Q4 ~ What are the paths of thinking that the Goddess delineates to Parmenides?

4.     What are the paths of thinking that the Goddess delineates to Parmenides?

RW note: I have not changed the outline from previous years (fitting for the question on Parmenides!), because it seems solid.  Included is Karl’s explanatory paragraph of his changes; I leave it to you to decide whether you want to follow him in noting a possible third path.

Karl Aho’s note (2011): The below is a previous outline that does a good job of describing the two ways that the Goddess explicitly identifies in the poem (in fragment 2).  I’ll complicate the account by noting (pace SEP) that there may actually be three paths of thinking.  That there is the path of being and the path of nonbeing is given.  But where does the path of moral thinking (c.f. fragment 6) fit into this schema?   Mortals know nothing and think contradictory things.  But if the path of nonbeing is unlearnable and unchangeable, how can mortals think and speak waveringly about contradictory things?  This motivates some scholars to think that there is a third way of mortal opinion.   [My additions to the outline below are bolded and bracketed.  Karl Aho, 2011.]

The Goddess says to Parmenides: “the only ways of inquiry there are for thinking: the one, that it is and that it is not possible for it not to be, is the path of Persuasion (for it attends upon the Truth), the other, that it is not and that it is necessary for it not to be, this I point out to you to be a path completely unlearnable, for neither may you know which is not (for it is not to be accomplished) nor may you declare it.”

The Two Paths of Thinking:

1) The path of Persuasion is the way of reasoning (logos) that will bring one to knowledge of what is and what cannot not-be. [i.e. necessary being]

 2) The path completely unlearnable is the way of mortal (common) opinions that arise through trusting in sense perception. This path cannot lead to knowledge because things are not as they are perceived. Though we perceive things as changeable (coming to be and perishing), they cannot change, for to change would be to go from being to not-being or from not-being to being, which is impossible. Thus, this path is not and it is necessary for it not to be. 

v  THE WAY OF REASONING TELLS OF BEING/ONE/WHAT IS

Ø  [Necessary] Being, the One, what is, does not come into being, nor can it be destroyed.

(i)             Everything that comes into being comes either from being or from non-being.

(ii)           If something comes into being from being, then it already is.

(iii)          If something comes into being from not-being, then not-being is (a contradiction).

(iv)          Hence, nothing can come from nothing. [from (iii) and Law of Non-Contradiction]

(v)            Hence, Being always and unchangeably is. [from (i), (ii), and (v)]

Ø  Reality is unchanging – whatever exists, exists, and there is nothing apart from that which exists.

Ø  Speech and existence

·       (1) Anything we can think or speak about either exists or doesn’t exist.

·       (2) Anything that doesn’t exist is nothing.

·       (3) We cannot think about nothing.

·       (4) So we cannot think or speak about what doesn’t exist.

·       (5)Anything we can think or speak about exists.

¨     The reality of being can be spoken of as the One or It.

Ø  Consequences of the argument (FIVE)

§  Being is uncreated. If Being began then it either came from something or nothing. If something, then it already is. And nothing can come from nothing.

§  Being is unchangeable and imperishable – It could not change into being since it already is being. If it changed it would have to become nothing. But non-being does not exist.

§  Being is one and is indivisible – If Being is plurality, how could we divide it? If the thing marking the division is being, then there is continuity, not division. But if the thing marking the division is not being, then it is nothing, and so there is no division at all.

§  Being is motionless – motion requires empty space. Empty space would contain nothing, which has no existence. So there can be no motion. It must be whole, complete, and unchanging. Necessity holds it.

§  Being is a finite body – He does assume material monism. Compares it to a round sphere. Greeks thought infinite meant undefined, so Being could not be infinite.

Ø  The goddess teaches the kouros the epistemically accessible “signs” of what is; namely, what is known (i.e., what is) must be one, whole, complete, and unchanging (neither coming into being, nor going out of being, nor undergoing any qualitative change); any theory that entails that what-is lacks any of these features is not a true theory that can be known, but mere opinion/belief

v  The goddess tells him to learn mortal opinions so that no mortal opinion may overtake him. [This motivates the thought that there is a third path; why would the Goddess command him to learn the unlearnable?]

      These include:

§  They name two forms of which it is not right to name one.

§  Distinguish things opposite in body.

§  Establish signs apart from one another.

Important Comparative Note:

By explicitly distinguishing Truth (the Real) from Appearance (Sense), Parmenides laid an important foundation for Plato’s theory of the Forms, though Parmenides was apparently not an Idealist; rather, Being, the One, for Parmenides, though it could only be known by logos, was apparently material (given the spatial finitude and spherical shape of Being).  That what is is knowable only by thought does not entail that what is is Thought.                        

[Like Heraclitus, Parmenides thinks that the logos is common to all and opinions lead people away from the truth. ]