noein, and their derivatives in pre-socratic philosophy (excluding anaxagoras) part ii

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ΝΟΥΣ, Noein, and Their Derivatives in Pre-Socratic Philosophy (Excluding Anaxagoras): Part I.From the Beginnings to ParmenidesAuthor(s): Kurt von FritzReviewed work(s):Source: Classical Philology, Vol. 40, No. 4 (Oct., 1945), pp. 223-242Published by: The University of Chicago Press

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NOTE, NOEIN, AND THEIR DERIVATIVES IN PRE-SOCRATIC

PHILOSOPHY (EXCLUDING ANAXAGORAS)

PART I. FROM THE BEGINNINGS TO PARMENIDES

KURT VON FRITZ

INTRODUCTION

IN N earlier rticle'I tried o analyzethe meaning or meanings of thewords '6osand voeZv n the Homeric

poems, in preparation for an analysis ofthe importance of these terms in earlyGreek philosophy. The present article will

attempt to cope with this second andsomewhat more difficult problem, but tothe exclusion of the vovisof Anaxagoras,since this very complicated concept re-quires a separate investigation. By wayof an introduction it is perhaps expedientto repeat briefly the main results of thepreceding article.

The fundamental meaning of the word

voeZv n Homer is to realize or to under-stand a situation. Etymologically, thewords voos and voe?vare most probablyderived from a root meaning to sniff or

to smell. But in the stage of the seman-tic development represented by the Ho-meric poems, the concept of voe?vs moreclosely related to the sense of vision. Acomparison with the words 1&6tv and

7t7VWcTKVE as used in Homer leads to the

following results.I. The use of the word &fZvhas so

wide a range that it can cover all the casesin which something comes to our knowl-edge through the sense of vision, includ-ing (a) the case in which the objectof vision remains indefinite, for in-stance, a green patch the shape ofwhich cannot be clearly distinguished; (b)

the case in which a definite object is seenand identified; and (c) the case in which1 CP, XXXVIII (1943), 79 if.

the importance of an object or of its ac-

tion within a given situation is recognized.II. The word 7L7V(UKtEV is used where

case b is to be clearly distinguished from

case a, that is, when stress is laid on the

fact that a definite object is recognized

and identified (especially after first hav-

ing been seen as an indefinite shape andwithout being recognized).

III. The term voetvdistinguishes case c

from the first two cases and is used mainly

where recognition of an object leads to therealization of a situation, especially a situ-

ation of great emotional impact and im-

portance.From this fundamental meaning of voos

and voe?v everal derivative connotationshave developed, which can already be ob-

served in Homer.1. Since the same situation may have a

different meaning to persons of differ-

ent character and circumstances of life,

the notion develops that different persons

or nations have different voL.2 As these

different meanings of a situation evoke

different reactions to it and since these re-

actions are more or less typical of certainpersons, v6os sometimes implies the no-tion of a specific attitude.

2. A dangerous situation, or a situationwhich otherwise deeply affects the indi-

vidual realizing it, often immediately callsforth or suggests a plan to escape from, orto deal with, the situationLThe visualiza-tion of this plan, which, so to speak, ex-

tends the development of the situationinto the future, is then also considered a2 Ibid., pp. 81 and 90.

[CASSICAL PHILOLOGY,XL, OCTOBER, 19451 223







224 KURT VON FRITZ

function of the voos,so that the terms voos

and voEtv can acquire the meaning of

plan or planning. 3 With this deriva-

tive meaning of the words, a volitional

element enters into the concepts of voosand voztv, which originally designate a

purely intellectual function. It is also per-

tinent to add that in Homer this intellec-

tual function is not, as in Plato, opposed

to and restraining of, but very often rather

an immediate cause of, violent emotion.4

3. Another derivative of the original

meaning remainsin the purely intellectual

field. Ordinarily the realization of a situa-

tion merely adds a further element to the

recognition of an object or of its action, for

instance, the realization of imminent

danger or inescapable doom to the recog-

nition of the approaching enemy as

Achilles.5 In other cases, however, the

realization of the meaning of a situation is

the immediate consequence of the cor-

rection of a previous, but inaccurate, rec-

ognition -for instance, the realizationthat the person appearing in the shape of

an old woman is, in fact, the goddess

Aphrodite.6 In this case the second and

more correct identification of the object

is not the result of a clearer vision of its

external form-which may still remain

that of an old woman7-but rather of a

deeper insight into its real nature, which

aIbid., pp. 86 and 90.

4 Ibid., pp. 83 ff. 5 See Iliad xxii. 90 if.

6 See ibid. II. 386 ff., and the examples discussed in

von Fritz, op. cit., p. 89.

7 Sometimes Homer describes this experience in a

very strange fashion. In II. iii. 386 if. Aphrodite ap-

pears to Helen in the shape of an old woman. But after

a while Helen '%6tqcre he beautiful neck, the lovely

breast, and the shining eyes of the goddess and real-

izes who has been talking to her. Yet Homer does not

say with one word that the goddess has changed her

shape and is now appearing in her true form. It seems

rather as if in some strange fashion the real beauty of

the goddess shines through, or can be recognized

through, her assumed appearance. In many other in-stances, however (Odyss. i. 322; iv. 653; etc.), the god

who appears in human shape and retains this shape to

the end is recognized as a god without any reference

to visible qualities which might reveal him as such.

seems to penetrate beyond its outward

appearance. This deeper insight itself is

then also considered a function of the

voos.Another example of this is the case

in which a person, for instance, suddenlyrealizes that evil intentions are hidden

behind a seemingly friendly attitude, etc.

4. In the cases described under 3, the

implication is usually that the vooswhich

penetrates beyond the surface appearance

discovers the real truth about the matter.

There can, then, be no different vOotin

this situation, but the voOSin this case is

obviously but one.8What is of still greater

importance, with this connotation of theterm voos, the later distinction, so impor-

tant in pre-Socratic philosophy, between

a phenomenal world which we perceive

with our senses but which may be decep-

tive and a real world which may be dis-

covered behind the phenomena seems in

some way naively anticipated.

5. Still another extension of the mean-

ing of voos, closely connected with thecases described both under 2 and under 3,

is the voos which makes far-off things

present. 9 In this connection Y'oS seems

to designate the imagination by which we

can visualize situations and objects which

are remote in space and time.10

6. On the negative side it is important

to stress the fact that v6os and voEZvn

Homer never mean reason or reason-

8 See von Fritz., op. cit., p. 90, and below, p. 226.

9Von Fritz, op. cit., p. 91.

10This meaning of the word is especially well Illus-

trated by the passage II. xv. 80 ff.: Just as when the

v6osof a man who has seen many lands and thinks 'If

I were only here or if I were only there' darts from one

place to another, just as quickly Hera flew through the

air. Here we have also the origin of the expression

with the quickness of thought, mit Gedankenschnelle,

which can be found in most modern languages.

Thought or Gedanke in this expression, just as v6os in

the passage of Homer, does not, of course, mean the

process of thinking or reasoning, which may be very

slow, as Lessing pointed out in his famous fragmentFaust, when he made Faust reject the services of a

devil who is only as quick as thought, but it means the

flight of the imagination. Cf. also Odyss. vii. 36: rCvvieS

6KefaLL wg el orrep6 vo671/a.







NOTI, NOEIN, AND THEIR DERIVATIVES 225

ing. l Nevertheless, it is possible to dis-cover even in the Homeric poems tracesof a development which later, though veryslowly, resulted in an extension of the

meaning of the terms in this direction.When a man who at first has been de-ceived by a seemingly friendly attitude be-gins to suspect that evil intentions may behidden behind the friendly appearance, hedoes so on the basis of certain observa-tions. Putting these observations together,he deduces, as we would say, that the ap-pearance must be deceptive. A certainamount of reasoning, therefore, seems to

enter into the process. Yet there is abso-lutely no passage in Homer in which thisprocess of reasoning is so much as hintedat, when the terms voos or voetvare used.On the contrary, the realization of thetruth comes always as a sudden intuition:the truth is suddenly seen. It is mostessential for a full understanding of earlyGreek philosophical speculation to deter-

mine as exactly as possible how far theelement of deductive reasoning is clearlyand consciously distinguished from the

intuitive element wherever a philosoph-ical discovery or the realization of a philo-sophical truth is ascribed to the voos.

All the derivative meanings of theterms voos and voEZv isted can also befound in Hesiod, but their frequency inproportion to the cases in which the words

have preserved their original meaning hasbecome much greater. Apart from this,one can observe that in several respects adevelopment already started in Homer iscarried somewhat further still.

1. The notion that different personsmay have different voothas been furtherdeveloped in two opposite directions. Onthe one hand, the same person may have a

different voos at different times.'2 On the11 Von Fritz, op. cit., p. 90.

