Spangenberg, Pilar. 2011. "Aristotle on the Semantic Unity of Parmenidean Being." In Parmenides, Venerable and Awesome (Plato, Theaetetus 183e): Proceedings of the International Symposium (Buenos Aires, October 29-November 2, 2007), edited by Cordero, Néstor-Luis, 383-392. Las Vegas: Parmenides Publishing.

Summary: "This article presents a reading of Aristotle’s criticism of the Parmenidean thesis about the unity of being at Physics I, 2–3. I intend to show that Aristotle reduces the Parmenidean denial of the multiplicity of beings to the denial of the categories, and that this reading of Parmenidean monism determines the logical character of the strategy Aristotle utilizes against it. I argue that Metaphysics G represents a clue for understanding this strategy against Parmenides: in both cases the refutation must be radical in order to preserve the very possibility of science and language."
Spangler, G.A. 1979. "Aristotle's Criticism of Parmenides in Physics I." Apeiron.A Journal for Ancient Philosophy and Science no. 13:92-103.

"Aristotle's aim in the Physics is to discover those principles which make it possible to have systematic knowledge of nature. He does not say that this is his aim, however, but only implies that it is. The text of the Physics opens with the following remarks:

In all disciplines in which there is systematic knowledge of things with principles, causes, or elements, it arises from a grasp of those: we think we have knowledge of a thing when we have found its primary causes and principles, and followed it back to its elements. Clearly, then, systematic knowledge of nature must start with an attempt to settle questions about principles (184a 10-15).

These remarks put Aristotle's Physics squarely into the tradition of "natural philosophy," which is usually said to have originated with Thales. But just as one is rightly wary of saying that natural philosophy was originated by any one man, so it is incautious to suppose that one could easily label what Aristotle is doing in a work so complex as his Physics. His own words suggest that he is writing with a scientific interest at stake, but even so one must remember that the lover of truth was then little concerned with marking out territories on the intellectual landscape. In any event, Aristotle quickly moves on to a discussion of Parmenides and Melissus, a discussion which, as he says, offers scope for philosophy." (P. 92)
Spanos, William V. 2001. "Heidegger's Parmenides: Greek Modernity and the Classical Legacy." Journal of Modern Greek Studies no. 19:89-115.

Abstract: "One of Heidegger’s most insistent assertions about the identity of modern Europe is that its origins are not Greek, as has been assumed in discourses of Western modernity since the Englightenment, but Roman, the epochal consequence of the Roman reduction of the classical Greek understanding of truth, as a-letheia (un-concealment), to veritas (the correspondence of mind and thing). In the Parmenides lectures of 1942–43, Heidegger amplifies this genealogy of European identity by showing that this Roman concept of truth—and thus the very idea of Europe—is also indissolubly imperial. Heidegger’s genealogy has been virtually neglected by Western historical scholarship, including classical. Even though restricted to the generalized site of language,

this genealogy is persuasive and bears significantly on the conflicted national identity of modern, post-Ottoman Greece. It suggests that the obsessive pursuit of the unitary cultural ideals of the European Enlightenment, in the name of this movement’s assumed origins in classical Greece, constitutes a misguided effort to accommodate Greek identity to the polyvalent, imperial, Roman model of the polity that informs European colonial practice. Put positively, Heidegger’s genealogy suggests a radically different way of dealing with the question of Greek national identity, one more consonant with the actual philosophical, cultural, ethnic, and political heterogeneity of ancient Greece (what Martin Bernal has called the “Ancient Model”) and, thus, one less susceptible to colonization by “Europe”."
Spitzer, D. M. 2020. "Figures of Motion, Figures of Being. On the Textualization of the Parmenidean Poem." Ancient Philosophy no. 40:1-18.

"For the most part, editors of the Parmenidean poem are silent about the conditions of orality and performance in which it took shape. How can contemporary readers of the Parmenidean poem listen for and hear-if only as an echo-resonances of the oral-performance culture of archaic Greek culture? What implications for philosophic interpretation are generated by the conditions of orality?

Two root assumptions underlie and animate the editorial presentation and philosophic interpretation of the Parmenidean poem. The first is that the song was principally a text to be read,(2) while the second is the implicit view of a single, authoritative original text of the poem. Each of these suppositions bears on and informs critical engagement with the poem. Specifically, these two assumptions reinforce the conventional interpretation that the poem presents a twofold ontological doctrine of stasis and unity. The conventional, doctrinal interpretation as expressed, for example, by Taran 1965, 181, holds that the poem's first part establishes 'the eternity of identity and the impossibility of difference' and takes this to be the 'most important doctrine' advanced by Parmenides. Making visible the poem's connection to a tradition and culture of oralcy, in terms of both performance contexts of poetry and the ancient practices of reading, discloses important tensions within the poem's articulation of that twofold." (p. 1)

(2) This follow Havelock 1982, 225 in his assessment of the assumption among twentieth century philologists that 'Greek literature by definition had to be a written literature composed for readers.'

References

Eric A. Havelock, Preface to Plato, Cambridge , MA: The Belknap Press 1982.

Leonardo Taran, Parmenides: A Text with Translation, Commentary, and Critical Essays, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1965.
Sprague, Rosamond Kent. 1955. "Parmenides: A Suggested Rearrangement of Fragments in the "Way of Truth"." Classical Philology no. 50:124-126.

"The proposed alteration of Diels's ordering of the fragments of Parmenides will, I believe, eliminate from the poem two difficulties in thought which result from the present sequence.(1) The fragments with which I am concerned are the following: 6. 1-9; 7. 1-5; 8.1-2 [Greek text omitted]" (p. 123)

"My rearrangement of the fragments would be as follows: (1) I should detach the first two lines of Fragment 6, thus leaving a gap between lines 2 and 3 in the present sequence. (2) I should then place 7. 1-2 in the gap created between 6. 2 and 6. 3." (p. 124)

"The entire rearrangement may be summarized as follows: ( 1) 7. 1 follows 6. 2; (2) 7. 2 is dropped on the assumption that it is really another version of 6. 3; (3) 6. 3-9 are as before, but, with the removal of 7. 1-2, 7. 3 follows 6. 9. The rest of the ordering remains the same." (p. 125)

(1) All textual references are to Diels-Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (Berlin, 1951), Vol. I.
———. 1967. "Parmenides, Plato, and I Corinthians 12." Journal of Biblical Literature no. 86:211-213.

"To the student of ancient philosophy, St. Paul's discourse on the body of Christ in I Corinthians 12 has an extremely familiar ring. In vss. 12-21 in particular, he is quite clearly dealing with a philosophical problem familiar to students of Greek thought as the problem of the One and the Many.' Furthermore he is dealing with it in a manner which shows him to be quite conscious of the traditional difficulties. In this brief paper I shall try to place his remarks in this setting." (p. 211)
———. 1971. "Symposium 211A and Parmenides Frag. 8." Classical Philology no. 66:261.

"The terms in which Plato describes the Form of Beauty in the Symposium (21 1A ff.) are strikingly similar to those in which Parmenides describes s Being in the Way of Truth (Frag. 8 D.-K. passim)."(p. 261)
Stannard, Jerry. 1960. "Parmenidean Logic." The Philosophical Review no. 69:526-533.

"That Parmenides introduced a significant change in the method of Greek philosophic thinking is admitted on all hands, though there is, naturally, considerable disagreement about the nature of that change as well as its significance." (p. 526)

"I am not at all convinced that the famous dictum "It is impossible that Being and Not-Being are and are not the same" (B6 D-K) is evidence that Parmenides recognized that the formal structure of his argument was a special case of the more general principle of contradiction. Exactly what method Parmenides used in cataloguing the characteristics of Being doubtless remains a problem.

My own feeling is that he was simply and intuitively following the syntactical structure of the only language known to him. Thus I would suggest that the principal criterion followed by Parmenides in this process was essentially a negative one: avoidance of any open violation of the rules of Greek syntax.(18)" (pp. 530-531)

(18) For this reason, I am inclined to agree with von Fritz (loc. cit., ["NOYZ, NOEIN, and their Derivates in Pre-Socratic Philosophy," Classical Philology, XL, 1945] p. 241) that Parmenides' method was largely an "intuitive" one. Whether or not, in addition to this, Parmenides' exposition of the Way of Truth was akin to a religious or mystical revelation, as Bowra (op. cit. [Problems in Greek Poetry, Oxford, 1953]) convincingly argues, is a matter that does not affect the present paper.
Steele, Laura D. 2002. "Mesopotamian Elements in the Proem of Parmenides? Correspondences between the Sun-Gods Helios and Shamash." Classical Quarterly no. 52:583-588.

"This paper will examine the striking similarities between the journey of Parmenides' narrator and that of the Babylonian sun-god Shamash (Sumerian UTU),(3) similarities that confirm previous scholarly attempts to discern attributes of Helios and/or Apollo in the proem.(4) While the metaphors of a horse-drawn chariot and 'daughters of the sun' are attested Greek associations with the sun-god Helios, three elements of Parmenides' proem are explained more readily with reference to Shamash: the downward passage(5) through gates that are described in great structural detail; the association between these gates and the figure of Justice; and the identification of Parmenides' narrator as Greek κούρος, a word that covers the semantic range of a common epithet of Shamash (and of his disciple Gilgamesh), Akkadian etlu.

Whether or not Parmenides invoked Babylonian antecedents intentionally, his choice of images indicates a certain degree of Babylonian influence on Greek deities and literary culture more generally." (p. 584)

(3) For general information, see 'Utu' in J. Black and A. Green, Gods, Demons, and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia (Austin, 1992), 182-4.

(4) For arguments in favour of the solar trajectory of Parmenides' journey, see W Burkert, 'Das Proomium des Parmenides und die Katabasis des Pythagoras', Phronesis 14 (1969), 1-30, following W. Kranz, 'Uber Aufbau und Bedeutung des Parmenideischen Gedichtes', Sitzungberichte der Konig/ichen Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 47 (1916), 1158-76. For a semantic rebuttal of Kranz's hypothesis, see Tarán, Parmenides (Princeton, 1965), 23.

