Parmenides on Being pp. 107-125
"The last line of the second fragment says that it is not possible to formulate
that which is not (7) (me eon), for this can neither be investigated nor
communicated.
It is possible that the third fragment forms the continuation of this text:
to gar auto noein estin to kai einai. (8) In the meantime, Agostino Marsoner
has convinced me that fragment 3 is not a Parmenides quotation at all but a
formulation stemming from Plato himself, which I believe I have correctly
interpreted and which Clement of Alexandria has ascribed to Parmenides. In order
to
interpret this fragment, we must confirm that estin does not serve here
as a copula but instead means existence (9) and, in fact, not just in the sense
that something is there but also in the characteristic classical Greek sense
that it is possible, that it has the power to be. Here, of course, "that it is
possible" includes that it is. Secondly, we must be clear about what is meant by
"the same" (to auto). Since this expression stands at the beginning of
the text, it is generally understood as the main point and therefore as the
subject. On the contrary, in Parmenides "the same" is always a predicate, hence
that which is stated of something. Admittedly, it can also stand as the main
point of a sentence, but not in the function of the subject, about which
something is stated, but in the function of the predicate that is stated of
something. This something in the sentence analyzed here is the relationship
between "estin noein" and "estin einai," between "[is] perceiving/thinking" and
"[is] being." These two are the same, or, better yet: the two are bound together
by an indissoluble unity. (Furthermore, it should be added that the article "to"
does not refer to "einai" but to "auto." In the sixth century, an article was
not yet placed in front of a verb. In Parmenides' didactic poem, where the
necessity arises of expressing what we render with the infinitive of a verb
together with a preceding article, a different construction is used.
This interpretation, the one I am proposing for the third fragment, was, as I
recall, the object of a dispute with Heidegger. He disagreed altogether with my
view of the evident meaning of the
poem. I can well understand why Heidegger wanted to hold onto the idea that
Parmenides' main theme was identity (to auto). In Heidegger's eyes, this
would have meant that Parmenides himself would have gone beyond every
metaphysical way of seeing and would thereby have anticipated a thesis that is
later interpreted metaphysically in Western philosophy and has only come into
its own in Heidegger's philosophy. Nevertheless, in his last essays Heidegger
himself realized that this was an error and that his thesis that Parmenides had
to some extent anticipated his own philosophy could not be maintained."
(7) das Nichtseiende (8) 'For the same thing exists [or, is there) for thinking and for being'
(Gadamer will argue against this reading; see below); alternatively, "For
thinking and being are the same."
(9) Existenz
Gadamer Hans-Georg. Scritti su Parmenide. Napoli: Istituto Italiano
per gli Studi Filosofici 2002.
Indice: Hans Georg Gadamer e 1'Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici di
Antonio Gargano V-XII;
Parmenide nell'interpretazione di Kurt Riezler [Gnomon, 2, 1936, pp. 77-86,
reprinted in Gesammelte Werke (GW) vol. 6, Mohr Tubingen 1985, pp. 30-38]
3;
Ritrattazioni [Varia Variorum. Festsgabe für K. Reinhardt, Böhlau-Verlag,
Münster, 1952, pp. 58-68, reprinted in GW vol. 6, pp. 38-49] 19;
Ancora sull'interpretazione di Riezler [Nachwort to the reprint of K.
Rielzler Parmenides, Frankfurt 1970, pp. 92-102, reprinted in GW vol. 6,
pp. 49-57] 39;
Parmenide, ovvero l'aldiqua dell'essere [La Parola del Passato, 43, 1988,
pp.143-176, reprinted in GW, vol. 7, Mohr Tübingen 199, pp. 3-31] 53;
Testo del poema dottrinale (H. Diels - W. Kranz, Die Fragmente der
Vorsokratiker) 101-106.
Gallop David, "'Is or 'Is not'?," Monist 62: 61-80 (1979).
"This article reopens some basic problems in the interpretation of the verb 'to
be' in the affirmative and negative routes of Parmenides' "Way of Truth." It
defends the classical interpretation of 'is' as existential, against various
alternative views canvassed in recent literature, including the 'veridical'
interpretation of C. H. Kahn, the 'speculative predication' thesis of A. P. D.
Mourelatos, and the 'fused' interpretation of R. Furth. With some modifications
the article supports the interpretation of G. E. L. Owen, according to which the
root difficulty in Parmenides is that of understanding negative existential
judgments."
Gemelli Marciano Maria Laura, "Images and exprience: at the roots of
Parmenides' Aletheia," Ancient Philosophy 28: 21-48 (2008).
Germani Gloria, "Aletheie in Parmenide," Parola del Passato
43: 177-206 (1988).
Giancola Donna, "Towards a radical reinterpretation of Parmenides' B3,"
Journal of Philosophical Research 26: 635-653 (2001).
"It is generally agreed that Parmenides' fragment B3 posits some type of
relation between "thinking" and "Being." I critically examine the modern
interpretations of this relation. Beginning with the ancient sources and
proceeding into modern times, I try to show that the modern rationalist reading
of fragment B3 conflicts with its grammatical syntax and the context of the poem
as a whole. In my critique, I suggest that rather than a statement about
epistemological relations, it is, as it was originally understood, a religious
assertion of metaphysical identity."
Giannantoni Gabriele, "Le due 'vie' di Parmenide," Parola del Passato
43: 207-221 (1988).
Goldin Owen, "Parmenides on possibility and thought," Apeiron.A Journal
for Ancient Philosophy and Science 26: 19-35 (1993).
"The paper presents an interpretation of Parmenides 6.1-2 according to which
Parmenides denies that there are unreal but possible things or states of
affairs, on the grounds that possible beings can be understood only as beings
and hence as real. Since any object of thought or speech is a possible thing or
state of affairs, any object of thought or speech has ontological status.
Parmenides' argument for the existence of any object of reference or thought
does not rely on fallacious modal logic, nor does it rest on a naive or
philosophically unsatisfactory blurring of the distinction between the potential
and existential uses of einai. He explicitly denies that there are unreal
but possible things or states of affairs."