12 See, e.g., Erga 483: &XXOTe 6' &XXoZos Z7oPas P6oS

atyt6xoLo.

other hand, voos now can designate not

only a more or less permanent attitude,13as in Homer, but also a fixed moral char-

acter, so that the word is now often con-

nected with adjectives expressing moralpraise or blame.'4

2. In some cases the volitional element

which the concept sometimes contains in

Homer is strengthened and also enters

into new combinations with the intellec-

tual element. One very interesting exam-

ple of this can be found in the Scutum. It

is a well-known fact that the language of

this poem of an unknown author shows

the influence of both Homer and Hesiod.Naturally, the combination of these twoinfluences sometimes produces somethingnew. In my earlier article I tried to show'5

that whenever voosin Homer approachesthe meaning of wish, there is a definite

connection between the realization of apresent situation and the vision of a de-

sired future, including the visualization

of a way in which this desired future statemay be reached. This connection seemsno longer to exist in Scutum 222, when itis said of Perseus Ws e v0rn.L'xroraro. Thevo6f,ua n this expression is, of course,essen-tially the imagination by which far-off

things are made present and the quicknessof which in overcoming time and space isalready a familiar concept in the Homeric

poems.'6But when Perseus flies around cs

vo6rnua,his body follows his imaginationwith the same quickness, which, of course,implies that he wishes to be in the place

of, which he thinks. Thought andwish have become indistinguishable in

the complex notion of voos, but the orig-inal connection with the realization of apresent situation is no longer felt.

13Not only v6ot but also v67,ucas now used in the

sense of attitude (cf. ibid. 129).14 So in the typical expressions KaKS6 v6oS, v6oS &9X64,

or KbCeos 6oS in Erga 67.

16 See op. cit., p. 82.

16 See above, p. 224 and n. 10.







226 KURT VON FRITZ

This new combination of the intellec-

tual and volitional elements in the concept

of voos may have been facilitated by the

fact that in the genuine works of Hesiod

the volitional element in the meaning ofthe word had been further developed in a

somewhat different direction. While in

Homer voosnever means clearly deliber-

ate attention, though in a few very rare

cases it seems to approach this meaning,17

this connotation is now definitely estab-

lishedin the expression 6os&mevmqs.183. Most interesting, however, is the

further development of the concept of a

v6oswhich understands a complex situa-tion and also penetrates below the sur-

face appearance of things. The implica-

tion, characteristic of the concept in

Homer, that this voos always sees the

truth, is occasionally, though less fre-

quently, made also in Hesiod.'9 It is prob-

ably on this basis that, in the ScUtum,20

vooscan acquire the meaning of clever-

ness> or intelligence in the sense ofhigh intelligence.

But in contrast to the idea that this

penetrating and understanding voos

always sees the truth, the notion is now

developed that this v6os can also be de-

ceived. It is quite interesting to observe

how this idea, which cannot be found any-

where in Homer, gradually evolves. First,

there is the notion, quite familiar to Ho-

mer, that something can escape the voos2' or

that the vooscan be stunned, dulled, or en-

tirely taken away either by a physical

blow or by passion or strong emotion.22

17 See von Fritz, op. cit., pp. 82, 87, and 91.

18 Theog. 661.

19 The best example is Erga 293 if.: O4rOs piV wav-

PTpTOrTosds abrTs I&PTa cWicr77,but cf. also ibid. 89 and 261;

Theog. 12; etc.

20 Scutum 5 f.: .6ov yef9ohOh tspL T*6V &1 O3Tal O'17rO

TiAiov e&IVO71TiaL: no mortal woman rivaled her in regardto V6OS.

21 E.g., Erga 105 or Theog. 613.

22 E.g., Theog. 122; cf. also Scutum 144.

All this, of course, is not in conflict with

the notion that the voos, if and when it

functions, invariably sees the truth. But

the transition from a dulled to a deceived

voos s very easy, and this transition is in-dubitably made in three passages in Hesi-

od.23But, easy as the transition seems, it

creates, in fact, an entirely new concept;

for now we have a vooswhich still in a way

is more penetrating than mere vision or

recognition, since it is concerned not with

the appearance of things but with the

real meaning of a situation and the

true character and intentions of the

persons involved in it. Yet what the voossees behind the surface appearance

may be all wrong, because the voos,

though still functioning with seeming

lucidity, is deceived by greed or anger and

therefore no longer functioning properly.

It is very interesting to observe how, in

these cases, concepts which later were to

play an important role in the beginnings of

a philosophical theory of knowledge and ascientific psychology are already devel-

oped in a naive way out of the problems

and observations of everyday life and in

connection with speculations which in a

way may be called philosophical but

which are certainly very remote from any

conscious theory of knowledge or scientific

psychology.With the rise of philosophical specula-

tion in the narrower sense, common lan-guage and philosophicalterminology grad-

23 When (Erga 323) Hesiod says that greed de-

ceives the Psi of men, it is obvious that the v6os of

the greedy man not only recognizes an object but real-

izes a situation and, in agreement with the notion of

vics in Homer, conceives a plan to deal with, or to

draw advantage from, the situation. At the same time,

however, the vics conceives of the situation or of its

plan as of something which will be conducive to some-

thing which is good for the person conceiving it, and

in this respect the v6os is deceived or deceives it-

self. This must be contrasted with the many cases in

Homer (and Hesiod) in which It is the function of thev6osto realize the true importance of a situation for

the welfare of a person. Similar allusions to a v6os

which can be deceived are found in Theog. 537 and

Erga 373.







NOT2, NOEIN, AND THEIR DERIVATIVES 227

ually begin to develop on different lines.Though it would be interesting to observethe interrelations which in the beginningare naturally still very close and never

cease altogether, it seems preferable, forthe sake of clarity, from now on to followthe two trends separately.

There also arises a new problem be-cause of the nature of the tradition. In re-gard to Homer and Hesiod, the danger ofbeing misled by late interpolations is notvery great. But it is commonly knownthat a good many of the sayings attrib-uted to the early Greek philosophers by

Greek tradition are not authentic. The in-vestigation, therefore, will have to pro-ceed with great caution, and it will per-haps be useful to start with a rough out-line of the different types of tradition andof the procedure which has to be followedin regard to them.

It is obvious that the analysis must bebased mainly on those fragments which

have come down to us in their originalwording. Fortunately, the works of mostof the early Greek philosophers are dis-tinguished from the products of later pe-riods not only by their contents but alsoby their style, their dialect, and, in not afew cases, by the meter. Even so, how-ever, since the dialect of indubitably gen-uine works of the sixth and fifth centuries,as, for instance, the work of Herodotus,

has not been preserved in its original pu-rity, so that faulty dialect forms do notnecessarily prove that a fragment is spuri-ous, it is not always quite easy to dis-tinguish between authentic pieces andlater imitations.

As to the rest of the tradition, Aristotleand his disciple Theophrastus can, on thewhole, be relied upon to have used the

original and genuine works of the authorswhom they quote, though Erich Frank24

24 Plato und die sogenannten Pythagoreer (Halle,1923), pp. 290 ff. and 331 ff.

seems to assume that in one case Aristotlewas misled by a work of Speusippus,which the latter had either partly orwholly attributed to the Pythagorean

Philolaus-a somewhat strange assump-tion, considering the fact that Aristotlemust have seen Speusippus almost dailyin the Academy from the time that thelatter was about thirty years of age to thetime that he was fifty. On the other hand,Aristotle habitually translates the ideas ofhis predecessors into his own terminology,so that he can rarely be used as an author-ity for their linguistic usage. Neverthe-

less, his discussions of pre-Socratic philos-ophy are not without importance for thepresent analysis; for, especially wherethey can be compared with fragments ofthe original works, they often make itpossible to show how the change of con-cepts and of the connotations of terms in-fluenced the interpretation of the philo-sophical systems and ideas of an earlier

period. All this, though to a slightly lessdegree, is also true of Theophrastus.Some of the later doxographersand an-

cient historians of philosophy, though not,for instance, Sextus Empiricus, are lessthorough in the adaptation of early ideasto the concepts and language of their owntimes. Yet their testimony can hardly everbe accepted without careful scrutiny. Onthe other hand, the results of the first part

of the analysis starting from the indubi-tably genuine fragments can occasionallybe used to prove that a late author whosereliability is justly questioned on generalgrounds must have had some access togenuine information, since he uses theterms PoUS,oeziv, etc., in a sense whichhad been more or less common in the sixthand fifth centuries but which had gen-

erally disappeared from philosophical us-age after the middle of the fourth centuryor even earlier. The same principle mayalso be applied in order to find out how







228 KURT VON FRITZ

far later imitations of early philosophicalworks may have made use of authenticmodels.

XENOPHANES

The first Greek thinker-for some mod-ern scholarswould not grant him the nameof a philosopher-who uses the word infragments of indubitable authenticity is

Xenophanes, who, in all likelihood, wasborn in 571 B.C. but lived to a very ripeold age and, according to his own testi-mony, was still active as a poet when hewas ninety-two years old.25The most im-

portant fragment in regard to our prob-lem is Frag. B24 (Diels), where he says ofGod: oviXosopa, oivXos e5 I'OL, oivXos be T'aKOvet.

