Parmenides
Parmenides
514 av. J.-C. — 469 av. J.-C.
Greek philosopher of the 5th century BC and founder of the Eleatic school. He developed a radical metaphysics asserting that Being is one, unchanging, and eternal — rejecting any notion of change or multiplicity.
Famous Quotes
« What is, is; what is not, is not. »
« You must learn all things: both the unshaken heart of well-rounded Truth, and the opinions of mortals, in which there is no true belief. »
Key Facts
- Born around 515 BC in Elea, a Greek colony in southern Italy
- Founder of the Eleatic school, a Pre-Socratic philosophical movement
- Author of the philosophical poem 'On Nature' (Περὶ φύσεως), around 475 BC
- Directly influenced Plato, who dedicated a dialogue to him ('Parmenides')
- Taught Zeno of Elea, famous for his paradoxes about motion
Works & Achievements
The only known work of Parmenides, written in dactylic hexameter — the meter of Homer. Structured in two parts (the Way of Truth and the Way of Opinion), this philosophical poem is the first Western text to address the question of Being in a rigorous way.
A legal code attributed to Parmenides by Diogenes Laërtius and Plutarch. Although no text has survived, their reputation was such that the citizens of Elea renewed their oath to uphold them every year for several centuries.
Around sixty fragments of the poem have survived through quotations by Aristotle, Simplicius, and Sextus Empiricus. These passages form the essential basis of our knowledge of Parmenides' thought.
Anecdotes
Parmenides is said to have met the young Socrates during a visit to Athens, around 450 BC. Plato immortalized this encounter in his dialogue *Parmenides*, where the elderly philosopher rigorously challenges the ideas of the future Socrates with formidable intellectual force.
Parmenides wrote his philosophy in the form of an epic poem, in the tradition of Homer and Hesiod. This surprising literary choice was likely intended to give his abstract thought the solemnity and authority of the great sacred works of ancient Greece.
According to Diogenes Laërtius, Parmenides drafted laws for his native city of Elea, and his fellow citizens upheld and renewed them every year for several centuries. He was therefore as much a statesman as a thinker.
Parmenides argued that motion and change are pure illusions of the senses. In his view, what we perceive of the world is mere deceptive appearance: only Being — unique, motionless, and eternal — is real. This unsettling idea would go on to shape Western philosophy for millennia.
His disciple Zeno of Elea invented famous paradoxes to defend his master's ideas, including the paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise: the swift hero can never catch the slow tortoise, because he must first cover an infinite number of intermediate distances. A provocative way of showing that motion is an illusion.
Primary Sources
The mares that carry me as far as my spirit could reach conveyed me, once the goddesses had guided me along the famous road that leads, through all cities, the man who knows.
You must learn all things: both the unshaking heart of well-rounded Truth, and the opinions of mortals in which there is no true belief.
Parmenides was already well advanced in years, with hair quite white, but of noble appearance and fine bearing… Zeno was at that time about forty years old.
Our father Parmenides bequeathed us this thesis from our childhood and upholds it throughout his life: never shall this be proved — that things that are not, are.
Parmenides seems to consider the One in terms of reason, Melissus in terms of matter… Parmenides says the One is according to definition, Melissus that the One is according to matter.
Key Places
A Greek city on the Tyrrhenian coast, founded around 540 BC by Phocaean colonists, and the birthplace of Parmenides' Eleatic school of philosophy. Known today as Velia, in Campania (southern Italy), the archaeological site has been partially excavated.
The intellectual capital of the classical Greek world, which Parmenides is said to have visited around 450 BC during the Great Panathenaea, according to Plato's account in his dialogue of the same name. It was there that he reportedly met the young Socrates.
The birthplace of Greek philosophy, where Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes were born. Parmenides was familiar with their work, and his reflections on Being developed in dialogue with this earliest philosophical tradition.
A city of Magna Graecia where Pythagoras taught, whose influence on Parmenides' thought is attested by several ancient sources. It is believed that Parmenides had contact with Pythagoreans from this region.
Gallery
School of Athens
Wikimedia Commons, Public domain — Raphael
Raffaello Scuola di Atene numbered
Wikimedia Commons, Public domain — User:Bibi Saint-Pol
Parmenides
Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 — Inconnu
Zeno Moving Rows Paradox
Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 — Martin Grandjean
Zeno Moving Rows Paradox2
Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 — Martin Grandjean // Wiki LIC
Busto di Parmenide (cropped)
Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 — Sergio Spolti
Cronologia Parmenides
Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 — Juan José Moral
Timeline Hypotesees Parmenides bitrh and composition
Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0 — Juan José Moral
Herculanum et Pompéi : recueil général des peintures, bronzes, mosaïques, etc., découverts jusqu'à ce jour, et reproduits d'après le antichita di Ercolano, il Museo borbonico, et tous les ouvrages an
Wikimedia Commons, Public domain — Barré, Louis, 1799-1857 Roux, H. (Henri)
Copertina del volume "Introduzione a Parmenide" di Antonio Capizzi (1a ed. 1975)
Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 — Sifossefoco