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 Presocratic philosopher who flourished in the first half of the fifth century BC, in the Greek colony of Elea, located on the southwest coast of Italy. Although the conclusions he reached as we will soon see were quite preposterous, he is widely considered the most influential of all the Presocratics.

As William Guthrie explained in the second volume of his 'History of Greek philosophy series', 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. 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 immovable 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 gives 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 his claim 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 utter 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 evidenced 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 Sophist 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 Parmenides 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 'Presocratics' 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 at 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.'