The place of this fragment within the

general philosophy of Xenophanes is easyto determine. He objects to the anthropo-morphic ideas of God or the gods whichwere current at his time. God is no more

25 In Frag. B8 (Diels), Xenophanes says that it isnow sixty-seven years that he has carried his sorrow up

and down the land of the Greeks and that it was twen-ty-flve years after his birth that he began his wander-ings. This shows that wheni he wrote these lines he wasninety-two years old. But it does not, of course, in it-self give an absolute date. Diog. Laert. ix. 20 placeshis I&KIAj, a date which he generally derives from thefamous work of Apollodorus, in the sixtieth Olympiad,i.e., 540 B.C. This is also the date of the foundation ofElea, which shows that Apollodorus, according to hiscustom, determined the AKAi# by a famous event in whichXenophanes had taken part. Since Apollodorus usuallyequates the &KlAi of a person roughly with the fortiethyear of his life, Clem. Alex. (Strom. i. 64) and Sext.Emp. (Adv. math. L.257) cannot be correct when theysay that Apollodorus placed the birth of Xenophanesin the fortieth Olympiad, i.e., 620 B.C. This would alsobe at variance with the statement of Timaeus (alsoquoted by Clement) that Xenophanes came to thecourt of Hieron of Syracuse. The error in Sextus andClement is probably due to a confusion of the flguresM and N.

Since Apollodorus' axiA,-dates are usually only arough approximation to the age of forty, it is not neces-sary to accept 580 as the date of Xenophanes' birth;and if he came to the court of Hieron, he was probablystill somewhat younger. It seems, then, most likelythat the beginning of his wanderings falls in the yearwhich, in another fragment (B22 [Diels]), he claimsto have been the decisive date in the life of coequal

friends, namely, the year when the Median came,i.e., 546 B.C. On the other hand, it seems quite impos-sible to consider him a disciple of Parmenides (bornafter 540), as K. Reinhardt (Parmenides [Bonn, 19161)has done.

like a human being than he is like a horse

or an ox.26 f he is to be God, he can haveneither the shape nor the character and

attitude of a mortal creature.27He cannot

move around and be first in one place andthen in another, but he is always present

everywhere.28 He must be all-powerful

and hence only one.29For the same reasonhe must be unborn and uncreated.30 In

connection with these ideas the funda-mental meaning of the fragment quoted

is quite clear: God can have no special

organs of sensation or perception. He is

all-seeing, all-hearing, and also altogether

vocov.

It is characteristic of the meaning of

voetv in this fragment that it is so closely

connected with the sensual perceptions of

seeing and hearing. Its place betweenthe

two is probably due to the meter. But the

26 Frags. B15 and B16 (Diels).

27 Frags. B11, B12, B14, and B23 (Diels).

28 Frag. B26 (Diels).

29 (Pseudo-)Aristotle, De Melisso Xenophane Gorgia

3. 2, p. 977a. 19 ff. The expression is 7rAwVTn KP6TLc-TOs,

which in itself can also be translated the strongest ormost powerful of all. But the context shows clearlythat God is said to be not only stronger than any otherbeing individually, but all-powerful, at least in thesense that he is more powerful than all the rest of theworld together.

30 Ibid. 3. 1, p. 977a. 14 ff. On the basis of these

passages in the pseudo-Aristotelian treatise, Rein-hardt (op. cit., pp. 103 ff.) contends that Xenophanesmust have been a disciple of Parmenides because hisform of reasoning shows the influence of the latter.

But it is extremely unlikely that Xenophanes couldhave been the disciple of a man who must have been

at least thirty-three years younger (see above, n. 25).At most, one could assume a certain secondary influ-ence. But even this is hardly necessary. The form inwhich the author of the treatise presents the ideas ofXenophanes is, of course, that of a later age. But thereis nothing in the arguments which he attributes toXenophanes that could not easily be retranslated intothe comparatively simple form of the literal fragmentsof Xenophanes' work; and these fragments show notrace of the heavy and difficult language and argu-mentation of Parmenides or Melissus or of the keendialectic of Parmenides' other disciple, Zenon. Thefact that Xenophanes says of his God what Parmen-

ides says of the 46v,namely, that it does not move butstays where it is, certainly does not prove anything,since this follows from the omnipresence of God,which, as Reinhardt himself concedes, is an attributeof God in a great many monotheistic religions.







NOTE, NOEIN, AND THEIR DERIVATIVES 229

connection itself must have been quitenatural to Xenophanes. It is, then, per-haps not without significance for the his-tory of the word voeZv hat none of the

later authors who refer to the content ofthe fragment, without quoting it literally,has preserved this connection. Diog.Laert. ix. 19 mentions seeing, hearing, andVOelV in this sequence, but in two separatesentences and so that Voe?Vs connectedwith Op6vants rather than with thesenses.3 All the others mention either onlythe senses32 or only the vosX,33 but notboth. Sextus34 finally explains the attri-

bute voep's, which Timon of Phleius hadgiven to the god of Xenophanes, byXO-lKOs. All this, if taken together, seemsto prove beyond doubt that the concept ofVOelV must have undergone a great changebetween Xenophanes and those Greek au-thors who wrote about him and whoseworks have come down to us.

In Xenophanes' mind there was obvi-

ously no such clash between the notions ofsensual perceptionand of VOelV as musthave been felt by those later Greek au-thors who refused to connect these notionswith one another, or as we feel in Diels'stranslation of the fragment: Die Gott-heit ist ganz Auge, ganz Geist, ganz Ohr.But this means only that, at least in onevery essential respect, Xenophanes' con-cept of voos is still the same as Homer's.

For in Homer also the voos is very closelyrelated to sensual perception.35This ob-servation may, then, also help to inter-pret the fragment correctly. Xenophanes'point is clearly that God does not see orhear by means of special organs. At first

31 'OXoV B4 6paV Kad Mov AKOf4JV, 12 pAviro& Ava&voeTw

al4Lrari T- Te elVai VOVV Kat Op6p?7aty Kal &t5Loy.

32 Pseud.-Ar., op. cit., pp. 977a. 37 f., 978a. 3 ff.

and 12 f.; Pseud.-Plut. Strom. 4; Hippol. Refut.L. 14. 2.

33 Simpl. Comm. in Arist. Phys. xxii. 22. 9; TimonPhl. Frag. 60.

34 Sextus Emp. Pyrrh. hyp. 1. 225.

35See von Fritz, op. cit., pp. 88 ff.

sight, it might, then, seem as if the anal-ogy required that human beings and ani-

mals, in contrast to God, have a special

organ of voos, just as they have special

organs of vision and audition. But there isno trace of a connection between the voos

and a special bodily organ anywhere in

Greek thought before the second half of

the fifth century. The voos in Homer and

elsewhere perceives by means of and

through the organs of the senses. There isno reason to believe that Xenophanesthought otherwise. What he wishes to sayis that the voos of God does not perceive

the truth about events or situations andtheir character through the medium of

special organs of vision, audition, etc.The second fragment in which the con-

cept of voOSoccursis B25 (Diels): aXX'airai-

VeUve 'rO6volovOov q5pevL ravTa KpalaaveL.

Again the main point is quite clear. Goddoes not need any tools or organs to

shake the world. That he wills some-

thing is sufficient to bring it about. Butthe expression voOU 4pevL is interesting.It is, of course, impossible within the pres-ent context to attempt a complete analysisof the difficult concept of 4p4v. The worditself disappears almost completely afterthe first decades of the fourth century, ex-cept in direct imitations of Homer, andsurvives only in its derivatives, q5poveZv,4p6vnTLs, wopoo`vmq, etc. Even more than

voos, t originally can refer to emotional,volitional, and intellectual elements inthe attitude of a person. But, contrary tovoos, t is always connected with the po-tential or actual beginning of an action.Contrary to OvAo's,t never is used where apassion or emotion is blind. The intellec-tual element is always present. This intel-lectual element comes even more into the

foreground in the derivatives, OpOVE?V,dp6v7OaLt,etc. But, unlikeVOeZV,tc., thesederivatives also refer always to attitudeswhich reveal themselves exclusively in ac-







230 KURT VONFRITZ

tions. The connection of voe?vand /ppivc-

curs as early as Homer.36 But in this

case voe?vmeans to plan. So the refer-

ence to potential action is also implied in

this part of the expression. Noos, on theother hand, in contrast to voe?vand vorn,ua,

never means plan in Homer. There may

perhaps be just a shade of this connota-

tion in Xenophanes' bold expression. But

it is more likely that the genitive voov is

used to strengthen the intellectual element

in 4p'v, so that one may interpret thus:

He shakes the world by the active will

(or impulse) proceeding from his all-per-

vading insight.The third and last fragment containing

a derivative of voos3 says that God is

totally different from mortal beings in

shape and vo6mtta. his does not add very

much to what has been discussed so far.

