PARMENID(c. 515 - c. 445 BC), ancient Greek thinker, founder of the Eleatic (Eleatic) school. From Parmenides "philosophy began in the proper sense of the word" ().
Life
Parmenides, son of Piretus, was born in the city of Elea, a Greek colony in southern Italy. Belonged to a noble and wealthy family. He listened to Anaximander, was familiar with Xenophanes, but became a disciple of the little-known Pythagorean Aminius, a poor and righteous man, who turned him to the life of a solitary thinker. After the death of the teacher, Parmenides erected a tomb for him as a hero. A contemplative life did not prevent Parmenides from participating in political affairs and even establishing such laws in Elea that "the authorities annually took an oath from citizens to remain faithful to the laws of Parmenides" (Plutarch).
Parmenides became the founder of the Eleatic school, one of the most important philosophical trends of the classical era. This school includes Xenophanes, the closest students of Parmenides Zeno and Melissa, as well as Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Leucippus.
Composition
The work of Parmenides, traditionally called "On Nature", is written in hexameter, like an epic poem. The contradiction between the poetic form, the metaphorical language saturated with mythological images and the extremely abstract theoretical topics requiring a dry, purely logical interpretation, has caused criticism and bewilderment since antiquity. But it is precisely the epic rhythm of speech, which conveys the eternal uniform completion of always completely abiding being, the epic detachment, which makes it possible to mentally perceive each, however dramatic episode of existence in the unshakable fullness of being, that by itself lead the ear and imagination to a thought capable of embracing that unchanging being to which the thinking attention of Parmenides is drawn.
The surviving parts of the poem make it possible to distinguish three main sections in it: the prologue, which colorfully describes the rapid run of the chariot, transporting the young man-Parmenides, as it were, to the end of the world; the first part (Truth), in which the Goddess reveals to the traveler how the only thing can and should be thought of being in its infallible truth; the second part (Opinion), where the structure of the double and ambiguous world in which mortals habitually live is described in the most plausible way.
Teaching
Parmenides describes the starting position of thought seeking truth, following the fabulous model of a traveler at a crossroads deciding which way to go. The first to reject is wandering along the trodden paths of "highly experienced habit", in the confusion and muddy of everyday life, among conventional names, generally accepted imaginations and ambiguities. The untruthfulness of the world of everyday life is rooted in its inconsistency: it is impossible to decide about anything here, whether it is or not, but everything always somehow is and is not at the same time. Truth, however, requires a decisive distinction between is and is not. Hence the decisive judgment of Parmenides: there is either being or non-being, there is no third. The doctrine of Parmenides is the source of the ontological substantiation of the laws of logic.
The second decision rejects the path into nothingness, which does not lead anywhere, that is, it is simply a non-path, a desolate person. There is nothing to look for here, because there is no sought-after, what could be meant (think) and what could be talked about. Hence the first principle of Parmenides: there is only being, there is no nonexistence.
There remains the path leading to being, cleansed of any admixture of non-being. The path indicated by being contains many indications of being itself. It is not born (from non-being) and does not perish (into non-being), does not deceive in itself, does not change, does not flow in time, but everything that is entirely one and indivisible at once remains at rest, closed in itself and separated from non-being by indestructible limits. Being in Parmenides is not lost in indefinite infinity (like in Melissa), but is grasped by thought in the fullness of presence, together with limits, which is conveyed by the image of a sphere, a ball of being in the night of nonexistence. Parmenides formulates the foundation of Greek ontology in general: the existence of all things (everything and everyone) is contained within the limits - in form, form, image (cf. Plato's eidos and idea).
Being is seen as collected in the fullness and unity of being not by a sensible, but by an intelligent eye, by thought. Being as such is present in thought. By the limits separating being from non-being, being also borders on the thought that embraces (understands) it. On the contrary, a thought wandering in a dubious world gathers in an understanding mind, focusing on the only thinkable (unambiguous, unchanging, definite), on being. Thought is instructed on the path by the very thoughtful being to which the path paves. The path to being is therefore also the path of thought to itself; to think means to think something. Hence the second principle of Parmenides: the same thought and what it is about. The certainty of understanding is in the certainty of the understood. This means: the very possibility of speech, speaking about something, and thought, having something in mind, already presupposes being in the Parmenidean sense.
An analysis of the conditions of true being makes it possible to establish the exact beginnings of an imprecise world, a kingdom of opinions, additional to the kingdom of truth. True being is one and unchanging, the deceptive being of a changeable world is due to the fact that mortals allowed a certain existence of non-being, establishing two opposite forms as principles: the light (fire) of being and the night (cold) of non-being. From here Parmenides develops a variant of cosmogony, most of which has not survived.
Eleets Parmenides, son of Piretus, whose acme (flourishing of powers) falls either on the 500th, or (according to Plato) on 475 BC. e., came from a noble family and took an active part in political activities. He wrote the laws for Elea. Subsequently, under the influence of the Pythagorean Aminius, he devoted himself to the quiet life of a philosopher. According to Aristotle and Theophrastus, he was a student of Xenophanes, but tradition claims that he did not become his follower (see: Diogenes. Laertius, IX, 21). And yet the kinship of their views is obvious: Parmenides raises the same question about a single being, one side, and a multitude of existing things on the other. Parmenides owns a poem under the traditional title "On Nature", large excerpts from which have been preserved by Sextus Empiricus, Simplicius and some other ancient authors. The surviving text (especially the introduction written in an allegorical spirit) is so complex, and the discrepancies in the manuscripts are so great that the range of opinions regarding the true meaning of Parmenides' philosophy is enormous - from assimilating it to a religious revelation and to interpreting it as a logical deductive construction.
The most ancient tradition of doxography is as follows. Theophrastus writes in the first book of "Opinions of Physicists": "... Parmenides went on both roads. Namely, he proves that the universe is eternal, and [at the same time] tries to explain the emergence of beings, and his judgments about both are dual, for he believes that in truth the universe is one, beginningless and spherical; according to the opinion of the crowd, to explain the emergence, he accepts two principles of the visible [world]: fire and earth, one as matter, the other as an effective cause. " Thus, the "two ways" of Parmenides, "the way of truth" and "the way of opinion", give two pictures of the world: the world of a single and eternal being and the seeming world of opinion opposing it.
