What’s Eleatic about the Eleatic Principle?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14195/1984-249X_31_22Keywords:
Eleaticism, Melissus, Eleatic Principle, Parmenides, ZenoAbstract
According to the Eleatic Principle, only items which have the capacity to affect or be affected are. Recently, there has been a question about what, if anything, is Eleatic about the Eleatic Principle (EP). I examine the purported origins of the EP in Plato’s Sophist and argue that the text presents three ways in which something can affect or be affected: (1) as tangible contact, (2) as Cambridge change, and (3) by being responsible for the way something else is. Next, I look to the historical Eleatics in search of precursors to the EP. Against recent work in this area, I argue that elements of the EP are present in Parmenides, Zeno, and Melissus. The poem of Parmenides is compatible with (1) and (2) through the interaction of Light and Night, and the characterization of what-is as knowable. Zeno’s moving arrow paradox employs elements of (2), while his argument from complete divisibility adds preconditions to (3). Finally, against the traditional view that Melissus denies the existence of the sensible world, I show that for Melissus, the sensible world exists alongside what-is. The causal link between what-is and the sensible world, along with Melissus’ commitment to what-is as the object of knowledge renders Melissus the Eleatic whose Eleaticism is most represented in the Eleatic Principle. Alternatives for the application of the EP in contemporary metaphysics and reasons for the inclusion of an Eleatic visitor as the main interlocutor of a dialogue that is often taken as a criticism of Eleaticism emerge.Downloads
References
ARMSTRONG, D. M. (1978). Universals and Scientific Realism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
ARNTZENIUS, F. (2000). Are There Really Instantaneous Velocities? The Monist 83, p. 187-208.
BARNES, J. (1982). The Presocratic Philosophers. London: Routledge.
BARNES, J. (2011). Zenone e l’infinito. L. Rosetti and M. Pulpito (eds.). Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag.
BOSSI, B. (2013). Back to the Point: Plato and Parmenides—Genuine Parricide? In: BOSSI, B.; ROBINSON, T. M. (eds.) Plato’s Sophist Revisited. Boston, De Gruyter, p. 157-174.
BROWN, L. (1994). The Verb ‘to be’ in Greek Philosophy: Some Remarks. In: EVERSON, S. (ed.) Language. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, p. 212-236
BROWN, L. (1998). Innovation and Continuity: The Battle of Gods and Giants, Sophist 245-249. In: GENTZLER, J. (ed.). Method and Ancient Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 181-207
BRUNSCHWIG, J. (1994). The Stoic Theory of the Supreme Genus and Platonic Ontology. In: BRUNSCHWIG, J. Papers in Hellenistic Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 92-157.
BUCKELS, C. (2015). Motion and Rest as Genuinely Greatest Kinds in the Sophist. Ancient Philosophy 35, n. 2, p. 317-327.
CHERUBIN, R. (2017). Commentary on Marmodoro. Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium of Ancient Philosophy 32, n. 1, p. 25-37.
CORDERO, N-L. (1979). Les Deux Chemins de Parménide dans les fragments 6 et 7. Phronesis 24, p. 1-32.
CORDERO, N-L. (1983). Zénon d’Elée, Moniste ou Nihiliste? La Parola del Passato 43, p. 100-126.
CORNFORD, F. M. (1933). ‘Parmenides’ Two Ways’, Classical Quarterly 27, p. 97–111.
CORNFORD, F. M. (1935). Plato’s Theory of Knowledge: The Theaetetus and the Sophist. London, Routledge.
CURD, P. K. (2004). The Legacy of Parmenides: Eleatic Monism and Later Presocratic Thought. Princeton, Princeton University Press.
CURD, P.K.; MCKIRAHAN, R. (2011). A Presocratics Reader: Selected Fragments and Testimonia. Indianapolis, Hackett.
FINE, G. 2003. Plato on Knowledge and Forms: Selected Essays. Oxford, Clarendon Press.
FINKELBERG, A. 1986. The Cosmology of Parmenides. The American Journal of Philology 107, n. 3, p. 303-317.
FURLEY, D. (1967). Two Studies in the Greek Atomists. Princeton, Princeton University Press.
GILL, M. L. (2012). Philosophos: Plato’s Missing Dialogue. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
GRAHAM, D.W. (2013). Science before Socrates: Parmenides, Anaxagoras, and the New Astronomy. New York, Oxford University Press.
GUTHRIE, W. K. C. (1965). A History of Greek Philosophy, ii: The Presocratic Tradition from Parmenides to Democritus. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
HARRIMAN, B. (2019). Melissus and Eleatic Monism. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
IRANI, T. (Forthcoming). Perfect Change in Plato’s Sophist. Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy.
KAHN, C. H. (1969). The Thesis of Parmenides. Review of Metaphysics 23, p. 700–724.
KETCHUM, R. J. (1978). Participation and Predication in the Sophist 251-260. Phronesis 23, n. 1, p. 42-62.
KEYT, D. (1969). Plato’s Paradox That the Immutable Is Unknowable. The Philosophical Quarterly 19, n. 74, p. 1-14.
KIRK, G. S; RAVEN, J. E.; SCHOFIELD, M. (1983). The Presocratic Philosophers. 2nd ed. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
LEIGH, F. (2012). Restless Forms and Changeless Causes. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 112, n. 2, p. 239-261.
LOENEN, J. H. M. M. (1959). Parmenides, Melissus, Gorgias. Assen, Royal Van Gorcum.
MARMODORO, A. (2017). Stoic Blends. Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium of Ancient Philosophy 32, n. 1, p. 1-24.