(5) Or katabasis; see the thorough discussions in Burkert (n. 4) and in P. Kingsley, In the Dark Places of Wisdom (Shaftesbury, 1999), 58ff.
Steiger, Kornél. 1980. "The Cosmology of Parmenides and Empedocles." Homonoia no. 2:159-165.
Stein, Howard. 1969. "Comments on 'The thesis of Parmenides'." The Review of Metaphysics no. 22:725-734.

About the paper by Charles Kahn (1969).

"I want to suggest that the conclusions of your beautiful paper on the Greek verb "to be," which you apply in what seems to me a very convincing way to the analysis of Parmenides, can be exploited further than you have done, with a gain of coherence for the doctrine. I offer my suggestions diffidently: they are rather speculative, and I have no scholarship in the language and little in the period.

The principal question I want to raise is that of the interpretation of what you call Parmenides' "wildly paradoxical conclusions about the impossibility of plurality and change." An argument that leads to a truly paradoxical conclusion is always open (if it escapes conviction for fallacy) to construction as a reductio ad absurdum. And the (meager) biographical tradition represents Parmenides - quite unlike Heraclitus, Heraclitus, for instance - as a reasonable and even practically effective man, not at all a fanatic. It therefore seems natural to ask, if he maintained a paradoxical doctrine, whether it did not possess for him (and perhaps for his successors who took him seriously) an interpretation that made some sense. Further, setting aside this not very weighty prima facie argument, I think the search for plausible interpretations is worthwhile in any case: for (1) to make a rational assessment of the historical evidence one needs the widest possible survey of hypotheses to choose among; (2) since conclusions in such matters are always uncertain, a list of possibilities may retain a kind of permanent (not just heuristic) value, as the best we can do; and (3) readings which are even dismissed as unsound on adequate critical grounds may still be of interest, both for the understanding of historical influence - I have in mind in the present case especially Parmenides' influence on Plato-and for our own philosophical edification." (p. 725)

These remarks are a revised version of comments made in correspondence concerning an earlier redaction of Kahn's paper. It has seemed, on the whole, least stilted to retain the informality of second person address. I wish to record my gratitude to Kahn for suggesting that these comments be published with his paper.
Stekeler-Weithofer, Pirmin. 2001. "The Way of Truth. Parmenides' Seminal Reflections on Logic, Semantics and Methodology of Science." In Audiator vox sapientiae. A Festschrift for Arnim von Stechow, edited by Féry, Caroline and Sternefeld, Wolfgang, 450-472. Berlin: Akademie Verlag.

"In the following, I try to present a new perspective on Parmenides, the father of Plato's logical semantics, or rather, on his famous and difficult poem. I do so without presenting sufficient philological arguments for the proposed reading. I just claim that the poem is a most influential text in the history of logic, semantics and methodology of science. Usually, some kind of metaphysical ontology stands in the focus of attention. I believe, instead, that later shifts of interest and understanding lost the original context and project out of sight.

Parmenides asks what truth and reliable knowledge is. He seems to be the first philosopher who did not just tell allegedly true stories about the structure of the world as, for example, the Ionians did. Parmenides begins with a metalevel reflection on method, on the right road (hodos) to knowledge and truth. He presents an ideal explanation of what absolute truth and knowledge is. Only after this does he give a presentation of best possible knowledge. This main part of the poem is almost totally lost. It consisted of a collections of claims about the real causes of some phenomena. Therefore, the book had the title On Nature in antiquity." (p. 450)
———. 2003. "Plato and Parmenides on Ideal Truth, Invariant Meaning, and Participation." In Ideal and Culture of Knowledge in Plato. Akten der IV. Tagung der Karl-und-Gertrud-Abel-Stiftung vom 1-3 September 2000 in Frankfurt, edited by Wolfgang, Detel, Becker, Alexander and Scholz, Peter, 115-132. Stuttgart: F. Steiner.

"For Parmenides, representation ‘by the mind’, by memory, or ‘to the mind’, by words, is the basic method of overcoming the cognitive limits of sheer presence.(3) Parmenides defends the peculiar role of presence and claims that it is conceptually the same to say that something is real and that it can be known: Existing (einai) and being the object of possible knowledge (noein) are the same. But he seems to work with a double meaning of “noiein”: The core meaning is to notice or to realise something in a present situation.

Hence, there is an obvious need to ‘enlarge’ the concept of knowing from the narrow sense of immediate 'realisation' to general knowledge and, by the same token, of the parochial concept of actual being here to universal reality. By this move, the concept of immediate knowledge, i. e. perception, widens to possible knowledge. Truth and reality is what can be known. It is not defined by what actually is known or, even worse, what only seems to be known. But how do we conceptually proceed from what can be realised here and now to what can or could be known?" (p. 116)

(3) It is not clear how Parmenides, fragment 4,1 must be translated, perhaps both readings are right.
Stewart, Donald. 1980. "Contradiction and the Ways of Truth and Seeming." Apeiron.A Journal for Ancient Philosophy and Science no. 14:1-14.

"The central problem concerning Parmenides' poem is to provide the rationale for the relationship between the two major parts of the poem, The Way of Truth and The Way of Seeming." (p. 1)

"Very briefly my argument is this; though the Greeks individuated objects on the basis of sensation just as we do, they had, at the time of Heraclitus, no satisfactory way of grounding this sensory individuation in ontology.

(...)

This, in turn, led Heraclitus to a belief in, if not a formulation of, what we may call the principle of contradiction, for it was evident that all things were One and yet still different things at the same time, and thus that paradox was the only true method of thought.

Parmenides, in a reference seemingly clearly to Heraclitus,(4) formulates this principle for the first time when he refers to those by whom "To be and Not To be are regarded as the same and not the same, and (for whom) in everything there is a way of opposing stress." (fr.6) It is this principle which is the key, I believe, to the relation of the Way of Seeming to the Way of Truth. If we take "To be" as a description of the One and "Not to be" as its negation then it is relatively easy to discern the relation between the two Ways. The Way of Truth gives us a description of the One from the point of view of the One while allowing, at the same time, for a description of the many, but only from the point of view of the many. Each is totally different from the other, and yet if we take Heraclitus seriously, as I think Parmenides did, they are the same as well as not the same. It is this sameness of the two opposites, the One and all the things that are the One, which provides the link between the two Ways. The Way of Seeming, though it is the Way of Truth, is that Way only from the point of view of Seeming. Similarly, the Way of Truth, though it is the Way of Seeming, is so only from the point of view of the truth, the One." (p. 2)

(4) Stokes disagrees and claims that there is no compelling reason to believe that Parmenides was aware of Heraclitus' writings at all.
Stokes, Michael C. 1960. "Parmenides Fr. 6." Classical Review no. 10:193-194.

I give the text and punctuation of Diels-Kranz for lines 3 ff.:

Πρώτης γάρ σ' ἀφ' ὁδοῦ ταύτης διζήσιος <εἴργω>,

αὐτὰρ ἔπειτ' ἀπὸ τῆς, ἣν δὴ βροτοὶ εἰδότες οὐδὲν

πλάττονται, δίκρανοι· ἀμηχανίη γὰρ ἐν αὐτῶν

στήθεσιν ἰθύνει πλακτὸν νόον· οἱ δὲ φοροῦνται

κωφοὶ ὁμῶς τυφλοί τε, τεθηπότες, ἄκριτα φῦλα,

οἷς τὸ πέλειν τε καὶ οὐκ εἶναι ταὐτὸν νενόμισται

κοὐ ταὐτόν, πάντων δὲ παλίντροπός ἐστι κέλευθος.

"There has been much controversy over the question whether or not this fragment refers to the philosophy or Heraclitus; much less discussion of the construction and meaning or these singularly difficult lines. The crucial point concerns the gender of πάντων in I. 9. Kirk-Raven, p. 271, translate as if it were neuter, while admitting, p. 272 n. 1, that it is possible that it is masculine. This is fair enough; but the word 'possible' is perhaps an understatement." (p. 193)

"I suggest that the most satisfactory way out of the problem is to punctuate with a colon after κοὐ ταὐτόν, taking πάντων δὲ... as syntactically parallel to οἱ δὲ... in I. 6 of this fragmcnL The last clause of the fragment would then be a separate sta1atement of the goddess, introduced by an explanatory δὲ.(1) It would follow. of course, that πάντων should be taken as masculine, since the goddess could hardly say that the way of all things was backward-turning. The conclusion is that in all probability the phrase πάντων ... κέλευθος and the path of all (mortals) is backward-tuming'. The abruptness resulting from this punctuation need arouse no suspicion; for abruptness is not uncharacteristic of Parmenides." (p. 194)

(1) See Denniston, Greek Particles [second edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press 1954], p. 169.
———. 1971. One and Many in Presocratic Philosophy. Washington: Center for Hellenic Studies.

Reprint: Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1986.

Preface V-VI; Contents: I. Aristotle and the Analysis of Unity and Plurality 1; II. The Milesians 24; III. Xenophanes 66; IV. Heraclitus 86; V. Parmenides and Melissus 109; VI. Empedocles 153; VII: Zeno of Elea 175; VIII. One-Many Problem in Atomism 218; IX. Miscellaneous Presocratic Contexts 237; X. Conclusion 249; Appendix: Parmenides B8.7-12 253; Abbreviations 258; Bibliography 259; Notes 267; Index of Passages 341; General Index 347-355.

"Having decided to treat of Parmenides separately from Heraclitus, we must turn to consider the role of unity, and of the one-many antithesis, in Parmenides' thought, and the kind(s) of unity and plurality that he had in mind. We must also consider whether a question of "what is one" being or becoming many arises in Parmenides' argument. It seems clear that the function of the one-many antithesis in this, the first extant European piece of consecutive metaphysical reasoning, has been greatly exaggerated in some quarters; though the exaggeration has been somewhat diminished in successive works of recent years,(65) it still remains an obstacle to the understanding and appreciation of a great philosopher and needs therefore still to be pointed out and criticized.