Graeser Andreas, "Parmenides über Sagen und Denken," Museum Helveticum
34: 145-155 (1977).
"Explores the relationship among the concept of Being, the function of language,
and the reality of eternal truth in the philosophy of Parmenides, emphasizing
the intimate and inseparable connection in which they stand related to one
another." [N.]
Graham Daniel W. Heraclitus and Parmenides. In Presocratic philosophy.
Essays in honour of Alexander Mourelatos. Edited by Caston Victor and Graham
Daniel W. Aldershot: Ashgate 2002. pp. 27-44
"The two most philosophical Presocratics propound the two most radically
different philosophies: Heraclitus the philosopher of flux and Parmenides the
philosopher of changelessness. Clearly they occupy opposite extremes of the
philosophical spectrum. But what is their historical relation? For systematic
reasons, Hegel held that Parmenides preceded Heraclitus. But in a footnote of an
article published in 1850, Jacob Bernays noticed that in the passage we now know
as DK 28 B 6 Parmenides could be seen as criticizing Heraclitus.(*) Bernays'
insight had already been widely recognized as the key to the historical
relationship between the two philosophers when Alois Patin strongly advocated
the Bernays view in a monograph published in 1899. But in 1916 Karl Reinhardt
reasserted the view that Heraclitus was reacting to Parmenides. Others argued
that no connection. was provable. The Reinhardt view was never popular, while
the Bernays-Patin view gradually came to be widely accepted. Twenty-five years
ago Michael C. Stokes (One and many in Presocratic philosophy, 1971)
launched a devastating attack on the view that Parmenides was replying to
Heraclitus. That attack has never been answered and the Bernays-Patin thesis at
present remains undefended.
In this chapter I wish to argue that the Bernays-Patin thesis is true after all.
And in the process of defending it, I hope to show that accepting the thesis has
some value for understanding Parmenides beyond the external question of his
relation to Heraclitus. Minimally, appreciating Heraclitus' influence on
Parmenides will help us understand Parmenides' argument better; but beyond that,
it may help us put the whole course of early Greek philosophy in perspective. I
shall first review the evidence for a connection between the philosophers
(section I), then analyze the evidence for a connection (II), consider the role
of historical influences in philosophical exegesis (III), and finally try to
reconstruct Parmenides' dialectical opponent from his argument (IV)." (p. 27
notes omitted)
(*) In his Kleine Schriften (1885), vol. 1, pp. 62-3, n. 1.
Granger Herbert. The cosmology of mortals. In Presocratic philosophy.
Essays in honour of Alexander Mourelatos. Edited by Caston Victor and Graham
Daniel W. Aldershot: Ashgate 2002. pp. 101-116
"The author defends the traditional interpretation of Parmenides' cosmology of
mortals, and upholds the view that the portion of the poem devoted to mortal
opinions on nature is completely false in its deceptiveness. A cosmology is
possible only if a place is made for non-Being, and the cosmic principles of
light and night introduce non-Being because they are the rare and the dense.
Despite Aristotle's report that Being and non-Being are ranked with light and
night, no consistent ranking is possible, and this failure underscores the
confusion inherent in mortal opinions on the cosmos."
Granger Herbert, "The Proem of Parmenides' Poem," Ancient Philosophy
28: 1-20 (2008).
"The paper defends the view that the Proem of Parmenides' poem is a secular
allegory. At the allegory's center is the unnamed goddess who in the body of the
poem instructs the unnamed youth, through her use of a priori argumentation,
about the nature of reality. The goddess provides the very symbol for a priori
reason, and a central feature of Parmenides' expression of this symbolic value
for the goddess is his confused presentation of her in the Proem. His
presentation is intentionally vague, and it defies any definitive interpretation
that clearly identifies the classification of the goddess and her circumstances
within traditional or unconventional Greek religious belief. Instead, she
recalls in an confusing fashion traditional revelatory goddesses, of whom the
Muses and cult goddesses provide paradigm instances. Hence the youth's journey
in the Proem to the unnamed goddess leads to no clearly identifiable
circumstances, yet what it arrives at is still bound up within the medium of the
standard epic style. Parmenides uses the old idea of the revelatory goddess in
this unexpected way to try to show how it harbors something like the exercise of
a priori reason. The reflection of the a priori does not reside merely in the
similarity that the Muses bestow knowledge, which lies beyond the limited powers
of human observation, about past, present, and future. The similarity is
stronger and more significant when the Muses grant knowledge that lies beyond
their own powers of observation in the form of insights into events they could
not have possibly witnessed, such as the birth of the gods. Parmenides picks his
unnamed goddess for his symbol for a priori reason because he takes himself to
be demythologizing the philosophical truth reflected in a distorted fashion
within the tradition of divine revelation. By placing a priori reason in the
garb of the revelatory goddess who appears in a puzzling form, Parmenides
indicates to his audience that this use of the power of reason has its
antecedents in traditional practices that did not recognize this power for its
true nature. There is a value in the tradition of divine revelation, which
transcends the fictions of the poets in their story-telling, but revelatory
deities must now step aside for the clear expression of the power of a priori
reason. Hence the goddess abdicates her authority when she demands that the
youth judge her words by his logos. Parmenides' verse conforms with his symbolic
use of the goddess. It helps him mark his difference from his competitors among
the new intellectuals, the so-called 'natural philosophers', who generally favor
prose over verse. These intellectuals abandoned the Muses and their gift of
verse, and they aspire to cosmologies that depend for their justification upon
observation and inductive arguments that appeal to analogies and inferences to
the best explanation. Verse as the medium of the Muses allows Parmenides to
stress in a literary fashion how he adheres to a mode of thinking that does not
rely upon the power of observation for the truth."
Groarke Leo, "Parmenides' timeless universe," Dialogue 24: 535-541
(1985).
"Argues that Parmenides' Frag. 8 reveals his understanding of the universe as
uncreated and ungenerated, and, therefore, absolutely timeless." [N.]
