Calenda, Guido. 2020. "Epistemological Relevance of Parmenides’ Ontology." Anais de Filosofia Clássica no. 27:96-120.

Abstract: "It is possible to understand Parmenides’ being as the ‘totality of what exists’. Parmenides’ insight is that being is a compact continuum (fr. 4), and he gives a logical demonstration of this insight recognizing that non-being, which only could divide being in a plurality of beings, does not exist.

Therefore, knowledge of being could only be the holistic appraisal of the totality of being – a form of knowledge unconceivable for men.

Human knowledge is always articulated in concepts, images, relations…, expressed by their names. Men do not catch being itself, but, at best, some limited features of a minimal part of it, as they appear from human and personal perspectives. Thus, Parmenides’ calls mortals ‘two-headed’ who claim that their truths represent the reality of being, since their pretense would imply the existence both of being and of non-being. This epistemological conception is the only relevant result of Parmenides ’ ontology. Parmenides ’ epistemology solves many of the philosophical riddles of his time, it shows that the so-called Zeno’s paradoxes are sound arguments, and foreshadows the doctrines of Protagoras and Gorgias."
———. 2023. "Parmenides’ Structure of the Earth." Peitho, Examina Antiqua no. 14:13-28.

This paper is an updated English translation of the central chapter of my book Un universo aperto [La cosmologia di Parmenide e la struttura della terra, Bologna.] (Calenda 2017).

Abstract: "It is generally accepted that the enigmatic fragment 12 of Parmenides, supplemented by the first part of Aëtius II 7.1, represents an unlikely cosmos which comprises alternating spherical crowns of fire and night, surrounding the earth. A comparison of the fragment and Aëtius’ text shows that the latter adds nothing substantial to the fragment. Thus, fragment 12 can actually represent the structure of the earth, which consists of a core of fire, is surrounded by the layers of the earth’s crust, into which heat is transmitted from within, and on which the goddess of life dwells."
Calvo, Martinez Tomas. 1977. "Truth and Doxa in Parmenides." Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie no. 59:245-260.

"It has been widely held, both by ancient and by modern commentators on Parmenides, that the distinction between Truth (αλήθεια) and Opinion (δόξα) which dominates the structure of his poem, can be properly interpreted as an opposition between two forms of cognition: pure thought or conceptual knowledge, on the one hand, and sense-perception, on the other, where the latter is understood as including images as well as perceptions.

(...)

In the first part of this paper Ι will try to show that this traditional interpretation of Parmenides fundamentally misrepresents the language and intention of his poem. In the second section I will propose an alternative interpretation based upon an opposition not between two epistemic states or faculties (intellectual knowledge versus sense-perception) but between two contrasting forms of language, as represented in the poem by the contrast between λόγος and ἔπος (or ἔπεα). Finally, I will sketch some lines in the post-Parmenidean evolution of the two conceptual systems that oppose Aletheia to Doxa and Logos to Epos." (pp. 245-246)
Capizzi, Antonio. 1984. "Opsis akoe. The sources of the problem of sensations in Heraclitus and Parmenides." Museum Philologum Londiniense no. 6:9-35.
Casertano, Giovanni. 2011. "Parmenides -- Scholar of Nature." In Parmenides, 'Venerable and Awesome' (Plato, Theaetetus 183e), edited by Cordero, Néstor-Luis, 21-58. Las Vegas: Parmenides Publishing.

Summary: "Aristotle’s influence on what we could name the philosophical historiography of pre-Aristotelian times and the one still felt up to present times is huge. We can safely argue that the work of freeing pre-Aristotelian thinkers from Aristotelian interpretation has only been developing since last century, and it is an ongoing process. I personally believe that this is the historiographic direction to be followed and that much has still to be made clear and explained in this very direction. This kind of research does not just better “historically contextualize” the thought of any pre-Aristotelian, Parmenides in our case, by setting its roots in a real world of debates, quarrels, and stand-takings on different philosophical and scientific questions, but it also better underlines its originality and speculative strengths. My paper will thus be divided into two parts. Since I just aim to discuss the special stand of Parmenides' thought in the history of scientific thought, I will try and show first of all Parmenides' complete belonging in the very lively world of scientific debates and discussions of the fifth century. Then I will try to show how Parmenides, like the other great Sicilian Magna Graecia native, Empedocles, has foreshadowed concepts and doctrines of contemporary science and physics, even if just in the shape of ingenious intuitions."
Cassin, Barbara. 2011. "Parmenides Lost in Translation." In Parmenides, 'Venerable and Awesome' (Plato, Theaetetus 183e), edited by Cordero, Néstor-Luis, 59-79. Las Vegas: Parmenides Publishing.

