Being, truth and opinion in parmenides

Archiv fur Geschichte der Philosophie

Volumn 81, Issue 3, 1999, Pages 233-248

  Finkelberg, Aryeh ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 61249577037     PISSN: 00039101     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1515/agph.1999.81.3.233     Document Type: Article

References (50)

1. For the construal of ιcombining comma aboveσοπ αλὲς πάντηcombining ogonek as referring to the self-equality of Being, among others, L. Tarán, Parmenides, Princeton, 1965, 144-146;
2. A. H. Coxon, The Fragments of Parmenides, Assen, 1986, 216.
3. Taking ιcombining comma abovéσων αcombining comma aboveμφοτέρων as "both equally," see H. Fränkel, "Parmenidesstudien, " Nachrichten von der Gesellschaft der Wissenschaft zu Göttingen, 1930, 153-192
4. quoted after the English translation: H. Fränkel, "Studies in Parmenides," in D. J. Furley and R. E. Allen (eds.), Studies in Presocratic Philosophy, v. ii, London, 1975, 21;
5. cf. Tarán, Parmenides, 163;
6. U. Hölscher, Parmenides. Vom Wesen des Seienden, Frankfurt am Main, 1969, 107;
7. Coxon, The Fragments, 233, and others;
8. H. Diels' "both of equal quantity" (Parmenides' Lehrgedicht, Berlin, 1897, 41) is hardly apposite here.
9. F. M. Cornford, "Parmenides' Two Ways," CQ 27, 1933, 103f.;
10. W. K. C. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy, ii, Cambridge, 1965, 33.
11. As I argued in "The Cosmology of Parmenides," AJP 107, 1986, 303-317.
12. On which see R. Kühner and B. Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, 4th ed., v. i, Hannover, 1955, 581-588;
13. E. Schwyzer, Griechische Grammatik. A. Debrunner ed., v. ii, Munich, 1950, 20-24.
14. Nowhere in the poem is δόξα accompanied by the article, which of course does not prevent scholars from translating the word ad sensum "the opinions" at fr. 1.30 and fr. 8.51. One may then suspect that the current translation of cursive Greek chiατα ̀ δόξαν at fr. 19.1 as "according to opinion" is not due to purely linguistic considerations. Among the few exceptions are K. Bormann, Parmenides. Untersuchungen zu den Fragmenten, Hamburg, 1971, 55
15. N.-L. Cordero, Les deux chemins de Parménide, Paris/Brussels, 1984, 42.
16. Guthrie, A History, v, 51 : "the deceitful show that it [our world] is."
17. Coxon, The Fragments, 78, 223, and others.
18. The word is a verbal noun derivative of διαcursive Greek chiοσμέω and therefore primarily designates action - "(distributive) marshalling, setting in order, regulating" (as was correctly stressed by K. Reinhardt, Parmenides und die Geschichte der griechischen Philosophie, Bonn, 1916, 175;
19. see also J. Kerschensteiner, Kosmos. Quellenkritische Untersuchungen zu den Vorsokratikem, Munich, 1962, 13, 122.); the use of the noun in the resultative sense is secondary and hence later (the first instance is Thuc. iv 93). Since Parmenides fr. 8.60 is the first attested occurrence of the word, its proper rendering here must be "(world)-ordering," viz. "cosmogony," and this sense is authenticated by the cosmogonical character of the following account.
20. To bring the sense of δοcursive Greek chiίμ ως in line with this interpretation the adverb is translated as "probably" (U. v. Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, "Lesefrüchte xxiv," Hermes 34, 1899, 204)
21. "acceptably" (H. Fränkel, Dichtung und Philosophie des frühen Griechentums, New York, 1951, 463, n. 17), or the like, in spite of the fact that on its both occurrences outside Parmenides (Aeschylus Persae 547 and Xenophon Cyr. i 6.7) its sense is "really, genuinely."
22. The nearest parallel is Heraclitus fr. 28. For the meaning of δόξα in Parmenides see T. Calvo's valuable comments, "Truth and Doxa in Parmenides," AGP 59, 1977, 253-255.
23. Cf. J. Barnes, The Presocratic Philosophers, 2nd ed., London, 1982, 169.
24. Cf. Barnes, Presocratic Philosophers, 297 f.
25. The Parmenidean usage has been much discussed and a range of translations of the word has been suggested, see esp. W. A. Heidel, "On Certain Fragments of the Presocratics: Critical Notes and Elucidations," Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 48, 1913, 718;
26. Fränkel, "Studies in Parmenides," 9;
27. G. Jameson, '"Well-Rounded Truth' and Circular Thought in Parmenides," Phronesis 3, 1958, 28;
28. A. P. D. Mourelatos, The Route of Parmenides, New Haven, Conn., 1970, 144-163.
29. "Studies in Parmenides," 9;
30. Fränkel suggests that Parmenides gives πίστ ις the sense "certainty." Cf. Mourelatos, The Route, 160.
