By Being, It Is

Luis Cordero Nestor

Description

In By Being, It Is, Nestor-Luis Cordero explores the richness of this Parmenidean thesis, which became the cornerstone of philosophy. Cordero''s textual analysis of the poem''s fragments reveals that Parmenides'' intention was highly didactic. His poem applied, for the first time, an explicative method that deduced consequences from a true axiom: by being, it is. To ignore this reality meant to be a victim of opinions. This volume explains how without this conceptual base, all later ontology would have been impossible. This book offers a clear and concise introduction to the Parmenidean doctrine and helps the reader appreciate the imperative value of Parmenides''s claim that "by being, it is."

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie

Informations

• Publié par: Parmenides Publishing
• Date de parution: 10 mai 2004
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781930972414
• Langue: English

Extrait

By Being, It Is
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By Being, It Is THE THESIS OF PARMENIDES

N stor-Luis Cordero
PARMENIDES PUBLISHING Las Vegas 89109 2004 by Parmenides Publishing All rights reserved
Published 2004 Printed in the United States of America
ISBN: 1-930972-03-2
Publisher s Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cordero, Nestor-Luis. By being, it is : the thesis of Parmenides / N stor-Luis Cordero.
p. ; cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN: 1-930972-03-2
1. Parmenides. 2. Ontology. 3. Eleatics. II. Title.
B187.05 C67 2004 182/.3
English translation by Dinah Livingstone for Translate-A-Book, Oxford, England