Summary: "I would like to show in this text the successive difficulties to be overcome when one tries to translate Parmenides. Translation is the extreme degree of interpretation. For that purpose, one needs to triumph over the impossibility of confronting the original “venerable and awesome” as well as of confronting “historial” language such as Greek. Then, one must sort out the alternatives that make it possible to select and fix a fragmentary text. Finally it is necessary to explore all the connections permitted by semantics and syntax. My study is focused on the play of “θυμὸς ὁδοῖο / μῦθος ὁδοῖο,” and on possible interpretations of the text traditionally retained since the 5th edition of Diels, between the heroism of being, described as Odysseus, and the storytelling of language."
———. 2017. "The Muses and Philosophy: Elements for a History of the Pseudos [1991]." In Contemporary Encounters with Ancient Metaphysics, edited by Greenstine, Abraham Jacob and Johnson, Ryan J., 13-29. Edinburgh: Edinburgh Unversity Press.

Translated from the French "Les Muses et la philosophie. Eléments. pour une histoire du 'pseudos',” in Pierre Aubenque (éd.), Études sur le “Sophiste” de Platon, Napoli: Biblipolis 1991, pp. 292-316.

"The philosopher, guard-dog of the truth and of the desire for truth, is committed to aletheia. The sophist, this wolf for as long as there have been philosophers, is committed to the pseudos. Pseudos names, from its origin, and indissolubly, the "false" and the "lie" - the "falsehood," therefore, of one who deceives and/or deceives himself. It is the ethico-logical concept par excellence.

The Sophist of Plato explicitly marks this double bind, which joins the sophistic and pseudos in the eyes of philosophy: the sophist is an imitation, a feral counterfeit of the philosopher,(2) because the sophist chooses the domain of the false, the semblance, the phenomenon, opinion - in a word, all that is not.

Philosophy of appearances and appearance of philosophy: sophist simulator/dissimulator.

I would like to attempt to pinpoint the pseudos, primarily through Parmenides and Hesiod, in order to determine the manner in which the sophistic lodges itself there, so as to understand, through Plato, how philosophy at its beginnings domesticates the very idea of pseudos, and organizes the place of the sophistic." (p. 13)
Cerri, Giovanni. 2011. "The Astronomical Section in Parmenides’ Poem." In Parmenides, 'Venerable and Awesome' (Plato, Theaetetus 183e), edited by Cordero, Néstor-Luis, 80-94. Las Vegas: Parmenides Publishing.

Summary: "I have collected all the data (testimonia and fragmenta), which demonstrate that in Parmenides' poem On Nature there was a long section concerning astronomy, where he described the heavens and also illustrated recent, astonishing discoveries accomplished by astronomical research of his time. Such a section, which is very important in the history of ancient science, could not be a mere digression, not related to his general theory of nature. Therefore, every modern interpretation of his philosophical thought based on the removal of this aspect should certainly be considered inadequate to explain the whole doctrine in its very essence."
Chalmers, W. R. 1960. "Parmenides and the Beliefs of Mortals." Phronesis no. 5:5-22.

"The three main parts of Parmenides' poem are apt to receive rather unequal treatment at the hands of many historians of Ancient Philosophy. From early times there has been a tendency to concentrate attention upon the Way of Truth and rather to neglect the Prologue and the Beliefs of Mortals. The Prologue is frequently explained as an interesting example of archaic imagination intruding into a philosophical work, while the last part has been interpreted in a variety of ways. Some scholars have suggested that in it Parmenides is merely representing the views of other thinkers, while others believe that it does in some way describe Parmenides' own thought. There is as yet no general agreement about what the relationship is between the Beliefs of Mortals and the Way of Truth. Both are however parts of the same poem, and it is reasonable to infer that a solution of this problem of their inter-relationship will throw light on the correct interpretation of the whole work. It is the purpose of this paper to consider in particular the last part of the poem and to try to establish what its status is in the context of the whole work." (p. 5)
Cherniss, Harold. 1935. Aristotle's Criticism of Presocratic Philosophy. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press.

Volume I (only published). Reprint New York: Octagon Books, 1964.

On Aristotle's criticism of Eleatic philosophy see in particular the First Chapter, The Principles, pp. 61-76.

"The Eleatic thesis so far as the physicist is concerned is refuted by experience, and it is not the business of a treatise on any particular science to refute those who deny the principles or axioms of that science. (257) With this exposition and the remark that Parmenides and Melissus proceed from false premises to argue illogically Aristotle has really excluded a discussion of their doctrine from the Physics. Yet he immediately introduces a long refutation of the Eleatic thesis on the ground that, although it is not concerned with physics, it results in difficulties which are physical.(258)

The criticism of the Eleatic unity of Being is highly instructive for the study of the method by which Aristotle built up his own doctrine of matter; and the very inclusion of the critique in the Physics shows that he was conscious of the logical character of the origin of his theory." (p. 62)

(...)

"The general critique of the Eleatics (273) is followed by a special refutation of Melissus and Parmenides." (p. 67)

(...)