But a negative observation may perhaps

be made. Neither in the literal nor in the

indirect fragments of Xenophanes' works

are the words voos, etc., ever used in re-gard to human beings. Perhaps this is not

quite accidental. The fragment just quot-

ed, of course, seems to imply that mortals

also have vorAara, even though they are

different from those of God. In other frag-

ments,38 however, Xenophanes expresses

extreme skepticism concerning the capac-

ity of human beings for true insight.

Opinion and guesswork39 is all that is

granted to them. This may not precludethe presence of voos in mortals altogether,

but it seems to indicate that, in Xenoph-

anes' opinion, the voos in mortals was

36 II. ix. 600: Do not plan [or contemplate (Pv6e)]

such a thing [namely, to go home and let the ships of

the Greeks be burned by the Trojans] in your opEPtS,

says Phoinix to Achilles.

37 B23 (Diels).

38 B34, B35, B36 (Diels).

39 This seems a more correct translation of theword 56KO6 than Diels's translation, Wahn, which

falsely implies that the opinions of the mortals are al-

ways wrong, while Xenophanes says merely that they

are always uncertain.

not only more restricted in scope than it

was in God but also very rare. If this in-ference is correct, we find here the most

important deviation from the Homeric

concept; for in Homer all people naturallyhave voos,even though of varying quality

and degree. In any case, the notion that

voos s something exceptional which only

few people possess becomes very preva-lent in the generation after Xenophanes,

especially with Heraclitus, though it can

already be found in the poems of Semon-ides of Amorgos. It is obvious that this

implies a change in the character of the in-

sight which is supposed to be the result ofgenuine voeYv.

HERACLITUS

Reinhardt has proved conclusively40that Parmenides does not refer to Hera-

clitus4' in the famous passage on the errorof the two-headed mortals, as most

scholars since Bernays had believed. But

his attempt to prove that Heraclitus wasconsiderably younger than Parmenides

and strongly influenced by his philoso-

phy42s not very conclusive. What he con-

siders direct chronologicalevidence for his

assumption can easily be explained in a

different way;43 and the passages which,in his opinion, prove Parmenides' influ-

ence on Heraclitus seem rather to show

that there may have been some connec-

40 Op. cit., pp. 64 ff.

41 Frag. B6. 3 if. (Diels).

42 Reinhardt, op. cit., pp. 155 if. and 221 ff.

43 Reinhardt has two arguments of this kind. One isthe passage in Plato's Sophistes, in which Plato saysthat the Ionic Muses, i.e., Heraclitus, tried to solvethe Eleatic problem, which was flrst posed by Xenoph-anes or even earlier ; the other is Heraclitus' refer-ence to Hermodorus (Frag. B121), which in his opin-ion was possible only after the complete democratiza-tion of the government of Ephesus. But the flrst argu-ment is obviously conclusive only if one accepts Rein-

hardt's theory that Xenophanes was a disciple ofParmenides (see above, nn. 25 and 30). As to thesecond argument, see H. Gomperz, Heraclitus ofEphesus in TEZZAPAKONTAETHIP12 OEOE4IAOTBOPEA,

II (Athens, 1939), 48 if.







NOTE,NOEIN, AND THEIR DERIVATIVES 231

tion between Heraclitus' philosophy andthe thought of Xenophanes, on the onehand, and Anaximander, on the other, but

that he remained completely outside the

philosophical development which wasinitiated by Parmenides.4 Since Hera-clitus had also singularly little influence

on later philosophersbefore Socrates-ex-

cept the so-called Heracliteans, who, as

everybody now agrees, misunderstoodhim and, in a way, converted his doctrineinto its very opposite-while Parmenides

had the deepest influence on all Greekphilosophers of the next century, includ-

ing the Heracliteans, it seems expedientto analyze Heraclitus' concept of voos

first, regardless of the purely chronologi-cal problem.

Again, there are only three extant lit-eral fragments in which the word voos oc-curs, but they are deeply significant. Twoof these fragments45clearly express theopinion that voos is something which but

few people possess. The first denies thatHesiod, Pythagoras, Xenophanes, andHecataeus had voos and adduces this al-leged fact as proof to show that 7roXv/LLaOhqis not conducive to voos.The second seemsto refer to the overwhelming majority ofhuman beings in general and says thatthey have neither voosnor 4p7v, for theylisten to the minstrels in the street anduse the crowd as their teacher, not know-

ing that the many are bad [or, rather,'worthless'] and that only few are good [orrather, 'worth something']. B. Snell hasshown46that /ia0e?vand its derivativesoriginally mean a knowledge, a skill, oralso an attitude which is acquired by

44 See Olof Gigon, Untersuchungen zu Heraklit

(Leipzig: Dieterich'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1935),pp. 31 ff., 75 f., and passim.

45B40 and B104 (Diels).46 Bruno Snell, Die Ausdriicke fiur den Begriff des

Wissens in der vorplatonischen Philosophie ( Philol.

Untersuchungen, Vol. XXIX) (Berlin, 1924), pp.72ff.

training, by being brought up in certain

ways, or by practical experiences-as, for

instance, when a man learns to be cau-

tious or even learns to hate47-but that

later they come to designate also theknowledge of specific objects and groupsof objects about which very definite andunquestionable knowledge could be ob-

tained. It is, of course, in virtue of this

second meaning that the word could beused specifically for what we still call

mathematics. Snell very ingeniouslyfinds the connection between these two

very different meanings in the fact that in

both cases the knowledge and its acquisi-tion are determinedby the object ratherthan by the subject. The man who learns

by (very often unpleasant) experienceslearns the hard way, and his knowledge is

determined by objects which he not onlystudies but with which he often collides.The mathematician, on the other hand,may search for the truth, but more than

any other scholar, and certainly more thanthe poet or the philosopher, who are therepresentatives of knowledge and wisdomin the period of our study, he is bound byhis object. There is no room for differentand subjective viewpoints.

It is obvious that the meaning of -/ia0Lrqin the first of the fragments under discus-sion does not coincide completely witheither of the two meanings pointed out by

Snell, but is somewherein between. All thepersons whom Heraclitus mentions weremen not so much of practical experienceas of prominence in various fields of theo-retical knowledge. Pythagoras may ormay not have been a mathematician, butthe other three certainly were not. What iscommon to all of them is an unusuallybroad and detailed knowledge in specific

fields: Hecataeus in geography and his-torical legend, Hesiod also in historicallegend and in mythology and earlier

47 Cf. Pindar Pyth. 4. 284; Aesch. Prom. 1068,







232 KURT VON FRITZ

mythological speculation, Pythagoras

through his interest in various sciences

and pseudo-sciences, and Xenophanes

through his travels and as a man who

7roXXw-v vOpcw'7rcwviaevakrea KaL voovEyv7w.The 7roXv/iaOhq f which Heraclitus speaks

is then obviously this factual knowledge

in various specific fields. Noos, in Hera-

clitus' opinion, is not acquired by the ac-

cumulation of such knowledge, but it

must be sufficiently related to it for such a

claim to have been made, whether openly

or tacitly.In the second fragment there is the

same close connection between voos and45pivas in Frag. B25 of Xenophanes.48It

can be interpreted with the help of B112,

where Heraclitus says that q5poveTvs the

greatest virtue and that wisdom consists

in saying and doing the truth (under-

standing it according to nature).49 Wis-

dom,50then, seems to have a theoretical

and a practical side; and if one may as-

sume that, in accordance with pre-Hera-clitean usage,51 voOSand 4p'v represent

these two sides respectively, it is perhaps

possible to conclude that the voos has

something to do with 4Xt0cia &yewv. his

inference, however, since the voosis not

actually mentioned in the fragment as we

have it, is not quite cogent unless con-

firmed by further evidence; and even if it

is correct, it will still be necessary to find

out with what kind of aXqOIEahe voos isconcerned.

By far the most important fragment is

B114: {vv vo'y X\eyovTasboXVPlte-Oat Xpr1

TqWvvcp 7rav'Tcvw,U1SKCDrEpvO6c rAOLs, Kai

7roX)v l-XvpOTEpciS. TpOcovTaL adp7ravres t

48 See above, p. 229.

49 Some scholars (see Gigon, op. cit., p. 101) have

expressed doubts concerning both the meaning and

the genuineness of the last three words (Kara 4wtw

dirato^Vras) of the fragment.

60 For the history of the term aoota see Snell, op.

cit., pp. 1 ff.

s1 See above, p. 229.

dvOpcbireaot vobuot '7r6 evs6 -oi Odeov Kparec

,yap roaooVrov oKocrov i0iXG Kai E9apKET raot

KaL 7rEpLyLveraL. Since Heraclitus likes to

play with words and to suggest some sig-

nificance in their similarity,52 he choice ofthe parallel forms nv' owynd (vv- is hard-

ly fortuitous and obviously stresses the

inherent connection between the voOS nd

the {vvov or KOLVOV: Those who speak

with v6osmust base [what they say] upon53

that which is common to all and every-

thing, just as a political community is

based on the law, and even more strongly.