Groarke Leo, "Parmenides' timeless universe, again," Dialogue 26:
549-552 (1987).
"The paper defends my thesis that Parmenides' Poem contains a critique of time,
in answer to Mohan Matthen's criticisms of my views."
Guazzoni Foà Virginia. Attualità dell'ontologia eleatica. Torino:
Società Editrice Internazionale 1961.
Indice: Premessa V-VII; Gli Eleati 1; Senofane 3; Parmenide 35; Zenone 77;
Melisso 127; Coclusione 143; Grammatica e filosofia nell'interpretazione di
einai, on, ousia 153; Einai 155; On (negli Eleati) 185;
Excursus: il tò on oresso Platone ed Aristotele 204; Ousia 221;
Conclusione 236; Bibliografia degli Eleati 247; Bibliografia di einai, on,
ousia 251-256.
"Nel presentare questo volume ci sembra utile avvertire il lettore che siamo
stati indotti ad unire i nostri due studi (I. Gli Eleati; II. Rapporti
tra grammatica e filosofia nell'interpretazione del greco einai, on, ousia)
sotto l'unico titolo: Attualità dell'ontologia eleatica per la evidente
connessione che é possibile rilevare tra lo studio dei frammenti dei filosofi
che appartengono alla scuola di Elea e lo studio dell'essere, nonché tra lo
stesso concetto dell'essere che fu da quei pensatori elaborato per la prima
volta nella storia della filosofia greca e la problematica attuale su di esso,
viva oggi come ieri. Che l'attualità del problema dell'essere sia sentita dagli
studiosi contemporanei è prova l'abbondante messe di studi a sfondo idealistico,
esistenzialistico, cristiano che sono stati recentemente pubblicati. È anzi
particolare merito dello Heidegger l'aver posto e cercato di svolgere il
problema dell'essere «come costitutivo essenziale della verità riportandolo al
suo significato originario »: (1) è solo mediante lo studio dei Presocratici
che, secondo lo Heidegger (2) si può giungere alla conoscenza dell'essere, della
verità, del divino. Affermazione questa di grande importanza perché, come
risulterà dal nostro studio -- che si discosta, per altro, dalle conclusioni
heideggeriane -- é partendo dalla concezione eleatica (e particolarmente
parmenidea) che si può giungere alla determinazione dell'essere concepito nel
senso cristiano. Con quest'affermazione, com'è ovvio, intendiamo definire sin
d'ora, l'atteggiamento del nostro pensiero che é diverso dalla tesi di coloro
che considerano l'essere «come elemento logico e verbale dell'affermazione» e da
quella esistenzialistica. Mentre la prima poggia sul significato copulativo
dell'esti parmenideo e sostiene la dimostrazione della genesi
dell'ontologismo parmenideo dal suo logicismo, la seconda tesi, dopo aver
escluso l'interpretazione idealistica del significato dell'è del giudizio da
ascrivere all'esti parmenideo, procede all'identificazione dell'essere
con l'apparire.
Un esame attento dei frammenti di Parmenide ci porterà a sostenere un valore
esistenziale ontologico dell'esti che si legge in essi. A sostegno della
nostra interpretazione varranno alcuni rilievi filosofici, glottologici,
grammaticali. Basandoci sull'accordo di tutti i filologi nell'ammettere la
lezione esti [non enclitico] (e non già esti [enclitico]) nel
testo parmenideo, nonchè sul rilievo grammaticale che l'uso di esti
parossitono nella lingua greca racchiude in sè un valore esistenziale,
sosterremo la presenza di questo valore in Parmenide: quindi il punto di
partenza della disquisizione parmenidea è per noi ontologico e non logico e
siamo di fronte ad un'ontologicità dell'essere e non ad un'ontologizzazione
dell'essere. Dal rilievo glottologico, poi; che è insostenibile l'accostamento
semantico della radice bhu di Pso alla radice bha di
psaion, che invece vorrebbe lo Heidegger, giungeremo a negare
l'identificazione dell'essere con il fenomeno per eccellenza." pp. V-VI.
(1). Cornelio Fabro, Partecipation et causalité, Louvain, 1961, pag. 153.
(2) Martin Heidegger, Der Spruch des Anaximander, in Holzwege, Frankfurt a. M.,
1950. pag. 296.
Guérard Christian. Parménide d'Êlée chez les Néoplatoniciens. In Études
sur Parménide. Tome II. Problèmes d'interprétation. Edited by Aubenque
Pierre. Paris: Vrin 1987. pp. 294-313
"Dans toute son oeuvre conservée, Proclus cite abondamment les fragments
orphiques, les Oracles chaldaïques et Homère surtout, mais, somme toute, peu
fréquemment Parménide.
On ne trouve des citations ou des allusions certaines que dans trois seuls
ouvrages :
-- l'un de jeunesse, mais probablement remanié plus tard: l'In Timaeum;
-- l'autre de la majorité, et pour nous le plus important : l'In Parmenidem;
-- le dernier de la fin: la Théologie platonicienne (30).
À l'évidence, l'Éléate n'est pas pour Proclus une autorité primordiale. Cela se
comprend aisément dans la mesure où il ne connaissait pas l'Un avant l'être, et,
dans son Poème, ne distingue pas explicitement les différents degrés de la
«largeur intelligible». Toutefois, il n'est aucunement regardé comme un
adversaire; nous allons le constater en étudiant toutes les citations et
allusions évidentes au Poème parménidien." pp. 300-301
"À l'issue de cette étude, il nous semble possible de définir le néoplatonisme
par rapport à sa propre perspective historique.
Nous avons vu que les rares allusions à Parménide, chez Plotin, font place à des
citations textuelles et nombreuses chez Proclus. Le Lycien a peut-être même
commenté systématiquement l'Éléate, tant on a l'impression qu'il affine son
exégèse à mesure qu'il lit la Voie de la Vérité. Mais ce ne sont là que
différences de méthode et de personnalité.