"There is throughout this critique an apparent confusion of logical and physical concepts which is due to the dependence of Aristotle's physics upon his logic. At one time he said that the Eleatic error was due to the ignorance of the meaning of relative or accidental non-Being, (304) that is of logical privation which is the essence of the negative proposition; but such a concept, which in its Platonic origin is simply logical, is at once transformed into a physical doctrine by Aristotle, so that he can say shortly thereafter that an understanding of the nature of substrate would have solved the difficulties of the Eleatics. (305) Privation is, in effect, the immediate material of generation (306) and the logical subject of privation is transmuted by means of the concomitant potentiality into the physical substrate. (307) The notion that privation of a quality requires in the substrate the potential presence of that quality is a rule of logic (308) transferred to descriptive physics. It is this connection of the matter of generation and of thought, this equivalence of the proposition of logic and the description of physical change which makes Aristotle think the Physics an appropriate place to discuss the Eleatic doctrine which on his own reckoning falls outside the sphere of physics." (pp. 75-76)

(257) Physics 184 B 25-185 A 14.

(258) Physics 185 A 17-20. a. De Caelo 298 B 14-24 where the Eleatic doctrine is rejected as unphysical. But the origin is differently explained. The Eleatics were the first to see that knowledge requires the existence of immutable substances; but, thinking that sensible objects alone existed, they applied to them the arguments concerning objects of thought. Aristotle derives this account by a literal interpretation of Plato, Parmenides 135 B-C. But cf. Sophist 249 B-D.

(273) Ross in his note on Metaphysics 986 B 19 implies that " the One as continuous and indivisible " refers to Melissus, "the One as unity of definition " refers to Parmenides. The appearance of συνεχές and ον διαιρετόν in Parmenides, the argument of "the part and the whole " in Plato's Sophist directed against Parmenides, and the express words of Physics 185 B 17-18, as well as the αύτοίς of 185 B 21 and 24 show that no division of the arguments can be made between Parmenides and Melissus.

(304) Physics 191 B 13-16.

(305) Physics 191 B 33-34.

(306) Physics 191 B 15-16. Yet 191 B 35 ff. he reproaches the Platonists for making matter "non-Being" and claims himself to differentiate privation and matter.

(307) The transformation is carried so far that ατέρησις becomes, instead of simple negation of form, a positive reality, a kind of form itself (Physics 193 B 19-20). Cf. Clemens Baeumker, Das problem der materie in der griechischen philosophie, Münster, 1890, pp. 218-219.

(308) Cf. its use in Topics 148 A 3-9. It is a mistake to define a thing by privation of that which is not potentially predicable of it. The logical basis of the physical doctrine, as well as some of the difficulties involved in the development, is to be seen in Metaphysics 1055 A 33-B 29.
Cherubin, Rose Mathilde. 2001. "Λέγειν, Νοεῖν and Τὸ Ἐόν in Parmenides." Ancient Philosophy no. 21:277-303.

"What does Parmenides tell us about τὸ ἐόν? Commentators have understood Parmenides' fragments as attempting to provide an account of the nature of being, or of the nature of what is.

Recently, Parmenides and his goddess (θεά, B1.22) character have been interpreted as making a variety of conflicting claims: that being or what is is one; that it is dual; that it is identical to thought or to mind or to the contents of thought; that at least some of it is independent of our thought or awareness; and that all strictly human claims about what is rest on convention or agreement. In what follows, I will attempt to show that the fragments not only fail to support such views, but actually subvert them. Rather than provide unconditional assertions about τὸ ἐόν, I will argue, the fragments explore the conditions of the possibility of inquiry itself, conditions whose acceptance poses paradoxes." (p. 277)

(...)

"I do not assert here that all is assumption. Rather, I have argued that on the θεά's account of what is, we do not seem to be able to know whether all is assumption. I do propose that to acknowledge the conditions of inquiry includes recognizing that such an acknowledgment, like the conditions themselves, is made within the framework given us by our θέμις (literally, that which is laid down). Acknowledging the conditions of inquiry also includes recognizing (νοεῖν) that the possibility of identification and the possibility of meaning appear to depend on contradictions or paradoxes." (p. 303)
———. 2003. "Inquiry and What Is: Eleatics and Monisms." Epoché no. 8:1-26.

Abstract: "While Melissus argues for a numerical monism, Parmenides and Zeno undermine claims to unconditional or transcendental knowledge. Yet the work of Parmenides and Zeno is not merely critical or eristic, and does not imply that philosophical inquiry is futile. Instead it shows the importance of reflection on the way the requisites of inquiry are represented in its results, and entrains an axiological investigation to every ontological one."

"The earliest Greek philosophers sought understanding that went beyond what was given by the beliefs, customs, and ways of thinking familiar to their contemporaries. So Aristotle tells us, and since his time students of philosophy have generally agreed with this broad description.(1) But what were the earliest Greeks called philosophers trying to understand, and what kinds of understanding were they seeking? As we try to be more specific about the projects and nature of the earliest Greek philosophy, we encounter more difficulty and less agreement." (p. 1)

(...)