According to Parmenides, only one path leads to the truth, defined by the thesis: "There is what is, and what is not, does not exist." Before us here is nothing more than the first formulation of the logical law of identity in its ontological interpretation. In other words, Parmenides makes an ontological conclusion from an open, but rather a logical law he guessed, stating the need, in order to consistently think, to maintain the same meaning of thought throughout the course of reasoning. This leads to the following chain of conclusions:
- what is, that is;
- then what is not, then does not exist;
- therefore, the emergence (appearance of what was not) and destruction (the disappearance of what is) do not exist;
- space (emptiness) and time (replacement of the past by the present) do not exist;
- what is (being) is filled;
- existence has no parts, it is a single whole;
- existence is one (one), because apart from it there is nothing;
- therefore, the being is complete (and therefore, of course) and perfect;
- motion does not exist, since there is nowhere for existence to move.
Parmenides' doctrine of being
This abstract schema of Parmenides' reasoning presents his claim to a purely speculative solution to the ideological problem of "true" being. But what is the essence of this construction? The philosopher means by "being" a kind of mass that fills the world. Being (being) does not arise and is not destroyed, it is indivisible, impenetrable and motionless; it is equal to itself and like a perfect ball. Hence, it was concluded that the philosophy of Parmenides should be understood as a kind or prototype of materialism: existence is finite, immovable and corporeal, spatially determined, and therefore, the "material" totality of all that exists, and there is nothing besides it (See: Burnet J. Early Greek Philosophy. L. 1975, p. 182.). But there is also another side of the matter here. Parmenides asserts that only being can be thought, one can neither think nor speak about non-existent. This means that thinking turns out to be not only a criterion of existence (there is something that can be thought and expressed), but also identical with it, since “one and the same thought and that about which thought exists” (B 8, 34), or, to put it simply, "one and the same thought and being" (B 3). Therefore, it is obvious that the starting point for Parmenides is not corporeality ("material"), but the thinkability of being, or, which is the same for him, his mental, ideal character. Thus, the path to idealism opens here, and the idealistic tendency will turn out to be no less important in the legacy of Parmenides than the materialistic one. Both Democritus and Plato grow out of the Eleatic philosophy.
What is the "path of opinion" as opposed to the "path of truth"?
The first way: there is being, but there is no non-being at all;
Here is the path of certainty and he brings closer to the truth,
The way is: there is nonexistence and non-existence is inevitable,
This path will not give knowledge ...
Word and thought must be being: one exists
Only being, and nothing exists. Ponder
This - and you will avoid the evil path of seeking, -
Also the second way that the ignorant devise,
People with two heads. Their mind wanders helplessly.
They wander at random, deaf and blind together.
Foolish people! Being and not being is the same
And not by that name. And they see the opposite way in everything.
Analysis of the above text and evidence shows that there are essentially three ways described here:
- "The way of truth";
- a path that does not lead anywhere, and therefore is absolutely useless - there is only non-being, and there is no being;
- being and non-being exist equally.
However, (3), in turn, admits three options for the relationship of being and non-being:
- being and non-being are one and the same; practically equivalent to (2), it can be identified with the "nihilistic" position of Gorgias of Leontinus, a younger contemporary of Parmenides;
- being and non-being are one and the same and not the same, - the reference to “people with two heads” who “see the opposite way everywhere” clearly points to Heraclitus; finally
- there are both being and non-being as independent opposite essences that do not pass into each other. This is the view of the Pythagoreans, and it is he who can become the basis for the "opinions of mortals", while other options are unacceptable.
Speaking about visible being, Parmenides retained only one pair of Pythagorean opposites - "light - night (darkness)". However, opposites dating back to Anaximenes are also associated with them, that is, the antithesis "rarefied - dense" in combination with its derivative "warm - cold". By itself, the latter antithesis reminds us of Alcmeon. Aristotle adds to this that Parmenides calls the first opposites fire and earth, and fire corresponds to being, and earth to non-being. In other words, in place of the logically impossible opposition of being and non-being, real opposites already known from Ionian phisiology and Pythagoreanism are put. The "world of opinion", that is, sensory appearance, is internally contradictory. But Parmenides does not at all want to exclude him from consideration for this reason. The "path of opinion" is a necessary way of explaining the sensible world, imposed on people by their feelings, perceiving the plurality, variability, the emergence and destruction of things. These properties can be explained "physically", with the help of the aforementioned opposites, but they can be and generally rejected, as is done on the "path of truth", which takes us beyond the sensible world, to the intelligible world (This is just one of the possible solutions to the question of the relationship between Parmenides of “truth” and “opinion.” The publisher of the fragments of Parmenides L. Taran counted no less than nine solutions found in the literature (see Taran L. Parmenides. Princeton, 1965, pp. 203-216).
At the same time, I note that Parmenides does not follow Xenophanes, who called this intelligible single being “god”. The deity - at least judging by the surviving fragments of the poem - is excluded by Parmenides from consideration, and his goddess, who teaches the philosopher the rules of scientific knowledge, is more a literary character who introduces philosophical knowledge than a real goddess. As for the sensible world, its status is best expressed by the Hegelian concept of "objective appearance", which implies the necessity of both appearance (appearance) and opinion, since the essence is given to a person only to the extent that it manifests itself in phenomena. However, is it possible, according to Parmenides, to talk about the transition from the sensible world of opinion to the intelligible world of true being? Apparently, Parmenides does not yet pose the question in this way, and the discovery and explanation of the transition from phenomenon to essence and vice versa has become a task solved in the course of philosophical progress. So far, only the discrepancy between the testimony of feelings and the evidence of reason has been discovered, the fact that sometimes reason contradicts feelings, reaching the truth in spite of them.
Parmenides did not discover the difference between sensory and rational knowledge. But he was so carried away by this discovery, so confident in the superiority of reason over feelings, that he was ready to make into existence what is thought in its differences from what is perceived by the senses. As a result, unstable, vague and fluid sensory perceptions, all "appearing" and "apparent" not only differ from them from "thought and existence", but are also opposed to them as "opinion" - "being". And this is the first step towards objective idealism.