McPHERRAN, M. (1986). Plato’s Reply to the ‘Worst Difficulty’ Argument of the Parmenides: Sophist 248a-249d. Archiv Für Geschichte Der Philosophie 68, n. 3, p. 233-252.
MILLER, D. (2004). Fast and Loose about Being: Criticism of Competing Ontologies in Plato’s Sophist. Ancient Philosophy 24, n. 2, p. 339-363.
MORAVCSIK, J. M. E. (1962). “Being and Meaning in the Sophist.” In: Acta Philosophica Fennica 14, p. 23-78.
MOURELATOS, A. P. D. (1965). The Real, Appearances, and Human Error in Early Greek Philosophy. The Review of Metaphysics. 19, n. 2, p. 346-365.
MOURELATOS, A. P. D. (1970). The Route of Parmenides: A Study of Word, Image, and Argument in the Fragments. New Haven, CT, and London, Yale University Press. (Rev. 2008, Las Vegas, Parmenides Publishing.)
MOURELATOS, A. P. D. (1973). Heraclitus, Parmenides, and the Naïve Metaphysics of Things. In: VLASTOS, G.; LEE, E.; MOURELATOS, A. P. D.; RORTY, R. (eds.). Exegesis and Argument. Phronesis, supplementary vol. 1. Assen, Van Gorcum, p. 16–48.
MOURELATOS, A. P. D. (1976). Determinacy and Indeterminacy, Being and Non-being in the Fragments of Parmenides. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2:45.
MOURELATOS, A.P.D. (2008). The Route of Parmenides. Las Vegas, Parmenides Publishing
MOURELATOS, A. P. D. (2012). ‘The Light of Day By Night’:nukti phaos, said of the Moon in Parmenides B14. In: PATTERSON, R.; KARASMANIS, V.; HERMANN, A. (eds.) Presocratics and Plato: Festschrift at Delphi in Honor of Charles Kahn. Las Vegas, Parmenides Publishing, p. 25-58
NEHAMAS, A. (2002). Parmenidean being/Heraclitean fire. In: CASTON, V.; GRAHAM, D. W. (eds.), Presocratic Philosophy: Essays in Honour of Alexander Mourelatos, Burlington, VT, Ashgate, p. 45–64.
ODDIE, G. (1982). Armstrong on the Eleatic Principle and Abstract Entities. Philosophical Studies 41, p. 285-295.
OWEN, G. E. L. (1960). Eleatic Questions. Classical Quarterly 10, p. 84–102.
OWEN, G. E. L. (1966). Plato and Parmenides on the Timeless Present. The Monist 50, n. 3, p. 317-340.
PALMER, J. A. (2009). Parmenides and Presocratic Philosophy. Oxford and New York, Oxford University Press.
POPPER, K.R. (1992). How the Moon might throw some of her Light upon the Two Ways of Parmenides, Classical Quarterly, 42, p. 12-19.
REALE, G. (1970). Melisso: Testimonianze e frammenti. Florence, La Nuova Italia.
REEVE, C. D. C. (1985). Motion, Rest, and Dialectic in the Sophist. Archiv Für Geschichte Der Philosophie 67, n. 1, p. 47-64.
ROBBIANO, C. 2016. Parmenides’ and Melissus’ being without not-being. In: PULPITO, M. (ed.) Melissus Between Miletus and Elea. Sankt Augustin, Academia Verlag, p. 165-174.
RUNCIMAN, W. G. (1962). Plato’s Later Epistemology. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
SALMON, W. C. (2001). Zeno’s Paradoxes. 2nd Edition. Indianapolis, Hackett.
SELIGMAN, P. (1974). Being and Not-Being: An Introduction to Plato’s Sophist. The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff.
SILVERMAN, A. (2002). The Dialectic of Essence: A Study of Plato’s Metaphysics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
SOLMSEN, F. (1971). The Tradition about Zeno of Elea Re-examined. Phronesis 16, n. 2, p. 116-141.
SHIRLEY, S. (1992). Spinoza. Ethics. Indianapolis, Hackett.
TELOH, H. (1981). The Development of Plato’s Metaphysics. University Park, PA, Pennsylvania State University Press.
THOMAS, C. J. (2008). Speaking of Something: Plato’s Sophist and Plato’s Beard. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 38, n. 4, p. 631-668.
WEDIN, M. V. (2014). Parmenides’ Grand Deduction: A Logical Reconstruction of The Way of Truth. New York, Oxford University Press.
WIITALA, M. (2018). The Argument against the Friends of the Forms Revisited: Sophist 248a4-249d5. Apeiron 51, n. 2, p. 171-200.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2021 Sosseh Assaturian
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Given the public access policy of the journal, the use of the published texts is free, with the obligation of recognizing the original authorship and the first publication in this journal. The authors of the published contributions are entirely and exclusively responsible for their contents.
1. The authors authorize the publication of the article in this journal.
2. The authors guarantee that the contribution is original, and take full responsibility for its content in case of impugnation by third parties.
3. The authors guarantee that the contribution is not under evaluation in another journal.
4. The authors keep the copyright and convey to the journal the right of first publication, the work being licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License-BY.
5. The authors are allowed and stimulated to publicize and distribute their work on-line after the publication in the journal.
6. The authors of the approved works authorize the journal to distribute their content, after publication, for reproduction in content indexes, virtual libraries and similars.
7. The editors reserve the right to make adjustments to the text and to adequate the article to the editorial rules of the journal.