"The goddess in Parmenides' poem represents that which her pupil is not: she is female, and more crucially for purposes of this paper, she is immortal and as such does not need to inquire or seek. Our sense of lack, our mortality, is the spur and indeed the

substance of inquiry. We must make choices and we must seek, in order to supply our needs and desires. This is why we require consistency, in some things at least. A Greek goddess does not have such limitations; she is self-sufficient. Such a symbol of what we conceive ourselves to lack is a most appropriate vehicle to convey to us the consequences of that lack, the fundamental conflicts in our conception of what is." (p. 16)

(1) Metaphysics A 1-2.
———. 2004. "Parmenides’ Poetic Frame." International Studies in Philosophy no. 36:7-38.

"Two difficulties confront the beginning of an interpretation of the fragments of Parmenides: how to understand the structure of the fragments taken together, and how to deal with the apparent contradictions and incongruities in the fragments.

The first is the question of what to make of the structure of the extant parts of Parmenides' poem." (p. 7)

(...)

"The second difficulty is the problem of how to handle the many apparent contradictions and incongruities within the fragments." (p. 8)

(...)

"I propose to look at the Goddess’s discussions of eon or to eon (what is, being, what is so) in the contexts in which they appear in the fragments. This means that I will first consider the significance of the fact that the remarks about what is appear within discussions of roads of inquiry (Sections I and II). In these discussions of roads of inquiry the Goddess supports her claims about the characteristics of what is (with respect to certain roads) not only with deductive reasoning but also with explanatory assertions about Dikē, Anankē, and Moira. Once we understand the basic sense of these assertions (Section III), we can turn to contemplate the meaning and the significance of the narrative frame, the tale of the journey (Section IV). The larger meaning of the fragments taken together, that which we can properly call the philosophy of Parmenides, will emerge from reflection on the juxtaposition of the narrative, mythic, and argumentative elements. By taking into due account the contexts in which the discussions of eon appear, we will find that both the seemingly incompatible implications of the claims about eon and also the mixture of narrative, mythic, and argumentative elements are philosophically meaningful and illuminating." (pp. 9-10)
———. 2005. "Light, Night, and the Opinions of Mortals: Parmenides B8.51-61 and B9." Ancient Philosophy no. 25:1-23.

"Recent studies of this passage have focused largely on two issues: what the goddess or Parmenides thinks is erroneous in mortals' beliefs concerning Light and Night, and what if any merit Parmenides finds in a cosmology based on the account of Light and Night in the fragments.

My main concern will be instead with two questions that have seen less attention: First, what would be ἀπατηλός in what the κοῦρος is to learn?5 Second, what could be ἐοικώς in the Light-Night conceptual scheme that the goddess presents? Or, what would suggest that mortals do in fact find the scheme acceptable or useful?" (p. 3)
———. 2009. "Ἀλήθεια from poetry into philosophy: Homer to Parmenides." In Logos and Muthos. Philosophical Essays in Greek Literature, edited by Wians, William, 51-72. Albany: State University of New York Press.

"The every features I have cited as Parmenides' best-known and most consequential contributions to philosophy—the central role of deductive argument and the thematic exploration of to eon—grow from his engagement with poetry.

Specifically, they are intimately connected to his view of alētheia as the orientation of a road of inquiry. Poets in and before Parmenides' time saw the apprehension and promulgation of alētheia as a central duty of poetry. Parmenides, I will show, significantly extended and developed the notion of alētheia. It is precisely this development that issues in his thematic exploration of to eon and in his use (and, conceivably, introduction) of explicit deductive inference.

Let us begin by opening the questions of the meaning and the role of alētheia in the fragments of Parmenides. Asking these questions is crucial not only for our understanding of Parmenides, but also for our understanding of those ways of thinking today that claim him as a predecessor, and for our understanding of the possibilities of philosophy itself. In his references to alētheia, might Parmenides have intended something in addition to, or instead of, what has been attributed to him so far? If so, as I will argue here, then Parmenides will have shown us a road of inquiry to which we have been oblivious." (p. 52)
———. 2018. "Parmenides, Liars, and Mortal Incompleteness." Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy no. 33:1-21.

Abstract: "On the road of inquiry that Parmenides’ goddess recommends, one is to say and conceive that what-is is one, unmoving, continuous, ungenerated, undestroyed, complete, and undivided. Yet the goddess’s arguments in favor of this road use negations, distinctions, divisions, and references to generation and destruction. The requisites of inquiry that she outlines are both defined on and at odds with other features that inquiry appears to require. This essay argues that the goddess’s arguments manifest something like a liar paradox: She demonstrates on the basis of the opinions of mortals that mortals’ opinions are flawed. If so, then the goddess’s arguments do not establish that what is is one and unchanging. What they show is that what inquiry and inference seem to require, given the opinions of mortals, is at odds with itself. To refer to what-is is to make aletheia impossible to reach. To be mortal, for Parmenides, is to journey through that incompleteness."
———. 2019. "Sex, gender, and class in the poem of Parmenides: difference without dualism?" American Journal of Philology no. 140:29-66.

