PARMENIDES:

I NEVER SAID BEING

Michael M. Nikoletseas

Copyright 2015 by Michael M. Nikoletseas

ISBN-13: 978-1518829017

ISBN-10: 1518829015

Published in USA

No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and microfilm, without permission in writing from the author.

I dedicate this book

to my mother

Sophia Demetrios Hondros

and

my grandmother

Roumbini Nikolaos Katsikeas

CONTENTS

PREFACE p. 7

PERI PHYSEOS TRANSLATION AND COMMENTS p. 9

EPILOGUE p. 45

BIBLIOGRAPHY p. 49

PREFACEIn my recent books on Heraclitus and Parmenides (Nikoletseas, M. M., 2013; 2015a; 2015b) I

put forth the groundbreaking, even daring, theses that Heraclitus is not the philosopher of change, he is the philosopher of stability, and that Parmenides never spoke of "Being". Heraclitus envisioned the need for a formal system that would replace natural language as a method of studying physis, and Parmenides paraphrased and expanded on Heraclitus views in verse.

The present book is intended to support the thesis that the Parmenidean (to eon) is not "Being" but method by offering a translation of the relevant passages (those dealing with "to eon") of Parmenides' poem.

This is a laconic statement of my thesis that Parmenides' , eon, does not relate to "Being", expounded in my recent work. In the following it is evident that is a road, a method (a cognitive system, a language, a calculus of sorts) that leads to

a true representation of physis. In the present account, the interpretation that has universally been proposed from Plato to our days, namely that stands for "Being" cannot be supported.

The translation was done by the present author.

October 2015

PERI PHYSEOS TRANSLATION AND COMMENTSIn this section I present the translation of those verses of Parmenides' poem that are relevant to the concept of (aletheia, truth) and, allegedly, "Being" (fragments 1-8). The present translation differs significantly from translations that have appeared to date because of the perspective I have adopted, that of a natural scientist. In this book, the intentional neglect, by and large, of past scholarly work, brought me closer to the naive perspective of Parmenides, before science, Plato, Aristotle, and the great minds of European philosophers created complex and very often clandestine systems of thought. We should not forget that Parmenides and Heraclitus were thinkers whose desire was to understand physis, they were physicists.

Fragment 1, verses 22-32

, , ' ' ,

[25] ,

', ' ( ' )

. * [30] , .

, .

----------

*the theme of cyclicity, of symmetry, a characteristic of formal systems. It is borrowed from Heraclitus (Nikoletseas, M. M., 2015a; Nikoletseas, M. M., 2015b).

Translationand the goddess received me with kindness and prudence,

and took my right hand in hers, and addressed me saying these words:

Young man, you who, accompanied by the immortal charioteers,

[25] carried by horses to my domicile,

rejoice, since no ill fortune sends you

on this road, which no human can set foot on;

it is Themis and Dike that sent you. It is necessary that you learn all,

both the stable heart of round (symmetrical) Truth,

[30] and the opinions of humans, opinions which cannot have true credibility.

But you will come in and you will learn even of these, how opinions

must, after scrutiny, be, for ever and for all things.

Comments

Fragment 1 ends with the opening words of the goddess that focus on the road (, hodos) that leads to the truth, ; here, road, of course, is more than a metaphor for method ( , , meta-hodos, methodos), that cognitive process that will allow for understanding of physis.

There is no reference to "Being", not even by allusion.

Secondarily but importantly we are being cued to the nature of the method: Themis and Dike, both

words pointing to lawfulness, a characteristic of mathematics and logic.

Fragment 2

' ' , ,

,

- - ,

[5] ' ,

- -

.

TranslationCome, I will relate to you and you carry my story

of which are the only roads of research that can be conceived of and understood.

The one that exists and it is impossible that it does not exist

because it is the road of Persuasion, because it is related to aletheia (truth).

[5] The other road (method) does not exist and it is necessary that it does not exist;

this road (method) I tell you is an utterly inscrutable path

because you cannot come to know what does not exist, it is not feasible

nor can you describe it in speaking.

CommentsFirst, we should note that Parmenides continues his speech about method, the road (, hodos, meta-hodos, met' hodos, methodos). There is no reference to an entity such as "Being'". Second, these verses are straightforward, in spite of the poetic language: a method that leads to a true representation of physis exists, it can be conceived of and understood; it involves persuasion (, and , anticipate the Humean notion of replicability, and thus credibility), and leads to truth. The other road, an alternative method (here he refers to the method humans use, we will see later he has natural language in mind), is not well structured (it is a path, ), not a proper road (hodos, met-hodos), it is an atarpos, an utterly inscrutable path, it does not exist ( ). It should not escape us, that here Parmenides avoids using the word hodos, because in these verses he is saying that the other road is not a method, a mode of thinking appropriate for a science of physis. It is instructive that the first occurrence of the word (eon) is used in the sense of exist; additionally it is used in a negative sense, that which does not exist. is Doric of , participle, present active, of verb , sum, to be, to exist; , , what exist, things, animals.

It is clear that Parmenides does not have any 'being' in mind; he is simply writing a poem on a simple, but difficult to conceive, thought that a special method, other than that used by laymen (natural language), must be devised in order to describe nature as it is. The traditional interpretation that Parmenides defends his argument (that being exists and not being does not exist) simply on rational grounds, is acrobatics and perhaps it constitutes the grandest ad verecundiam case in the history of human intellect. Parmenides is explicit:

* and ,** are operational definitions of sorts and thus he anticipates Hume (on cause) as well as modern concepts of experimental sciences, namely statistical probability expressed in all natural science research as p