If any single antithesis occupied a high place in Parmenides' thought, it was that between Being and not-Being. The word "one" appears in only two extant places in Parmenides' poem, and the phrase "the one" appears in Melissus apparently for the first time, in conscious reference back to that Being which has been proved to be one; the phrase "the One Being," beloved alike of Cornford and of the Neoplatonist Simplicius, is not to be found in the extant remains of Presocratic Eleaticism. Once more the questions at issue can be decided only on the basis of close textual analysis; and again we have to deal with a thinker recognized even by the ancients as obscure. (66)" (p. 127)

(65) Untersteiner's thesis (Parmenide, [Firenze, La Nuova Italia, 1958] passim) eliminating the One altogether from Parmenides is adequately dealt with by Schwabl, Anzeiger fur Altertumswissenschaft 9 (1956) 150f. F. Solmsen's important analysis, reducing the significance of unity in Eleatic thought perhaps too drastically, came into my hands as this book was going to press, too late for detailed criticism: see "The 'Eleatic One' in Melissus," Mededelingen der koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, Afd. Letterkunde, Nieuwe Reeks, Deel 32, No. 8 (1969) 221-233.

(66) See Proclus in Tim. 1.345.12f (Diehl) and Simpl. in Phys., e.g., 7.1ff, 21.16ff.
Stough, Charlotte. 1968. "Parmenides' "Way of Truth", B 8. 12-13." Phronesis.A Journal for Ancient Philosophy no. 13:91-107.

"The consistency with which fragment 8 of the Way of Truth has occupied the attention of commentators is evidence of its importance for an understanding of Parmenides' thought. Yet the many efforts to elucidate this passage have issued in diverse and mutually incompatible conclusions, with the result that the meaning of significant portions of the text remains in doubt. Lines 12-13, in particular, have been the subject of protracted but inconclusive debate and are still interpreted variously in the context of the fragment.(2)

οὐδὲ ποτ' ἐκ μὴ ἐόντος (3) ἐφήσει πίστιος ἰσχύς

γίγνεσθαί τι παρ' αὐτό.

The chief difficulty in interpreting these lines, and the source of the divergency of opinion as to their meaning, concerns the reference of αὐτό in line 13. The pronoun seems to point most naturally to μὴ ἐόντος in the preceding line as its grammatical antecedent. If the Greek is construed in this way, the lines can be rendered, "Nor will the force of conviction allow anything to arise out of what is not besides itself" (viz., what is not). Reading the passage accordingly, a number of scholars have translated it in some such fashion as the above.(4)" (p. 91)

"The main concern of this paper is to defend the meaningfulness of lines 12-13 as translated above and to clarify the function of that assertion in the context of Parmenides' argument. The first section deals with the claim that the lines so rendered are meaningless or

inappropriate in their content; the second section concerns the structure of the argument in which the statement occurs; and the third section discusses very briefly variant interpretations of the text." (p. 92)

(2) For three different interpretations in the recent literature see Kirk and Raven, The Presocratic Philosophers (1963), pp. 273-275; W. K. C. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy, Vol. II (1965), pp. 27-29; L. Tarán, Parmenides (1965), pp. 85, 95ff.

(3) Reading along with Diels and others ἐόντος for όντως in the MSS of Simplicius.

(49 Among them Diels (Parmenides Lehrgedicht, p. 37), Burnet (Early Greek Philosophy, p. 175), and most recently Guthrie (op. cit., p. 26).
Swindler, James Kenneth. 1980. "Parmenides' Paradox: Negative Reference and Negative Existentials." The Review of Metaphysics no. 33:727-744.

"In the beginning Parmenides sought to deny the void. But he found himself trapped by his language and his thought into admitting what he sought to deny. Wisely, he counseled others to avoid the whole region in which the problem arises, lest they too be unwarily ensnared. Plato, being less easily intimidated and grasping for the first time the urgency of the paradox, unearthed each snare in turn until he felt he had found a safe path through the forbidden terrain in a new conception of being and the derivation of its linguistic consequences in the Sophist. Aristotle evidently took Parmenides' advice; and save for a few groping scholastics, perhaps Leibniz, Brentano, and Meinong, and Frege only in passing, no one else attempted the crossing before Russell made his spectacular dash through the posted ground from the completely new direction of linguistic reference. Again the problem lay dormant for half a century until Strawson constructed a new low road through ordinary language and Quine improved Russell's high algebraic pass. Refinements of these routes have been forthcoming, especially from Searle and Kripke, until today it might appear that there are two super highways through Parmenides' forbidden country of nonbeing. In this essay I will first argue that these new linguistic highways are no more than flimsy camouflage hiding but not resolving the old paradoxes. I will then show how Plato's ontological way out, though more difficult, is the straight and narrow path." (p. 727)
Tallis, Raymond. 2007. The Enduring Significance of Parmenides: Unthinkable Thought. New York: Continuum.

Contents: Autobiographical Prelude IX; Preface: The once and future philosopher XII-XVI; Chapter 1. The strange dawn of Western thought 1; Chapter 2. The existence of What-Is-Not 27; Chapter 3. Propositional awareness encounters itself 50; Chapter 4. Why Parmenides happened 88; Chapter 5. Parmenides' footnotes: Plato and Aristotle 130; Chapter 6. Parmenides today 158; Works cited 189; Notes 195; Index 230-240.

"In Chapter 2, I shall examine Parmenides' central claim - that what-is-not is not - and discuss how what-is-not comes to have such a pervasive presence in the human world. The key to this, I shall argue, is possibility - which may or may not be actualized, as a result of which what-is exists explicitly and corresponds to `truth', and what-is-not can be individuated and be an explicit falsehood. Chapter 3 looks further into the origin of negation and possibility, finding it in the Propositional Awareness (knowledge, thought and discourse) that characterizes distinctively human consciousness. Parmenides' poem, I shall argue, is the first fully fledged encounter of Propositional Awareness with itself. Chapter 4 examines in what sense Parmenides was unique among the Presocratic thinkers and then why he and, indeed, Presocratic thought arose when they did. It is obvious that philosophy must have had non-philosophical origins. I try to dig deeper than the usual explanations and in doing so examine many factors - politics, trade, exile, the alphabet, different linguistic codes - that made seventh-century Greeks conscious of their consciousness in a way that had no precedent in the hundreds of thousands of years of human consciousness prior to this. Parmenides may be seen as the resultant of the factors that led to Presocratic thought plus his reaction to his predecessors. Chapter 5 examines the most important response to Parmenides - Plato's Parmenides - which did more than any other post-Parmenidean event to amplify Parmenides' influence kind, at the same time, to conceal him behind the Platonic ideas he is supposed to have provoked. I examine not only Plato's response to Parmenides but also Aristotle's response to Plato.

In the final chapter, I look at the possible meaning that Parmenides might have today. His present relevance resides in the fact that we may have reached the end of the cognitive road upon which he, pre-eminent amongst the early Greek philosophers, set mankind. Parmenides dismissed ordinary wakefulness as if it were a kind of sleep, in the hope of goading us to another kind of wakefulness. While the present book cannot match that ambition, I would very much hope that, by returning to the philosophical and historical hinterland of Parmenides' cataclysmic idea, I might start the process by which we return to the place from which Parmenides set out and journey in another direction in a world unimaginably different from his." (pp. 25-26)
———. 2012. In Defence of Wonder and Other Philosophical Reflections. Durham: Acumen.

Coda: Parmenides: The Great Awakening, pp. 225-238.

"In a much-quoted, and perhaps somewhat dispiriting, passage, Alfred North Whitehead described the European philosophical tradition as “a series of footnotes to Plato”.[*] Whether or not this is fair to the thinkers who followed Plato, it is a gross injustice to the philosophers who preceded him. Pre-eminent among these giants was Parmenides. Elizabeth Anscombe’s slightly tongue-in-cheek suggestion that Plato might be characterized as “Parmenides’ footnote”[**] is not as perverse as it seems. While Plato’s dialogues are among the supreme philosophical works of the Western tradition, it was Parmenides who established the implicit framework of their debates and laid down the rules of engagement. And he did so with remarkably little fuss." (p. 225)

[* ] Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology, New York: Free Press 1979, p. 39: "The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato."

[**] From Parmenides to Wittgenstein, Oxford: Basil Blackwell 1981. p. XI: "Whitehead's remark about Plato might, somewhat narrowly, be applied to his great predecessor: Subsequent philosophy is footnotes on Parmenides."
Tarán, Leonardo. 1967. "Proclus In Parm. 1152.33 (Cousin) and Parmenides 28 B 3 (Diels-Kranz)." Classical Philology no. 62:194-195.

Reprinted in L. Tarán, Collected Papers (1962-1999), Leiden: Brill, 2001, pp. 623-624.

In a recent study on Parmenides, Dr. Mansfeld takes Proclus in Parm. 1152. 33, ταύτόν δ έστίν εκεί νοέειν τε καί είναι to be a quotation of Parmenides 28 B 3; and he maintains that, however imperfect that quotation may be, there is no justification for the failure on the part of Diels and Kranz to mention that this fragment was known to Proclus.(1)" (p. 623)

"In short, although absolute certainty is impossible, Proclus in Parm. 1152. 33 is more likely to be a paraphrase of 28 B 8.34 than of 28 B 3 and, whether this was the reason that decided Diels and Kranz to exclude Proclus as a source of 28 B 3 or not, Dr. Mansfeld should have considered this possibility before blaming Diels and Kranz for what he takes to be their failure to mention an important source." (p. 624)

(1) J. Mansfeld, Die Offenbarung des Parmenides und die menschliche Welt (Assen 1964), pp. 69, 73, and esp. 79 f.
———. 1974. "Parmenides of Elea." In Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Vol. 10, edited by Gillispie, Charles C., 324-325. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.