Abstract: "Abstract: Parmenides has been criticized as denying and disparaging human diversity; anathematizing sex, reproduction, and bodies; supporting the suppression of women and others outside the Greek ruling classes; and silencing important concerns by excluding certain kinds of thought and reasoning from philosophical and civil discourse. I argue that the fragments do not support these charges, and that instead Parmenides provides ideas and ways of thinking that subvert the kinds of doctrine and ways of philosophizing he is accused of promoting."
———. 2020. "The Eleatics and the Projects of Ontology." Anais de Filosofia Clássica no. 27:146-175.

Abstract: "Parmenides provides the earliest surviving Greek example of a thematic reflection on to eon, being or what-is; and on mē eon, not-being or what-is-not. His work was crucial to the framing of ontological questions and statements in later work.

Zeno and Melissus made what-is or being (to on or to eon) a central focus and engaged directly with Parmenides’ reasoning and concerns.

Within philosophy, the term ‘ontology’ may signify a study of the nature of being, or of what it is to be. Another important use of ‘ontology’ signifies a set of claims about the nature and number of being or what is, a kind of cataloguing. How best can we characterize what the Eleatics’ work has to do with ontology? In what if any ways, and in what if any contexts, can Parmenides, Zeno, or Melissus be said to study the nature of being or of what is? In what if any senses can Parmenides, Zeno, or Melissus be said to provide an account of the nature or number of being or of what is? Does any of the three espouse such an account; or do they engage with that kind of account in some other way?

I will argue that we find in the Eleatics three distinct approaches to ontological questions. I will suggest that Parmenides and Zeno, and likely Melissus, investigated the possibility of research into the nature and number of being as a problem; and cautioned against espousing direct unconditional accounts of the nature of what-is."
———. 2020. "Comments on Livio Rossetti, Verso la filosofia. Nuove prospettive su Parmenide, Zenone e Melisso." In Eleatica Vol. 8: Verso la filosofia: Nuove prospettive su Parmenide, Zenone e Melisso, edited by Galgano, Nicola S., Giombini, Stefania and Marcacci, Flavia, 183-194. Baden-Baden: Academia Verlsg.

"It is an honor and a privilege to have this opportunity to offer a response to Dr. Rossetti’s magisterial Eleatica lectures of 2017. I hope this will show my deep appreciation of this work, both for its discoveries and for its courageous opening of questions: its roads of inquiry. Much of what I will offer here is questions, meant in a spirit of respect and gratitude.

The questions address the following topics: Parmenides’ fragments in/as “virtual philosophy” and the role of inquiry therein (1. below); non-hierarchical distinctions in both the structure and the content of the fragments (with special attention to the account of sex, gender, and reproduction) (2.); and what if any relationships we might be able to show between Parmenides’ astronomical and biological accounts, the Light and Night that the goddess says mortals “lay down” as fundamental, and the errant and untrustworthy opinions she also attributes to them (3.)." (p. 183)
———. 2021. "Poetry, Argument, and Decolonizing Hellenic Philosophy: The Case of Parmenides’s Fragments." In The Poetry in Philosophy: Essays in Honor of Christos C. Evangeliou, edited by Mitsis, Philip and Reid, Heather L., 33-56. Fonte Aretusa: Parnassos Press.

"In what follows I propose to show how Parmenides’s verse supports inquiry and argument, and thus how inquiry, argument, and poetic creation work together in his fragments.

Many interpretations of Parmenides’s fragments read the goddess’s speech as containing a series of arguments without asking whether any other elements of the fragments—the tale of a chariot journey that leads up to that speech, the goddess’s interactions with the young man of the chariot, the verse form, the references to divine forces, the verbal echoes of earlier poets—have any implications for the speech’s meaning and thus for the apparent arguments within it. Some interpreters have challenged this mode of interpretation, holding instead that the poetic form and narrative are definitive with respect to content, and that features of the framing imply that if Parmenides used what look like arguments, he did not use them to support, explain, or prove what he wished to convey." (pp. 35-36)

(...)

"The present essay will provide further support for the view that the passages that appear to be arguments really do argue. It will also endeavor to show that what might appear to be gaps are instead reasoned connections. These connections become visible only if we pay attention to the poetry and the epic references. That is, the very elements that are adduced in support of the position that Parmenides does not offer arguments, in fact show that he does offer arguments and reasoned inferences. At the same time, the poetic form, structure, references, and framework operate to support and illuminate the inferences." (p. 36)
Cherubin, Rose Mathilde, Galgano, Nicola, Pulpito, Massimo, and Santoro, Fernando. 2020. "Eleatic Ontology: origin and reception. Introductions." Anais de Filosofia Clássica no. 27:1-18.

Abstract: "The first volume of the project Eleatic Ontology: Origin and Reception focuses its gaze on ancient philosophy, where the main characteristics of a prospective Eleatic ontology have been forged. In ancient Greek thought, we find the origin of this theoretical perspective, in the work of Parmenides and the other Eleatics, who in their own way testify to a first reception of Parmenideanism. Thereafter, ancient philosophy has repeatedly shown examples of reception of this standpoint, and it was this Nachleben that was, in turn, the origin of the notion of Eleatic ontology in the following centuries."
Clark, Raymond J. 1969. "Parmenides and Sense-perception." Revue des Études Grecques no. 82:14-32.