La pensée néoplatonicienne est rigoureusement identique de Plotin à Proclus:
Parménide justifie la lecture théologique du Parménide. C'est parce qu'il a
connu l'intellect que, par son hypothèse, Platon a pu s'élever jusqu'à l'Un
premier. L'Éléate s'inscrit donc parfaitement dans le mouvement de dévoilement
de la Lumière." p. 312
(30) Signalons que nous ne rencontrons plus aucune citation de Parménide après
fe fivre III de cet ouvrage. À part une allusion dans le fivre IV, if n'est
question que du personnage du dialogue pfatonicien.
Guthrie William Keith Chambers. A history of Greek philosophy. Vol. II:
The Presocratic tradition from Parmenides to Democritus. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press 1965.
See the First Chapter: The Eleatics. Parmenides - pp. 1-79.
"Presocratic philosophy is divided into two halves by the name of Parmenides.
His exceptional powers of reasoning brought speculation about the origin and
constitution of the universe to a halt, and caused it to make a fresh start on
different lines. Consequently his chronological position relative to other early
philosophers is comparatively easy to determine. Whether or not he directly
attacked Heraclitus, 1 had Heraclitus known of Parmenides it is incredible that
he would not have denounced him along with Xenophanes and others. Even if
ignorance of an Elean on the part of an Ephesian is no sure evidence of date,
philosophically Heraclitus must be regarded as pre-Parmenidean, whereas
Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Leucippus and Democritus are equally certainly
post-Parmenidean." p. 1
(1) See vol. 1, 408 n. 2 and pp. 23 ff, 32 below.
Günther Hans Christian. Aletheia und Doxa: das Proömium des Gedichts des
Parmenides. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot 1998.
Hankinson R.J. Parmenides and the metaphysics of changelessness. In
Presocratic philosophy. Essays in honour of Alexander Mourelatos. Edited by
Caston Victor and Graham Daniel W. Aldershot: Ashgate 2002. pp. 65-80
"Conclusions.
Parmenides seeks to demonstrate the impossibility of generation (and hence
change) dilemmatically: on the one hand the notion of caused generation turns
out to be incoherent, while the supposition of uncaused generation, on the
other, makes it inexplicable. Neither arm of the dilemma is successful. One
cannot simply invoke PSR [Principle of Sufficient Reason] in order to rule out
uncaused change, since PSR is at best an empirical hypothesis and not some
Leibnizian a priori law of thought; (53) and a suitably sophisticated
analysis of the logical form of change, one which recognizes the ambiguity of
'from' in propositions such as 'x comes to be from y,' will dispose of
Parmenides' bomb. But it needed an Aristotle to disarm it.
The basic principle involved, namely:
P1 Nothing comes to be from nothing,
is not original to Parmenides (it first occurs in a fragment of the
sixth-century lyric poet Alcaeus, although we do not know in what context; (54)
its early history has been ably traced by Alex Mourelatos (55) but its use in
destructive argument certainly is. P1 is ambiguous between the causal principle
P1a Nothing comes to be causelessly,
and the conservation principle
P1b Nothing comes to be except from pre-existing matter;
and that ambiguity is not always patent. Indeed, distinguishing (P1a) from (P1b)
is the first step towards solving the Eleatic puzzle, as Aristotle (certainly:
Ph. I.7, 190a14-31; cf. Metaph. V.24; GA 1.18, 724a20-34) and
Plato (possibly: Phd. 103b) realized. Moreover, as Hume was to show,
neither version can be accepted as an a priori truth: both the causal
principle and the conservation principle (at any rate crudely interpreted as
asserting the conservation of matter) are rejected by the standard
interpretation of quantum physics; and whatever else may be true of quantum
physics, it is not logically incoherent.
53 Cf. Leibniz, Monadology §32; on the status of the principle, see Kant,
Prolegomena §4.
54 Alcaeus, fr. 76 Bergk; Mourelatos 1981 [Pre-socratics origins of the
principle that there are no origins of nothing, (Journal of Philosophy, 78,
1981, pp. 649-665] pp. 132-3 discusses this text.
55 Mourelatos, 1981.
Heidegger Martin. 'Moira' (Parmenides, fr. 8,34-41). In Vorträge und
Aufsätze. Pfullingen: G. Neske 1954. pp. 231-256
English translation in: Early Greek thinking - Edited and ranslated by
David Farrell Krell and Frank A. Capuzzi - New York, Harper & Row, 1975 pp.
79-101.
"The topic under discussion is the relation between thinking and Being. In the
first place we ought to observe that the text (VIII, 34-41) which ponders this
relation more thoroughly speaks of eon and not -- as in Fragment III --
about einai. Immediately, and with some justification, one concludes from
this that Fragment VIII concerns beings rather than Being. But in saying eon
Parmenides is in no way thinking "beings in themselves," understood as the whole
to which thinking, insofar as it is some kind of entity, also belongs. Just as
little does eon mean einai in the sense of "Being for itself," as
though it were incumbent upon the thinker to set the nonsensible essential
nature of Being apart from, and in opposition to, beings which are sensible.
Rather eon, being, is thought here in its duality as Being and beings,
and is participially expressed -- although the grammatical concept has not yet
come explicitly into the grasp of linguistic science. This duality is at least
intimated by such nuances of phrasing as "the Being of beings" and "beings in
Being." In its essence, however, what unfolds is obscured more than clarified
through the "in" and the "of " These expressions are far from thinking the
duality as such, or from seriously questioning its unfolding.
"Being itself," so frequently invoked, is held to be true so long as it is
experienced as Being, consistently understood as the Being of beings. Meanwhile
the beginning of Western thinking was fated to catch an appropriate glimpse of
what the word einai, to be, says -- in Physis, Logos, En. Since
the gathering that reigns within Being unites all beings, an inevitable and
continually more stubborn semblance arises from the contemplation of this
gathering, namely, the illusion that Being (of beings) is not only identical
with the totality of beings, but that, as identical, it is at the same time that
which unifies and is even most in being [das Seiendste]. For
representational thinking everything comes to be a being.
