Introduction to Parmenides

the pre-socratics lecture for Parmenides in this lecture we will direct our attention to the ideas of Parmenides who elaborated perhaps the most paradoxical and absurd metaphysical account of reality in the history of philosophy Parmenides was a pre-socratic philosopher who flourished in the first half of the fifth century BC in the Greek colony of alia located on the southwest coast of Italy although the conclusions he reached as we will soon see were quite preposterous he has widely considered the most influential of all the pre-socratics as William Guthrie explained in the second volume of his history of Greek philosophy series pre-socratic 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 Parmenides brought speculation about the nature of the universe to a halt by claiming that our experience of the world is an unequivocal illusion our experience of the world tells us that things move from one place to another things are born things change and things die Parmenides asserted that our experience of the world is illusory and in reality nothing moves or changes and nothing is born and nothing dies furthermore the truth according to Parmenides is that there are in fact no separate things instead he asserted that reality is one thing that never moves or changes but heads and will remain the same completely motionless and changeless for all eternity describing the universe Parmenides explained that it is unborn and imperishable whole unique and movable and without end it was not in the past nor yet shall it be since it now is altogether one and continuous the conclusions which Parmenides reached are paradoxical to say the least in fact according to the etymology of the word paradox that is exactly what they are the word paradox is created by combining para which means contrary to and doxa which signifies appearances Parmenides ideas are literally contrary to appearances or paradoxical for while it appears that there are separate things in the world which move and change Parmenides asserted that appearances deceive and in reality the universe is much different than it appears to be according to Parmenides our senses give us faulty information about the nature of reality and in order to learn the truth regarding the nature of things we must rely solely on our mind and powers of reasoning with his belief that the senses imprint illusions on our minds and has claimed that reason alone or the mind's eye must be utilized in the attainment of truth Parmenides was what is now classified as an extreme rationalist so how exactly did Parmenides arrive at his controversial and paradoxical conclusion that birth death change and motion are an illusion his argument started from a very simple and uncontroversial premise we can state that either something exists or it does not exist or to use his terminology either it is or it is not furthermore Parmenides asserted that in constructing a philosophical account of reality the concept of that which is or that which exists can be utilized while the concept of that which does not exist or that which is not cannot be used writing in a convoluted poetic form Parmenides explained this idea come now I will tell thee the only two ways of search that can be thought of the first namely that it is in that it is impossible for anything not to be is the way of conviction for truth is its companion the other namely that it is not and that something needs not be that I tell thee is a wholly untrustworthy path for you cannot know what is not that is impossible nor other it in other words non-being or that which is not or does not exist is an illegal concept and one that cannot be used in any rational account of the world he wrote 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 it is often mistakenly thought that Parmenides is here making the gross error of claiming that it is impossible to think of something that does not exist it is obvious that human beings are able to think of that which does not exist in fact it could be argued that the history of philosophical and religious thought is evidence that not only is it possible but very natural for humans to think and speak of that which does not exist this however is likely not what Parmenides was getting at his argument has made more cohesive and understandable if it is assumed that when he says it is impossible to think of that which is not he is merely stating that it is impossible to form a concept of nothingness or non being in order to formulate a concept there must be something that is thought of something which is the content of the concept and a concept of nothingness would be a content list concept which by its very nature is an impossibility therefore since it is impossible to form a concept of nothing in providing a rational account of the universe one cannot utilize non-being or the concept of that which does not exist Parmenides looked back on his predecessors namely the Ionians and Heraclitus and observed that they spoke of things being born or emerging into the world and perishing from it as if it were the most natural process however Parmenides believed that the very concept of becoming of things being born growing and dying was an incoherent concept the 5th century saw fost gorgeous a contemporary of Parmenides nicely explained this line of reasoning what is cannot have come into being if it did it came either from what is or what is not but it did not come from what is since if it is existent it did not come to be but already is nor from what is not for the non-existent cannot generate anything in other words if something is born it must either come from what exists or what does not exist if it comes from what exists it is not born since it would have already existed and it cannot come from what does not exist for something cannot be born from nothing becoming Parman t's concluded does not exist in reality there is only being whatever exists was not born and will not die but instead will exist for all eternity along with the fact that Parmenides declared becoming and hence birth and death to be impossible he insisted that even movement is an illusion and contrary to our perceptions in reality nothing moves his reasoning behind this idea was that for movement to be possible a thing must move from where it is now into an empty space however he conceptualized empty space as being that which is not or non-being and since non-being is an illegal concept so to speak it is incoherent to state that something moves from its current position into non-being because it makes no sense to say that non being or empty space exists that would be the same as saying what doesn't exist does exist which is a contradiction therefore he concluded according to the dictates of reason all movement is an illusion Parmenides philosophy is mind-numbing and confusing however to his credit he did arrive at his conclusions through sound reasoning yet the picture of reality he conveyed is disconcerting to say the least James Warren in his book pre-socratics wrote that Parmenides left us with an odd and alienating picture of reality following consistently the ban on what is not it has turned out that we are left with an unfamiliar reality which leaves no room for change plurality motion difference people days or nights to conclude this lecture we will briefly investigate the enormous impact which Parmenides head on the mind of Plato Plato is said to have constructed his vision of reality by reconciling the ideas of Heraclitus and Parmenides in the last lecture we explained how Heraclitus asserted that everything is constantly in flux or in other words in a constant state of becoming and therefore that absolute or unchanging truths do not exist Plato was shaken with this insight and as a man devoted to the attainment of truth he could not rest content with the notion that truth did not exist it was in the philosophy of Parmenides that he found a way to escape the epistemological nihilism or the denial that truths exist conveyed by the philosophy of Heraclitus there are in fact two different realms which constitute the universe Plato concluded there is a realm of being in which things do not change are not born and do not die and there is a realm of becoming where things do change are born and do perish the world of becoming we observe through our senses while the realm of being or the realm of forms as Plato called it we discern through the use of our mind or reason truths exist only in the realm of being or the reality of forms and hence unshakeable knowledge can only be obtained through the use of one's mind with respect to the world we experience the world of becoming Plato taught that only opinions or beliefs but never true this can be ascertained in a passage of Plato's it is clear that the philosophy of Parmenides and his permanent and motionless reality of being and the philosophy of Heraclitus and his ever-changing reality of becoming were merged by Plato into a higher synthesis in my opinion we must first of all make the following distinction what is it that always is and has no becoming and what on the other hand becomes continually but never is the one comprehensible by the mind with reasoning the other conjectured by opinion with irrational sensation coming to be and passing away but never really being however before Plato reconciled the ideas of Heraclitus and Parmenides and there were three more main pre-socratics who had to wrestle with Parmenides law against becoming as we will see in the coming lectures these later pre-socratics abided by Parmenides law that it is impossible for something to emerge from nothing and therefore they did away with the notion of becoming however they could not accept his conclusion that nothing moves or changes for this idea is in direct contrast to our most basic experience of the world these later pre-socratics made it their mission to save the appearances so to speak and provide a vision of reality which adhered both to Parmenides law and our basic experience of the world which tells us things do in fact move and change these later three pre-socratics which we will consider in the coming lectures our impetus annex a giris and Democritus

Channel: Academy of Ideas

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Keywords: presocratic philosophers, presocratics, parmenides, academy of ideas, plato, heraclitus, being, becoming, ancient greece

Id: MbDW1836TXg

Length: 12min 2sec (722 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 17 2012