Abstract: "What did Parmenides understand by the terms ἀλήθεια, ἐόν and νοεῖν, δοκοῦντα and δόξα ? After reviewing past interpretations of Β 1.28-32 (Diels-Kranz), the author suggests that these lines are part of the revelation by the goddess who offers to differentiate between the levels of existence of ἐόν and δοκοῦντα and to assess the status of their resultant states of knowledge ἀλήθεια and δόξα. The conclusion, tested against other fragments, is that ἀλήθεια arises from contemplation (νόος) about being (ἐόν) : δοκοῦντα corresponds to ούκ ἔστιν in Β 8 but is « non-existent » only in the technical sense that this is not the object of thought. Δόξα is ἀπατηλὸν only in a technical sense, and there can be right δόξα (first « false » path) which is based exclusively on sensory reality, or wrong δόξα (second « false » path) if sensory objects are confused with being.

Parmenides' Theory of Knowledge is then summarised and his cosmology is found to be consistent with it."
Clarke, Timothy. 2019. Aristotle and the Eleatic One. New York: Oxford University Press.

"This book is a study of Aristotle's engagement with Eleatic monism, the theory of Parmenides of Elea and his followers that reality is 'one'." (p. 1)

(...)

"At the beginning of the Physics, one of the first items on Aristotle's agenda is to examine the Eleatic theory. (He does not explicitly include Zeno as one of the proponents of this theory, perhaps because he leans towards seeing Zeno's aims as purely negative. Aristotle starts by telling us that the task of responding to the Eleatics is not in fact a task for the physicist or natural philosopher. But then he goes on to criticize their theory anyway, as a sort of prolegomenon to his philosophy of nature. So Physics 1 contains an extensive treatment of the Eleatics, with Aristotle responding at length to their arguments for monism and against the possibility of change.

My topic in this book is Aristotle's engagement with the first aspect of the Eleatics' theory, their monism. Aristotle discusses Eleatic monism in several places in the corpus, but the main text is Physics 1.2-3. This section of the Physics is extremely opaque and has received relatively little attention from scholars, despite its historical and philosophical interest. In what follows I offer a detailed reconstruction of the argument of these chapters. My aim is to explain how Aristotle understands the Eleatics' monistic position and its motivation, how he attempts to refute their position, and how he thinks their arguments should be resisted." (pp. 3-4, notes omitted)
Clements, Ashley. 2014. Aristophanes' Thesmophoriazusae: Philosophizing Theatre and the Politics of Perception in Late Fifth-Century Athens. Cambridge: Cambridge Universaity Press.

"In the following pages I shall argue that by appropriating both Parmenidean strictures and the intrinsically satirical imagery by which Parmenides enacts the fallaciousness of mortal doxa, and by employing an Eleaticizing sophistic interlocutor of the sort Plato pictures in the Euthydemus or Sophist, the prologue of our Thesmophoriazusae stages a comic transposition to theatre of Parmenides’ revelations about reality and illusion.

In fact, the sophistic exchange of our opening lines transforms the physical path of its journeying protagonists into an Aristophanic version of the wandering metaphysical path trodden by all Parmenidean mortals as they characteristically fail to differentiate

clearly between what-is and what-is-not. And as its ludicrous steps are revealed, as we shall see, it not only casts Euripides as exemplar and perpetuator of the typical mortal predicament of intellectual ἀμηχανίη (‘helplessness’) that belongs to those who flounder about on that confused Parmenidean way (now known as the Doxa) but also thereby lays the grounds quite precisely for a revelatory philosophizing of theatre as the very progenitor of the seductive illusions that hold tragic mortals fast in their helplessness, later encountered in the climactic comic epiphany of the ‘Agathon scene’ (101–209)." (pp. 47-48)
Conte, Bruno. 2020. "Doxa, Diakosmêsis and Being in Parmenides’ Poem." Anais de Filosofia Clássica no. 14:176-197.

Abstract: "The modern edition of Parmenides’ poem (from Fülleborn’s 1795 work onwards) consolidated the well-known dichotomical scheme according to which its fragments are established and understood, i. e., attributing them to either one of two main “parts”, following the Proem, that is, to Truth (Alêtheia) or Opinion (Doxa). A careful review of the doxographical testimonies, however, reveals sufficient indications to cast doubt over this well-accepted representation. In this paper, I analyze some of these testimonials – particularly those found in Simplicius – aiming to show the evidence for an important distinction between what the Ancients called a section “On Opinion” (ta pros doxan) and the Parmenidean Cosmogony properly. We shall see that this hypothesis implies a “deflationary” view of the Doxa, limited to verses 53-61 of fragment 8, in addition to the four verses of fragment 9. The cosmogonical account, moreover, as we would like to show, should not be simply understood as any collection of “mortal opinions” – in the sense of their devaluation in the first part of the poem (cf. B1,30; B6,4-9; B7,3-5) – but instead as importing epistemological features into the description of the origins of the present state of the universe. Finally, we extract from this picture some consequences for the understanding of the role of the argument on Being and the limits of Parmenidean “ontology”."
Conte, Bruno Loureiro. 2023. "The gap between Parmenides’ argument on Being and his cosmology in the Aristotelian account." Archæus. Studies in the History of Religions no. 33:1-28.