Reprinted in L. Tarán, Collected Papers (1962-1999), Leiden: Brill, 2001, pp. 168-170.

"Parmenides' basic mistake is his misapplication of the law of the excluded middle to the disjunction being::notbeing.

Otherwise his reasoning is flawless, and none of the philosophers who came immediately after him was able to refute him. The refutation was reserved for Plato, especially in his Sophist; but Plato recognized the importance of Parmenides' attempt to apply the exigencies of logical proofs to thought and its object." (p 169 of the reprint)
———. 1977. "Concerning a New Interpretation of Parmenides." Gnomon no. 49:651-666.

Reprinted in L. Tarán, Collected Papers (1962-1999), Leiden: Brill, 2001, pp. 171-192.

Review-Article of A.P.D. Mourelatos, The Route ofParmenides. A Study of Word, Image, and Argument in the Fragments (New Haven-London 1970).

"In this work, where a new and revolutionary interpretation of Parmenides is put forward, M. does not discuss all the verbatim quotations from that philosopher, nor analyze the indirect evidence about him; he decided instead to concentrate his efforts on those Parmenidean texts that seem to him to provide the clue to Parmenides' thought.

The book consists of nine chapters and four appendices: Ch. I (Epic Form) deals with the relation of Parmenides' poem to the epic tradition, and is supplemented by app. I, which is devoted to Parmenides' use of the hexameter; ch. 2 (Cognitive Quest and the Route) is on the two routes of B 2,(1) and is itself complemented by app. II, on the different interpretations given to ἐστῐν in B 2, 3; in chs. 3 (The Vagueness of What-Is-Not), 4 (Signposts), 5 (The Bounds of Reality), and 7 (Mind's Commitment to Reality) M. discusses B 8 and B 9; ch. 6 (Persuasion and Fidelity) is devoted to the meaning of πείθειν and cognate words, ch. 8 (Doxa as Acceptance) mostly to an analysis of B I, 31-32, while ch. 9 (Deceptive Words) is an attempt to demonstrate Parmenides' purposeful use of ambiguity. App. III is on the meaning of χρή and cognate words, and app. IV contains the text of the fragments, but without a critical apparatus, for which the author refers to this reviewer's edition. (2)" (p. 171 of the reprint)

(1) I shall hereafter refer to Parmenides' fragments merely by the use of B followed by the number of the fragment in Diels-Kranz, Fragm. d. Vorsokr.⁶ (Berlin 1951-2).

(2) Cf. L. Taran, Parmenides (Princeton 1965).
———. 1979. "Perpetual Duration and Atemporal Eternity in Parmenides and Plato." The Monist no. 62:43-53.

Reprinted in L. Tarán, Collected Papers (1962-1999), Leiden: Brill, 2001, pp. 204-217.

"The purpose of this paper is less ambitious than its title might suggest, since it does not deal with everything that Plato has said on time and on eternity. Rather, it attempts to clarify some issues which have arisen in the controversy as to whether Parmenides or Plato was the first Western philosopher to grasp the notion of atemporal eternity. It is particularly concerned with some publications on the subject that have appeared within the last twelve years or so. G.E.L. Owen, in a paper published in this journal, has defended his earlier interpretation that Parmenides discovered the notion of atemporal eternity. (1) J. Whittaker for his part has contended that both Parmenides and Plato failed to grasp it, and would ascribe its discovery to some later thinker. (2) Yet another scholar, G. Reale, (3) believes that there is no essential difference between the position of Parmenides as reconstructed by Owen and others and that of Melissus. For Reale maintains that Melissus' formula "it is and always was and always will be" does not exclude atemporality, that it means the same thing as the alleged tenseless "is" predicated of Parmenicles' Being.

Most scholars, however, do agree -- and rightly so, I believe -- that in the Timaeus Plato has clearly grasped the notion of atemporal eternity. It is therefore best to begin the discussion with him, since it will then become apparent what an ancient philosopher meant by atemporal eternity and by the tenseless "is" that expresses it." (pp. 43-44)

(1) "Plato and Parmenides on the Timeless Present," The Monist 50 (1966), pp. 317-40. For references to earlier scholars who have defended this interpretation cf. my Parmenides (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1965), p. 175, n. 1.

(2) "The 'Eternity' of the Platonic Forms," Phronesis 13, (1968), 131-44 and God Time Being (Oslo 1970, Symbolae Osloenses. Fasc. Supplet. 23).

(3) Melisso, Testimonianze e frammenti (Firenze: La Nuova Italia Editrice, 1970), PP. 45-59, esp. 56-57 and 58-59.

(4) Cf. Melissus 30 B 2. The fragments of the presocratics are cited from H. Diels-W. Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (Berlin: Weidmannsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1951-52).
———. 1993. " Review: Etudes sur Parmenide I and II." Ancient Philosophy no. 13:152-156.

Reprinted in L. Tarán, Collected Papers (1962-1999), Leiden: Brill, 2001, pp. 193-198.

Review of Etudes sur Parménide. Published under the direction of P. Aubenque. Tome I: Le poème de Parménide, Tome II: Problèmes d'interpretation (Paris 1987).

"This voluminous work originated in the travaux of the Centre Leon-Robin, Centre de Recherches sur la Pensée antique de l'université de Paris-Sorbonne (Paris-IV) et laboratoire associé au C.N.R.S. No. 107, held in 1980 and 1981. These "travaux" resulted in the papers contained in vol. 2. (An additional paper by J. Wiesner, originating in a Berlin seminar with P. Moraux, is also included.) The publisher having asked for an edition and translation of Parmenides' poem, the assignment was given to D. O'Brien.

The first volume, then, consists (apart from the preliminary material) of a text of the poem with an apparatus of sources and notes where the variant readings are given. The Greek text (and the Latin text of Fr. 18 preserved by Caelius Aurelianus) is accompanied by an English translation by O'Brien and a French one by J. Frere. This is followed by these sections by O'Brien: a list of ancient authors, with editions and, sometimes, manuscripts; a supplementary note on Coxon's edition, which is severely criticized; an index of Greek words; a critical essay "Introduction à la lecture de Parménide: Les deux voies de l'ètre et du non-ètre" (137-252), supplemented by "Notes complementaires" (253-302). The volume ends with two indices, followed by an English summary of the contents of Parmenides' poem.

The second volume is divided into two parts, the first on Parmenides, the second on the tradition (or influence) of Parmenides on later Greek philosophy." (p. 193 of the reprint)
Tarrant, Harold. 1976. "Parmenides B1.3: Text, Context and Interpretation." Antichthon no. 10:1-7.

Abstract: "It is an almost universal principle that texts should not receive emendation until the reading of the MSS. has received careful consideration. An initial awkwardness may, after reflection, prove to be a poet's sacrifice of style to achieve some higher end – an allusion to traditional literature, a word-order reflecting the structure of his ideas, or the accurate expression of ideas which are not easily put into verse. The last reason is usually held responsible for the short-comings of Parmenides' poetry, while in his prologue, with which I am here concerned, sacrifices of the first kind may also be expected, as literary allusions have been proved plentiful and significant. In a previous publication I have also argued for a carefully contrived word-order at B8.53, hinting that this may also be the case at B1.3. If my hunch were correct, then it would involve restoring the manuscript reading in that line."
———. 1983. "The Conclusion of Parmenides' Poem." Apeiron.A Journal for Ancient Philosophy and Science no. 17:73-84.

"In Apeiron 13 (1979) p. 115 P. J. Bicknell assigns Parmenides B4 to the closing lines of the work, following the illusory account of the physical world; he relates its references to processes of separation and combination (lines 3-4) to some kind of 'cosmic cycle' which allegedly featured in the Doxa. Since I have long supposed that the Doxa did make use of opposite, if not cyclical, cosmic processes,(1) I am attracted by Bicknell's attempt to relocate this fragment." (p. 73)

"But placing B4 at the conclusion of the poem must be dependent upon one's overall view of the conclusion. If one regards B19 as the conclusion (and Simplicius' words make it quite clear that B19 closed the account of the physical world) (9) then B4 must be squeezed into the Way of Truth in spite the difficulty in finding a context for it and in spite of the fact that it refers to a cosmos (B4.3). To me it seems fairly clear that B19 did not conclude the poem, and that there was a short final section which commented further on the relation of Being to the world of phenomena. The considerations which bring me to this conclusion are independent of the attempt to place B4 there." (p. 74)

(1) See my "Parmenides and the Narrative of Not-Being", Proceedings and Papers of AULLA XVI (Adelaide, 1974) 90-109, particularly p. 103.
Tegtmeier, Erwin. 1999. "Parmenides' Problem of Becoming and Its Solution." Logical Analysis and History of Philosophy no. 2:51-65.

Abstract: "Parmenides advances four arguments against becoming. Two of these are sound. Plato's and Aristotle's attempt to refute them fail. They react to Parmenides' challenge by differentiating and grading being and existence. Thus they deviate from Parmenides' strict concept of existence which is the only reasonable one. What's wrong with Parmenides' train of thought is a decisive premise: that becoming is a transition from non-existence to existence. The reality of becoming can be maintained if (and only if) this premise is given up. One has to see that becoming is a purely temporal affair not involving existence and that existence is timeless. Time and existence are independent of each other."
Tejera, Victorino. 1997. Rewriting the History of Ancient Greek Philosophy. Westport: Greenwood Press.

Contents: Preface VII; 1. Aristotle versus the Peripatos: Consequences of the Conditions under Which the Aristotelian Corpus Came into Being1; 2. A New Look at the Sources19; 3. Parmenides 37; 4. The Poetic Presocratics: From Solon to the Dialogue Form 63; 5. The Academy Pythagorized: What We Can Know about the Intellectual Activities of the Pythagoreans 83; 6. What We Don't Know about Plato and Socrates 105; Selected Bibliography 121; Index 139-145.