For all the human laws are nourished by

the one divine law, etc. It seems evident,then, that the (vvov on which any voeZv

must be based is identical with the divine

law which governs everything. For the

law of the political community is brought

in only as an analogy in a more restricted

field, which is at the same time part of,

and determined by, the larger and more

comprehensive order.

The function attributed to the voosin

this fragment obviously goes far beyond

anything attributed to it in Homer or

Hesiod; yet the early and the new con-

cept are closely related. In both cases the

vooss concerned not with isolated objects

or even conditions but with something

more complex, which it tries to under-

stand in its meaning and importance.

What Heraclitus claims is merely that it

is not possible to understand anythingof this kind properly unless the divine law

which governs everything is part of the

picture.But in what way does the voos attain

knowledge of, or insight into, this divine

law? By reason, by intuition, or in what

52 See, e.g., Bi, B25, B47 (Diels).

53Literally, must strengthen themselves, support

themselves with, or rely on (cf. Lysias vi. 35) that

which is common, etc. But obviously one has to sup-plement in regard to what they say. For this reason

the translation given above seemed to express the

meaning more clearly than a more literal translation

would have done.







NOTE, NOEIN, AND THEIR DERIVATIVES 233

other way? Since tie word voOS nd its de-rivatives do not occur in any other frag-ment beyond those already discussed, theanswer must be found with the help of

those passages which refer to the mainobject of the voos-the (vvov. At firstsight it may seem as if Heraclitus was con-tradicting himself continually concerningthe relation of this object to human knowl-edge. He says again and again that people

(65vOpwirot)o not understand or recognizethis (vvoveven after having been told thetruth about it.54 Yet there is Frag. B113:VvOVTv t -at To 4povic4v. In B54 Hera-

clitus says Ap.iovrt'q &4as's 4avepaS KpELT-

Tcwv. Yet in B56 he says that it is the

4avepa about which most men are in er-ror.55Finally, in B35 he says that philoso-phers must be 7roXXOWv-ropes, while in B40he seemed to express the opinion that tohave seen or experienced many things,like Xenophanes, is not conducive to trueinsight.56

In none of these cases, however, is therea real contradiction, and the solution ofthe difficulty leads also to an answer tothe main problemr. f Frag. B113 is takentogether with B2: ro'vX6'yov6' vOvTosvvoV

tcbovatv ot' 7roXXo1 U'S t'blav ri:XoYn POp6

Vtqow, t becomes quite clear that wvv6veoTl waot rT OpovE4avdoes not mean, asDiels and most earlier scholars under-stood, 7ravTE:s av Opcrot 4pOVi4ovO, but,

as Gigon was the first to point out,57Trao

TraLrTOO- pov4L'av--or, in other words, thereis only one way in which one can OpovEtv.But since the term chosen is the same as

54 Bi, B2, B17, B19, B34, B40, B51, etc.

55 The seeming contradiction between the two frag-ments results from the fact that in both cases Hera-clitus obviously refers, if not to the tiw6v tself, at leastto its most essential manifestations.


57Op. cit., p. 16. Gigon has also rightly pointed outthat Frag. B116 d.Opcno7ro iarLa fTETrL -y6owKetW

f aVTObs Kai, OppO;eLt, which does not show the char-acteristic language and style of Heraclitus, is probablyan erroneous paraphrase of B113.

in B114, it is also clear that the two frag-ments B113 and B114 belong closely to-gether and that the one way of acting or

behaving wisely, which is the same for all,

is determined by insight into the (vvov nthe sense of the all-pervading divine law.Interpreted in this way, B113 clearly con-

stitutes a link between B112 and B114

and confirms the interpretation of thefirst of these fragments given above.58

The seeming discrepancy between B54and B56 is perhaps not entirely removed

but is explained by B51, B8, B10, andB80. All these fragments (and many

others) speak of discord, conflict, strife,which are really concord and harmony.B51 states that men see only the discordbut not the harmony in it. The meaningof B54 is then quite clear: the hidden har-mony in discord is stronger and more pro-found than the obvious harmony whicheverybody sees. But the second half ofB51-7raMLvTpoiros ap,iovrL'&c`arepro'Ov Kai'

X'bp7-s-shows that this hidden har-mony is not hidden in the same sense as insome of the cases where voedv s used inHomer,59as, for instance, when hostile in-tentions are hidden behind a friendly ap-pearance or a god behind the appearanceof a human being. For the harmony in thetension or discord of the bow must notand cannot be inferred in the same wayin which the hostile intentions or the pres-

ence of a god is inferred from somethingin the expression or attitude of the personconcerned which does not quite agree withhis or her apparent character or nature.It is, on the contrary, quite directly visiblefor him who is able to see it.G0 In this


59 See von Fritz, op. cit., p. 89.

a0 It is perhaps interesting to observe how a modernHeraclltean, Kurt Riezler, in his beautiful book, Trak-

tat vom Sc&hnen (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1935), isvitally concerned with the description and analysis, inthe field of art, of this hidden harmony and beautywhich Is not hidden behind something, and cannot beinferred, but must be directly seen.







234 KURT VON FRITZ

sense, then, it can be said that those who

do not see the hidden harmony are unable

to see ra Oav-p4a.

This interpretation is confirmed both

in a positive and in a negative way by theother literal fragments. He who has voOS

can and will speak the truth.6'But though

his Xo6,yosontains the truth, which is the

same for all, people will not understand it,

even though they listen to it.fi2It is hardly

without significance that there is no frag-

ment which admits as much as that any-

one ever has or could have grasped the

truth merely by hearing it. Instead, there

is Frag. BlOla, which says that the eyesare better witnesses than the ears. In

other words, the Xo6yosontains the truth,

but it can be understood only by him who

sees it-of course, with his voos but

throughhis eyes. It is still the same close

relation between vision and intuition

which we found in Homer,63even though

on a different plane. This explains also

B35 and B40. In orderto realize the essen-tial truth, a man must see or witness 64

many things. But it is not sufficientfor the

acquisition of true insight to have wit-

nessed many things, much less to have

heard or learned about them from others.

The main results of this part of the in-

vestigation can then be summed up very

briefly. Heraclitus says in the most out-

spoken manner what Xenophanes merely

seemed to imply: that vooSis somethingwhich human beings but rarely possess.

Its scope is wider, its object greater, the

insight which it is its function to attain

more profound, than in the Homeric

poems. For its essential object is the di-

vine law which governs everything, and

even where the voOSs concerned with an

individual constellation or situation, this61B112 and B114.

62 Bi, B2, B34, etc.

63Von Fritz, op. cit., p. 88, and above, p. 223.

64 For the history of the terms t-rrp, &aTopkw, and

rwJTOpla, see Snell, op. cit., pp. 59 if.

divine law must always be part of the pic-

ture. At the same time, however, the voos

in Heraclitus' philosophy is even farther

removed from reason or reasoning

than in Homer, for even that element ofreasoning by inference which, though

perhaps unconsciously, was inherent in

some of the examples of v6osin Homer65s

now completely eliminated from the func-

tion of the voOS.

The indirect tradition about Heraclitus,

with the exception of one long passage in

Sextus Empiricus,66does not contain any

reference to voOS, oeZv,or any of the nu-

merous other words designating knowl-edge or the acquisition of knowledge

which can be found in the literal frag-

ments. The passage in Sextus, on the

other hand, is an almost perfect example

of that special kind of vagueness and mud-

dled thinking which makes for easy read-

ing and gives the superficial reader the

impression that he understands every-

thing perfectly, because everything is ex-

pressed in familiar terms and reduced to

simple alternatives, though there is no

earthly reason why there should not be

more than two possibilities. So Sextus be-

gins at once with the statement that man

has two organs for the recognition of

truth-aloffwLs and Xo6yos-and that

Heraclitus considered alfO-qatss untrust-

worthy and made the Xo6yos he criterion

of the truth. Then he gives the followingfurther explanations. The Xo6yos,which,

according to Heraclitus, is the criterion of

truth, is not any kind of Xo6Tosbut the

common and divine Xb6yos.By inhaling

this Xo6yos, e become voepol or acquire

vovs. But when we sleep, the vovs n us

becomes separated from the external

world, since the passageways of the senses

are closed, and remains connected with it

only through respiration. In consequence,

6 See von Fritz, op. cit., p. 90, and above, p. 225.

66 Adv. math. vii. 126 if.







NOTE,NOEIN, AND THEIR DERIVATIVES 235

it loses the faculty of remembrance. When

we waken, it resumes the connection withthe external world through the senses and

recovers he XOytK? )'cvaLS,whateverthat

may mean.67 Finally, since the commonand divine Xo'yos s the criterion of truth,it follows that that which appears to all

people in common (TOKOLVwact 4altvO-

vov) is trustworthy and that which oc-curs (irpouiriirm.) only to an individualis not.