Abstract: "In some of the Aristotelian accounts, Parmenides’ thesis is construed in opposition to the philosophy of nature; on the other hand, he is also depicted, in a different context, as a cosmologist, to whom the Stagirite (and a long tradition afterwards, ending with Simplicius) ascribes a theory of becoming and its principles. In this paper, I exhibit and analyse the relevant passages from Physics I 1-3, Metaphysics I 3 and 5 and On generation and corruption I 3, providing an interpretation that aims to solve the apparent paradox, making sense of the information we can gather from Aristotle’s and Simplicius’ testimonies. Eventually, I propose a construal of the Two Ways of fr. 2 with an emphasis on the predicative reading of einai, which could hint at the Parmenidean approach to cosmology that runs in parallel with the argument on Being."
Cordero, Néstor-Luis. 2004. By Being, It Is:. The Thesis of Parmenides. Las Vegas: Parmenides Publishing.

Contents: Prologue IX; Acknowledgments XIII; 1. Introduction to Parmenides 3; 2. Prolegomena to Parmenides' Thesis 19; 3. Parmenides thesis and its negation 37; 4. The meaning of Parmenides's thesis (and of its negation) 59; 5. Parmenides' thesis, thinking, and speaking 83; 6. Presentation of the thesis and its negation in Fragment 6 and 7 97; 7. The negation of the thesis, "opinions" and the nonexistent third way 125; 8. The meaning of the "opinions of mortals" 151; 9. The foundation of the thesis: the Way of Truth 154; Epilogue 181; Appendix 1: Parmenides' Poem 185; Appendix 2: Note on the transliteration of the Greek alphabet 197; Bibliography 199; List of ancient authors cited 211; List of modern authors cited 213.

"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 as a doctoral thesis. Some years later, my book, Les deux chemins de Parménide (1984, second edition, augmented and corrected, 1997) 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." (pp. X-XI)
———. 2010. "The 'Doxa of Parmenides' Dismantled." Ancient Philosophy no. 30:231-246.

"In most civilizations, fictional entities are the creations of anonymous popular imagination, or even of some special wise men. Greek civilization was not an exception: Centaurs, Sirens, Cyclops, and other such creatures can be found everywhere in Greek mythology. These imaginary creatures were put together out of elements that taken separately are real enough: human being and horse, as in the case of Centaur, woman and bird, in the case of the Siren. Philosophers, or rather, historians of philosophy, followed this creative example, and invented imaginary notions. ‘The Doxa of Parmenides' is one of these imaginary notions.

It has never existed ‘as such': for, even though it was constructed from elements that are real, the combination of these elements was illegitimate.

These mythological examples are useful as we seek to understand the capricious mixing that took place in the assemblage of ‘Parmenides' Doxa'. It is true that the Doxa is present in Parmenides' poem, it is also true that Parmenides is a real entity and not an imaginary being; but ‘the Doxa of Parmenides', the unification of these two terms (Doxa and Parmenides), is an invention of the historians of philosophy. That Parmenides presented some ‘doxai' does not imply that these ‘opinions', which comprise the Doxa, are his ‘doxai', the ‘doxai' of Parmenides.

This article aims to expose this combination as arbitrary and false." (p. 231)
———, ed. 2011. Parmenides, 'Venerable and Awesome' (Plato, Theaetetus 183e). Las Vegas: Parmenides Publishing.

Proceedings of the International Symposium (Buenos Aires, October 29 - November 2, 2007).

Contents: Foreword VII; About the Contributors XIII-XVI.

Part I: On Parmenides.

Scott Austin: Existence and Essence in Parmenides 1; Jean Bollack: From Being to the World and Vice Versa 9; Giovanni Casertano: Parmenides-Scholar of Nature 21; Barbara Csssin: Parmenides Lost in Translation 59; Giovanni Cerri: The Astronomical Section in Parmenides' Poem 81; Nestor-Luis Cordero: Parmenidean "Physics" is not Part of what Parmenides calls "doxa" 95; Patricia Curd: Thought and Body in Parmenides 115; Jean Frère: Mortals (Brotoi) According to Parmenides 135; Arnold Hermann: Parricide or Heir? Plato's Uncertain Relationship to Parmenides 147; Alexander P. D. Mourelatos: Parmenides, Early Greek Astronomy, and Modern Scientific Realism 167; Massimo Pulpito: Parmenides and the Forms 191; Chiara Robbiano: What is Parmenides' Being? 213; Fernando Santoro: Ta Semata: On a Genealogy of the Idea of Ontological Categories 233; José Trindade Santos: The Role of "Thought" in the Argument of Parmenides' Poem 251; José Solana Dueso: Parmenides: Logic and Ontology 271; Panagiotis Thanassas: Parmenidean Dualisms 289-308.