"The interpretations of Parmenides' "Being" which have perpetuated the distinction between the objects of reason and the objects of sense as an epistemological one are just those that keep "Being" from being the appropriate subject of the cluster of predications that the Goddess makes about it in the poem. These interpretations turn the reader's problem into one of reconciling his own (or his times') notions about Being with the attributes Parmenides assigned to it. But the real problem is to find a subject to which the attributes can all be seen to attach without difficulty. The project, then, is to make coherent sense out of Parmenides' text in accordance with the kinds of sense it would have made to Parmenides' time and peers. The solution which we will come to here will also make literary sense out of the relationship between the different parts of the poem." (p. 37)

"One paradox about Parmenides' insight is that, while it is implied that discourse about "Being" must be strictly consistent when understood to be making truth-claims, the language in which he has enacted this lesson is not itself assertive or propositional, but exhibitive or poetic. But the logically two-valued strict discourse that the Goddess recommends is compelling, because it is the only guide we have to rightly conceptualizing the "All." Whether the characterization of Being that she has offered is itself strictly consistent is another matter. Is the "All," for instance, in fact one, or only because, to be spoken of at all, it must have the unity of a grammatical subject? The "All," we can agree, is certainly distributively exhaustive and innummerable. But we may ask, with Buchler, is it a unity in the sense of having a collective existential integrity? There certainly cannot be two Alls; but, in the Goddess's own terms, it could not be completely observed even if it did have such a unity. Conceptually, the "All" can be all there is, was, and will be without having any other than a nominal or grammatical unity; like Buchler's "the world," it has no collective integrity. And this is why nature philosophy must ever be an incomplete (endeês) and merely probable (hôs eikós) account, as Plato's Timaios will be willing to admit when he rehearses for Socrates his eikóta mûthon in the Timaeus. This, in turn, reassures us that Plato -- unlike the neoplatonist forgers of the Lokrian Timaios -- has quite understood and taken to heart Parmenides' admonitions about nature-inquiry." (pp. 59-60)
Thanassas, Panagiotis. 2006. "How Many Doxai Are There in Parmenides?" Rhizai.A Journal for Ancient Philosophy and Science no. 3:199-218.

"The paucity of surviving fragments of the Doxa section certainly reinforces the tendency to overlook its importance. But how did it happen that, at least according to Diels (1897 [Parmenides, Lehrgedicht, Reimer, Berlin (2nd ed.: Academia Verlag, Sankt Augustin 2003)], 25-26), about 9/10ths of the material on Aletheia has survived, but only about 1/10th of the material on Doxa? I would recommend viewing the scant attention paid to Doxa as a case of helplessness without any parallel in the history of philosophy. From Plato to Heidegger (or if one prefers, to Guthrie), the history of philosophy has consistently been confronted with the above-mentioned duality of Doxa and has not known how to deal with it. The loss of so much material on Doxa has less to do with its lack of philosophical content than with the tradition’s intuitive strategy of resolving the aporia by eliminating that duality. After the detailed passages of Parmenides’ cosmogony and cosmology had been lost, Doxa could be restricted to a region of 'lies and deception' (5) and then completely dismissed as philosophically uninteresting." (p. 200)

"We are not in a position to revoke retroactively the traditional oversight and to remedy the substantial loss of essential passages from Parmenides’ cosmogony and cosmology. But we can and must set the record straight: the fact, the factum brutum that there really were such passages, should not remain ignored. A 'correction' of this oversight does not take its bearings by the criterion of historical fidelity; we do not 'correct' the oversight because it discredits just a part of Parmenides’ philosophy, but because it distorts what is the heart of that philosophy: Parmenidean Aletheia." (p. 201)

(5) ‘Lug und Trug’: Reinhardt (1916) [Parmenides und die Geschichte der griechischen Philosophie, Klostermann, Frankfurt (5th ed.1985)], 6.
———. 2008. Parmenides, Cosmos, and Being: A Philosophical Interpretation. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press.

Contents: Acknowledgments 6; 1. The Poem and its legacy 9; 2. The Heart of Truth 23; 3. Esti, Being and Thinking 31; 4. The signs of Being 43; 5. Doxa: mixture vs. partition 61; 6. Aletheia and Doxa: the human and the divine 77; Appendix: translation of the Fragments 89; Selected bibliography 99: Index of names 107; Index of topics 109.

"Indeed, given the plurality of themes and intentions effective in the second part of the poem, the simple, unqualified use of the Doxa seems altogether misleading. In view of this, the presentation undertaken above discerned four distinctive perspectives on Doxa:

(1) Understanding the deceptive human conjectures and demonstrating their error (8.53-9).

(2) Presenting an appropriate positive Doxa that rests on a mixture of both forms instead of their separation, thus counteracting the deception (8.60 ff.).

(3) Portraying the genesis of the deceptive opinions, the divergences of which are traced back to differences in the perceptual apparatus (16).

(4) Giving (in the Aletheia) an ontological evaluation and rejecting the deceptive opinions by demonstrating their path to be the “third (non-) way” (6, 7). (pp.79-80)
———. 2011. "Parmenidean Dualisms." In Parmenides, 'Venerable and Awesome' (Plato, Theaetetus 183e), edited by Cordero, Néstor-Luis, 289-308. Las Vegas: Parmenides Publishing.

Summary: "The poem of Parmenides is systematically composed of dual structures. The part of Aletheia establishes an opposition between Being and Non-Being, but also an “identity” between Being and Thinking; the part of Doxa attempts to give an account of the relation between the two forms of Light and Night; finally, it is the duality of the two parts of the poem themselves that poses the question of their own relation. I attempt to explore the character and role of these dualisms, and especially their impact on the traditional perception of Parmenides as a rigorous “monist.” "
———. 2020. "Ontology and Doxa: On Parmenides’ Dual Strategies." Anais de Filosofia Clássica no. 28:216-249.

Abstract: "Starting from Reinhardt’s interpretive instruction to take into account both parts of the poem of Parmenides in order to achieve a sufficient understanding of his philosophy, this paper aims to re-evaluate the state of recent scholarship, and to propose an approach that reveals the “dualistic methodology” at the heart of Parmenides’ philosophy. The ontological monism of Truth emerges as grounded in the dualistic projection of the concepts of Being and Nothing. The dualism of Doxa, structured upon the forms of Light and Night, evolves by producing a further duality: the erroneous opinions that separate the two forms have to be replaced by the appropriate cosmological world-order of their mixture. Finally, the poem as a whole, in its two parts, reflects a deeper duality, which signifies the profound distance that separates the human from the divine. The importance of all these binary structures compels us to re-examine the consideration of Parmenides as champion of a blind monism."
Thom, Paul. 1986. "A Lesniewskian Reading of Ancient Ontology: Parmenides to Democritus." History and Philosophy of Logic no. 7:155-166.

Abstract: "Parmenides formulated a formal ontology, to which various additions and alternatives were proposed by Melissus, Gorgias, Leucippus and Democritus. These systems are here interpreted as modifications of a minimal Lesniewskian Ontology."

"There is a tradition of ontological theorising which commences with Parmenides and whose central arguments can can be given a purely formal interpretation. This, of course, is not their only possible interpretation. It is, nonetheless, worthy of consideration, as a means of articulating the continuities and discontinuities within that tradition, and of investigating the prehistory of logic.

The main thesis of this paper is that such a purely formal interpretation of Parmenides, his followers and critics, is best expressed in the language (or, if you wish, in some of the languages) of Leśniewski's Ontology." (p. 155)
———. 1999. "The Principle of Non-Contradiction in Early Greek Philosophy." Apeiron.A Journal for Ancient Philosophy and Science no. 32:153-170.

Abstract: "The principle of non-contradiction received ontological formulations (in terms of 'being' and 'non-being') as well as logical formulations (in terms of affirmation and denial) in early Greek philosophy. The history of these formulations is traced in the writings of Parmenides, Gorgias, Plato and Aristotle. Gorgias noticed that the principle — in Parmenides' formulation NC: 'Not (what-is-not is)' — is inconsistent with the thesis G that what-is-not is what-is-not, given a principle P whereby we can infer from 'a is b' to 'a is'. Parmenides, Gorgias, Plato and Aristotle all address the inconsistent triad {NC, G, P} in different ways."
———. 2002. "On the Pervasiveness of Being." In Presocratic Philosophy: Essays in Honour of Alexander Mourelatos, edited by Caston, Victor and Graham, Daniel W., 293-301. Aldershot: Ashgate.

Abstract: "The pervasiveness of Being is the doctrine that everything is. This doctrine would be false if something was not. That being is pervasive is not a trivial claim. An ontology might be motivated by the desire to quantify over non-beings in such a way that we can say that something is a flying man without implying that some being is a flying man. If such a distinction is allowed, then it might be thought that something is not, even though no being is not. Pervasiveness then would be true for beings but not for ‘something's.'

This chapter explores the different positions that philosophers from Parmenides to Aristotle take on the question of the pervasiveness of Being, and traces some of the relations linking those positions to one another."

"Note the thesis’s modal import. Parmenides is asserting that everything is, not just as a matter of fact, but necessarily. And this is fitting, given that the premiss of his reasoning is the modal claim that ‘a is not' cannot be said.

Is Parmenides' position internally consistent? It depends. If we suppose that his philosophy is intended as a description of language in general, then it will appear to be self-refuting. He tells us that various things can not be spoken, or thought, or singled out, or consummated, at the same time forbidding us to make negative statements. Consistency can, however, be rescued by distinguishing an object-language about which Parmenides is speaking, and a meta-language in which he is speaking. We can then represent him as saying, in the meta-language, that there are no negative statements in the object-language. In this case, Parmenides' project will be a prescriptive one - to delineate the conditions that govern a certain ‘higher' language that is not subject to the contradictions inherent in the language of mortals.

This is a noble conception, but not one that will be universally shared. Faced with these Parmenidean prescriptions, there will always be anarchic spirits who will dare to speak of what is alleged to be unspeakable." (p. 294)
Tilgham, B. R. 1969. "Parmenides, Plato and logical atomism." Southern Journal of Philosophy no. 7:151-160.

