Parmenides

Thus the nature and character in every creature was the resultant of two antagonistic forces and depended for its particular excellence or defect on the proportions in which these two elements, the light and the dark, the fiery and the earthy, had been commingled.

no character in greek antiquity at least in the succession of philosophic teachers held a more honoured position than parmenides he was looked on with almost superstitious reverence by his fellow-countrymen plato speaks of him as his father parmenides whom he revered and honoured more than all the other philosophers together quote professor jowett in his introduction to plato's dialogue parmenides he was the founder of idealism and also of dialectic or in modern phraseology of metaphysics and of logic of the logical aspect of his teaching we shall see a fuller exemplification in his pupil and successor zeno of his metaphysics by way of summing up what has already been said it may be remarked that its substantial excellence consists in the perfect clearness and precision with which parmenides enunciated as fundamental in any theory of the noble universe the priority of existence itself not in time merely or chiefly but as a condition of having any problem to inquire into he practically admits that he does not see how to bridge over the partition between existence in itself and the changeful temporary existing things which the senses give us notions of but whatever the connection may be if there is a connection he is convinced that nothing would be more absurd than to make the data of sense in any way or degree the measure of the reality of existence or the source from which existence itself comes into being on this serenely impersonal position he took his stand we find little or nothing of the querulous personal notes so characteristic of much modern philosophy we never find him asking what is to become of me in all this what is my position with regard to this eternally existing reality of course this is not exclusively a characteristic of parmenides but of the time the idea of personal relation to an eternal rewarder was only vaguely held in historical times in greece the conception of personal immortality was a mere pious opinion a doctrine whispered here and there in secret mystery it was not an influential force on men's motives or actions thought was still occupied with the wider universe the heavens and their starry wonders and the strange phenomena of law in nature in the succession of the seasons the rising and setting the fixities and aberrations of the heavenly bodies in the mysteries of coming into being and passing out of it in these and other similar marvels and in the thoughts which they evoked a whole and ample world seemed open for inquiry Men and their fate were interesting enough to men, but as yet the egotism of man had not attempted to isolate his destiny from the general problem of nature.

to the crux of philosophy as it appeared to parmenides in the relation of being as such to things which seem to be modernism has appended a sort of corollary in the relation of being as such to my being till the second question was raised its answer of course could not be attempted but all those who in modern times have said with tennyson thou wilt not leave us in the dust thou madest man he knows not why he thinks he was not made to die and thou hast made him thou art just They recognize in Parmenides a pioneer for them.

Without knowing it, he was fighting the battle of personality in man, as well as that of reality in nature.

CHAPTER V.

THE ELIATICS CONCLUDED 3 zeno the third head of the eleatic school was zeno he is described by plato in the parmenides as accompanying his master to athens on the visit already referred to and as being then nearly forty years of age of a noble figure and fair aspect in personal character he was a worthy pupil of his master being like him a devoted patriot he is even said to have fallen a victim to his patriotism and to have suffered bravely the extremest tortures at the hands of a tyrant nearchus rather than betray his country His philosophic position was a very simple one.

He had nothing to add to or vary in the doctrine of Parmenides.

His function was primarily that of an expositor and defender of that doctrine, and his particular preeminence consists in the ingenuity of his dialectic resources of defence.

The last thing I wanted to add to that, because it ties into, you were saying the parallels between all of these figures and stuff like that.

I think the messages I was reading, Parmenides and Heraclitus, and they're very like do unto others as others will do unto you.

The way of truth and the way of opinion kind of resonate with these.

It seems like it's like they're tapping into the monad, as you say, these higher messages of truth.

And obviously it's not historical since he has...

Since he has to be speaking with historical figures that long preceded him, Parmenides and such.

And we also know that there are many claims about Plato's doctrines, so to speak, being quite distinct from those that are in the dialogues.

But I like the idea of understanding these texts, of reading Kant and thinking, well, What does it mean that Kant essentially sets up this system as something that is constantly directionally headed towards a kind of failure? It is always headed towards the ambivalence of a set of claims where either side of the claim can be proven false.

Now, what's interesting to me is the most adequate description, definition that we can discursively arrive at for being is identical.

identical to the definition the best definition for truth and you can try and wrap your head around it you can try and make it more or less abstract more tangible really the only thing you can say about being and truth is that you can define them as follows that which is Okay, and now this stems, this is the central, central issue with Plato that he's picking up, he's taking, not just from Pythagoras, but particularly Parmenides, right? Parmenides, the father of metaphysics, his main thing was being and becoming.

How does the one become the many? Okay, how do we go from one to multiplicity and being a non-being? And so the basic thing is there's like...

There's no proof whatsoever for non-being.