1-888-PARMENIDES www.parmenides.com
Contents
Prologue
Acknowledgments
Chapter I: Introduction to Parmenides
(a) The Region
(b) Chronology
(c) Life
(d) Works
(e) The Poem
(1) The Reconstruction
(2) The Form
(3) The Content
Chapter II: Prolegomena to Parmenides Thesis
(a) Parmenides theori a
(b) The Allegorical Presentation of the Content of the Poem
(c) You Must Inquire About Everything (1.28)
Chapter III: Parmenides Thesis and Its Negation
(a) The Alternative in Fragment 2
(b) The Only Two Ways of Leading Thought
(c) Lines 3 and 5 of Fragment 2
(1) Éstin on Its Own and Its Negation
(2) The Modal Complement of stin on Its Own and Its Negation
Chapter IV: The Meaning of Parmenides Thesis (and of Its Negation)
(a) The Grammar of To Be
(b) The Meaning of Being and Returning to the Question of the Subject of stin in 2.3a
(c) The Absolutization of the Fact of Being, the Negation of the Thesis, and the Ways of Investigation
(d) The Opposition Between the Thesis and Its Negation
(e) Structural Difference Between Statement and Negation
(f) Why Is the Negation of the Thesis Impossible?
Chapter V: Parmenides Thesis, Thinking, and Speaking
(a) Thinking Is Expressed Thanks to Being
(b) It Has to be Said and Thought That That Which Is Being, Is
(c) Impossibility of Thinking and Saying That Which Is Not Being
Chapter VI: Presentation of the Thesis and Its Negation in Fragments 6 and 7
(a) 6.1b-2a Reintroduces the First Way of Investigation
(b) Relation Between 6.1-2 and Fragment 2
(c) Truth, Persuasion, and Deception
(d) The Exhortation to Proclaim That It Is Possible to Be and That Nothing[ness] Does Not Exist
(e) Parmenides Does Not Recommend Withdrawing from the Thesis Expounded in 6.1b-2a
(f) The Origin of the Notion of Withdrawing as a Conjecture in 6.3
(g) Rejection of the Conjecture I Withdraw You
(h) The Thesis Expounded in Fragment 7
(i) A Possible Solution for the Gap in Line 6.3
(j) Discovering the Foundation of the Two Ways in Fragment 6
Chapter VII: The Negation of the Thesis, Opinions, and the Nonexistent Third Way
(a) The Senses and the Wandering Intellect Do Not Distinguish Between Being and Not Being
(b) L gos as the Criterion by Which to Judge the Critique of the Way Made by Men
(c) The Meaning of l gos in Parmenides
(d) The Hypothetical Third Way
(e) Confirmation of the Existence of Only Two Ways of Investigation
Chapter VIII: The Meaning of the Opinions of Mortals
(a) D xa Is Not Appearance
(b) The Object of Opinions
(c) D xa and Names
(d) The Opinion-makers
(e) The Content of Opinions
Chapter IX: The Foundation of the Thesis: The Way of Truth
(a) The Only Way That Remains
(b) The s mata of stin
(c) The Field in Which the s mata Operate
(d) The First s ma: That Which Is Being Is Everlasting
(e) Immobility
(f) Homogeneity
(g) Oneness
(h) Truth
Epilogue
Appendix 1: Parmenides Poem
(a) Text
(b) Translation
Appendix 2: Note on the Transliteration of the Greek Alphabet
Bibliography
Prologue
Historians of philosophy usually refer to Plato to confirm the importance that Parmenides philosophy had acquired, even in his own time. They cite not only the celebrated passage from Plato s Sophist, in which the Eleatic philosopher is described as the Athenian s (obviously spiritual) father (241d), but also the text of the Theaetetus, which calls him venerable and fearsome (183e), according to the Homeric formula applied to the revered Priam ( Il. 3.172). Generally speaking, at this point, curiously, quotations from Plato s text peter out. But Plato continues to concern himself with Parmenides, and in the following sentence we find a true confession, proof of the lucidity and sincerity with which the philosopher approaches his ancestor s thought: Parmenides, says Plato, seemed to me to have a power that denotes a depth absolutely full of nobility. Even so, I am afraid we may not understand his words, and I am even more afraid that what he was thinking of when he said them goes quite beyond us (184a).
For us these words of Plato s have always been an invitation, indeed, an incitement, to take an interest in Parmenides philosophy. Less than a century after his death, Plato is already confessing that he is afraid he cannot understand the meaning of the Eleatean s philosophy, but that does not prevent him recognizing its immense value or, especially, from criticizing and even refuting it. This means that whatever the real meaning of Parmenides ideas, they were taken by Plato in a certain way, and that is the Parmenides whom Plato combats, or, if you prefer, revises and even improves. Today, almost twenty-five centuries later, we see that the Parmenideanism that Plato criticizes is a combination of the Eleatean s own ideas with Zenonian and Melissian ingredients, and that this explosive mixture was very probably represented by Antisthenes at the time the Theaetetus and Sophist were being written 1 (cf. Epilogue). But all this is secondary: it is the image Plato has of Parmenides that leads him to take an interest in him. And this is still going on today. Other philosophers of antiquity (Aristotle, Plutarch, Sextus Empiricus, Simplicius) offer us other aspects of Parmenides, and we might even say they present us with other Parmenides. So did the numerous doxographers, who often gave pride of place to a cosmological Parmenides.
This diversity of viewpoints has encouraged us to try to decipher those words that were already enigmatic for Plato. Do we then aspire, from our postmodernist stand, to grasp Parmenides thought from a more privileged perspective than that from which his successors studied him? Not at all. But we must not fall into the opposite extreme and blindly accept the classical authors viewpoints, without any critical spirit. Let us not forget that in commenting on their predecessors thought they were not claiming to be historians of philosophy. They were conversing with ideas, not real people. And these real people may have expressed themselves orally, but most of them-including Parmenides- wrote texts. Almost miraculously, passages from these texts have come down to us. 2 And in our case, there is the assumption, or if you like, the prejudice that any interpretation of the philosopher must be based on these. When ancient authors comment on these passages, they must be listened to and respected as firsthand witnesses. This is the case with Plato when he cites and comments on the current first two lines of fragment 7 of Parmenides Poem in the Sophist (237a, 258d), or when Sextus Empiricus transcribes nearly the whole of fragment 1 and presents his allegorical interpretation ( Adv. Math. VII.111). On the other hand, there are cases in which certain passages have not earned the attention in antiquity that they merit for us today; in this case, we can exercise our right to interpret them. This is the case with fragment 2, fragment 6, and the first line of fragment 8, which today appear to expound the nucleus of Parmenides thought, but which no one in antiquity commented on or cited (unless they did in texts now lost to us) for eleven centuries, until the sixth century of our era. 3
* * * * *
All these theoretical conditions (or prejudices, if you like) have made us focus for years on the state of the Poem s text. Any new interpretation of Parmenides philosophy, or any criticism of previous interpretations, must be based on a text that is as close as possible to the lost original. The titanic task carried out over centuries by philologists and codicologists offered us a firm starting point, but much still remained to be done. Passages of the Poem remained inexplicably obscure. (For example, why does the Goddess order withdrawal from a true way in line 6.3? How can it be said that thought is expressed in being, as line 8.35 appears to say?) For this reason, since my presence in Europe made it possible, I decided to check the manuscript tradition of citations (wrongly called fragments ) of the Poem, in order to propose a new version of it, purified of certain errors that had accumulated over the centuries. A first result of my search was presented in 1971 4 as a doctoral thesis. Some years later, my book, Les deux chemins de Parm nide, 5 completed my work. New research on the manuscript sources of the first editions of the Poem, as well as a change of view in my assessment of the two ways, allow me to present this new version of Parmenides thesis today. In this work, I also take into account comments and criticism that my previous studies on Parmenides have raised, and when appropriate, (a) I defend myself, or (b) I accept and make certain corrections.
It is impossible to go into Parmenides philosophy without being bitten by the bug. I hope that readers of this book will feel the same.
N stor-Luis Cordero University of Rennes I France
Acknowledgments
If Greek philosophy is still alive today it is due to two main factors. The first is the depth of Greek philosophers thought in questioning the foundation of reality, a depth that continues to be the base of all actual reflection today. That we are aware of this thought, however, and that we are able to appreciate the Greek philosophers in all their magnificence, is d