It is hardly worth while to unravel this

terrible confusion step by step and toshow up in detail Sextus' misinterpreta-

tions of Heraclitus, which, fortunately, ac-cording to his owni testimony, are basedalmost entirely on passages of Heraclitus'work which we still have in their originalwording. To characterize his ability as aninterpreter of Heraclitus' thought it isperhaps sufficient to point out that he at-tributes the opinion that that which ap-pears 68 o all people alike is the truth to

Heraclitus, who again and again affirmsthat the overwhelming majority of menare absolutely blind and do not under-stand the truth even when it is explained

67 See below, p. 236.

68 To cauvp6evov in Sextus usually means the phe-nomenal world comprising everything that appearsto us or is conceived as an object outside ourselves,though, in fact, it may have no correlate in an externalworld considered real and independent of the sub-ject conceiving it or, as a subjective phenomenon,may have been evoked by a real object which is en-tirely different. According to the preceding passage inSextus, it should then seem as if the ,oDs, when de-prived of the help of the senses, was producing phe-nomena which have no correlate in the real world,while the senses establish the relation to the latter.Yet, at the same time, it is the vois which participatesin the vcotmas6yos, and the latter is the criterion oftruth, while the senses are considered unreliable. Atmost, if one tries to find any sense in the whole exposi-tion, one might say that the voos(or the X&yos), whena man is awake, has the function of flnding out which

phenomena appear to all men alike. But this stilldoes not explain why the same rovs, which is alwaysin contact with the KO&PaS XO6y0 hrough respiration,

does the very opposite when separated from thesenses and, nevertheless, is more trustworthy than thelatter-quite apart from the fact that all this has cer-tainly nothing to do with Heraclitus' philosophy asrevealed by the literal fragments.

to them. For the rest we shall have to con-fine ourselves to an inquiry into the dif-ference between Heraclitus' own conceptof voos anid Sextus' interpretation of it,

which necessitates a brief discussion of theterm X6oyos,ince Sextus makes such ampleuse of it in the passage quoted.

Heraclitus' concept of voos has beenanalyzed above. As to his concept ofX6yos,almost all recent commentators arerightly agreed that in Heraclitus it is stillnothing but the noun belonging to XfyEtv,

to say, and that he means by it simplywhat he is going to state. His X6oyoss com-

mon because it is the truth and becausethe truth is common to all, not in thesense that all people know or understandit, which is far from being the case, butbecause there can be no different truthsfor different people. It is also common be-cause it reveals the common law whichgoverns everything. It reveals this law bypointing out its various manifestations.

But it is understood only by those who,when it is pointed out to them, are able to

see with their voos the law in thesemanifestations-and there are but fewwho are able to do this. Whether one be-lieves in the divine law which he tries topoint out or not, the concepts of theobscureHeraclitus are all perfectly clearand can be very exactly defined.

In contrast, the empiricist Sextus,

whose arguments seem so clear and easyto many readers, has no clearly identifi-able concept of either X6'yosor vovsat all.Nov'swith Sextus is either identified withXoyosor considered a manifestation of it.Aozos, where Sextus speaks in his ownname, is most often logical reasoning orthe capacity of logical reasoning or someforce or entity having this capacity,

though it may also be the order of the uni-verse or a force upholding this order, thelatter concept, of course, being essentiallyStoic. But where Sextus reports the views







236 KURT VON FRITZ

of other philosophers, X6yosbecomes just

the alternative to aOfnos, whatever this

alternative may be, and so loses all clearly

identifiable meaning.69Yet it is highly il-

lustrative of the change which the conceptof vovshad undergone between Heraclitus

and Sextus that Sextus, in trying to ex-

plain Heraclitus' concept, begins by con-

necting it with a term the preponderant

meaning of which is reasoning and ends

by almost identifying it with sensual per-

ception. 70Heraclitus' own concept of voos,

as we have seen, was clearly distinguished

from both but somewhat more nearly re-

lated to the latter than to the former.

PARMENIDES

The philosophy of Parmenides marks

the most important turning-point both in

the history of pre-Socratic philosophy in

general and in the development of the

concept of vovisn that early period. After

Parmenides the form of the questions

asked and the answers given, as well asthe terms and concepts used in giving

these answers, is completely changed.

Yet, though without doubt all post-Par-

menidean Greek philosophy is most pro-

foundly influenced by Parmenides, it is

rather doubtful whether the character of

Parmenides' thought is not nearer to that

of his predecessorsthan to that of his suc-

cessors, whether they professed them-

selves his followers and disciples or criti-cized his philosophy.7

The first and fundamental question

which has to be answered before any fur-

ther analysis of Parmenides' concepts of

69 Sextus had, of course, a perfect right to hold and

express the opinion, shared by many modern philoso-

phers, that sense perception pure and simple and logi-

cal reasoning are the only ways in which human beings

can acquire knowledge. But the fact cannot very well

be denied that other philosophers were of a different

opinion, and It Is neither quite fairto them nor con-

ducive to clarity to interpret their philosophy as if

they had thought in the same terms as the empiricists.

70 See above, n. 68.

71 See Part II.

voos and voEZvcan be undertaken is that

of their relation to truth and error. Since,

at least at first sight, the evidence in re-

gard to this question seems plainly con-

tradictory, it will perhaps be helpful toremember that, even before Parmenides,

the concept of voos had been somewhat

ambiguous in this respect. As early as

Homer the notion could be found of a

vooswhich discovers a truth that is hid-

den behind a deceptive appearance72and

which, since the truth is but one, is the

same wherever it is found. On the other

hand, there was the notion of different

VOOl in different persons. But this does notmean that in some of these persons the

vooswas mistaken. Since it is the original

function of the voos to realize a situation

and its importance for the person realizing

it and since a foreigner, for instance, actu-

ally is something differentfor the Laestry-

gonians and for the Phaeacians, the voos

can function quite properly in both cases,

though what it sees in the same object isin each case quite different. In other

words, the Laestrygonians and the Phaea-

cians live in a different order of things, the

world has for them a different aspect, and

therefore the truth for them is also dif-

72 In this connection, another observation can be

made which is of some importance for the further de-

velopment of the concept of v6os and voeTh. It would

not be incorrect to say that when the v6os discovers

that the old woman is really not an old woman but

the goddess Aphrodite, it recognizes an object-orcorrects a faulty recognition of an object-and does

not realize a situation, which supposedly was the func-

tion of the v6or. Nevertheless, it is easy to see how it

came about that roe?v rather than yLyVc)frKELP was

used in such cases. First, because the recognition of

the true character of the person implies the immediate

realization of a situation of great importance which

did not seem to exist as long as there seemed to be only

a human being. Second, because POe7p in its original

meaning is the third step leading from tse?h over

,yzpCatto an ever more complex awareness and because

this is also the case in the example under consideration,

though the object after the last step is still an individ-

ual person and not a situation. But though the transi-tion is slight, it is not without importance, because it

explains how, later, Poe?hcan have at least seemingly

-very concrete objects, as, for instance, the atoms of

Democritus.







NOT2I,NOEIN, AND THEIR DERIVATIVES 237

ferent.73 In the Homeric poems, further-more, the v6os can be dulled or blunted,but there is no passage saying that it canbe deceived, while seemingly functioning

properly, but the latter notion is de-veloped in Hesiod. In Heraclitus the no-tion of different voot in different people,as well as the notion that the v6oscan bedeceived, is excluded, since with him it isthe function of the voOSto be aware of thelaw which governs the universe, and thislaw is but one.74

The philosophy of Parmenides falls intotwo parts, one dealing with a4X-OaEa,he

other with a64a. K. Reinhardt in a mostpenetrating analysis has shown conclu-sively that the second part is neither adescription of the actual beliefs and opin-ions of the two-headed mortals who livein the world of 'o6a nor an attempt to givea better system of the world of mere beliefthan most people have, but that it is fun-damentally an attempt to show how there

can be a world of belief side by side withtruth and how it originates.The term vo'os nd its derivatives occur

in both parts. Right in the introduction,when the goddess says a&X od'vioTkc'&4'8oiv &6Natos eip-yc voJ'6ra75( but you keep

away your vo'7bra from this way of in-quiry ), the implication clearly seems tobe that the v6'bn.a an err but that it canalso find the truth. It is in perfect agree-

ment with this conclusion that in a greatmany passages76 OELveems to lead to thetruth, while in sonmeothers77 we find av6oswhich is obviously in error. This fact

73 Cf. the excellent analysis of the connection be-tween the concepts of iLbK and Akq'oetand their rela-tion to the different norms which govern the lives ofdifferent individuals and groups of individuals, in H.Frainkel's Parmenidesstudien, GGA, ph.-hist. KI.,1930, pp. 166 ff.

74 Xenophanes seems to approach Heraclitus' con-cept of v6ot but is not quite clear and consistent (cf.above, p. 230).

7 Bl. 33; cf. B7. 2.76 B2. 1; B5; B6. 1; B8. 34ff. and 50.

77 B6. 5f.; B1i; cf. also B8. 17.

in itself, of course, is not strange, as long

as we translate v6oswith thought andvoLtv with thinking, as most translators

have done, and understand this to mean

logical reasoning. For reasoning can becorrect or incorrect, can start from trueor from false premises, and therefore canlead to truth or error. But a very realdifficulty, which has never been solvedand perhaps does not admit a perfectsolution, is created by the fact that insome instances Parmenides seems to as-sert that voos and vOelV are always andnecessarily connected with Etvat and C6v

and therefore with the truth, which seemsto imply that the vooscannot err.