"It has been remarked more than once that many of the questions raised by philosophers in the twentieth century are more nearly akin to those raised by the Greeks than to the ones that concerned their more recent predecessors.

I am interested here in kinship that, if not altogether unnoticed, does not seem to have been commented upon. I want to show that there is a problem that both Parmenides and Plato dealt with that seems very much like one that intrigued Frege, Russell, and Wittgenstein and also that the way Plato saw to what he thought was its solution is very similar to that taken by Russell and Wittgenstein." (p. 151)
Tor, Shaul. 2015. "Parmenides’ Epistemology and the Two Parts of His Poem." Phronesis no. 60:3-39.

Abstract: "This paper pursues a new approach to the problem of the relation between Aletheia and Doxa. It investigates as interrelated matters Parmenides’ impetus for developing and including Doxa, his conception of the mortal epistemic agent in relation both to Doxa’s investigations and to those in Aletheia, and the relation between mortal and divine in his poem. Parmenides, it is argued, maintained that Doxastic cognition is an ineluctable and even appropriate aspect of mortal life. The mortal agent, however, is nonetheless capable of sustaining the cognition of Alëtheia by momentarily coming to think with — or as — his divine (fiery, aethereal) soul."
———. 2017. Mortal and Divine in Early Greek Epistemology: Study of Hesiod, Xenophanes and Parmenides. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Contents: Preface and Acknowledgements page IX; List of Abbreviations XII; Introduction 1; 1 Rationality and Irrationality, Philosophy and Religion 10; 2 Hesiodic Epistemology 61; 3 Xenophanes on Divine Disclosure and Mortal Inquiry 104; Introduction to the Chapters on Parmenides 155; 4 Why Did Parmenides Write Doxa? 163; 5 How Could Parmenides Have Written Alêtheia? 222; 6 Retrospect and Prospect 309; Appendix 347; Bibliography 360; Index Locorum 387; General Index 399-406.

"On the assumption, which I share, that the goddess represents Doxa as the best possible account of Doxastic things, she indeed implies that even the best cosmology could never constitute an account of the unshaken heart of ultimate reality. Nonetheless, the scope and nature of Parmenides’ cosmological investigations undermine these dialectical responses to the aetiological question.

The goddess had concluded in Alêtheia her critical demonstrations that processes like coming-to-be and change do not typify what-is. Both direct and indirect evidence indicates that what followed in Doxa was an extended and detailed exposition, thoroughly positive in tone, of diverse scientific theories, spanning, among other things, universal cosmology (DK28 B9, B12; A37), cosmogony (B10–11), astronomy (B10–11; B14–15; A40a), geography (A44a; B15a), theogony (B13), anthropogony (Diogenes Laertius, 9.22, A53), embryology (B18; A53–4) and human physiology and cognition (A46 = B16, A46a-b, A52)." (pp. 163-164)
———. 2020. "Parmenides on the Soul." In Heat, Pneuma, and Soul in Ancient Philosophy and Science, edited by Bartoš, Hynek and King, Colin Guthrie, 61-79. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

"Direct doxographic reports concerning Parmenides’ view of the soul are scanty, schematic and variable. Aëtius indiscriminately ascribes to Parmenides and Hippasus the view that the soul is fiery (Παρμενίδης δὲ καὶ Ἵππασος πυρώδη, A 45, followed by Theodoret, Graec. affect. cur. 5,16,5–6, 18,5–6). According to Macrobius, who most likely reflects here nothing more than the awareness that Parmenides’ cosmology was dualistic, Parmenides maintained that the soul was constituted from earth and fire (Parmenides ex terra et igne, A 45). Theophrastus, according to Diogenes Laërtius, said that Parmenides identified soul and mind: ‘and [sc. Parmenides says that] the soul and the mind are one and the same, as Theophrastus too mentions in his Physics’ (καὶ τὴν ψυχὴν καὶ τὸν νοῦν ταὐτὸν εἶναι, καθὰ μέμνηται καὶ Θεόφραστος ἐν τοῖς Φυσικοῖς, A 1,11–12).

In view of this scarcity and variance, it is not surprising that the question of Parmenides’ conception of the soul has been largely ignored in modern scholarship, despite an upsurge of interest in recent years in Parmenides’ cosmology more generally. In his account of Parmenides’ natural philosophy, for example, Giovanni Casertano (2011) recounts our evidence for his conception of soul and, without further comment, concludes that ‘we do not have any clue to judge on this point’.(1) In this chapter, I wish to

challenge this verdict and to offer a sustained examination of Parmenides’ conception of soul and of the relation of this conception to his broader cosmological, physiological and eschatological attitudes in Doxa.(2)" (p. 61)

(1) Casertano 2011, 49 n. 111.

(2 This chapter, then, explores in detail Parmenides’ psychology and its place in his cosmology more broadly. For a discussion of the role which Parmenides’ notion of a divine element within the mortal (his soul) plays in his epistemology, and of the light which this notion can shed on the relation between the two parts of his poem, see Tor 2017, 155–308.

References

Casertano, G. (2011). “Parmenides: Scholar of Nature,” in N. L. Cordero (Ed.), Parmenides Venerable and Awesome. Las Vegas: Parmenides Publishing, 21–58

Tor, S. (2017). Mortal and Divine in Early Greek Epistemology: A Study of Hesiod, Xenophanes and Parmenides. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
———. 2023. "Language and doctrine in Parmenides’ Way of Reality." The Journal of Hellenic Studies no. 143:1-26.

Abstract: "As early as Plato and as recently as current scholarship, readers of Parmenides have diagnosed tensions of one sort or another between his ontological views and the language through which he expresses those views. In the first instance, this article examines earlier claims for such tensions and argues that they are predicated on problematic assumptions concerning Parmenides’ ontological commitments or his strictures regarding the use of language. In the second instance, however, it argues that Parmenides’ Way of Reality does indeed confront us with tensions between language and doctrine, that these tensions are more pointed and sustained than scholars generally recognize and that they can be identified independently of specific or determinate elaboration of Parmenides’ precise ontological views. This analysis discloses a reflective preoccupation with, and a consistent attitude towards, the scope and limitations of human language. Parmenides persistently evinces his awareness that his description of what-is proceeds through expressive measures that are imported with difficulty from a different domain and, consequently, are limited, indirect and often figurative. The article closes by pointing to a meaningful (but partial) affinity between Parmenides and those Platonists who placed their own ultimate philosophical and ontological principle beyond the expressive reach of words."
Torgerson, Tobias Peter. 2006. "The εἰδως φώς and the traditional dichotomy of divine and mortal epistemology." Revue de Philosophie Ancienne no. 24:25-43.

Abstract: "That Parmenides drew upon previous poets' dichotomy between divine knowledge and mortals' opinions is obvious. In his poem, the word βροτός, "mortal," always carries a connotation of ignorance or opinion. Nevertheless, Parmenides credits one type of human being - the εἰδότα φῶτα of line 1.3 - with true knowledge. This man receives a divine revelation of the truth about being, yet it seems that he possesses some knowledge even before the goddess' revelation. What sets him apart from other mortals and grants him access to divine knowledge? Homer, Hesiod, and other poets had previously spoken of the false notions of mortals, the inscrutable truth accessible only to the gods, and the conditions of revelation. By comparing and contrasting Parmenides with his predecessors, we can perceive an original element in his adaptation of the dichotomy of mortal and divine epistemology: there is a type of human being, the είδως φως whose mental perception νοός not only liberates him from the deceptive opinions of mortals but also renders him able to verify the words of the gods themselves."
Townsley, A. L. 1974. "Parmenides and Gregory of Nyssa: an antecedent of the dialectic of participation in being, in De vita Moysis." Salesianum no. 36:641-646.
———. 1975. "Cosmic Eros in Parmenides." Rivista di Studi Classici no. 22:337-346.
———. 1975. "Parmenides' religious vision and aesthetics " Athenaeum no. 53:343-351.
———. 1976. "Some comments on Parmenidean eros " Eos no. 64:153-161.
Travers, Martin. 2019. The Writing of Aletheia: Martin Heidegger in Language. Bern: Peter Lang

Chapter 3: Re-calling the Originary: Parmenides, pp. 105-139.

"Parmenides’ poem has been read as an allegory of an “ontological education”: “the youth is to learn how to think properly according to the divine; his thinking will be removed from mortal thinking and brought to think ‘to eon’ [‘Being’] properly” (Jacobs 188). He will achieve this by learning fromthe goddess what truth, “aletheia”, means. Consequently, Heidegger explores during the course of his lectures the nature of that concept, explicating its past uses, literary and philosophical, in an attempt to establish its foundationalcentrality to “inceptual thinking”. The first lecture, a discussion of the goddess “Aletheia”, is followed by an enquiry into the conditions required to regain contact with the originary meaning of truth as “aletheia”, and a disquisition on how the methods of conventional translation are insufficient to achieve this. In his second and third lectures, he discusses the various forms of “aletheia” as “unconcealedness” (Unverborgenheit), and how these manifest themselves in “forgetting”. This is followed by an analysis of the conflicting notions of “truth” in Greek and Latin, and a critique of the historical dominance of the latter in Western culture. The fourth and fifth lectures focus on “the multiplicity of the opposites of unconcealedness”, notably those connected with “lethe”. In the lecture that follows, Heidegger exhorts us to return to the “rich essence of concealedness” and, in furtherance of this, to be prepared to make contact with “aletheia” through hand and eye, as we open ourselves, as the Greeks did through their art and literature, to the experience of the “uncanny” (Ungeheuer). Parmenides concludes with two lectures that chart the movement of “aletheia” into the “open and free space of Being”, before concluding with a return to the journey that the hero of the poem has undertaken." (p. 107)

References

Jacobs, David C. “The Ontological Education of Parmenides”. The Presocratics after Heidegger. Ed. David C. Jacobs. Albany: The State University of New York Press, 1999. 185–202.
Tsantsanoglou, Kyriakos. 2017. "Parmenides in the Derveni Papyrus?" Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik no. 203:24.

