The fragments of Parmenides : a critical text with introduction and translation, the ancient Testimonia and a commentary

478 Pages·2009·4.915 MB·English

by  Parmenides., Parmenides., McKirahan, Richard D., Coxon, A. H

eFRAGMENTS
h
T Of
Revised and Expanded Edition by PARMENIDES
A.H.Coxon
Edited with New Translations by
Richard McKirahan
With a New Preface by
Malcolm Schofield
THE FRAGMENTS OF PARMENIDES
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THE FRAGMENTS OF
PARMENIDES
A Critical Text with Introduction and Translation,
the Ancient Testimonia and a Commentary
by
A. H. COXON
Revised and Expanded Edition
edited with new Translations by Richard McKirahan
and a new Preface by Malcolm Schofi eld
Las Vegas | Zurich | Athens
PARMENIDES PUBLISHING
Las Vegas • Zurich • Athens
© 2009 Parmenides Publishing
All rights reserved.
Originally published in 1986 as The Fragments of Parmenides: A critical text
with introduction, translation, the ancient testimonia and a commentary
(Phronesis Supplementary Volume III)
by Van Gorcum, Assen/Maastrich, The Netherlands
This new edition includes—
• corrections and additions by the late A. H. Coxon;
• new English translations of the testimonia and of Greek throughout the book
by Richard McKirahan;
• a Greek-English Index and an English-Greek Glossary by Richard McKirahan;
• a new Preface by Malcolm Schofi eld
—and is published in 2009 by Parmenides Publishing
in the United States of America
ISBN: 978-1-930972-67-4
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Parmenides.
[Nature. English & Greek.]
The fragments of Parmenides / by A. H. Coxon ; edited with new translations by
Richard McKirahan and with a new preface by Malcolm Schofi eld. — Rev. and
expanded ed.
p. cm.
Includes indexes.
ISBN 978-1-930972-67-4 (pbk. : alk. paper)
I. Coxon, A. H., 1909– II. McKirahan, Richard D. III. Title.
B235.P23F73 2009 182'.3—dc22
2009034152
Digitization of the 1986 edition by KatScan OCR | www.katscan-ocr.com
Typeset in Palatino and OdysseaUBSU (Greek) by 1106 Design | www.1106design.com
Printed and lay-fl at bound by Edwards Brothers, Inc. | www.edwardsbrothers.com
Images of Sextus Empiricus, Codex Laur. (ms. Plut.) 85,19 (= N), f. 124 v. and f. 125 r.
provided by the Library Medicea Laurenziana, Florence, reproduced with permission
from the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities, Italy
Reproduction without permission is prohibited.
The cover image depicts an armillary sphere from 1554, made by Girolamo della Volpaia
(c. 1530–1614) of Florence, Italy. A full view of the same armillary is shown on page 367.
Photographs courtesy of the Science Museum / Science & Society Picture Library, London, UK.
1-888-PARMENIDES
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Contents
PREFACE TO THE REVISED AND EXPANDED EDITION vii
EDITOR’S NOTE xi
PREFACE xiii
Introduction 1
1. The textual tradition 1
2. Parmenides’ poetic dialect 7
3. The form of the poem 9
(i) Parmenides’ debt to Homer 9
(ii) The way of the goddess and the journey of persuasion 12
(iii) Cosmology and myth 13
4. Parmenides’ criticism of earlier philosophers 18
5. Parmenides’ investigation of the nature of Being 20
6. Parmenides’ infl uence on philosophy in the fi fth century B.C. 23
7. Parmenides’ infl uence on the theory of Forms 27
8. The criticism of Parmenides’ monism in the fourth century B.C. 30
9. Parmenides’ philosophy in the Hellenistic and Roman period 34
10. The Biographical tradition 39
TEXT AND TRANSLATION OF THE FRAGMENTS 45
THE ANCIENT TESTIMONIA WITH ENGLISH TRANSLATION 99
COMMENTARY 269
APPENDIX 389
I Zeno’s argument about magnitude 389
II Zeno’s argument about numerability 394
III Zeno’s paradox of the arrow 395
IV Melissus’ argument against pluralism 397
CONCORDANCE 400
I Fragments 400
II Testimonia 401
INDEXES & GLOSSARY 403
I TESTIMONIA 405
1. Ancient Authors 405
2. English–Greek Glossary 406
3. Greek–English Index 421
II COMMENTARY 451
1. Subjects 451
2. Greek words and phrases 452
III PROPER NAMES IN THE INTRODUCTION, COMMENTARY AND APPENDIX 457
v
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Preface to the Revised and
Expanded Edition
Malcolm Schofield
Parmenides dominates the whole terrain of Presocratic philosophy like a
colossus. Although Aristotle told the story differently, modern accounts of
the development of early Greek thought fi nd it hard to avoid presenting
Parmenides’ poem as the turning-point decisive for understanding of the
overall trajectory of the entire enterprise. Consequently monographs and
scholarly articles devoted to the poem continue to appear thick and fast.
The sheer diffi culty and frequent obscurity of the verse are one standing
provocation to new attempts at interpretation. But so too are Parmenides’
extraordinary combination of abstract logic and metaphysics (in the central
philosophical part of the poem) and dense allusiveness to an inherited stock
of poetic phraseology and religious imagery (in the proem), with seeming
echoes of both in the relatively poorly preserved cosmological speculations