The most comprehensive passage whichseems to, contain this assertion is B8.34-37: rav6rv 'oria VOe-TVTE Kat 01VEKEKVEcrTt

vo6jua. ou yap avEv roU36vros, C req4aytq-

VOVCOTPv,Ebp?,OEtS TOPOEPV06iMEV yap <i> EUT-w

77 o-rat

XXo irapet rovi i6vroS KTX. Frankel78

and Calogero,79 n contrast to most other

translators, have interpreted the first sen-tence to mean to think and the thoughtthat it [the object of the thought] is, arethe same thing. In my review of Calo-gero's book I accepted this interpreta-tion;80but I am no longer quite sure thatit is correct. It is true, as Friinkel pointsout, that in the overwhelming majorityof the cases in which the word Ovii'Ka oc-curs in Homer, it means either because

or that (the latter in content-clausesafter verba declarandi) and that there is

only one case in the Odyssey in which itmeans because of which. But, in spiteof this, it can hardly be denied that es-sentially and originally OiwPEKa is ov0EVEKa.

It acquires the meaning of because atfirst after a preceding roVib''PEKa.81 Thisshows that in these cases it takes the place

78 Op. cit., pp. 186 f.

79 Guido Calogero, Studi sull'Eleatismo (Rome,1932), p. 11.

80 In Gnomon, XIV (1938), 97.81 See, e.g., Il. i. 1lOf.







238 KURT VON FRITZ

of 6 or 6rt through relative attraction, to

which the Greek language is so prone. It

retains the same meaning when the pre-

ceding roi36' f'vEKa, by which it originally

was produced, is dropped; and it acquiresthe meaning of that following a verbum

declarandiin the same way as 6rtin Greek

or quod n late Latin (Fr. que; It. che). But

its origin from o?v'VKa is so apparent that

it was always possible to revert to the

original meaning.82 In Parmenides the

word OUVEKEVoccurs only once outside the

passage discussed, but in this case it cer-

tainly means because of which or

therefore and not because, as Frainkel(loc. cit.) asserts. Parmenides has stated

that the 66v s immovable and remains in

itself. Then he goes on to say: Kparrp) -yap

'Ava'yKf 7rELparos 'v 6EzoIoZotv exezn r6' ,tv

a,4L's f4p-yet. OLVEVKEVVKaTEXEU'T71ov ro fov

GE/US JtvaLc fiTc yap OVK f7LEVE'S KTX.83

It seems obvious that the first yap in

this passage is illustrative or explicative

rather than causative. If, then, O6VEKEV inthe second sentence meant because

rather than hence, this would imply

that Parmenides wished to say that the

Eovmust be immovable because it is finite,

which would completely reverse the natu-

ral logical order, as well as the orderwhich

Parmenides has followed so far, always

putting the more essential qualities of the

Eovahead of its less essential qualities.

Because of this analogy and also be-cause Frankel's interpretation makes it

necessary to assume a very forced orderof

words in B8. 34, it seems very likely that

in this passagealsoOVVEKEVmeansoivviVKa.

But the passages in Homer as well as

Parm. B8. 32 do show that in early Greek,

including Parmenides, e'vEKa does not, or

not preponderately, mean for the sake

of, but because of, designatingnot the

causa finalis or purpose as in Attic Greek

82 See, e.g., Pindar Pyth. 9. 96 (165).83 B8. 30 ff.

but the causa efficiens as well as the logi-

cal reason. Diels's translation, des Ge-

dankens Ziel, therefore, is also incorrect.

What Parmenides means seems to be that

vOElv and the cause or conditionof VOEZVare the same. This interpretation is in

agreement with the sentence ov' yap avfv

rOV fOVTOS KTX, which follows and whichclearly states that the 'Ov s the conditio

sine qua nonof the vOEZV.

There still remain the words &vX

7rE4a,rtlo/VOV (f'olv, which have not yet

been explained. Frankel84again resorts to

the assumption of a very forced order of

words, because he thinks that the relativeclause quoted, if it is to make sense, must

be connected with VoEzVn the following

line rather than with rovI 6vros, which

precedes. Consequently, he translates the

passage in this way: For not without the

EOvwill you find that in which it is re-

vealed, namely, the voEZv. But it is

hardly necessary to attribute to Par-

menides such a grammatical tour de force.(DaIrlTLEtveans to express, to reveal,

to unfold (especially in words). It seems

clear, then, that the voEtvcan no more ex-

press or unfold itself without the Eov,

that is, without an object, than the 6Ov

can be revealed or expressed without the

VOELV85 for without an object the Po6tv

would be completely empty or, in Par-

menides' terms, a AU71ov tself. The mean-

ing of the sentence is, therefore, obviouslythat there can be no voEtvwithout its ob-

ject, the 60v, n which it unfolds itself.

Frag. B5-r6 yaypabrb voELtvEianTVE Kat

etvat-must then be interpreted in the

same way.Since, as this analysis has shown,

Parmenides undoubtedly does say that

there can be no voetvwithout the sovand

that both are inextricably connected, even

84 Op. Cit., p. 190.

85 See also Kurt Riezler, Parmenides (Frankfurt:

Klostermann, 1934), p. 70.







NOTI, NOEIN, AND TEEIR DERIVATIVES 239

identical, and since the b6v oes not onlybelong to but is the realm of truth, how isit possible that in other passages Parmen-ides speaks of a rXayrsr v6ooswhich errs?

Frankel explains the sentence a. xaviyap c'VfiUw^vrfjeatv i'Vvet Xa KTOV VO 87

as ironical and deliberately paradoxicaland self-contradictory, connecting two

terms, lBUYEL and 6 ,s which point tostraight or true insight Nvith wo other

terms, aA-qxavt'iq and rXa'YKrOs,which in-

dicate bewilderment and error. This in-terpretation contains some truth, but it ishardly sufficient. For the vbos appears

again as dependent on the Kpaacs eAroXVrXa6KroWV in another passage, vichundoubtedly intends to give a seriousexplanation. This second passage givesthe key to the problem. Men have the6os which corresponds to the mixture of

their constitution-not, as FrAnkel88rightly pointed out in contrast to earlierscholars, of their organs -and this

constitution is called roVrrXacyKros be-cause it causes them to err. For the fur-

ther interpretation we may for once makeuse of the indirect tradition, since Theo-phrastus obviously read a part of thepoem which is now lost. He says89 thatthe mixture is of warm and cold, lightand dak, and that we recognize only thatwhich is prevalent in ourselves, whereasthe dead, according to Parmenides, are

aware only of the cold, the dark, and thesilent, but not of warmth and light. Thismust be taken together with B2, wherethe goddess asks Parmenides (and anyonewho wishes to see the truth) to see withhis voosthat which is far off as firmlypresent. That is, we are mistaken whenwve ee dark here and light there and feelthe warmth at one time and cold at an-

86 Op cit., p. 171.

87B6. 5 f.

Osp. cit., pp. 172 f.

8} TheoPhr. De sensu 3; Parm. A46. 3 (Diels).

other; for the world is not really split intothese contrasts.0 It is all one everywhereand at any time: the f6v. If this explana-tion is correct, it follows that even the

AyXarKTos Poos of the mortals cannot failto be linked up inextricably with the kOV

It could no more exist without the &ovthan the v6os which sees the full truth.But it wanders and errs in splitting theone e6v up into the many contrastingqualities, finding one here and the otherthere. In this it is all wrong and falls preyto 663a.

This interpretation does not solve the

logical difficulty, since one may still askhow there can be such an uneven mixtureof the contrasting elements in the struc-ture or constitution of human beings if itdoes not exist in the $6v,since this mixturewhich is the cause of the error of the mor-tals, it seems, must be real and objective.One may also ask how something as vagueand unreal as 36ba can exist at all if only

the 6Ovxists. It is doubtful whether thesedifficulties can ever be solved, at least inthe realm of human logic.91But the inter-pretation given seems to come nearest towhat Parmenides actually says.

It is perhaps 'not without interest toobserve the relation between Parmenides'

90An additional difficulty is created by the factthat Theophrastus says that insight or voeCY ccord-ing to warmth and light is better than otw toughcold and dark, but that there must als be a balance orsymmetry between the two; for it is not easy to deter-mae how the preference for one side of the contrastflts In with the postulate sy etry. This certaintyhas led to two different Interpretationsof the sentencer yp ro r P6na, which concludes ag. B16.Frlinkel (op. cit., p. 174) understands this to men

More (light) means fu1 isight into the truth. Buteven if v6,1a( als vollzogener Akt, as Fr'nkel ter-prets; but cf. below, n. 95) could men 'full insightImmediately after Parmenides has spoken of a P6oswhich errs, It seems unlikely that Parmenides woulduse a rather indefinte comparative to designate thatkind of mixture whi uses insight into the absolutetruth. As Riezler (Parmenides, pp. 68 f.) has pointed

out, it Is muchmore likely that we must understnd:Whichever of the two sides of the contrast prevails (ismore) determines what we imagine that we recog ae(cf. also, below, . 93 and 131).

