Parmenides

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Parmenides in Raphael's fresco The School of Athens (1510–1511)

Parmenides of Elea ( Greek Παρμενίδης Parmenídēs ; * around 520/515 BC; † around 460/455 BC) was one of the most important Greek philosophers. He is counted among the pre-Socratics and lived in Elea , a city founded by Greeks in southern Italy , and is considered a main representative of the Eleatic school .

Life

The above mentioned dates of birth and death of Parmenides are unsecured. Nor can it be proven that, according to Plutarch , he should have acted as legislator in Elea. Ancient sources indicate that Parmenides was a student of Xenophanes and the teacher of Zenon of Elea and Melissus . There is no evidence for this either. According to Diogenes Laertios , Parmenides is supposed to have heard lectures by Xenophanes, but the results of the critical reflection on his teaching are more likely to have found their way into Parmenides' work than that he continued his thoughts in it. The main argument in support of this assumption is the opinion that it is impossible to obtain certain knowledge, as suggested by Xenophanes. In contrast, Diogenes Laërtius describes Parmenides as a pupil of the Pythagorean Ameinias, son of Diochaites .

A reference to the teacher-student connection between Parmenides and Zeno is given in Plato's dialogue Parmenides , in which Plato lets Parmenides and Zeno appear together. However, the course of the dialogue, in which Parmenides investigates his teaching in the same way that Socrates uses in other Platonic dialogues, as well as the fact that the dialogue leads to aporias that remain unresolved, makes the actual participation of Parmenides appear doubtful, which also makes Plato's reference to the connection between Parmenides and Zeno a speculation.

According to contemporary research, Parmenides is also considered the teacher of Leukippus .

plant

Parmenides wrote a single, very short work. We owe our knowledge of this work to its transmission through the Greek Neoplatonic philosopher Simplikios .

In reception, the work is referred to as a didactic poem and given the title About Nature (Περὶ φύσεως). Authorizations in this regard by the author exist just as little as for the division of the Parmenidean script into the three parts made by various interpreters: Proömium , Aletheia and Doxa .

Furthermore, the prevailing opinion in the reception is that the work of Parmenides has only survived in fragments, but this can only be said with some certainty of the part that is called doxa by various interpreters .

content

The work begins with the narrator's account of a journey that takes him to the gate through which the paths of day and night run and which is guarded by Dike , the goddess of justice. After Dike has allowed the narrator to enter, he is greeted by a nameless goddess, who from now on speaks alone. First she explains to him that his walk has led him to this place far from the usual paths of people, which is why she will now reveal to him what is certain to be said about the truth on the one hand and what seems to be true to mortals on the other. Certainly, the goddess continues, it must be said that what is (t'eon, ta eonta) is, whereas what is not (mê eonta) is not. The being, according to the goddess, is perfect and completely unchangeable. The possibility of a change or destruction is unthinkable and thus the assumption of any form of change in beings is mere opinion (doxa) and thus pure appearance, which sets it in opposition to a comprehension of beings by reason.

The goddess then repeats this insight with various approaches and creates an image of beings as an undeveloped, indivisible whole, whose perfection is compared to that of a sphere. After the goddess has finished her speech on the truth of being, a few sentences follow about what seems to be true in people's minds. The juxtaposition of these sentences gives the impression that they are fragments of what was originally a more extensive record.

The view that a change or destruction of being is unthinkable, or that nothing other than the non-being can result from non-being, is often summarized with the formula Ex nihilo nihil ("Nothing becomes nothing").

Not being and being

The description of being in Parmenides, based on the exclusion of non-being, does not allow any interpretations of this being within classical ontology. Parmenides' being is not one and it is not unity. This being is one in the sense of alone , in the sense of exclusively present. There is nothing else besides this being. Not only the proof of the impossibility of non-being as naturally present, but also the description of the concept of non-being as a mere abstraction - in the sense of a derivation from the concept of being - shows being as the only natural structure. Being is one (= 1).

There is no non-being, and the concept of non-being is a mere abstraction from the concept of being . But even as an abstraction, the concept of non-being remains empty. No description of any kind can be attached to it, as it does not learn anything from nature. However someone wanted to describe non-being, all components of this description would inevitably have to be and thus lead to a contradiction. Because a string of existing attributes cannot describe non-being. Only being can be described.

Only as one (= 1) apply to this being all the attributes that are enumerated by the goddess: “Incorrect”, “Immortal”, “Indivisible”, “Inlocal”, “Untimely”, “Now, here and at the same time”. This being is a present tense, of which it would be pointless to claim that it is everlasting or eternal, since a being described by the above attributes excludes chronological categories.

What the goddess explains to the young man is that this being is neither imaginable nor observable or otherwise sensually perceptible. It is only conceivable. But it is precisely this thinkability of being as one (= 1) that distinguishes it as the only correct description of nature.

