Parmenides Educational Materials

Parmenides Neither in their beliefs nor in their behavior, the Greeks were addicted to moderation. Parmenides countered that nothing changes, whereas Heraclitus insisted that everything changes. Born in Elea, in southern Italy, Parmenides had a prosperous life in the early part of the fifth century B.C. Plato claims that while Socrates was young, maybe about 450 B.C., he had a conversation with the elderly Parmenides and learned a great deal from him. Regardless of the historical veracity of this interview, we may deduce—if nothing else—that Parmenides' ideas had an impact on Plato. Compared to the philosophers of Ionia, who were generally skeptical and scientific in their inclinations, the philosophers of Sicily and the south of Italy were more drawn to mysticism and religion. However, due to Pythagoras' influence, mathematics developed more in Magna Grecia than in Ionia; however, mysticism was a part of mathematics at that time. Pythagoras had an impact on Parmenides, however it's unclear how much. Parmenides is significant in history because he developed a type of philosophical reasoning that is present in most later metaphysicians, including Hegel, in one way or another. Though metaphysics grounded on logic is what he truly invented, logic is often credited to him as the inventor of logic. In his poem On Nature, Parmenides outlined his philosophy. He rejected the profusion of sensory objects as mere illusions and thought that the senses were deceitful. "The One," infinite and indivisible, is the sole genuine existence; it is not, as in Heraclitus, a union of opposites, as opposites do not exist. For example, he seemed to believe that the terms "cold" and "dark" just meant "not hot" and "not light," respectively. Parmenides does not think of "The One" in the same way that we do; speaking of it as a sphere, it appears that he views it as material and expansive. However, it cannot be separated since it exists in its whole everywhere. Parmenides separates his teachings into two categories, "the way of opinion" and "the way of truth," respectively. The latter is not something we should worry about. "Thou canst not know what is not—that is impossible—nor utter it; for it is the same thing that can be thought and that can be," he continues, summarizing the essence of the method of truth as far as it has survived. Therefore, how can what will exist in the future? Alternatively, how could it exist? It is not what it was, nor is it what it will become in the future. As a result, it is dying off and disappearing forever. "There is nothing that can exist without something that is, as to which it is uttered, and there is nothing that can be thought except for that which the thought exists for." * The basic tenet of this reasoning is that names must refer to things; when you think of something, you think of it. As a result, language and cognition require external objects. Furthermore, everything that can be discussed or thought about must always exist since it is possible to do so at different periods. As a result, nothing can change because change is the result of something existing or existing no longer. This is the first instance of a philosophical argument that extends beyond language and cognition to the entire world. Naturally, it cannot be regarded as legitimate, but it is still worthwhile to investigate any potential truths it may have. The argument might be stated thus way: words must have meaning if language is to be more than just gibberish, and meanings should generally be more than mere synonyms for things that exist regardless of whether they are mentioned or not. Assume, for instance, that you discuss George Washington. It would appear that the name would have no significance and that sentences including the name would be absurd unless there was a real historical person with that name. George Washington, according to Parmenides, not only had to have been in the past, but he also had to exist in some way because his name is still widely used now. Although it seems evident that this is wrong, how can we avoid the argument? Let's use a fictional character, like Hamlet. Think about the claim that Hamlet was the Prince of Denmark. This is accurate in certain ways, but not in the traditional historical sense. "Shakespeare says that Hamlet was Prince of Denmark," or, to put it more clearly, "Shakespeare says there was a Prince of Denmark named 'Hamlet,'" is the accurate statement. There is nothing fictitious left here. Denmark, Shakespeare, and the noise we call "Hamlet" are all real, but the noise we call "Hamlet" isn't truly a name since no one is actually called "Hamlet." It is not absolutely proper to state that "Hamlet is the name of an imaginary person." Instead, you should state that "it is imagined that 'Hamlet' is the name of a real person." Unicorns are an imaginary species; Hamlet is an imagined individual. The term "unicorn" appears in some accurate statements and incorrect ones, although not always explicitly. Think of the sayings "a cow has two horns" and "a unicorn has one horn." The latter can only be demonstrated by looking at a cow; it is insufficient to just mention that cows are claimed to have two horns in certain books. However, the claim that unicorns are only real in books is unfounded; in reality, the true phrase is: "Some books claim that there are animals with one horn called 'unicorns.'" Just as all claims about Hamlet are actually about the term "Hamlet," so too are all assertions about unicorns truly about the word "unicorn." However, it's clear that most of the time we're talking about the meaning of the words rather than