91See also Riezler, Parmenides, pp. 76 ff.







240 KURT VONFRITZ

notion of voos and PoJLP in regard to

truth and error with the notions of his

predecessors and contemporaries. The

vbosof Parmenides is even less concerned

with the understanding of individual sit-uations than that of Heraclitus. Like

Heraclitus' voos, it is essentially con-

cerned with the ultimate truth, which is

but one. But since the voos, in spite of

being linked inextricably with ultimate

reality, nevertheless can err, there is also,

just as in Homer, the possibility of differ-

ent voot in different people, according to

the mixture of their structures or con-

stitutions. Yet, contrary to Homer, itcannot be said that the reason for the

difference in their voot is that the truth

itself is not the same for all of them. For

it is the erring voos which is different in

them. This implies, of course, that-as in

Hesiod but not in Homer-the voos can

be not only dulled but also, at least in

some way, deceived. So all the notions of

voos in regard to truth and error thatcould be found before Parmenides appear

in his work. But they are no longer sepa-

rated but have all of them become differ-

ent aspects of one and the same indivisible

concept, and in the process of this unifica-

tion they have all of them been slightly

changed.All this, however, does not yet answer

the question of the nature of the voos in

Parmenides' thought. Theophrastus says92that Parmenides makes no distinction be-

tween sensual perception and 4povEZv; nd,

since he himself in this passage seems not

to differentiate between OpopEZpand

PoEZP,is statement seems also to apply to

Poosand voEZJ'.his interpretation is by

no means, like Sextus' misinterpretation

of Heraclitus, due merely to an indiscrimi-

nate application of the oversimplified92 De sensu 3; Parm., Frag. A46 (Diels): rt yap

atoOJ&etyOat Katc TrO 4poVV (S Trairci Mye; but cf. Aristotle

Metaph. A 5. 986 b. 32.

concepts of a later period to a philosophy

to which they do not apply. At first sight

it may seem as if it could be justified even

on the basis of Homeric and generally

pre-Parmenidean terminology. For if thevoos of human beings is concerned with

warmth and cold, with light and dark,

etc., it seems that it is not its function to

understand situations, like the voos in

Homer, or to recognize definite, concrete

objects, which in Homer is the function

of yV4yPWKEGP, but that the voos in Parmen-

ides is on the same level with 1s5Zv,

aKOiELv, etc., in Homer, since warmth

and cold seem to be sensual qualities.Yet there is a very essential difference.

The voos in Parmenides perceives 93

not only sounds, or rather sound, but

also silence, which can hardly be

called a sensual quality; and in this con-

nection it is certainly significant that

Parmenides does not, like Democritus,

who is really concerned with sensual

qualities, speak of color94but of light anddarkness. We have then to rememberthat

the presumed sensual qualities of which

Parmenides speaks are most closely re-

lated to the primary contrasts from

93 It is very difflcult to render adequately in anymodern language what Parmenides means by VoeiV.

When we say It was so quiet that one could hear the

stillness, we feel that we use a metaphorical, almost

paradoxical, expression. But Parmenides' point is justthat this is quite wrong. Silence and darkness are as

positive and real as sound or light. In fact, to the dead

they are what light and sound are to us. We should notmake this difference, which is merely a difference in

name (cf. B8. 53 ff., and B9. 1 if.).Perhaps this makes it also possible to explain the

seeming contradiction in Theophrastus' two state-

ments: (1) that perception through warmth and light

is purer than perception through cold and darknessand (2) that the two perceptions should be symmetri-cal or equally balanced. For in the light of the passagesquoted, it seems likely that, according to Parmenides,perception through warmth and light is pure in us (theliving) because it makes us feel light and warmth assomething positive, while our perception through cold

and darkness is not pure because it makes us perceive

cold and darkness as something negative. If we had a'symmetrical or well-balanced perception, we would

feel no such difference.

94 Frag. B9 (Diels): vP61tcYXVK& . . . V611uXpov4, b-fn 5f

Aro,ua Kat KfEMM.







NOTZ,NOEIN, AND THEIR DERIVATIVES 241

which, in the philosophy of Anaximander,the world in which we live emerges. Itis these primary world-creating contrastswhichthe - ra7KTOSoos of humanbeings,

even though erroneously, imagines itgrasps. This shows that what Parmenideshas in mind in the second part of his poemis by no means sense perception pure andsimple but something much more nearlyrelated to the intuitive voosof Heracli-tus, though the concept has become muchmore complicated, since the voos in Par-menides can err. The same intuitivenature of the voos is also most clearly

described in Frag. B2-X EivX E a'6wcos

a7reovTpra oco rapeoPTca 3EcacLcs-which be-longs to the first part of the poem anddeals with a voos which does not err but isaware of the truth.

So far it might seem as if Parmenides'concept of voos was still essentially thesame as that of his predecessors, includ-ing his contemporary Heraclitus. In fact,

however, Parmenides brings in an entire-ly new and heterogeneous element. It is arather remarkable fact that Heraclitususes the particle ycap only where he ex-plains the ignorance of the commoncrowd. There is absolutely no ycap or anyother particle of the same sense in any ofthe passages in which he explains his ownview of the truth. He or his voos sees orgrasps the truth and sets it forth. There is

neither need nor room for arguments.Homer and Hesiod, likewise, when usingthe term Poos,never imply that someonecomes to a conclusion concerning a situ-ation so that the statement could be fol-lowed up with a sentence beginning with

for or because. A person realizes thesituation. That is all. In contrast to this,Parmenides in the central part of hispoem, has a yaip, an ebrEL, 0v, ToVu6'eY'PKa,

oiVPCKa in almost every sentence. Heargues, deduces, tries to prove the truthof his statements by logical reasoning.

What is the relation of this reasoning tothe voos?

The answer is given by those passagesin which the goddess tells Parmenides

which road of inquiry he should followwith his VoOSand from which roads hemust keep away his PornIa.95These roads,

as the majority of the fragments clearlyshow, are roads or lines of discursivethinking, expressing itself in judgments,arguments, and conclusions. Since thePoos s to follow one of the three possibleroads of inquiry and to stay away fromthe others, there can be no doubt that

discursive thinking is part of the functionof the Poos. Yet-and this is just as im-portant-PoEZP is not identical with aprocess of logical deduction pure andsimple in the sense of formal logic, aprocess which through a syllogistic mech-anism leads from any set of related prem-ises to conclusions which follow withnecessity from those premises, but also a

process which in itself is completely un-concerned with, and indifferent to, thetruth or untruth of the original premises.It is still the primary function of thevoosto be in direct touch with ultimatereality. It reaches this ultimate realitynot only at the end and as a result of thelogical process, but in a way is in touchwith it from the very beginning, since, asParmenides again and again points out,

there is no Pooswithout the sov, n whichit unfolds itself.9 In so far as Parmenides'

95This passage seems also to prove that Parmenidesdoes not use the word vo677Aatrictly as a nomen reiactae or to designate einen vollzogenen Akt, as Frankel

contends (see above, n. 90). The meaning of the wordas used here and, in fact, in most of the passages whereit occurs in Parmenides is rare with nouns in -,uabuthas a perfect analogy in the use of the word 0,lia inEuripides Electra 439, where Achilles is called KoDi4OS

A&Xsaro&avand wlhere the reference is certainly not tothe completed act of jumping.

96 Though the element of reasoning in vocZv is here

much further developed and much more conscious, theconnection with the Homeric concept of voeiv, whichmeans an intuitive understanding, which, however,may be the result of a process of reasoning, is not yetcompletely broken.







242 KURT VON FRITZ

difficult thought can be explained, thelogical process seems to have merely the

function of clarifying and confirming

what, in a way, has been in the voos from

the very beginning and of cleansing it ofall foreign elements.

So for Parmenides himself, what, forlack of a better word, may be called the

intuitional element in the Poos is still

most important. Yet it was not throughhis vision but through the truly or

seemingly compelling force of his logicalreasoning that he acquired the dominat-

ing position in the philosophy of the fol-

lowing century. At the same time, hiswork marks the most decisive turning-

point in the history of the terms Poos,

POELP,tc.; for he was the first consciously

to include logical reasoning in the func-tions of the Poos.97 The notion of voos

underwent many other changes in thefurther history of Greek philosophy, butnone as decisive as this. The intuitionalelement is still present in Plato's andAristotle's concepts of Poos and later

again in that of the Neo-Platonists. But

the term never returned completely toits pre-Parmenidean meaning.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

(To be concluded)97See above, p. 241.

noein, and their derivatives in pre-socratic philosophy (excluding anaxagoras) part ii

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