Parmenides' doctrine of nature
The content of the phisiology (doctrine of nature) of Parmenides is not amenable to unambiguous restoration. We spoke above about the main idea - the idea of the origin of the sensible world from a mixture of "light" (fire) and "night" (darkness, earth). The cosmology of Parmenides is set forth in greater detail in Aetius, and his testimony is partly confirmed by fragment C 12. The one world is embraced by the ether; under it is a fiery mass, which we call the sky. Below it is what directly surrounds the Earth, that is, a series of "crowns" twisting around each other. One crown consists of fire, the other - of "night", between them areas, only partially filled with fire. In the center is the firmament (Earth?), Under which there is another crown of fire, he is the goddess who “rules everything. It is she who causes intercourse and terrible childbirth in everything, sending a woman to copulate with a man and back, a man [sending] to a woman ”(B 12). Apparently, this is a volcanic fire, meaning the kingdom of the goddess of love and justice.
Parmenides' "crowns", especially when we learn that from his point of view the Sun and the Milky Way are "vents from which fire comes out", vividly remind us of the "circles" of Anaximander, the central fire - the Pythagorean Hestia, etc. The emergence of living beings Parmenides associated with the interaction of earth and fire (cold and warm), sensation and thinking are also associated with their interaction. “Namely, the way of thinking becomes different depending on the predominance of warm or cold; better and more pure [he is made] under the influence of warmth. " Feeling “caused by like” (ibid.). Treating the problems of reproduction in animals and humans, Parmenides believes that women are warmer (apparently, they are both better and cleaner than men, although this is not said directly ...). The birth of a male or female child depends on the predominance of one or the other of the parents and on the location of the fetus: "Boys on the right, girls on the left." However, this is no longer philosophy.
Based on the book by A. Bogomolov "Ancient Philosophy"
Xenophanes' disciple is Parmenides. Fragments of Parmenides reached much less than Heraclitus, however, in terms of the degree of influence of Parmenides on subsequent Greek thought, it is difficult to compare him with anyone.
Parmenides was born in 540-544. He is generally considered the first philosopher to think logically and to introduce a rationalistic, logical method into philosophy. The school is named after the place of residence of Parmenides - Elea, located in the south of Italy. Parmenides studied with Xenophanes, but the Pythagorean Aminius led him to a contemplative life, to philosophy. It is believed that Socrates talked with Parmenides, but the years of Socrates' life, who was born in 469, and Parmenides do not allow such a conclusion.
Parmenides wrote a poem which is also called "On Nature". The poem consists of two parts - "The Way of Truth" and "The Way of Opinion". Although the poem did not reach our days, like other works of the pre-Socratics, it was so often quoted by subsequent philosophers that from these fragments it turned out to be possible to reconstruct the poem (more precisely, the Preface and The Way of Truth) almost entirely. "The Way of Truth" sets out the true doctrine of being, which is achieved only through strict logical thinking, and in the "Way of Opinion" Parmenides describes the world as it appears to the senses. It may be an untrue world, if the readings of the senses do not agree with the conclusions of the mind, but nevertheless it seems to us so and therefore also deserves to be described. But the attention of philosophers is always naturally attracted by the first part of the poem - "The Path of Truth."
The plot of the poem, written in verse, is structured as follows: the "Preface" describes how the virgin goddess leads the chariot with Parmenides "wherever thought reaches" - to the doors of the palace, in which the goddess of justice Dike meets the author and says that here she will tell him something that is unknown to anyone - both a convincing truth and the opinions of mortals, "in which there is no exact fidelity." Then, in The Path of Truth, a story is told on behalf of the goddess Dike, where the actual teachings of Parmenides are presented. Most important for understanding his teachings is the beginning, which says the following:
Now I will say, and you take my word when you hear,
What is the only way to think is possible.
The first says that "is" and "not to be in any way impossible":
This is the path of conviction (which is a companion to Truth).
The second way - what - "is not" and "should not be inevitable":
This path, I tell you, is completely unknown,
For what is not, you can neither know (fail), nor explain ...
For thinking is the same as being ...
One can only say and think what is: after all, being
There is, but nothing is: I ask you to think it over.
First of all I turn you away from this way of seeking,
And then from where the people, deprived of knowledge,
They roam about two heads ...
In the above fragment, two positions of Parmenides are distinguished. First: "" is "and" it is impossible not to be in any way "", in other words, "what is, is, what is not, is not", "being is, nothing is not." Sometimes it is also called the first formulation of the law of identity. This is really a tautology, a self-evident position, A = A. The other thing, that A = not-A, can only be said by “people with two heads” (a clear allusion to Heraclitus). The second thesis of Parmenides is not entirely obvious, because it says: "To think is the same as to be", or in another formulation, philosophical: "Thinking and being are one and the same." It would seem that one can always object to this. After all, you can think of anything, any chimera, centaur, goblin, but it does not follow that they actually exist. However, first, one must distinguish between thinking and imagination. When I say that I thought of a centaur, I really mean that I introduced him, and this is not the same thing. To think means to give a true, scientific description of the object of thinking, which is obviously impossible in the case of the centaur. Secondly, it is also impossible to imagine something that does not exist. Try to imagine a centaur made up of non-existent parts. A centaur is a kind of creature consisting of a horse and a person, i.e. from what really exists. Everything that we think, represent, we represent only on the basis of what exists. Try to think about the non-existent, i.e. nothingness. Not a non-existent thing, but non-being. This is basically impossible to do. This thesis of Parmenides is very important. It lies at the basis of any cognitive human activity. Not a single scientist, not a single person would have known anything if he was not sure that his thought about the subject is the subject itself. Therefore, these two propositions of Parmenides are axioms: they cannot be proved, but without their recognition, no knowledge is possible.
