Parménide

Parménide d' Élée (in Greek Παρμενίδης Parmenídês ) is a Greek Philosophe presocratic. A dialog of Plato bears also his name.

Biography

One does not know with exactitude the birth dates and of died of Parménide of Élée. Its life extends from the end of the VI {{E}} century in the middle of the V {{E}} century before J. - C. It would have been 65 years old when it came to Athens where it would have met the young person Socrate, perhaps old from less than 20 years, which would locate its birth towards 520 - 510 if one places the dialog of Plato towards 450 - 448 (cf the Parménide of Plato, where Parménide is a “honourable old man”, 127 b). But according to Synésius, Socrate would have been 25 years old at this time, which would place the birth of Parménide towards 510. These data are not very sure; according to Diogène Laërce (IX, 23), its Acmé is located in the 69e Olympiade (504 - 500), but of other sources place it in the 79e. Thus, Parménide it is placed either with Héraclite d' Éphèse and Empédocle, or with Démocrite, Gorgias or Prodicos.

Parménide was the son of Pyrès or Pyrrhès (Diogène Laërce, IX, 21). It is resulting from a rich and powerful family.

Strabon (27, 1,1) and Proclos ( Comment on Parmènide ) names Parménide pythagorician and its manner of living was considered as pythagorician. It bound initially indeed with the pythagoricians: it is Aminias which pushed it with the philosophical life (Diogène Laërce, IX, 21). It is reported that he venerated as well the pythagorician Diochaitès, as he raised a statue to him after his death. Nevertheless, Parménide is attached rather to Xénophane of which he was perhaps the disciple (see for example Clément, Stromates , I, 364; Sextus Empiricus, Against the mathematicians , VII). But Aristote and Théophraste is reserved on the question (cf Metaphysics, has, 5,986 B, 22). It remains that Parménide and Xénophane have all two lived with Élée, and that one can suppose that they knew each other. Thus, as for the philosophical influences of Parménide, it seems possible to affirm that, like Empédocle, it followed the life pythagorician without adopting the ideas of them, and that he followed on this point Xénophane. It would have founded a school comparable with the schools pythagoricians. He would have been also disciple of Anaximène (according to the Suidas), but this information seems to be due to an error of text. He had as successors Empédocle and Zénon d' Élée.

He was perhaps legislator in his birthplace (D.L, IX, 23); Éléates were each year to swear obedience with the laws again.

There remain to us fragments of his poem Of the Nature , of which the first milked part of the Vérité and the second of the Opinion. Its thought influenced Anaxagore and Mélissos.

Doctrines

Parménide wrote in towards a treaty Of nature ; according to the Welded, it would have also written works in Prose, but this point is discussed.

Parménide divided philosophy into two parts: on the Truth and the Opinion. This division is for him absolute:

“ Χρεὼ δέ σε πάντα πυθέσθαι
ἠμέν Ἀληθείης εὐκυκλέος ἀτρεμὲς ἦτορ
ἠδὲ βροτῶν δόξας, ταῖς οὐκ ἔνι πίστις ἀληθής. ”

“thus Learn all things

And as well the heart free from tremor
Propre to the circular truth bleat,
That the opinions of the mortals, in whom
It is nothing which is true nor worthy of credit. ”
(Diogène Laërce, IX, 22)

Parménide thus opposes the Logique to the experiment: the Raison is according to him the criterion of the Vérité. The thought (it identifies heart and intellect), while following the rules of logic, establishes thus that the to be, and than needs it is prédiquer not-contradictory attributes: it understandable, not-is created and timeless, it does not contain any otherness and is perfectly continuous. If this design to be it is about the thought, Parménide also represents it like a physical, finished and spherical reality. These doctrines make of him the thinker be it par excellence, and slice by its rational coldness of with the other Greek thinkers, a Empédocle d' Agrigente for example. The doctrines of Parménide do not give however explanations relating to the origins of the beings.

Physics

Following these abstract deductions, it still develops a physics clearly pythagorician. According to Diogène Laërce, it was the first to affirm that the Earth is round (IX, 21). It divided the things into two elements, the Feu and the Ground.

Parménide and Gorgias

The sophist Gorgias wrote a treaty, On not-being , which refutes the treaty of Parménide On being . Parménide says that Being it is not generated (fragment 8), Gorgias answers that it neither is generated neither not generated (§ 2), so that it is neither to be nor non-being (ἔστιν οὔτε εἶναι οὔτε μὴ εἶναι, § 2), and thus not étant  ; Parménide writes that “  being est  ” (τ΄ ἐὸν ἔμμεναι, fragment 6), Gorgias, him, “  known as that it is not rien  ” (Οὐκ εἶναί φησιν οὐδέν, § 1).

Fragments

“ the first way of research says that the Being is and that it is not possible that it is not. It is the way of the certainty, because it accompanies the truth. The other it is that the Being is not and that the Non-being is. This way is a narrow path where one can nothing learn . ”

“ You will not succeed in cutting the Being of his continuity with the Being, so that it does not dissipate yourself with-outside, nor it does not gather . ”

“ To be It perfecting in extreme cases last / It is such as round mass of the sphere / Where center, a ray, is propagated in any direction / not admitting, that or there, more or less of distance.” (Fragments 43 to 47 of the Poem of Parménide, translation Darec Bernir)

See too

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