By being, it is : the thesis of Parmenides

231 Pages·2004·1.132 MB·English

by  d'Élée. Parménide, Parmenides., Parmenides., Cordero, Nestor-Luis

By Being, It Is
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By Being, It Is
THE THESIS OF PARMENIDES
Ne´stor-Luis Cordero
PARMENIDES
PUBLISHING
PARMENIDES PUBLISHING
Las Vegas 89109
 2004 by Parmenides Publishing
All rights reserved
Published 2004
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN: 1-930972-03-2
Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cordero, Nestor-Luis.
By being, it is : the thesis of Parmenides /
Ne´stor-Luis Cordero.
p. ; cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN: 1-930972-03-2
1. Parmenides. 2. Ontology. 3. Eleatics. II. Title.
B187.05 C67 2004
182/.3
English translation by Dinah Livingstone
for Translate-A-Book, Oxford, England
1-888-PARMENIDES
www.parmenides.com
Contents
Prologue ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Chapter I: Introduction to Parmenides 3
(a) The Region 3
(b) Chronology 5
(c) Life 8
(d) Works 11
(e) The Poem 12
(1) The Reconstruction 12
(2) The Form 14
(3) The Content 15
Chapter II: Prolegomena to Parmenides’ Thesis 19
(a) Parmenides’ theor´ıa 19
(b) The Allegorical Presentation of the Content
of the Poem 21
(c) “You Must Inquire About Everything” (1.28) 30
Chapter III: Parmenides’ Thesis and Its Negation 37
(a) The Alternative in Fragment 2 37
(b) The Only Two Ways of “Leading” Thought 39
(c) Lines 3 and 5 of Fragment 2 42
(1) E´stin on Its Own and Its Negation 44
(2) The Modal Complement of e´stin on Its Own
and Its Negation 54
Chapter IV: The Meaning of Parmenides’ Thesis
(and of Its Negation) 59
(a) The Grammar of “To Be” 59
(b) The Meaning of “Being” and Returning to the
Question of the Subject of e´stin in 2.3a 60
vi Contents
(c) The Absolutization of the Fact of Being,
the Negation of the Thesis, and the Ways
of Investigation 64
(d) The Opposition Between the Thesis
and Its Negation 69
(e) Structural Difference Between Statement
and Negation 72
(f) Why Is the Negation of the Thesis Impossible? 79
Chapter V: Parmenides’ Thesis, Thinking,
and Speaking 83
(a) Thinking Is Expressed Thanks to Being 84
(b) It Has to be Said and Thought That
That Which Is Being, Is 90
(c) Impossibility of Thinking and Saying That
Which Is Not Being 92
Chapter VI: Presentation of the Thesis and
Its Negation in Fragments 6 and 7 97
(a) 6.1b–2a Reintroduces the First Way
of Investigation 98
(b) Relation Between 6.1–2 and Fragment 2 101
(c) Truth, Persuasion, and Deception 103
(d) The Exhortation to Proclaim That It Is Possible
to Be and That Nothing[ness] Does Not Exist 105
(e) Parmenides Does Not Recommend
“Withdrawing” from the Thesis Expounded
in 6.1b–2a 108
(f) The Origin of the Notion of “Withdrawing”
as a Conjecture in 6.3 112
(g) Rejection of the Conjecture “I Withdraw You” 116
(h) The Thesis Expounded in Fragment 7 117
(i) A Possible Solution for the Gap in Line 6.3 119
(j) Discovering the Foundation of the Two Ways
in Fragment 6 122
Chapter VII: The Negation of the Thesis, “Opinions,”
and the Nonexistent Third Way 125
(a) The Senses and the Wandering Intellect Do Not
Distinguish Between Being and Not Being 129
Contents vii
(b) Lo´gos as the Criterion by Which to Judge
the Critique of the Way Made by Men 134
(c) The Meaning of lo´gos in Parmenides 136
(d) The Hypothetical “Third Way” 138
(e) Confirmation of the Existence of Only Two
Ways of Investigation 143
Chapter VIII: The Meaning of the “Opinions
of Mortals” 151
(a) Do´xa Is Not Appearance 152
(b) The Object of Opinions 154
(c) Do´xa and Names 156
(d) The Opinion-makers 158
(e) The Content of Opinions 160
Chapter IX: The Foundation of the Thesis:
The Way of Truth 165
(a) The Only Way That Remains 165
(b) The se´mata of e´stin 168
(c) The Field in Which the se´mata Operate 170
(d) The First se´ma: That Which Is Being
Is Everlasting 170
(e) Immobility 173
(f) Homogeneity 174
(g) Oneness 175
(h) Truth 178
Epilogue 181
Appendix 1: Parmenides’ Poem 185
(a) Text 185
(b) Translation 190
Appendix 2: Note on the Transliteration
of the Greek Alphabet 197
Bibliography 199
List of Ancient Authors Cited 211
List of Modern Authors Cited 213
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Prologue
Historians of philosophy usually refer to Plato to confirm the importance
thatParmenides’philosophyhadacquired,eveninhisowntime.Theycite
not only the celebrated passage from Plato’s Sophist, in which the Eleatic
philosopher is described as the Athenian’s (obviously spiritual) “father”
(241d), but also the text of the Theaetetus, which calls him “venerable” and
“fearsome”(183e),accordingtotheHomericformulaappliedtotherevered
Priam (Il. 3.172). Generally speaking, at this point, curiously, quotations
from Plato’s text peter out. But Plato continues to concern himself with
Parmenides,and inthe followingsentence wefind atrue confession,proof
of the lucidity and sincerity with which the philosopher approaches his
ancestor’sthought:Parmenides,saysPlato,“seemedtometohaveapower
that denotes a depth absolutely full of nobility. Even so, I am afraid we
may not understand his words, and I am even more afraid that what he
was thinking of when he said them goes quite beyond us” (184a).
For us these words of Plato’s have always been an invitation, indeed,
an incitement, to take an interest in Parmenides’ philosophy. Less than a
century after his death, Plato is already confessing that he is afraid he can-
notunderstandthemeaningoftheEleatean’sphilosophy,butthatdoesnot
prevent him recognizing its immense value or, especially, from criticizing
andevenrefutingit.ThismeansthatwhatevertherealmeaningofParmenides’
ideas,theyweretakenbyPlatoinacertainway,andthatistheParmenides
whom Plato combats, or, if you prefer, revises and even improves. Today,
almost twenty-five centuries later, we see that the Parmenideanism that
Plato criticizes is a combination of the Eleatean’s own ideas with Zenonian
andMelissianingredients,andthatthisexplosivemixturewasveryproba-
bly represented by Antisthenes at the time the Theaetetus and Sophist were
being written1 (cf. Epilogue). But all this is secondary: it is the image Plato
hasofParmenidesthatleadshimtotakeaninterestinhim.Andthisisstill
goingontoday.Otherphilosophersofantiquity(Aristotle,Plutarch,Sextus
Empiricus, Simplicius) offer us other aspects of Parmenides, and we might
even say they present us with “other” Parmenides. So did the numerous
doxographers, who often gave pride of place to a “cosmological” Parmen-
ides.
1 Approximately369–367B.C.