Within the framework of Parmenides' doctrine, the second axiom is by no means accidental, because the conclusions that follow from his philosophy are so contrary to common sense that an urge to say that there is nothing in common between what is proven and what exists in reality, reason is not being, and his conclusions cannot serve as a basis for creating a doctrine of being. That is why, from the very beginning, Parmenides points out that thinking is the same as being, that logical arguments relate not only to the area of the personal mind of a thinking person, but also to the area of being, and what we investigate with the help of reason directly relates to being.
The following conclusions follow from the first thesis: since only being exists, it is indivisible. Indeed, being can be divided into parts only if between the parts of being there is something other than being, i.e. nothingness. But there is no non-being. Therefore, being is one, it has no parts. In reality, there are no many different things: "Everything is continuous in this way: the being has closed with the being." Further, even if we imagined that there are some parts of this being, they would not be able to move, since the movement of being is possible only in non-being. The movement of parts of being is possible only when there is some non-being between the parts of being. Therefore, there is actually no movement either. The fact that there is a plurality of things, and the fact that these things are constantly moving - it only seems to us. In reality, being is unborn and not subject to destruction. After all, it can arise only from non-being and can also be destroyed only into non-being. But there is no non-being. Consequently, being has always existed, it is eternal and will always exist. It is homogeneous, lifeless, i.e. in any of its parts it does not move, it is one, there cannot be two existences. It is simple, did not arise from anything, indivisible, omnipresent, continuous. Following Xenophanes, Parmenides asserts that being has the form of a ball 12.
Thus, a paradoxical picture is obtained. Indeed, the conclusions from his two propositions, completely obvious and not subject to any doubt, the conclusions are completely logical, lead to completely unusual conclusions - that the plurality of things does not exist, that there is no movement, and this only seems to us. This seeming world is described by Parmenides in the "Way of Opinion", but here Parmenides is so unoriginal that even the number of fragments from this part of the poem is relatively small, which indicates a small interest of subsequent philosophers in this part of Parmenides' teachings. We will also follow their example and will not consider Parmenides' doctrine of the world as insignificant and did not influence further philosophical thought.
The doctrine of Parmenides deserves special attention, since all subsequent philosophy will develop under the undoubted influence of the ideas of Parmenides. The genius of Parmenides was recognized, in particular, by Plato, who said: "Parmenides ... inspires me ..." both respect and horror "" (Teetetus 183e). Strictly speaking, Plato's philosophy is a further development of Parmenides' ideas, an attempt to understand the paradoxical nature of our knowledge of truth and being.
Parmenides was the first to clearly formulate the basic philosophical axioms; he was the first to consistently apply a rigorous method of reasoning and cognition, in this case a rationalistic one. Thus, Parmenides became the first system-creator in history: his doctrine is not a series of ingenious intuitive guesses, as in his predecessors, but is a strict philosophical system in which a philosopher, proceeding from some self-evident axioms and strictly following a certain method, comes to a certain a conclusion, which, although it is distinguished by the unusual and even paradoxical formulations, should nevertheless be recognized within the framework of this philosophical system as following from all the previous reasoning. Subsequent philosophical (and scientific) systems will also be created according to the same principle: each philosopher has before him a certain goal, a problem that needs to be solved; for this, he postulates certain axioms and then argues using a method that seems to him more consistent with these axioms. In this regard, Parmenides' system is remarkable in that it fits on one page, it is easy to present it in its entirety, and thus Parmenides helps to better, more clearly imagine the essence of the philosophical method of cognition.
Parmenides of Elea
Parmenides from Elea (born in 540 \ 515 - died in 470) - ancient Greek philosopher, founder of the school. The most famous follower and disciple of Parmenides is Zeno of Elea. The philosophical views of the thinker are set forth in the work "On Nature", which is often called a "metaphysical poem." Excerpts from the mentioned work in sufficient numbers have safely survived to this day.
Parmenides, son of Piretus, was born and raised in one of the Greek colonies located in southern Italy. The philosopher came from an aristocratic and noble family, but he studied with an almost not famous and poor man. Parmenides was also actively involved in political affairs and even had to do with the creation of new laws. One of the laws that Parmenides introduced obliged citizens to be faithful to the laws of Parmenides.
Ancient Greek thinker, progenitor and founder of one of the most fundamental currents created in his school, later developed in the teachings of his followers and philosophers of other schools and directions. More specifically, Parmenides laid the foundation for the categories of "beingness" and "cognition", as a result of which such disciplines as ontology, epistemology, etc. appeared.
As for the teachings of Parmenides regarding being:
"There is being, there is no non-being"
"Being is immovable, unshakable, no one created it, it was always, homogeneous, perfect, limited and has the shape of a ball."
More down to earth, being is defined as our thinking about anything. For example, there is a table, and there is a table being (that is, our idea of a given object at a distance from itself).
The influence of the philosophy of Parmenides was experienced by: Zeno, Meliss. Parmenides, as already mentioned, opened a new era in the study of knowledge, the analogy of his concept of being can often be seen in the use of today's prominent thinkers in their works. Parmenides himself was influenced by the philosophy of Xenophanes.
Parmenides' concept
As for the philosophical doctrine of Parmenides, it is well reflected by the thesis: "Being is - there is no non-being." Parmenides himself spoke of the identity of what really exists and what is only thought of. There is an opinion that with his philosophy Parmenides wanted to refute the philosophical theses about the contradictoriness of the world and its
entities. Parmenides argued that a contradiction is impossible. And he refuted all hypotheses about the multiplicity or transience of life. Parmenides, like most philosophers of Ancient Greece, believed and proclaimed the fact of rationality giving true knowledge, and rejected the factor of sensuality as a criterion for obtaining true knowledge.
Parmenides' concept of being
Parmenides builds a deep philosophical construct, the main idea of which is being. Parmenides by the way of logic, by the deductive method, throws away the incorrect positions that he meets on the way to the truth. First, he says that there is either being or non-being, later he claims that there is only being, and there is no non-being. But nevertheless, even later he says that being is light in the system of non-being.
Parmenides laid the foundation for ancient Greek ontology in general. Thought, according to Parmenides, is the path of thought to itself. In this regard, Parmenides identifies the concept of thought with its essential significance. That is, thought is what it is about.