The duality of Being and beings, as something twofold, seems to melt away into
nonexistence, albeit thinking, from its Greek beginnings onward, has moved
within the unfolding of this duality, though without considering its situation
or at all taking note of the unfolding of the twofold. What takes place at the
beginning of Western thought is the unobserved decline of the duality. But this
decline is not nothing. Indeed it imparts to Greek thinking the character of a
beginning, in that the lighting of the Being of beings, as a lighting, is
concealed. The hiddenness of this decline of the duality reigns in essentially
the same way as that into which the duality itself falls. Into what does it
fall? Into oblivion, whose lasting dominance conceals itself as Lethe to
which Aletheia belongs so immediately that the former can withdraw in its
favor and can relinquish to it pure disclosure in the modes of Physis, Logos,
and En as though this had no need of concealment.
But the apparently futile lighting is riddled with darkness. In it the unfolding
of the twofold remains as concealed as its decline for beginning thought.
However, we must be alert to the duality of Being and beings in the eon
in order to follow the discussion Parmenides devotes to the relation between
thinking and Being." pp. 86-87
Heidegger Martin. Parmenides. Frankfurt a. M.: Klostermann 1982. Gesamtausgabe Vol. 54. Lecture course from the winter semester 1942-43,
first published in 1982.
Translated in English by André Schuwer and Richard Rojcewicz as: Parmenides
(Lecture course 1942-43) - Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1992.
"We are attempting to follow the path of thought of two thinkers, Parmenides and
Heraclitus. Both belong, historiographically calculated, to the early period of
Western thought. With regard to this early thinking in the Occident, among the
Greeks, we are distinguishing between outset and beginning. Outset
refers to the coming forth of this thinking at a definite "time." Thinking does
not mean here the course of psychologically represented acts of thought but the
historical process in which a thinker arises, says his word, and so provides to
truth a place within a historical humanity. As for time, it signifies here less
the point of time calculated according to year and day than it means "age," the
situation of human things and man's dwelling place therein. "Outset" has to do
with the debut and the emergence of thinking. But we are using "beginning" in a
quite different sense. The "beginning" is what, in his early thinking, is to be
thought and what is thought. Here we are still leaving unclarified the essence
of this thought. But supposing that the thinking of a thinker is distinct from
the knowledge of the "sciences" and from every kind of practical cognition in
all respects, shell we have to say that the relation of thinking to its thought
is essentially other than the relation of ordinary "technical-practical" and
"moral-practical" thinking to what it thinks.
Ordinary thinking, whether scientific or prescientific or unscientific, thinks
beings, and does so in every case according to their individual regions,
separate strata, and circumscribed aspects. This thinking is an acquaintance
with beings, a knowledge that masters and dominates beings in various ways. In
distinction from the mastering of beings, the thinking of thinkers is the
thinking of Being. Their thinking is a retreating in face of Being.
We name what is thought in the thinking of the thinkers the beginning. Which
hence now means: Being is the beginning. Nevertheless, not every thinker, who
has to think Being, thinks the beginning. Not every thinker, not even every one
at the outset of Western thought, is a primordial thinker, i.e., a thinker who
expressly thinks the beginning.
Anaximander, Parmenides, and Heraclitus are the only primordial thinkers. They
are this, however, not because they open up Western thought and initiate it.
Already before them there were thinkers. They are primordial thinkers because
they think the beginning. The beginning is what is thought in their thinking.
This sounds as if "the beginning" were something like an "object" the thinkers
take up for themselves in order to think it through. But we have already said in
general about the thinking of thinkers that it is a retreating in face of Being.
If, within truly thoughtful thinking, the primordial thinking is the highest
one, then there must occur here a retreating of a special kind. For these
thinkers do not "take up" the beginning in the way a scientist "attacks"
something. Neither do these thinkers come up with the beginning as a
self-produced construction of thought. The beginning is not something dependent
on the favor of these thinkers, where they are active in such and such a way,
but, rather, the reverse: the beginning is that which begins something with
these thinkers -- by laying a claim on them in such a way that from them is
demanded an extreme retreating in the face of Being. The thinkers are begun by
the beginning, "in-cepted" [An-gefangenen] by the in-ception [An-fang];
they are taken up by it and are gathered into it.
It is already a wrong-headed idea that leads us to speak of the "work" of these
thinkers. But if for the moment, and for the lack of a better expression, we do
talk that way, then we must note that their "work," even if it had been
preserved for us intact, would be quite small in "bulk" compared with the "work"
of Plato or Aristotle and especially in comparison with the "work" of a modern
thinker. Plato and Aristotle and subsequent thinkers have thought far "more,"
have traversed more regions and strata of thinking, and have questioned out of a
richer knowledge of things and man. And yet all these thinkers think "less" than
the primordial thinkers." pp. 7-8
Heidegger Martin. Seminar in Zähringen 1973. In Four seminars.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press 2003. pp. 64-84
"In the silence that follows, Jean Beaufret notes: The text we just heard
completes, as it were, the long meditation in which you have turned first
towards Parmenides and then Heraclitus. One could even say that your thinking
has engaged differently with Heraclitus and Parmenides. Indeed, in Vorträge
and Aufsätze, the primacy seemed to be given to Heraclitus. Today what place
would Heraclitus take with respect to Parmenides? Heidegger: From a mere historical perspective, Heraclitus signified the
first step towards dialectic. From this perspective, then, Parmenides is more
profound and essential (if it is the case that dialectic, as is said in Being
and Time, is "a genuine philosophic embarrassment") In this regard, we must
thoroughly recognize that tautology is the only possibility for thinking what
dialectic can only veil.
However, if one is able to read Heraclitus on the basis of the Parmenidean
tautology, he himself then appears in the closest vicinity to that same
tautology, he himself then appears in the course of an exclusive approach
presenting access to being." p. 81
Heitsch Ernst. Gegenwart und Evidenz bei Parmenides. Aus der
Problemgeschichte der Aequivokation. Wiesbaden: Steiner 1970.
Heitsch Ernst. Parmenides und die Anfänge der Ontologie, Logik und
Naturwissenschaft. München: Tusculum 1974.
