Parmenides of Elea

In short, the single corporeal element of the Ionian physicists was, to borrow a phrase from Aristotle, a permanent °vaia having 1-6.077 which change; but they either neglected the or con founded them with the oval a. Parmenides sought to reduce the variety of nature to a single material element; but he strictly discriminated the inconstant 71-6.0n from the constant obala and, understanding by "existence" universal, invariable, immutable being, refused to attribute to the 71-6.077 anything more than the semblance of existence. Again, whereas the Ionians, confounding the unity and the plurality of the universe, had neglected plu rality, and the Pythagoreans, contenting themselves with the re duction of the variety of nature to a duality or a series of dual ities, had neglected unity, Parmenides, taking a hint from Xeno phanes, made the antagonistic doctrines supply one another's deficiencies.

By his recognition

of an apparent plurality supplementary to the real unity, Parmenides effected the transition from the "monism" or "henism" of the first physical succession to the "pluralism" of the second. While Empedocles and Democritus are careful to emphasize their dissent from "Truth," it is obvious that "Opinion" is the basis of their cosmologies. The doctrine of the deceitfulness of "the undiscerning eye and the echoing ear" soon established itself, though the grounds upon which Emped ocles, Anaxagoras and Democritus maintained it were not those alleged by Parmenides. Indirectly, through the dialectic of his pupil and friend Zeno and otherwise, the doctrine of the inade quacy of sensation for a time threatened to put an end to philo sophical and scientific speculation. But the positive influence of Parmenides's teaching was not yet exhausted. To say that the Platonism of Plato's later dialogues, the Parmenides, the Philebus and the Timaeus, is the philosophy of Parmenides reconstituted, may perhaps seem paradoxical in the face of the severe criticism to which Eleaticism is subjected, but the criticism was prepara tory to a reconstruction. Thus may be explained the selection of an Eleatic stranger to be the chief speaker in the Sophist, and of Parmenides himself to take the lead in the Parmenides. In the former, criticism predominates over reconstruction, the Zenonian logic being turned against the Parmenides metaphysic in such a way as to show that both the one and the other .need

revision: see 241 D, 244 B seq., 257 B seq., 258 D. In particular, Plato taxes Parmenides with his inconsistency in attributing to the fundamental unity extension and sphericity, so that "the worshipped is after all a pitiful to) 6v" (W. H. Thompson). In the Parmenides reconstruction predominates over criticism— the letter of Eleaticism being here represented by Zeno, its spirit, as Plato conceived it, by Parmenides. Not the least im portant of the results obtained in this dialogue is the discovery that, whereas the doctrine of the "one" and the "many" is suicidal and barren so long as the "solitary one" and the "in definitely many" are absolutely separated (127 C seq. and 163 B seq.), it becomes consistent and fruitful as soon as a "definite plurality" is interpolated between them (142 B seq., 157 B seq., i6o B seq.). In short, Parmenides could not in a true sense be regarded as an idealist, but Plato recognized in him, and rightly, the precursor of idealism.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.—The fragments have been skilfully edited by H. Diels, in Parmenides Lehrgedicht, griechisch u. deutsch (Berlin, 1897), with commentary ; in Poetarum philosophorum fragmenta, with brief Latin notes, critical and interpretative (19oI) ; and in Die Fragmente d. Vorsokratiker (Bd. i. [4th ed. 1922], with German translation) ; Diels' text is reproduced with a helpful Latin commentary in Ritter and Preller's Hist. pkg. graecae (ed. E. Wellmann, Gotha, 1898). The philosophical system is expounded by E. Zeller, D. Philosophie d. Griechen (Eng. trans., 1880 ; by T. Gomperz, Greek Thinkers, vol. i. (Eng. trans., 1901) ; and by J. Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy (3rd. ed. 192o). For the cosmology, see A. B. Krische, D. theologischen Lehren d. griechischen Denker (Gottingen, 1840). On the relations of Eleaticism and Platonism, see W. H. Thompson, "On Plato's Sophist," in the Journal of Philology, viii. ; C. Reinhardt, Parmenides and die Geschichte der griechischen Philosophie (Bonn, 1916). For other texts, translations,commentaries and monographs see the excellent bibli ography in Grundriss d. Geschichte d. Philosophie Bd. i.

(1926). (H.

JN.)