Some contemporaries and critics who study the philosophical teachings of Parmenides believe that his doctrine of being, like most components in his philosophy, contradicts some elements of his own doctrine. Moreover, some consider Parmenides to be materialists, saying that thinking in the philosophy of Parmenides is defined not only as a criterion for the existence of everything, but also as the identity of the parties, that is, thinking and existence.
Likewise, the philosopher defines being as motionless, definite in space and corporeal, therefore, material (as one might think). Nevertheless, Parmenides puts in the first place thinking, its conceptual and existential aspect. And in this regard, Parmenides is more an idealist than a materialist. The philosophical community is controversial about the last statement.
The cosmological and physical teachings of Parmenides are akin to those of the representatives: Anaximander and Anaximenes. The earth is the center of everything, it is not directly spoken about, but only casually mentioned, there is a partially fiery ring in the middle, a ring of pure fire on top and a ring of darkness below. All other aspects of the cosmological and natural teachings - the essence is only to a greater extent a purely hypothetical component of the philosopher's guesses and assumptions.
But nevertheless, it must be said that Parmenides was the first to suggest the hypothesis that the Moon only reflects the light of the Sun and is not independently capable of emitting it. Also, Parmenides argued that our internal state to some extent depends on the physical, i.e. our health and the state of our internal organs. Parmenides believed that matter and space are inseparable from each other.
Parmenides is sometimes called the father of Greek metaphysics.
Parmenides tried to clearly distinguish between the "Path of Truth" (the Path of knowledge) and the "Path of opinion".
The doctrine of being: Parmenides, Zeno
Eleyskaya school. city of Elea, Greek colony on about. Sicily. The Eleatics were the forerunners and founders of idealistic philosophy. Its representatives - Parmenides and Zeno of Elea - created the doctrine of being. Parmenides introduced the concept of "being" (Greek - "ontos", hence ontology - science, the doctrine of being). You can only trust the mind, feelings deceive us, create an illusory picture. "Nature" is his work. The same object seems huge to a child and a normal adult. The same food can be tasty when you are healthy and disgust when you are sick. Feelings cannot be trusted, there can be no agreement in them. Reason is another matter: 2x2 = 4 - always and there can be no disagreement. Likes to prove by contradiction. Parmenides reasoned as follows: being is everything that is, exists. The opposite is non-being, i.e. all that is not. But since there is nothing in non-being, it means that there is no non-being, which means that there is only being. At the same time, being is static, i.e. there is no movement, no change in it. All those changes that we see and feel around us do not take place in being, but in the world of our ideas, opinions, i.e. in the dox. Being is what we can think, but not see, i.e. it is synonymous with thinking. Parmenides characterized being with the following properties:
being is unique;
being is homogeneous (homogeneous);
being is limitless;
being is eternal;
being is motionless.
The Parmenides Principle (the principle of universal connection) is also known, according to which "nothing arises from nothing and does not pass into nothing, but everything arises from another and passes into another". Currently, many ideas based on this principle have been developed: world constants, conservation laws, the concept of circulation, the theory of vacuum, the hypothesis of transmutations, etc.
A disciple of Parmenides - Zeno of Elea - formulated 36 aporias (translated from Greek. Means "difficulty"), confirming the properties of being in the teachings of Parmenides. The most famous of these are the "movement aporia":
Achilles and the Turtle. If the turtle leaves point A to point B before Achilles, then Achilles will never catch up with her. Chasing the turtle, he will each time cover a certain distance in a certain time, but at the same time the turtle will move further. This means that at every moment of time it will still be ahead, and the distance between them is insurmountable.
Flying arrow. So, if at each moment of time a flying arrow occupies a place equal to its length, then it means that it is at rest. From the sum of the states of rest it is impossible to obtain motion, therefore, motion does not exist.
Thus, only what can be thought is true, certain, and not what is manifested in the present.
Parmenides of Elea(Old Greek αρμενίδης; c. 540 BC or 520 BC - c. 450 BC) - ancient Greek philosopher and politician. He expressed his views in the poem On Nature. He was engaged in issues of being and cognition. Shared truth and subjective opinion.
He proved that there is only eternal and unchanging Being, identical to thought. His main theses are as follows:
Apart from Being, there is nothing. Likewise, thinking and thought are Being, for one cannot think about anything.
Being is not generated by anyone or anything, otherwise one would have to admit that it came from Non-Being, but there is no Non-Being.
Being is not subject to corruption and destruction, otherwise it would turn into Non-Being, but Non-Being does not exist.
Being has no past or future. Being is pure present. It is motionless, homogeneous, perfect and limited, has the shape of a ball.
Zeno of Elea's teacher.
Thesis. "Being is, and non-being is not."
There is no non-existence, since it is impossible to think about it, since such a thought would be contradictory, since it would be reduced to: "there is that which is not."
Existence is one, and there cannot be 2 or more existences.
Otherwise, they would have to be delimited from each other - nothingness, it does not exist.
Being is continuous (one), that is, it has no parts.
If it has parts, then the parts are delimited from each other by Non-existence. His - no.
If there are no parts and if being is one, then there is no movement and there is no plurality in the world.
Otherwise, one Being must move relative to the other.
Since there is no movement and multiplicity, and Being is one, then there is neither arising nor annihilation.
So at the emergence (destruction) there should be Non-Being, but there is no Non-Being.
Being eternally dwells in the same place.
Be called the Elea school the ancient Greek philosophical school, the teachings of which developed from the end of the 6th century. up to the beginning of the second half of the 5th century. BC NS. three major philosophers - Parmenides, Zeno and Melissus.
The first two - Parmenides and Zeno - lived in the small Italian city of Elea, and the third - Melissus - was a native of Samos, far from Elea. But since the main teachings of the school were developed by Parmenides and Zeno, citizens from the city of Elea, the school as a whole was called Elea.
Parmenides
The first figure and luminary of the school was Parmenides (born about 540 BC). There are reports that the ancestor of the Elea school was Xenophanes, who arrived in his declining years in Elea. In any case, in the teachings of Xenophanes and Parmenides there are a number of general provisions: the idea of unity and immobility of truly existing being. However, it seems that Parmenides was much more connected with the circle of the Pythagoreans than with Xenophanes; in his youth, and perhaps not only in his youth, Parmenides shared some of the views of the Pythagoreans and Orphics.