Heitsch Ernst. Parmenides und die Anfänge der Erkenntniskritik und Logik.
Donauwörth: L. Auer 1979.
Contents: Einführung 7; I. Parmenides (1977) 15; II. Der Ort der Wahrheit. Aus
der Frügeschichte des Wahrtheitsgegriffs 33; III. Evidenz und
Wahrscheinlichkeitsaussagen bei Parmenides (1974) 71; IV. Logischer Zwang und
die Anfänge der Beweistechnik (1975) 81; V. Die Erkenntniskritik des Xenophanes
(1966) 102; VI. Ein Buchtitel des Protagoras (1969) 132-136.
Held Klaus. Heraklit, Parmenides und die Anfang von Philosophie und
Wissenschaft. Eine phänomenologische Besinnung. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter
1980.
Hermann Arnold. To think like God: Pythagoras and Parmenides, the origins
of philosophy. Las Vegas: Parmenides Publishing 2004.
Hershbell Jackson, "Parmenides' Way of Truth and B16," Apeiron.A Journal
for Ancient Philosophy and Science 4: 1-23 (1970).
Reprinted in: J. P. Anton, A. Preus (eds.) - Essays in ancient Greek
philosophy (Volume Two) - Albany, State University of New York Press, 1983,
pp. 41-58.
"An attempt to show that Parmenides' B16 is neither a theory of knowledge nor of
sense perception, but an affirmation of the close relationship between thought
and being: "you cannot recognize that which is not" (B2,7) and without "that
which is" there can be no thought. The fragment probably belongs to the way of
truth, and the interpretations of Aristotle and Theophrastus (Theophrastus is
dependent on Aristotle) are mistaken."
Hintikka Jaakko, "Parmenides' Cogito argument," Ancient Philosophy
1: 5-16 (1980).
"Parmenides held that the only thing we can truly say in philosophy is "is" or,
in a more idiomatic but also more misleading English, "it is," éstin. Even
though this main thesis of Parmenides turns out to have more consequences and
more interesting consequences than it might at first seem to promise, our first
reaction to it is likely to be one of puzzlement. How can a major philosopher
hold such an incredible, paradoxical view? The purpose of this paper is to make
Parmenides' thesis understandable. I shall argue that, notwithstanding the
paradoxical appearance of Parmenides' thesis, it is in reality an eminently
natural consequence of certain assumptions which are all understandable and
which can all be shown to have been actually subscribed to by Parmenides.
Furthermore, Parmenides' assumptions are arguably not incorrect, either, with
one exception. They are all of considerable historical and systematic interest."
p. 5.
Hoy Ronald, "Parmenides' complete rejection of time," Journal of
Philosophy 9: 573-598 (1994).
"How should Parmenides' rejection of time be understood? It is common (amongst
thinkers as different as Russell and Heidegger) to try to explain this rejection
in terms of his alleged semantic aversion to "what is not". I argue such
semantic interpretations do not do justice to Parmenides' worries, and more
justice can be done by reading him as proscribing the "contradictions" which
infect becoming. Indeed, these problems are more basic than his alleged
cosmogonic aversion to genesis from nothing. The contradictions stem from
needing to talk about temporal entities as both what is and what is not. I
propose and discuss an interpretation in terms of the current debate between
"tensed" and "tenseless" theories of time. Though I urge that the tenseless view
(but not the tensed view) can avoid these contradictions, one can find other
reasons why Parmenides would reject tenseless time. One can also find reasons
for avoiding interpretations which view Parmenides as advancing some concept of
an "eternal present" or "timeless present"."
Hölscher Uvo, "Grammatisches zu Parmenides," Hermes.Zeitschrift für
Klassische Philologie 84: 385-397 (1956).
"Analyzes the poem of Parmenides from the point of view of its linguistic usages
and grammatical structure. Observes that its stylistic techniques reflects the
influence of epic literary construction. Focuses on an examination of Frag. 4."
[N.]
Jantzen Jõrg. Parmenides zum verhältnis von Sprache und Wirklichkeit.
Münich: C. H. Beck 1976.
Presents an analysis of the relationship between language and reality in the
philosophy of Parmenides, focusing on the way in which the two parts of his poem
stand related to each other. Maintains that both parts have the same
object, namely, Being or reality, although, it insists, Being as the object of
opinion becomes inevitably falsified and deformed by the human language of
predication. Regards Parmenides more as a philosopher of language (comparable to
Frege, Russell, and the early Wittgenstein) than as a metaphysician in the
platonic tradition." [N.]
Jones Barrington, "Parmenides 'The way of Truth'," Journal of the History
of Philosophy 11: 287-298 (1973).
"Recent years have produced a number of distinct interpretations of Parmenides'
philosophical poem. Of these, one of the most interesting is that of Montgomery
Furth's "Elements of Eleatic Ontology,''t and I shall use his treatment of the
poem as the basis for the development of a different interpretation, an
interpretation which, hopefully, can preserve the explanatory power of Furth's
exposition while avoiding certain of its difficulties."
Jüngel Eberhard. Zum Ursprung der Analogie bei Parmenides und Heraklit.
Berlin: Walter de Gruyter 1964.
Kahn Charles H., "The Greek verb 'to be' and the concept of Being,"
Foundations of Language 2: 245-265 (1966).
Reprinted in C. H. Kahn - Essays on Being - New York, Oxford University
Press, 2009 pp. 16-40.
Kahn Charles H., "More on Parmenides. A response to Stein and Mourelatos,"
Review of Metaphysics 23: 333-340 (1969).
A reply to Stein (1969) and Mourelatos (1969).
"For Burnet and for many scholars of his generation, Parmenides was essentially
a critic of earlier physical theories and the author of a challenge which
provoked the atomist theory of matter as a response. Commentators today are more
inclined to see him either as a philosopher of language in the style of Frege or
Wittgenstein or, in the Continental tradition, as a metaphysician of Being in
the manner of Hegel or Heidegger. It seems to me that Burnet was closer to the
truth (even if his interpretation in detail is absurdly narrow) , and that he
and Meyerson were faithful to the deeper spirit of Eleatic philosophy in
insisting upon a close connection between Parmenides' argument and the physical
science of his day and ours. At all events, any interpretation must. take
account of the fact that his doctrine seems permanently relevant not only to
speculative metaphysics and abstract ontology but also to critical reflection on
the structure of natural science.