"In "Parmenides in the Derveni Papyrus: New Images for a New Edition", ZPE [Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik] 200 (2016) Richard Janko, exploiting new technologies not available to old papyrologists, makes a ing discoveries in the Papyrus of Derveni. Perhaps his most astonishing finding is the one article, viz., a quotation of Parmenides' fr. 1.1 D.-K., actually some letters close to the end of Parmenides' poem: "ϊπποι ταί με φέρουΰΐν, öcov τ' έπι θ/υμόϋ ίκά,νοι" The quotation was found in the third line of fr. G 16, one of the unplaced fragmentsd of the KPT edition." (p. 24)

KPT = Theokritos Kouremenos, George M. Parássoglou, Kyriakos Tsantsanoglou (eds.), The Derveni Papyrus, Firenze, Leo Olschki, 2006.
Tugwell, Simon. 1964. "The Way of Truth." Classical Quarterly no. 14:36-41.

"Professor G.E.L. Owen has demonstrated (C. Q. [Classical Quarterly]. N.s. X (1960), 84 ff.) that Parmenides' Way ef Truth is to be taken as a self-contained logical argument.

The basis for this argument is a proof that whatever we may choose to think about εον. The first stage of this proof is contained in B 2.

According to Owen's reconstruction of the argument, Parmenides' method is to take the three possible answers to the question εστιν η ουκ εστιν; (i.e. an unqualified yes; an unqualified no; and a noncommittal answer that sometimes we must say yes, sometimes no) and rule out two of them. This view involves giving equal status to each of the two wrong answers; but Parmenides appears not to do this." (p. 36)
Tulli, Mauro. 2022. "Parmenides’ inquiry and the literary representation of the ways." Phoînix no. 28:48-63.

Abstract: "Critics often consider the division in Parmenides’ poem among fields of knowledge or not knowledge, depicted in a polar perspective. In the tale of the journey the division emerges, for example, with the allusion to the day and the night or with the image of the door and in a polar perspective unravels the speech given by the goddess in the vibrant exhortation to achieve both the truth and the opinion, which does not convince. In the complex panorama of the preserved fragments, the desire to describe the result of inquiry, being, as redemption from the darkness, which conditions the life of mortals, is woven with the desire to stress the choice among the ways of inquiry, not all positive, not all oriented towards the truth. Certainly, the ways of inquiry. But how many? The division involves the opinion, the ghost of not being, the doctrines of Heraclitus or the common people, with the metaphors of deafness and blindness. It is useful to check the literary tradition and this paper will try to understand the choice among the ways of inquiry by means of the peculiar pattern of the Priamel, the frame of parallel structures which underlines in Sappho’s song or in the corpus of Pindar the new conception that the author offers."
Vandoulakis, Ioannis M. 2024. "On a Possible Relation Between Greek Mathematics and Eleatic Philosophy." In Universal Logic, Ethics, and Truth: Essays in Honor of John Corcoran (1937-2021), edited by Madigan, Timothy J. and Béziau, Jean-Yves, 217-230. Cham (Switzerland): Birkhäuser.

Abstract: "In this paper, we approach the problem of the relationship between Greek mathematics and Eleatic philosophy from a new perspective, which leads us to a reappraisal of Szabó’s hypothesis about the origin of mathematics out of Eleatic philosophy. We claim that Parmenidean philosophy, particularly its semantic core, has possibly been shaped by reflexion on the Pythagoreans’ mathematical practice, particularly in arithmetic. Furthermore, Pythagorean arithmetic originates not from another domain outside mathematics but from counting, i.e., it has its roots in man’s practical activity. This interpretation restores the historically inverse relationship between mathematics and philosophy, refuting the attribution of mathematics’ origin to a field outside mathematics, for which Szabó’s hypothesis has been criticized. Moreover, Parmenidean theory of truth is viewed not as a defective predecessor of Aristotle’s classical theory of truth that needs to be remedied but as a semantic conception coordinated with the mathematics of Parmenides’ times."
Vassallo, Christian. 2016. "Parmenides and the «First God». Doxographical Strategies in Philodemus’ On Piety. Praesocratica Herculanensia VII." Hyperborea no. 22:29-57.

Abstract: "Among the several Herculanean testimonia to Parmenides, fr. 13 of PHerc. 1428 no doubt represents the most important piece of evidence for this pre-Socratic philosopher. A new autopsy of the papyrus made a reconstruction of the name ‘Eros’ at line 12 possible. Within the Doxa section of Parmenides’ poem, Eros is notoriously described as the first of the gods to be created by Aphrodite (DK 28 B 13). In fr. 12 DK, Aphrodite is defined in turn as the goddess governing the universe, who represents the balancing point of the astronomical theory of celestial spheres. In the second part of the Herculanean fragment, Philodemus says that, according to Parmenides, the “first god” would be inanimate and that gods who were generated by him would have, in the view of mortal people, the same passions of human beings. The paper argues that Philodemus could have (a) either intentionally mixed his sources in order to create a pendant between PHerc. 1428’s frs. 12 (on Xenophanes) and 13 (on Parmenides); (b) gone back to an older tradition, later developed by early Stoicism, which exactly describes the “first god” as the ruler of the universe and absolutely devoid of human passions; (c) or mixed some attributes of Parmenides’ god with those ascribed to One by his

follower Melissus."
Verdenius, Willem Jacob. 1942. Parmenides. Some Comments on his Poem. Groningen: J. B. Wolters.

Reprinted with a new Preface: Amsterdam: A. M. Hakkert, 1964.

Contents: Preface (to the reprint) III-IV; Introduction 1; Chapter I. The doctrine of knowing 5; Chapter II. The doctrine of being 31; Chapter I. The doctrine of opinion 45; Appendices 64; Bibliography 79; English index 81; Greek index 82; Index of quotations 83-88.

"The present study was submitted as a doctoral dissertation to the Faculty of Arts of Utrecht University in 1942. Since its publication, so many books and articles have been written on the same problems that it might seem presumptuous to reprint a comparatively old work. I do not want to suggest that everything published after my thesis has little or no value. On the other hand, a critical evaluation of these works would not affect the substance of my original comments. As the book continued to be in demand and I could not find time to carry out my intention of writing a full commentary, an unrevised reprint seemed to be the only solution.

There are three points on which I have altered my opinion. I no longer believe, as I did in my dissertation (p. 73 f.) and in Mnemosyne III 13 (1947), pp. 272 ff., that Περί φύσεως may have been the original title of Parmenides' work and of the works of a number of other Pre-Socratics. I now take the subject of εστιν in frags 2,3 and 8,2 to be Άληδείη in the sense of ‘the true nature of things' (cf. Mnemos. IV 15, 1962, p. 237), and not Reality in the sense of the total of things (as suggested in my dissertation, p. 32). The μέλεα in frag. 16 I no longer take to be ‘something between the two universal Forms and the parts of the human frame' (p. 7), but the human frame itself (cf. Mnemosyne IV 2, 1949, p. 126 n. 5fn)." (Preface III)

"Expounding an ancient philosophy is only possible with the aid of modern notions, which have a more limited sense than the material to which they are to be applied. Hence the difficulty of ascertaining the differences between ancient and modern abstractions and the danger of misconceiving an idea through attaching a too specific meaning to one or other particular expression. It will now be understood how in the course of time Parmenides has come to be classed with the most divergent philosophical systems. An attempt might be made to classify and analyse all these various interpretations. This would, however, not be the most expedient way to arrive at the real meaning of the poem. It stands to reason that our conclusions should be constantly reviewed and tested in the light of current opinion, but the more our considerations are bound up with the criticism of other interpreters, the greater will be the difficulty in evolving a coherent system of interpretation.

So I will attempt to follow a more positive method by considering in detail three fundamental problems of Parmenides' philosophy, viz. 'Knowing', 'Being', and 'Opinion'. If it proves to be possible to arrive at definite conclusions in this respect, the road will probably be clear for a better understanding of the thoughts associated with these principles.

With regard to the method adopted in my interpretation I may conclude with the following remark. I have pointed out already that Parmenides stands out from his predecessors by the application of a deductive method and the building up of a coherent argument. The methodical way of reasoning characterizes his work so much that even in ancient times he was classed by some critics among the dialecticians. In fact, his syllogisms, the distinction made between the three 'ways of inquiring', and also his way of putting questions foreshadow dialectical methods. This is not surprising since the whole trend of his thought aims at valid arguments, cogent conclusions, and complete evidence'. It seems advisable, then, to give more attention to the logical form in which Parmenides exposes his views than has been done hitherto. When the goddess of Truth counsels him not to trust to the senses but to judge by reasoning, we might accept her words as a suggestion to base our interpretation on the logical context of the argument in accordance with Parmenides' own intention.

It may be objected that a criterium for such a logical context is hard to find since in a pre-Aristotelian philosopher we cannot expect a method of reasoning which may be formulated in syllogisms. From the logical point of view Parmenides' argument undeniably does not always comply with scientific standards, but this does not imply that the form of the syllogism is not applicable to his thought. This form is not an invention of Aristotle kept alive by convention, but it is at the root of all reasoning. Parmenides may not have been aware of the syllogistic form as a general mode of arguing, but he uses it, it may be unconsciously and not always accurately, yet, generally speaking, 'guided by truth itself'.

I have undertaken the following inquiries in the belief that such a 'truth' exists, and that the principles of logic are no mere arbitrary grammatical phenomena as moderns would have us believe, but the universal foundation which underlies all science, including the science of interpretation." (pp. 3-4, notes omitted).
———. 1947. "Notes on the Presocratics." Mnemosyne no. 13:271-289.