Having reached maturity, Parmenides developed an original philosophical doctrine. Some of his provisions are directed against the Pythagoreans, from whom he at that time distanced himself. But he spoke out even more sharply against Heraclitus and Anaximenes, that is, against the Ionian materialists.
It is not easy to answer the question whether Parmenides himself was a materialist or an idealist. There can hardly be any doubt that the logic of the development of the Eleatic school as a whole led from materialism to idealism. In particular, Plato's dependence on Parmenides appears clearly in the subsequent history of Greek idealism. The third figure in the Eleatic school, the Samos naval commander Melissa, perhaps (although not credibly), was already leaning towards idealism. But already in Parmenides, as well as in his pupil Zeno, we find in the theory of knowledge a sharp opposition between rational knowledge and sensible knowledge. This opposition, of course, is not yet a proof of idealism, but it undoubtedly could contribute to an idealistic inclination in the philosophy of the Eleans.
The cosmology of Parmenides does not agree well with the assertion of some historians of philosophy that Parmenides was an idealist. Being, as it really exists, Parmenides represents in the form of a huge solid ball, resting motionless in the center of the world. There can hardly be any doubt that this idea of the world as material being.
On the other hand, one of the main provisions of Parmenides is the assertion that thought and the object of thought are one and the same. In no case should this statement be understood in the spirit of the late idealistic "philosophy of identity": as the thesis that the object of thought is, by its nature, a thought. Parmenides asserts something else: a thought is always a thought about an object. Thought cannot be separated from its object, from being. Thought is always being. Even when we try to think of non-being, it still exists in a sense. It exists, it has being, at least as a thought of non-being. The thought of non-being, in any case, exists.
But this means, in other words, that there is no non-being, in the strict sense of the word. There is only one being.
Parmenides' thesis may seem completely abstract, speculative. But this is not the case. This thesis in the philosophy of Parmenides had a very specific, namely physical and cosmological meaning. According to Parmenides, “nothingness” is the same as emptiness, empty space. Therefore, when Parmenides asserts that there is no non-being, this means in his mouth that there is no emptiness anywhere in the world, there is no empty space, there is no space separated from matter.
Therefore, when Parmenides says: “Thought and that which it thinks is the same thing,” this statement must be understood primarily in its physical and cosmological sense: it is wrong to think, says Parmenides, that emptiness can exist in nature; the world is a solid mass of matter, or a spherical body. There is only being as only space completely filled with matter, and this being is spherical, has the shape of a ball ("sefira" in Greek is a ball).
From the impossibility of emptiness and from the perfect continuous filling of space with matter, the conclusion was drawn: the world is one, there is not and cannot be any set of separate things. In truth, there is only unity, there is no multitude. In nature, there are no empty spaces between things, no gaps or voids separating things from one another, and therefore no separate things.
This doctrine was directed against the Pythagoreans. We have already shown that it was Pythagoras and his disciples who asserted the existence of emptiness. True, the emptiness of the Pythagoreans was not yet the absolute emptiness of the atomists, it was rather like air. But still, the Pythagoreans asserted the real existence of this airy void, embracing the world from all sides. According to their teachings, the living spherical body of the world breathes, draws in emptiness from the outside. As a result, the world is divided into separate things, which are separated from one another by emptiness. It is against this notion that the Elean denial of emptiness and multitude is directed.
Another conclusion followed from this denial - in relation to knowledge. If in truth the world is one, if there is no plurality and no separate parts in it, then it followed that the multitude, as if certified by our senses, is in fact only a deception of the senses. The picture of the world, inspired by our senses, is not true, illusory.
Much more sharply than against the Pythagoreans, Parmenides opposes the teachings of Heraclitus.
Heraclitus argued that the main characteristic of nature is the eternal process of periodically occurring movements. Moreover, Heraclitus argued that this movement is movement through opposites. A single fire, which is the natural basis of all movements in nature, according to the teachings of Heraclitus, is and is not at the same time.
This doctrine is sharply criticized by Parmenides. From the provisions on the unity of the world and on its solid materiality, Parmenides deduced as a necessary consequence the impossibility of any division or fragmentation of the world into many things. And in the same way, against Heraclitus, he affirms the impossibility of neither arising, nor destruction, he deduces the immobility of the world.
The teachings of Parmenides were the first philosophical attempt to formulate a metaphysical understanding of nature. If Heraclitus is a great dialectician in ancient philosophy, then Parmenides is its first metaphysician, the first antagonist of dialectics. The main characteristic of being, he proclaims its immobility, immutability, the absence of any genesis in it: birth and destruction.
Where could this idea, which is completely opposite to Heraclitus and hostile to dialectics, arise? What is the basis of life and the basis of the Elean metaphysics This question is legitimate. Philosophical doctrines never arise only as abstract, purely theoretical constructions. Let in the final analysis, but philosophy is always engendered by life, more precisely, by social life. However, philosophy is an extremely complex phenomenon of social thought. (...)
The Eleatic school originated and developed in the Greek city-state of southern Italy. Here industry was less developed than in the east of Greece, the role of agriculture, farmers and landowners was greater, and the forces of social reaction were significant in political life. Here, as in the Ionian cities, there was no ground for the rapid development of knowledge about nature, and there was no close environment for the ancient cultural peoples of the East, who had already developed this knowledge since ancient times.
It is not surprising, therefore, that Parmenides and Zeno could become philosophers, to some extent hostile to the philosophical and scientific results of the Greek Asia Minor schools of materialism and materialist dialectics. Already early Pythagoreanism contained elements that diverged from the views of the first school of ancient Greek materialism. Such are the teachings of the Pythagoreans about the transmigration of souls, an inclination towards mysticism, in particular towards a mystical understanding of the nature of the soul.