Hence I am happy that Howard Stein was willing to publish his comments on the
poem, since his unusual command of modern physical theory makes it possible for
him to formulate a plausible reinterpretation of Eleatic doctrine within the
framework of post-Newtonian or Einsteinian physics. I fully agree with him as to
the historical and philosophical value of such a reconstruction, even if it
cannot square with every facet of the archaic text under discussion. Simply as a
commentary on the text, however, a one-sided interpretation fully worked out
will often he more illuminating than a carefully balanced synthesis of different
points of view.
Once such an interpretation has been presented, it is the ungrateful task of the
interlocutor to insist upon the appropriate qualifications. Stein's
reconstruction gains in coherence by taking Parmenides' Being as "truth" rather
than "thing," as "discernible structure in the world" or alles, was der Fall
ist: the unique Sachverhalt but not the unique Gegenstand. But Parmenides
himself is not so coherent, and part of the creative influence of his theory was
due precisely to the fact that it can also he understood-and was presumably also
intended-as an account of the only thing or entity or object that can be
rationally understood. Hence it was that, the atomists could define the concept
of indestructible solid body as their new version of Being (on), and
empty space as the new form of Non-being (ouk on or oudén). In
general, the Greek philosophers never succeeded in formulating a systematic
distinction between thing and fact, between individual object and structure
(although Plato's self-criticism and later development of the theory of Forms
may involve a conscious shift, from one category to the, other).
(...)
I am grateful to Alexander Mourelatos for having tried to formulate my
interpretation more precisely, and if he has not entirely succeeded that no
doubt. shows that my own exposition was not clear enough. I confess that. 1 do
not recognize my view in the complicated reduction sentences which he offers as
a semi-formalization of my version of thesis and antithesis in fragment 2. I
agree with him that any reading of the first and second Ways must construe them
as contradictory, so that "the reason which compels rejection of the second
route is the reason which enjoins strict and faithful adherence to the first
route" (p. 736). I think my view can he shown to satisfy this condition, and to
this end I shall indulge in a hit of rudimentary formalization."
Kahn Charles H., "The thesis of Parmenides," Review of Metaphysics
22: 700-724 (1969).
Reprinted in C. H. Kahn - Essays on Being - New York, Oxford University
Press, 2009 pp. 143-166.
"If we except Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus, Parmenides is perhaps the most
important and influential of all the Greek philosophers. And considered as a
metaphysician, he is perhaps the most original figure in the western tradition.
At any rate, if ontology is the study of Being, or what there is, and
metaphysics the study of ultimate Reality, or what there is in the most
fundamental way, then Parmenides may reasonably be regarded as the founder of
ontology and metaphysics at once. For he is the first to have articulated the
concept of Being or Reality as a distinct topic for philosophic discussion.
The poem of Parmenides is the earliest philosophic text which is preserved with
sufficient completeness and continuity to permit us to follow a sustained line
of argument. It is surely one of the most interesting arguments in the history
of philosophy, and we are lucky to have this early text, perhaps a whole century
older than the first dialogues of Plato. But the price we must pay for our good
fortune is to face up to a vipers' nest of problems, concerning details of the
text and the archaic language but also concerning major questions of philosophic
interpretation. These problems are so fundamental that, unless we solve them
correctly, we cannot even be clear as to what Parmenides is arguing for, or why.
And they are so knotted that we can scarcely unravel a single problem without
finding the whole nest on our hands.
I am primarily concerned here to elucidate Parmenides' thesis: to see what he
meant by the philosophic claim which is compressed into the one-word sentence
"it is." I take this to be the premiss (or one of them), from which lie derives
his famous denial of all change and plurality. I shall thus consider the nature
of this premiss, and why he thought it plausible or self-evident. I shall also
look briefly at the structure of his argument which concludes that change is
impossible, in order to see a bit more clearly how such a paradoxical conclusion
might also seem plausible to Parmenides, and how it could be taken seriously by
his successors. Finally, I shall say a word about the Parmenidean identification
of Thinking and Being."
Kahn Charles H. The verb 'be' in ancient Greek. Dordrecht: Reidel
1973.
Volume 6 of: John W. M. Verhhar (ed.) - The verb 'be' and its synonims:
philosophical and grammatical studies - Dordrecht, Reidel
Reprinted by Hackett Publishing, 2003 with new introduction and discussion of
relation between predicative and existential uses of the verb einai.
Reviews:
by George B. Kerferd in: Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, 58, 1976
pp. 60-64.
Kahn Charles H., "Being in Parmenides and Plato," Parola del Passato
43: 237-261 (1988).
Reprinted in C. H. Kahn - Essays on Being - New York, Oxford University
Press, 2009 pp. 167-191.
"Despite the silence of Aristotle, there can be little doubt of the importance
of Parmenides as an influence on Plato's thought. If it was the encounter with
Socrates that made Plato a philosopher, it was the poem of Parmenides that made
him a metaphysician. In the first place it was Parmenides' distinction between
Being and Becoming that provided Plato with the ontological basis for his theory
of Forms. When he decided to submit this theory to searching criticism, he chose
as critic no other than Parmenides himself. And when the time came for Socrates
to be replaced as principal speaker in the dialogues, Plato introduced as his
new spokesman a visitor from Elea. Even in the Timaeus, where the chief speaker
is neither Socrates nor the Eleatic Stranger, the exposition takes as its
starting-point the Parmenidean dichotomy. (1) From the Symposium and Phaedo to
the Sophist and Timaeus, the language of Platonic metaphysics is largely the
language of Parmenides.