Medical importance

Parmenides, who is also an important representative of Western Greek medicine, wrote the following sentence: "Give me the power to produce a fever and I will cure every disease!" While Parmenides' theory of being shaped Western metaphysics, his cosmological ideas were of that World as a mixture of two opposing elementary principles (light, fire and warmth versus night, earth and cold) the basis of natural philosophical concepts of later philosophers such as Empedocles and as a result of ancient and medieval humoral pathology up to the theory of Krasen . How Alcmaeon , Empedocles and Hippocratic doctors , he took part in contrast to Aristotle, that in the procreation both sexual partners "seed" shares contribute.

reception

Looking at the religious context of Parmenides' work, some researchers, including Alexander PD Mourelatos , Charles H. Kahn and Peter Kingsley , in Germany Klaus Heinrich and first Martin Heidegger , have questioned the purely philosophical interpretation of Parmenides. They believe that so far too little attention has been paid to the apocalyptic context in which Parmenides put his statements. Hence his teaching was interpreted in a way that does not do justice to the original work.

The influence of Parmenides on Plato , through whom Parmenides significantly influenced Western philosophy, is undisputed . Plato himself calls him "our father Parmenides" and lets him appear in his Parmenides dialogue, where he deals dialectically with Socrates . In the dialogue with Theaetetus , Socrates declares that Parmenides was the only one among all the wise who denied that everything was movement and change.

In 1995 the asteroid (6039) Parmenides was named after him.

Text editions and translations

  • Parmenides: Being and World. The fragments have been re-translated and commented on by Helmuth Vetter . With an appendix by Alfred Dunshirn on new literature on Parmenides. Verlag Karl Alber, Freiburg / Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-495-48801-0 .
  • Hermann Diels : Parmenides. Didactic poem. With a new foreword by Walter Burkert and a revised bibliography by Daniela de Cecco (= International Pre-Platonic Studies . Vol. 3). Academia, Berlin 2003 (first in 1897, digitized in the Internet Archive ).
  • Ernst Heitsch : Parmenides. The fragments. Greek-German. Edited, translated and explained. Artemis and Winkler, Zurich 1995, ISBN 3-7608-1570-7 .
  • Uvo Hölscher : Parmenides. Of the essence of beings. The fragments in Greek and German . Edited, translated and explained. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1969.
  • Geoffrey S. Kirk, John E. Raven, Malcolm Schofield (Eds.): The pre-Socratic philosophers. Introduction, texts and comments. Metzler, Stuttgart 1994, pp. 263-289.
  • Jaap Mansfeld : The fragments of the didactic poem. Translation and structure. Reclam, Stuttgart 1985.
  • Kurt Riezler : Parmenides. Translation, introduction and interpretation. 3rd, unchanged. Edition text Greek-German. With an afterword by Hans-Georg Gadamer. Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 2001, ISBN 3-465-03151-2 .
  • Leonardo Tarán: Parmenides. A text with translation, commentary, and critical essays. Princeton 1965.
  • Raphael: Parmenides. About the arrangement of nature . Pomaska-Brand, Schalksmühle 2012, ISBN 978-3-935937-99-3 .

literature

Overview representations in manuals

  • Manfred Kraus: Parmenides . In: Hellmut Flashar et al. (Ed.): Early Greek Philosophy (= Outline of the History of Philosophy . The Philosophy of Antiquity , Volume 1), Half Volume 2, Schwabe, Basel 2013, ISBN 978-3-7965-2598-8 , p. 441-530.
  • Denis O'Brien, Richard Goulet, Jörn Lang: Parménide d'Élée . In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques. Vol. 5, Part 1, CNRS Éditions, Paris 2012, ISBN 978-2-271-07335-8 , pp. 150–161 (pp. 160 f. On iconography).

Introductions and investigations

  • Jean Bollack : Parménide, de l'étant au monde . Verdier poche, Lagrasse 2006.
  • Guido Calogero: Studies on Eleatism. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1970.
  • Margarete Lünstroth: Participation and suffering in Plato's Parmenides. Studies on the use of METECHEIN and PASCHEIN (= Vertumnus , Volume 6). Edition Ruprecht, Göttingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-7675-3080-5 .
  • Maria Marcinkowska-Rosół: The concept of 'noein' in Parmenides by Elea . De Gruyter, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-11-021759-9 .
  • Karl R. Popper : The world of Parmenides - The origin of European thought. Piper, Munich 1998.
  • Karl Reinhardt: Parmenides and the history of Greek philosophy. 2nd Edition. Bonn 1959 (first in 1916; classic study).

Web links

Wikiquote: Parmenides of Elea  - Quotes
Commons : Parmenides of Elea  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Text passages
literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Christoph Helferich: History of Philosophy: From the Beginnings to the Present and Eastern Thinking . 4th enlarged edition. JB Metzler, Stuttgart 2012, ISBN 978-3-476-02426-8 , pp. 9 .
  2. ^ Markwart Michler : Western Greek medicine. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , pp. 1476-1482, in particular pp. 1476 and 1478 f. (to Elea ).
  3. ↑ Hans Georg von Manz: Parmenides von Elea. In: Werner E. Gerabek et al. (Ed.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. 2005, p. 1109.
  4. ↑ Jutta Kollesch , Diethard Nickel : Ancient healing art. Selected texts from the medical writings of the Greeks and Romans. Philipp Reclam jun., Leipzig 1979 (= Reclams Universal Library. Volume 771); 6th edition ibid 1989, ISBN 3-379-00411-1 , p. 24 f.
  5. ↑ Minor Planet Circ. 24919
personal data
SURNAME Parmenides
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Parmenaides from Elea
BRIEF DESCRIPTION pre-Socratic philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH 6th century BC Chr.
PLACE OF BIRTH Elea
DATE OF DEATH 5th century BC Chr.