Pre-Socrates: Parmenides

Wu Shiyu

http://sla.sjtu.edu.cn/bbs

前苏格拉底派 ( 下篇 )

Parmenides: The Champion of Being

巴门尼德

(515 BC-?)

1. Parmenides

Born in about 515 BC

Elea, southern coast of Italy

A poem in fragmentary form

On Nature

Founder of the Eleatic school of philosophy

Parmenides

2. Parmenides’ On Nature

A poem , which introduced the entire work,

A section "The Way of Truth" (aletheia )

A section "The Way of Appearance/Opinion" (doxa).

Three Parts

Being is

Non-Being is

Both Being and non-Being are (Becoming is)

How they actually make sense?

Three basic possibilities for thoughts

Non-Being

Non-Being: impossible idea, unintelligible

S: “For the same thing is for thinking and being.”

Non-Being cannot be thought.

S: “Gaze upon things, which although absent, are securely present in thought.”

Thinking is presencing,

To think, is to think what is. (absence and presence)

第一次提出了“思想与存在是同一的”

Becoming

Becoming concepts both being and non-Being.

As non-Being illegal, unintelligible, so becoming.

Doxa opinion appearance (way things seem to be)

Parmenides rejects doxa (becoming)

Parmenides is a paradoxical thinker. (deviant)

Preposterous, nothing more basic than appearance

"Do not let habit, born from much experience, compel you along this way, to direct your sightless eye and sounding ear and tongue, but judge by reason."

Do not let ordinary experience deceive you.

Judge by reason (logos).

Rationalist and empiricist.

Rationalist: pure reason.

Empiricist: relies on experience.

Parmenides is a ???.

Being is

Pure rationalist, Parmenides one and only one truth.

感官是骗人的 , 唯一真实的存在就是“一”。This first truth is “being is”.

Parmenides the champion of being.

The Champion of Being

First: Being is eternal.

Being cannot go out of being, or it can only go to non-being.

Being cannot come into being, nor perish.

The Champion of Being

Second: Being is indivisible.

Cannot be divided into parts.

This chunk of being is not that chunk of being.

Illegal phrase: is not. This part is not being.

Being is one, being is indivisible, becoming is not.

存在是永恒的，是一，连续不可分；存在是不动的，是真实的，可以被思想；感性世界的具体事物是非存在，是假想，不能被思想。没有存在之外的思想，被思想的东西和思想的目标是同一的。他第一次提出了“思想与存在是同一的”

Parmenides is a monist ( 一元论者 ), where reality is totally one.

Parmenides : eliminate becoming

Being and Becoming

经验主义者和理性主义者

Empiricist ： Relies on experience of the world in order to gain knowledge.

Rationalist: Relies on pure reason alone in order to achieve knowledge

Much history philosophy divided b E and R.

Empiricist: Locke, Berkeley, Hume

Rationalist: Spinoza, Leibniz, Descartes.

Both Parmenides and Heraclitus are extremists.

After them, Greek philosophy reconcile these two.

Parmenides rejects ordinary experience. Heraclitus welcomes experience. We experience our lives like Heraclitus’ river. He is an empiricist.

Orthodox: having a correct opinion.

Heterodox: having a opinion that conflicts.

Paradoxical: deviant from doxa

Questions to Consider

1. What do you think of Heraclitus’s way of writing? Are his paradoxical statements offensive to you, or do you find them intellectually attractive?

2. Of all Heraclitus’s fragments, which do you find to be most expressive of his philosophical position?

毕达哥拉斯毕达哥拉斯

Pythagoras (570-500 B.C.)Pythagoras (570-500 B.C.)

毕达哥拉斯

Pythagoras (570-500 B.C.)

PythagorasPythagoras

Known as "the father of numbers".

Everything was interrelated with mathematics, and everything was able to be measured in rhythmic patterns or cycles,

And the musical intervals could be explained mathematically.

Numbers were permanent and stable (The archê ).

PythagorasPythagoras

Medieval woodcut showing Pythagoras with bells in Pythagorean tuningMedieval woodcut showing Pythagoras with bells in Pythagorean tuning

When we think, we think about something that is. We cannot therefore, think about what is not. We cannot think about non-being.

Non-being is an impossible concept. It makes no sense.

Hesiod is simply senseless, makes no rational sense.

We could try and reject Parmenides.

Sixth century BC in ancient Greece was an age of intellectual ferment.

The same period in China.

Doxa

Orthodox

Heterodox

Paradox