31. Cf. Tarán, Parmenides, 221, n. 50;
32. Cf. Schofield, in G. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven, and M. Schofield, The Presocratic Philosophers, Cambridge, 1983, 254 (hereafter KRS).
33. See J. Frère, "Parménide et l'ordre du monde: fr. viii, 50-61," in P. Aubenque (ed.), Études sur Parménide, v. ii, Paris, 1987, 201f. and nn. 34, 35 with instances from Plato Gorg. 465B, Laws 10.212B, Cratyl. 408A-B.
34. Cf. Schofield, KRS, 254.
35. Cf. Gorgias as cited in Plut. De glor. Ath. 5 p. 348C (= DK 82 B 23): "Tragedy is a deceit (αcombining comma aboveπάτ η) in which he who deceived (οcombining reversed comma abovè αcombining comma aboveπατήσας) is more just than one who did not deceive and he who was deceived (οcombining reversed comma abovè αcombining comma aboveπατηθείς) is more wise than he who was not deceived." This conception seems to have been much indebted to Parmenides. Cf. also Plato's distinction between the muthoi which, though "false as a whole," nevertheless contain some truth (Rep. 2.376E-377A) and are useful in accounting for matters such as events in the remote past, the gods and other things about which we cannot have certain knowledge (Rep. 3.392A), and hateable "true lies." For a good discussion of Plato's conception see J. Adam, The Republic of Plato, Cambridge, 1902 (repr. Cambridge 1963)
36. ad 376E-377A, and esp. E. Belfiore, "'Lies Unlike the Truth': Plato on Hesiod, Theogony 27," TAPA 115, 1985, 47-57.
37. Cf. P. Albertelli, Gli Eleati, Bari, 1939, 147
38. P. Aubenque, "Syntaxe et sémantique de l'être dans le Poème de Parménide," in: Aubenque (ed.), Études sur Parménide, v. ii, 119f.
39. esp. Calvo, "Truth and Doxa," 255, 257.
40. Cf. H. Schwabl, "Sein und Doxa bei Parmenides," in H.-G. Gadamer (ed.), Um die Begriffswelt der Vorsokratiker, Darmstadt, 1968, 399 f.
41. In trying to determine the precise nature of the mistake we should take into account two considerations. First, since soon, at fr. 9, the goddess shows how the assumption of light and night integrates with the theory of Being, the mistake must lie in the factual inaccuracy of the assumption rather than in its pluralistic character. Secondly, since the account is described as exemplary (fr. 1.31 f.) and unsurpassable (fr. 8.61), the inaccuracy of the assumption can hardly be such as to render the theory entirely counterfactual. The traditional rendering of the Greek - "of which one ought not be named" - best satisfies this condition: lacking as it does the positive obligation, the remark means that one of the two named "forms," specifically, as the following lines suggest, night, need not be "named." That is to say, it is unnecessary and even mistaken to posit night as a principle beside light. This cannot mean that all things must be considered as pure light - no account can be produced in this way - but rather that night should be considered as a part of light. The correct doctrine would then consist in maintaining a monistic approach like that of the Ionians and accordingly explaining things in terms of, not mixtures of the two self-sustaining stuffs, light and night, but light's intensity ranging between the two extremes, pure light and night, viz. as the light's qualitative changes. Cf. my "Parmenides: Between Material and Logical Monism," AGP 70, 1988, 4f.
42. Cf. E. Heitsch, Parmenides. Die Anfänge der Ontologie, Logik und Naturwissenschaft, Munich, 1974, 174f.
43. Mourelatos, The Route, 188, n. 56, correctly notes on this comment: "But that the names are empty (without any reference) is precisely what Empedocles does not say" (Mourelatos' italics).
44. L. Woodbury, "Parmenides on Names," HSCP 63, 1958, 147-150;
45. Hölscher, Parmenides, 24;
46. Heitsch, Parmenides, 175.
47. The fact that the listed instances of material change are described as those which mortals cursive Greek chiατέθεν το, the verb being consistently used in the poem with reference to the "names," demands that we understand the instanced notions as names (not as things, as, for example, J. Owens, "Naming in Parmenides," in J. Mansfeld and L. M. Rijk (eds.), Kephalaion. Festschrift C. de Vogel, Assen, 1975, 18, suggests;
48. Cf. Woodbury, "Parmenides on Names," 146;
49. As stated by M. Furth, "Elements of Eleatic Ontology," in A. P. D. Mourelatos (ed.), The Pre-Socratics, Princeton, 1993, 268;
50. cf. C. H. Kahn, "The Thesis of Parmenides," Review of Metaphysics 22, 1969, 715.