But Parmenides and Zeno only partly relied on the teachings of Pythagoreanism. In their polemics, they also used some of the weak features and sides of ancient materialism itself. One of these weak features was the contemplation of ancient materialism, in particular the absence of experiment in ancient Greek science, as well as ignorance of the criterion of practice.
At least in part, the metaphysical characterization of being developed by Parmenides was based on distrust of the picture of the world that was delivered by the senses, and on the belief in the superiority of mind over sensations.
There were well-known reasons for this mistrust. Observations have shown that feelings can sometimes deceive us. However, there was still no experimental means with which it would be possible to make adjustments to this picture. It only remained to turn to speculation. But in the field of speculation, not controlled by experiment, the most varied paths and directions were possible. Parmenides and his followers followed the metaphysical path. They rejected the evidence of feelings as an illusion, as a deception. They began to argue that feelings are capable of generating not reliable knowledge, but only unreliable and wavering "opinions" (doxai) of mortals. Only the mind leads to reliable and unshakable truth.
And yet even these unreliable "opinions" of mortals obtained on the basis of feelings and sensations need to be known. Therefore, the philosophical poem, in which Parmenides outlined his doctrine, was divided by him into two parts: in the first, the reliable doctrine of truth was stated, in the second, the unreliable doctrine of opinion. In this second part, perhaps Parmenides did not set out his own doctrine of the nature of physical processes and phenomena, but the hypotheses of the physics of the Pythagoreans, which then spread in the Greek part of Italy through oral tradition. But their presentation was not a simple repetition. Parmenides made a number of significant changes to the physics of the Pythagoreans. Of these, the main one consisted in denying the real existence of emptiness.
Physics of Parmenides
According to the teaching of the second - hypothetical and at the same time natural-philosophical - part, at the heart of all phenomena lies the opposition of light and darkness .. This teaching is somewhat akin to the teaching of Anaximander. The nature of the luminaries, their mutual placement in space, their movement are explained in the same way as in Anaximenes, whose views at that time enjoyed great authority.
Anaximander also recalls Parmenides' teachings about the existence of celestial rings or crowns that concentrically clothe the Earth. Of these rings, one is filled with pure fire, without any admixture, the other is filled with darkness. The middle ring between them contains fire only in a certain proportion. The earth, according to this physics (which, however, is presented by Parmenides only as a probable assumption, without a claim to reliability), is considered as the central body of the world.
Further details of the physics set forth by Parmenides contain explanations, also hypothetical, of a number of phenomena observed in the firmament, as well as an explanation of atmospheric processes, guesses about the origin and nature of sensory perception, and, finally, guesses about the nature of thinking.
Some of the views of Parmenides were of great importance in the further development of scientific concepts. This is the hunch about the dark nature of the moon, which only reflects the light of the sun and itself is not capable of emitting light. Also valuable was the conjecture about the dependence of our senses and our mind on our physical nature and on the state of our bodily organs.
All these guesses are difficult to reconcile with the categorical statements of some researchers that Parmenides was a complete reactionary in science and philosophy.
An interesting question is how Parmenides, who recognized the globularity of the world, imagined what is outside the world globe. Did Parmenides notice the difficulty that lurked for him in this matter, and if so, how he solved it
We do not find the answer to this question in the texts of Parmenides himself. It is likely that if Parmenides had realized the question itself and would have proposed some solution, it would have attracted the attention of ancient writers and would have been noted by them. It is possible that Parmenides left the question without permission, either because he did not notice the question itself, or because, having noticed it, Parmenides considered it too difficult to solve.
In his doctrine of truth and in his view of knowledge, Parmenides came to conclusions that, from the point of view of the ordinary perception of the observed phenomena, seemed extremely paradoxical. Observation based on external senses shows the multiplicity of things in the world around us. On the contrary, Parmenides denies the conceivability of plurality. Plurality exists only for the senses. However, feelings do not give us a true picture of the world. For thought, for the mind, the world appears as the strictest unity.
Further. For the senses, all things in the world seem to be continuously moving, changing: arising and perishing. But, according to the teachings of Parmenides, this is only an illusion of the senses. The true picture of the world is revealed and verified only by the mind. This picture consists in the fact that the world is identical, knows neither arising nor destruction. The world is eternal, unchanging, motionless. It was this thesis about the immutability and immobility of the world that made Parmenides the founder of ancient metaphysics and the antagonist of the dialectics of Heraclitus.
Both from the point of view of ordinary perception, and from the point of view of physics developed by the Pythagoreans, the world consists of separate things, separated from one another by empty spaces. However, even here Parmenides argues that this is not a reliable picture of the world, but an illusion generated by deceptive feelings. On the contrary, the view that opens up to the mind requires the recognition that emptiness, that is, space separated from bodies, from matter, does not exist, is impossible. Space is inseparable from matter.
To all these propositions, extremely paradoxical from the point of view of ordinary sensory perception and observation, Parmenides added one more thought, which to his contemporaries should have seemed extremely new and difficult to assimilate. Namely: Parmenides tries to establish a strict distinction and even opposition between truth and opinion, between knowledge that is completely reliable and knowledge about which we can say that it is just not devoid of probability, there is only a plausible assumption. In itself, this thought was very valuable. Perhaps it is in our time, more than in any other time, that we can understand the full meaning of this thought. In the 17th century, before the appearance in mathematics of the theory of probability, developed by Pascal, Huygens and Bernoulli, rationalist philosophers were still quite disdainful of probabilistic knowledge. This was the case, for example, of Descartes, who took only reliable knowledge seriously in science.
Since then, logic and the theory of knowledge have long ago clarified the enormous importance of probabilistic knowledge for practice, for science and for logical thinking. Neither modern science, nor modern technology, nor modern logic, generalizing the operations of proof and inference used in mathematics, technology and physics, would be completely impossible without probabilistic knowledge and without reasoning and reasoning, resulting in such knowledge.
Thus, the very thought of Parmenides, indicating the difference that exists between certain knowledge and knowledge only probable, was a valuable thought. However, Parmenides introduces this position into the context of metaphysics, not dialectics. He certainly opposes these two types of knowledge to each other. He connects reliable knowledge with the activity of the mind, and probable knowledge with sensory perception and asserts that sensory perception cannot give true knowledge. Such knowledge gives us only thought, the discretion of the mind.