"The term πίστης is used in the sense of 'religious faith' in the New Testament (e.g. I Cor. 13, 13), but it has not got this meaning in early Greek literature. In the works of the Pre-Socratics πίστης means 'evidence, both in the subjective sense of confidence that one's belief is true and in the objective sense of reliable signs which justify such confidence' (15). Parmenides used it to denote the logical stringency of his argument (frag. 8, 12 and 28); his Way of Truth is at the same time Πειθοῦς κέλευθος (frag. 2, 4)." (p. 1)

(15) G. Vlastos, Philos. Rev. 55 (1946), 590 n. 60. ["Ethics and Physics in Democritus", The Philosophical Review, Vol. 54, No. 6 (Nov., 1945), pp. 578-592]

The text by Gregory Vlastos:

"Unlike Platonic being which, immaterial by definition, is never given in sensation, Democritean being is the material stuff of nature as we see, touch, and taste it.) The "assurance" (πίστης) (60) of its existence must, therefore, be given in the phenomenon " (p. 590, two notes omitted)

(60) πίστης in [Diels-Kranz] B. 125: φρήν gets its πίστεις from the senses. This is confirmed by Sextus (Adv. Math. 7.136; B. 9 in Diels-Kranz), who tells us that in his essay entitled κρατυντήρια Democritus "promised to assign to the senses the power of evidence (το κράτος της πίστεως)." This last should be compared with πίστιος ἰσχύς in Parmenides, B. 8, 12. Πίστης in the pre-socratics is not an inferior form of knowledge as in Plato, Rep. VI 511e, but evidence, both in the subjective sense of confidence that one's belief is true and in the objective sense of reliable signs which justify such confidence.
———. 1949. "Parmenides Conception of Light." Mnemosyne no. 2:116-131.

"In this paper I shall deal with a problem in the philosophy of Parmenides which has been rather neglected, because it did not seem to be a problem at all. Parmenides based his cosmology on the dualism of two primary substances, Fire or Light and Night." (p. 116)

"Perhaps another aspect of his mind may bring us nearer to the solution of our problem. In the proem of his work Parmenides describes his discovery of the truth as a journey from the realm of Darkness to the realm of Light Driving a car and guided by Sun-maidens he passes through the gates of Night and Day and is kindly welcomed by a goddess who discloses to him the principles of reality. There is much in this description that may be regarded as mere poetical imagery, but there are also many details which have a serious meaning. I shall only mention those points which have some bearing upon the present question." (p. 119)

"It may be suggested that Parmenides in a similar manner distinguished between a supreme kind of light as the cognitive aspect of Being and Truth, and an inferior kind of light restricted to the world of change and opinion. This interpretation would fit in very well with the general trend of his philosophy, which tries to attribute the various aspects of the world to a higher and a lower plane of reality.

It might only be asked how Parmenides managed to get from the lower plane of empirical reality up to the higher plane of Being, or in other words: how the ordinary light which formed one of the elements of his mental constitution could pass into the divine light which enabled him to grasp the ultimate principle of reality. This criticism is justified; it could only be met by putting another question: is there anyone who has succeeded in finding a satisfactory transition from psychology to metaphysics?" (pp. 130-131, a note omitted)
———. 1962. "Parmenides B2, 3." Mnemosyne no. 15:237.

"Much ingenuity has been spent on the question as to what is the subject of ἔστιν in Parmenides B 2,3 (and 8,2), but even the most recent attempts, such as that made by G. E. L. Owen in C.Q. 10 (1960), 95, are far from convincing.

My own suggestion (Parmenides, 32), that the subject is reality in the sense of the total of things, has not met with much approval. I now believe that the clue to the solution of this problem is to be found in B 8, 51 ἀμφὶς ἀληθείης. If Truth is the subject of the goddess' discourse, it is by implication the subject of ἔστιν." (p.237)
———. 1977. "Opening Doors (Parm. B 1, 17-18) " Mnemosyne no. 30:287-288.

"After Dike has removed the bar (5), the doors open spontaneously at the approach of the divine maidens." (pp. 287-288)

(5) Wiersma, [Notes on Gree Philosophy] Mnemosyne IV 20 (1967), 405 rightly points out that this idea has to be supplied from the context.
———. 1980. "Opening Doors Again." Mnemosyne no. 33:175.

In my note on Parmenides B 1, 17-8 in this journal, IV 30 (1977), 287-8, I forgot to refer to K. J. McKay, Door Magic Epiphany Hymn, CQ [Classical Quarterly] 17 (1967), 184-94, who discusses Callim. H. 2, 6 in connection with Hom. Epigr. XV 3-5 and other texts." (p. 175)
Vick, George R. 1971. "Heidegger's Linguistic Rehabilitation of Parmenides' 'Being'." American Philosophical Quarterly no. 8:139-150.

Reprinted in: Michael Murray (ed.), Heidegger and Modern Philosophy, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978 pp. 204-221.

"It is a fairly well-known fact that Martin Heidegger has defended Parmenides' account of Being, (1) but the strategy of his complex semantic and etymological arguments for the meaningfulness of Parmenides' type of discourse on Being is unknown to the great majority of philosophers in Britain and America(2) - indeed is virtually unnoted even within the phenomenological-existential school (in part, perhaps, because of the abstruse character of both his thought and language).

Furthermore, the fact that Heidegger has corrected what is ordinarily taken as an essential part of Parmenides' theory has not, so far as I know, been pointed out, even by Heidegger.(4) Nor has anyone taken note of the way in which Heidegger's correction makes what remains of Parmenides' theory more defensible. In the following pages I shall attempt to set forth and explain Heidegger's strategy (including a reason why it has been useful for him to couch his argument in language that is so abstruse). I will then go on to show the way in which his correction of Parmenides' theory strengthens its claim to being true." (p. 139)

1 This defense is to be found primarily in the most extensive work of Heidegger's later period, his Einfuhrung in die Metaphysik (1953) in which his summer lectures at Freiburg in 1935 were revised and published. All page references will be to the English translation by Ralph Mannheim, An Introduction to Metaphysics (New Haven, 1959).

(2) For this strategy, see especially ibid, ch. II and III, pp. 52-92. (p 139, a note omitted)

(4) See fn. 44.

(44) Heidegger has, indeed, distinguished his own view of the meaning of "Being" from that which he maintains has been current since antiquity (cf. Heidegger, op. cit., [Introduction to Metaphysics] pp. 203-204). And the view which Heidegger regards as having been current since antiquity is that in which Being is regarded as excluding our saying that becoming, appearing, thinking, and the ought are, and this is a view which is, except with respect to the third of these four factors, usually attributed to Parmenides. But, on the other hand, he has continually distinguished between the authentic pre-Socratic, or Parmenidean, view of Being, and the defective view which has come down to us since (Ibid., pp. 179-196). And he has, furthermore, given an exegesis of Parmenides in which he interprets him as allowing to thinking a certain distinction from Being (in that he interprets Parmenides as saying that thinking is one with Being only in a "contending sense," i.e., in a unity through opposition).

Hence, it is not clear whether Heidegger identifies the teaching of Parmenides with the view of Being from which he distinguishes his own (a position with which exegesis of Parmenides' treatment of the relation between Being and thinking would make difficult), or whether he interprets Parmenides in such a way as to allow "is" to be predicated of becoming, etc., without being thereby identified with them (a position directly challenging the usual monistic interpretation of Pamenides, and challenging it in such an essential way that we should expect Heidegger to have made some explicit mention of the fact that he was correcting the usual interpretation of Parmenides on the very point which since Plato has probably been given most attention, i.e., his supposed monism.)
Vlastos, Gregory. 1946. "Parmenides' Theory of Knowledge." Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association no. 77:66-77.

Reprinted in: G. Vlastos, Studies in Greek Philosophy, Volume I: The Presocratics, edited by Daniel W. Graham, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995, pp. 153-163.

Abstract: "Parmenides' frag. 16 has been taken for a general statement of his theory of knowledge. I argue that it is no more than his doctrine of sense-perception, since it views thought as a passive record of the "much-wandering" ratio of light to darkness in the frame. Theophrastus' report that Parmenides explains "better and purer" thinking by the preponderance of light must refer to the active phases of thought, memory and judgment. When these are perfect the ratio of light to darkness must be one to zero, and the knowledge of Being must represent a state of unmixed light." (p. 66)
———. 2008. ""Names" of Being in Parmenides." In The Route of Parmenides, edited by Mourelatos, Alexander, 367-390. Las Vegas: Parmenides Publishing.

Previously unpublished essay (1961).

Editing note by A.P.D. Mourelatos.: The importance and continuing value of this essay is, in my judgment, fourfold. (1) Beyond what was already accomplished by Woodbwy's essay of 1958 [Parmenides on Names] Vlastos here provides the best and most sustained argument in favor of the reading onomastai at B8. 38. (2) There is an assumption many have made (doubtless, as Vlastos points out at n. 20, because of the influence of Diels, who first voiced it in 1887) [*] that Parmenides employs "naming" terms (onoma, onomaztin) only with reference to the false

beliefs posited by "mortals." Vlastos' essay provides a decisive refutation of this quite unwarranted and misleading assumption. (3) Vlastos also shows that we gain a more coherent account of Parmenides' critique of the language of "mortals" if we read that critique as charging that mortals make statements that are false rather than meaningless.

(4) Finally, Vlastos offers in this essay a philosophically incisive and engaging argument in support of the thesis that Parmenides' rationale for the rejection of "not-being" as a subject of thinking and speaking is quite different from that advanced by the Eleatic Stranger in Plato, Sophist (237B-C)." (p. 367)

[*] "Ueber die ältester Philosophenschulen der Griechen," in Philosophische Aufsätze, Eduard Zeller zu seinem fünfzigjährigen Doctor-Jubiläum gewidmet [no editors listed] (Leipzig, 1887), pp. 239-60.
Volpe, Enrico. 2023. "Some Footnotes to Richard McKirahan’s Lectures at Eleatica XI." In Eleatica Vol. 9: Aristotle and the Eleatics = Aristotele e gli Eleati, edited by Pulpito, Massimo and Berruecos Frank, Bernardo, 217-225. Baden-Baden: Academia Verlsg.

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