which constituted the fi nal section.
None of this intense scholarly activity could fl ourish, however, without
one basic resource: a reliable scholarly edition of the Greek text of the frag-
ments. A. H. Coxon’s The Fragments of Parmenides immediately established
itself as the authoritative modern edition on its appearance in 1986. No
subsequent publication has even tried to replace it. The Fragments remains
indispensable. The original has long been out of print. So a corrected and
expanded second edition is timely and indeed badly needed.
With that, this introduction might well conclude: mission accomplished.
But for the reader coming fresh to Coxon’s work, a few further words may
be useful in explaining what its importance consists in.
Fundamental is his presentation of the Greek text itself. Coxon’s study of
the manuscripts of Simplicius, Sextus, and the other authors who preserve
Parmenides’ words enabled him to achieve two things above all. First, in
the apparatus criticus he was in a position to set out the evidence for what
the poet wrote (or may have written) more fully (albeit with due economy)
and more accurately than in previous editions. Second, he was able to
vii
PREFACE TO THE REVISED AND EXPANDED EDITION
conclude (I quote): “The evidence of the manuscripts, if combined with that
of Parmenides’ general dependence on Homer, amply justifi es the restora-
tion of epic and Ionic for tragic and Attic forms in the few places where the
manuscripts present only the latter.” One further major feature is Coxon’s
inclusion, at the foot of the page, of references to passages of earlier Greek
poetry that seem to be echoed by Parmenides, and to passages from later
philosophical writers that seem to echo him in their turn. In these refer-
ences, in the formidable chronological sweep of his Introduction, and in his
rich commentary on the fragments (at once philological and philosophical),
we get a sense of the apparently dogmatic Parmenides always in conversa-
tion with Homer, Hesiod and others before him, and with a whole host of
later philosophers from Melissus and Empedocles onwards. Finally, facing
the text of the fragments is Coxon’s English prose translation, designed to
express his understanding of the Greek as accurately as he could.
The book’s other major contribution to scholarship is its collection of tes-
timonia. Coxon’s is a much fuller selection than was provided by Diels and
Kranz in Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker. It is ordered not thematically (as in
Diels-Kranz), but in chronological sequence of the writers who transmit the
information: whether in their own extant texts (as with Plato or Aristotle),
or—where those texts do not survive—as recorded in later authors (e.g.
for Eudemus, in Simplicius; for Posidonius, in Strabo: though here Coxon
usefully refers in the fi rst instance to a standard modern collection of frag-
ments and testimonia of the cited author wherever possible). To enhance the
accessibility of the new edition, an English translation facing the original
Greek or (occasionally) Latin has been prepared by Richard McKirahan.
Coxon himself indicated—in handwritten notes on two copies of the
book—where he thought revisions or corrections were needed to the fi rst
edition. In this second edition any such instance amounting to more than
correction of a typographical error is pointed out in a corresponding
footnote (above Richard McKirahan’s initials). One extra testimonium is
added: Xenocrates, T16a. Really substantial revisions are in fact few and far
between. The most signifi cant comes in the commentary on lines 34–41 of
Fragment 8, where Coxon had revised his understanding of Parmenides’
grammatical construction at lines 35–36, and had rethought the overall
purpose of the passage. Here as elsewhere the text of the fi rst edition is
preserved in a footnote.
Richard McKirahan’s translation of the testimonia is not the only extra help
offered to the reader. There are also English translations of all Greek words
and phrases throughout the Introduction, Commentary and Appendix, and
viii
PREFACE TO THE REVISED AND EXPANDED EDITION
line numbers have been inserted in the testimonia themselves to enhance
ease of reference. Highly abbreviated forms of names of ancient authors
and works have been spelled out more fully. New supplementary material
includes the Greek-English Index and an English-Greek glossary to the
translations of the testimonia. Finally, as a way of enabling the looking up
of page references based on the pagination of the fi rst edition, the original
page numbers are provided here in square brackets inside the margins.
All involved in the preparation of the second edition of this landmark
of Presocratic scholarship share the hope and conviction that, with these
improvements in presentation, the book will serve the needs of another
generation of students and scholars as effectively as the original publica-
tion did its readers in their time.
Malcolm Schofi eld, August 2009
ix