To the contemporaries of Parmenides, this whole set of his teachings and provisions should have seemed to contradict all the usual ideas about nature and knowledge. Therefore, the teachings of Parmenides caused numerous objections. These were objections from those who, relying on confidence in the testimony of external senses, wanted to defend against Parmenides both the reality of the multitude, and the reality of change, and the reality of movement, and the possibility of the existence of space outside of things.
Apparently, the objections were so serious and energetic that it became necessary for the school of Parmenides to more strictly substantiate their basic statements, to protect them from the apparently very strong and numerous objections directed against them.
Zeno of Elea and his aporia
The task of defending Parmenides 'views against the objections raised was undertaken by Parmenides' disciple and friend Zeno *. He was born at the beginning of the 5th century. BC NS. (480) and died in 430 BC. NS. Only numerous and small extracts made by the later ancient writers have survived from his works. Of these, the first place should be given to the testimony of Aristotle in Physics, as well as the testimony of Simplicius, the commentator of Aristotelian Physics. They make it possible to characterize the new that Zeno introduced into Greek science in comparison with Parmenides, for all the naivety of his argumentation in detail.
* Should not be confused with other Greek philosophers bearing this name, such as the Stoic Zeno of Kition in Cyprus.
Zeno developed a number of arguments in defense of the teachings of Parmenides. The method he used in these arguments later gave reason to Aristotle to call Zeno the founder of "dialectics." By "dialectics" Aristotle in this case understands the art of clarifying the truth by detecting internal contradictions in the thoughts of the enemy, and by eliminating these contradictions.
Zeno's method is similar to what is called in mathematics "proof by contradiction." Zeno accepts - conditionally - the theses of Parmenides' opponents. He accepts, (1) that space can be thought of as emptiness, as separate from the substance filling the space; (2) that the existence of many things is conceivable; (3) that motion can be conceivable. By conventionally accepting these three assumptions, Zeno proves that their recognition leads inevitably to contradictions. This proves that these assumptions are false. But if they are false, then the statements that contradict them must necessarily be true. And these are the statements of Parmenides. Therefore, Parmenides' statements are true: emptiness, multitude and movement are unthinkable.
To understand the meaning of Zeno's argumentation, it is necessary to take into account the circumstance noted by Lenin. In the "Philosophical Notebooks" Lenin explains that neither Parmenides nor Zeno deny the reality of emptiness, multitude, movement for our senses. They only deny the possibility of thinking of emptiness, thinking of the multitude and thinking of movement, without falling into contradictions.
Consider Zeno's arguments separately on these three issues. Let's start with the question of the conceivability of emptiness, that is, space separated from matter. If we admit the existence of such a space, then the following reasoning comes into force. Everything that exists is somewhere in space. But in order; exist, space must also be "somewhere", that is, exist in the second space. This second space, in turn, must exist in the third space, and so on ad infinitum. But this is absurd. Therefore, space as separate from matter is unthinkable.
The second question is about the thinkability of the set. Let us assume that many are conceivable. Then the questions arise:
How should each individual element of this multitude be thought of?
How is it necessary to think about the total number of elements of a set: will their sum be finite or infinite?
Zeno's research shows that there are conflicting answers to both of these questions. On the first question - how should each individual element of the set be thought of - it turns out that for each such element it is necessary to answer that it simultaneously has no value and is infinitely large in size. On the second question - what should be thought of the sum of the elements of a set - it turns out that it must necessarily be thought of both as a finite number and as an infinite number.
Research on the third question - the conceivability of movement - also necessarily leads to contradictory statements. Zeno's arguments on this matter became especially famous and widely known. Zeno developed several such arguments, of which four have come down to us: "Dichotomy (division by two)", "Achilles", "Flying arrow" and "Stages" [for their analysis see: 22a, p. 108 - 119; Wed 59a].
Their general scheme is the same refutation by contradiction. Suppose, together with opponents of Parmenides, that movement is conceivable. Then, about a moving body or about moving bodies, it is necessary to state contradictory statements: 1) that motion is possible and 2) that it is impossible. Zeno proves with four arguments that movement is impossible. It is impossible, firstly, as the movement of a single body passing along a straight line from one point to another. To pass a certain distance separating point A from point B, the body must first pass half of this distance; to pass half, it must first pass half of this half, and so on ad infinitum. As a result of this, the body not only cannot pass from point A to point B, but cannot even leave point A, that is, the movement from point A to point B cannot not only end once it has begun, but cannot even begin. This is the meaning of the Dichotomy argument.
The inconceivability of the movement of one, separately taken body is also proved by means of the Flying Arrow argument. By assumption, the arrow flies, that is, it moves in space. But at the same time it is necessary to assert about it that at every moment of flight it occupies a space equal to its own length, that is, it stays within this part of space, “it means” it is motionless in it. It turns out, therefore, that the flying arrow both moves and does not move.
But movement is inconceivable as the movement of two bodies relative to each other. , But it is inconceivable, firstly, as the motion in a straight line of two bodies separated by a certain distance and simultaneously moving in the same direction, and the body moving behind is moving faster than the one moving in front. Zeno proves that under these conditions a body moving at a higher speed will never catch up with something that leaves it at a lower speed. Achilles, famous for the speed of his run, will never catch up with the turtle running away from him. Let Achilles run faster than a tortoise, but after any period of time, no matter how small, the tortoise will have time to cover a distance that, no matter how insignificant it may be, will never be equal to zero. Consequently, Zeno argues, at no moment of running will the entire distance separating Achilles from the turtle turn to zero, and therefore Achilles will never really catch up with the turtle. The same result is obtained if we apply the Dichotomy argument to the Achilles case. . At the initial moment of running, Achilles separates the distance AB from the tortoise. Achilles will catch up with the turtle at the moment when this distance, decreasing, turns to zero. But for this to happen, the distance AB must first be reduced to half. In turn, in order to decrease to half, it must first decrease to half of this half, and so on, ad infinitum. The result is the same as in "Dichotomy": the distance AB will never vanish.
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