the actual themselves. This takes us back to Parmenides's contention that a word must have a meaning if it can be used frequently and not just signify nothing at all. As a result, the meaning of the word must exist in some way. So what are we supposed to make of George Washington? There seem to be just two options available to us: either we claim that he is still alive, or we claim that the individual who went by that name is not the one we are actually talking about when we use the term "George Washington." While the latter appears less paradoxical than the former, I will attempt to demonstrate how it is true in some circumstances. Parmenides' argument is based on the assumption that words have a consistent meaning, which he considers to be undeniable. Even while dictionaries and encyclopedias provide what might be considered the official and socially acceptable definition of a term, no two persons using the same word will necessarily have the same idea in their thoughts. George Washington was able to utilize both his name and the pronoun "I" interchangeably. Because he could sense his own thoughts and bodily motions, he was able to utilize his name to convey a deeper meaning than anybody else could. Even if his companions could sense his bodily motions and read his thoughts when they were around him, the term "George Washington" nevertheless held a tangible meaning based on their personal experiences. When he passed away, they had to replace their perceptions with memories, which required altering the brain processes that occurred when they spoke his name. Once more, our brain processes are different from his since we never met. We could think of his photo and conclude, "Yeah, that man." "The first President of the United States," we may imagine. He could just be known to us as "The man who was called 'George Washington,'" if we are really stupid. Whatever the name implies to us, it can't be the guy since we've never met him; instead, it must be something that's currently accessible to our senses, memories, or thoughts. This demonstrates the error in Parmenides' reasoning. The fact that, generally speaking, word changes have no bearing on whether the propositions in which they appear are true or incorrect hides this constant shifting of meanings in words. Generally speaking, any true statement that includes the name "George Washington" will still be true if you replace it with the phrase "the first President of the United States." This is not always the case. A guy may have said, "I hope George Washington will be the first President of the United States," prior to Washington's election, but unless he had an extraordinary passion for the law of identity, he would not have said, "I hope the first President of the United States will be the first President of the United States." However, it is simple to create a rule that eliminates these rare occurrences, and in the cases that remain, you may replace "George Washington" with whatever term that best describes him. And we only know what we know about him because of these statements. Parmenides argues that since we already know what is generally accepted to be the past, it must, in some way, exist today and cannot truly be past. Thus, he suggests that change does not exist. This thesis is supported by what we have been talking about George Washington. One may argue that we are ignorant of the past in certain ways. When you remember, it's not the same as the event you're remembering since the memory happens now. However, the memory provides a description of the previous occurrence, and for the most part, it is not essential to make a distinction between the description and what it describes. The whole argument demonstrates how simple it is to derive metaphysical conclusions from language and how, in order to avoid such faulty arguments, the logical and psychological study of language must be advanced beyond what has been accomplished by the majority of metaphysicians. However, I believe that Parmenides would consider what I have been saying to be quite trivial if he could come back from the grave and read it. "How do you know that your remarks regarding George Washington are based on historical facts?" he would inquire. According to your own account, the direct connection is to the present; for example, your memories occur now, not at the moment you believe you remember them. The past must have existed before the mind as it does now and must, therefore, in some way, continue to exist if memory is to be recognized as a source of knowledge. I won't try to address this point right now because it calls for a discussion of memory, which is a challenging topic. I include the case here to remind the reader that philosophical ideas, if they are worthwhile, can usually be resurrected in a different form after being shown to be incorrect in the first place. Refutations are usually only the beginning of something more refined; they are rarely the end. What philosophy recognized from Parmenides down to very recent times was not the indestructibility of material, which was too harsh a paradox, but rather the impossibility of all change. Although his immediate successors did not use the word "substance," the idea is implied in their conjectures. It was intended for a drug to be the ongoing topic of different predicates. As a result, it developed into and stayed one of the core ideas in philosophy, psychology, physics, and theology for more than two millennia. Later on, I will talk a lot more about it. For now, all that matters to me is that it was presented as a means of giving Parmenides' ideas due consideration without obscuring certain realities.