One imagines that Plato had studied the poem of Parmenides with considerable
care. He had the advantage of a complete text, an immediate knowledge of the
language, and perhaps even an Eleatic tradition of oral commentary. So he was in
a better position than we are to understand what Parmenides had in mind. Since
Plato has given us a much fuller and more explicit statement of his own
conception of Being, this conception, if used with care, may help us interpret
the more lapidary and puzzling utterances of Parmenides himself."
(1) Timaeus 27D 5: 'The first distinction to be made is this: what is the Being
that is forever and has no becoming, and what is that which is always becoming
but never being?'.
Kahn Charles H. Parmenides and Plato. In Presocratic philosophy. Essays
in honour of Alexander Mourelatos. Edited by Caston Victor and Graham Daniel
W. Aldershot: Ashgate 2002. pp. 81-94
Reprinted as Pamenides and Plato once more in C. H. Kahn - Essays on
Being - New York, Oxford University Press, 2009 pp. 192-206.
"This seems a happy occasion to return to Parmenides, in order both to clarify
my own interpretation of Parmenidean Being and also to emphasize the affinity
between what 1 have called the veridical reading and the account in terms of
predication that Alex Mourelatos gave in his monumental The Route of
Parmenides.) It is good to have this opportunity to acknowledge how much our
views have in common, even if they do not coincide. And perhaps I may indulge
here in a moment of nostalgia, since Alex and I are both old Parmenideans. My
article 'The Thesis of Parmenides' was published in 1969, just a year
before Alex's book appeared. That was nearly thirty years ago, and it was not
the beginning of the story for either of us. My own Eleatic obsession had taken
hold even earlier, with an unpublished Master's dissertation on Parmenides, just
as Alex had begun with a doctoral dissertation on the same subject. So, for both
of us, returning to Parmenides may have some of the charm of returning to the
days of our youth." p. 81
"I want to defend Parmenides' positive account of Being as a coherent, unified
vision.
And I think his refutation of coming-to-be if formally impeccable, once one
accepts the premise (which Plato will deny) that esti and ouk esti
are mutually exclusive, like p and not-p. And it is precisely this assimilation
of the 'is or is-not' dichotomy to the law of non-contradiction --
to p or not-p' - that accounts for the extraordinary effectiveness of
Parmenides' argument, its acceptance by the fifth-century cosmologists, and the
difficulty that Plato encountered in answering it.
However, if the rich, positive account of Being that results from Parmenides'
amalgamation of the entire range of uses and meanings of einai turns out
to be a long-term success (as the fruitful ancestor of ancient atomism, Platonic
Forms, and the metaphysics of eternal Being in western theology), the
corresponding negation in Not-Being is a conceptual nightmare. Depending on
which function of einai is being denied, to mê on can represent
either negative predication, falsehood, non-identity, non-existence, or
non-entity, that is to say, nothing at all. The fallacy in Parmenides' argument
lies not in the cumulation of positive attributes for Being but in the confused
union of these various modes of negation in the single conception of
'what-is-not.' That is why Plato saw fit to criticize his great predecessor in
respect to the notion of Not-Being, while making positive use of the Parmenidean
notion of Being." (pp. 89-90)
Kahn Charles H. Parmenides and Being. In Frühgriechisches Denken.
Edited by Rechenauer Georg. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2005. pp. 217-226
Kerferd George. Aristotle's treatment of the doctrine of Parmenides. In
Aristotle and the later tradition. Edited by Blumenthal Henry and Robinson
Howard. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1991. pp. 1-7
Ketchum Richard, "Parmenides on what there is," Canadian Journal of
Philosophy 20: 167-190 (1990).
"Part I provides an original interpretation of the fragments dealing with the
way of truth. I interpret "It is," as "What can be thought of is something or
other," and "It is not," as "What can be thought of is nothing at all." Thus,
the equivalence of "nothing" with "what is not" is sustained and all of
fragments 2-7 are either true or highly plausible. Parmenides' mistake occurs in
fragment 8 where he confuses "x is not something (or other)," with "x is not
anything," in the arguments for changelessness and continuity. In Part II, I
compare my interpretation with those of others."
Ketchum Richard, "A note on Barnes' Parmenides," Phronesis.A Journal for
Ancient Philosophy 38: 95-97 (1993).
"I argue that the formalized version of Jonathan Barnes' reconstruction of
Parmenides argument for the conclusion that whatever any student studies exists
(The Presocratic Philosophers, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1982, pp
155-175.) confuses the claim, "it is not the case that everything that anyone
studies exists" with "nothing anyone studies exists." I then provide an
alternative reconstruction which saves most of what Barnes has to say about the
argument including the claim that the argument is valid. I respond to an
objection to the reformulation."
Kélessidou Anna. Dire et savoir (legein - eidenai) chez Xénophane et
Parménide. In Philosophie du langage et grammaire dans l'Antiquité.
Bruxelles: Ousia 1986. pp. 29-46
Kingsley Peter. In the dark places of wisdom. Inverness: Golden Sufi
Center 1999.
Kingsley Peter. Reality. Inverness: Golden Sufi Center 2003.
Klowski Joachim, "Die konstitution der Begriffe Nichts und Sein durch
Parmenides," Kant-Studien 60: 404-416 (1969).
Korab-Karkowicz Wlodimierz, "Heidegger's reading of Parmenides: on Being and
Thinking the Same," Existentia.An International Journal of Philosophy 13:
27-52 (2003).
"The purpose of this article is to provide a unity to Heidegger's
interpretations of Parmenides. I examine his interpretations from An
introduction to metaphysics, What is called thinking?, Parmenides,
Moira, Principle of identity, The end of philosophy and the task
of thinking, and Seminar in Zähringen (1973). I argue that
Heidegger's reading of Parmenides which comes from his later works is embedded
in his original philosophy of history -- the history of being. It is a
repetition that happens as the listening which opens itself out to the
Parmenidean words from within our modern age marked by the forgetfulness of
being."
Kraus Manfred. Nun estin homou pan. Sein, Raum und Zeit im
Lehrgedicht des Parmenides. In Frühgriechisches Denken. Edited by
Rechenauer Georg. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2005. pp. 252-269
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