Part II: Parmenides in the Tradition and Cognate Themes.

Esteban Bieda: Persuasion and Deception in Gorgias' Encomium to Helen. About the Powers and Limits of doxa 311; Maria Elena Diaz: Thought as Perception: Aristotle's Criticism of Parmenides in Metaphysics IV, 5 319; Gabriel Livov: The Father and the Sophist: Platonic Parricide in the Statesman 331; Ezequiel Ludueña: "Thinking That I Did Something . . .": Apollodorus and Diotima's Teaching 345; Claudia T. Marsico: Megaric Philosophy Between Socrates' Influence and Parmenides' Ghost 353; Fabián Mié: Plato's Sophist on Negation and Not-Being 363; Lucas Soares: Parmenides and His Precursors: A Borgesian Reading of Cordero's Parmenides 373; Pilar Spangenberg: Aristotle on the Semantic Unity of the Parmenidean Being 383; Index Locorum 393; General Index 403; Index of Greek Terms Discussed 413-414.

"Part I of the present volume gathers together the set of papers presented at the Symposium, whose topics were divided up based on the “traditional” structure of the Poem: one section dedicated to the exposition of the way of truth, and the other to the description of the “opinions (δόξαι) of mortals.”

(...)

"Other papers went deeply into the part of the Poem concerning the “opinions of mortals.”

(...)

"The organizers of the meeting, which was open to the public, offered eight young and high-level Argentine researchers (graduate students, professors, or advanced students) the opportunity to present a short paper in front of the prestigious assembly of foreign authors. The exchange of ideas between them and their “teachers” was a very enriching experience. These eight papers are included in Part II of the present volume." (From the Foreword by Néstor-Luis Cordero, pp. IX-XI)
———. 2011. "Parmenidean “Physics” is not Part of what Parmenides calls “δόξα”." In Parmenides, 'Venerable and Awesome' (Plato, Theaetetus 183e), edited by Cordero, Néstor-Luis, 95-113. Las Vegas: Parmenides Publishing.

Summary: "Parmenides, as were all the philosophers of his time, was certainly interested in “physical” questions, even if the response to these questions was necessarily conditioned by his big “discovery”: that there is being. But the only way to respect the value of his “physical” theories is by keeping them out of the so-called “δόξα” because, for Parmenides, opinions are deceitful and not true. The hazardous reconstruction of Parmenides' text invites the researcher to find the “δόξαι” between the end of fr. 8 and fr. 18. This prejudice, together with the anachronistic idea according to which Parmenides spoke of “appearances” (and the δόξαι would be their description), leads to the exaggerated place the δόξαι occupy in the present reconstruction of the Poem. Parmenides exposes—and criticizes—the δόξαι of “others.” There are no Parmenidean δόξαι."
———. 2013. A tragic interpretative prejudice the parts of Parmenides Poem.

English translation avaible on Academia.edu of Las «partes» del Poema de Parménides: un prejuicio interpretativo trágico (2013).
———. 2013. The "parts" of Parmenides' Poem: a tragic interpretative prejudice.

Englis translaiton of "Las “partes” del Poema de Parménides: un prejuicio interpretativo trágico", in Μαθήματα. Ecos de Filosofía Antigua, ed. R. Gutiérrez, Perú, 2013, pp. 15-26.
———. 2016. Concerning a suggested new arrangement of Parmenides' fragments.

Available on Academia.edu.

"As we know, an arrangement of recovered quotations of Parmenides was proposed in 1795 by Georg G. Fülleborn, the first author who devoted a (short) book(1) entirely to the thought of the philosopher. Only minimal corrections were made to the order he proposed(2) and for that reason we can understandably speak today of an "orthodox" or "canonical" version (that which is an exception among the pre-Socratics, whose texts are readable ad libitum by the researcher).

However, a detailed (or even superficial) reading of Parmenides' quotations would show that the order proposed by Fülleborn is completely arbitrary, even if it may be clearly justified by Fülleborn’s own philosophy that adopts the Kantian(3)

gnoseological separation of the senses and reason. Fülleborn divides the Poem (apart from a Proemium) in two “parts”: the Truth and the Doxa, taking his cues from Simplicius’ interpretation. As we know, this organization resulted from Aristotle erroneously attributing to Parmenides a “physics” that he himself criticizes as the opinions of “men who know nothing.” This version of the Poem, while coherent if following the line of Kantian criticism, is anachronistic and inappropriate in regards to Parmenides himself." (p. 1)

(1) Die Fragmente des Parmenides, Zullichau, 101 pages.

(2) In 1810, it was necessary to add three new verses, the current fr. 19.

(3) We can even trace Fülleborn’s Kantian ties back to a book he wrote on Kant’s philosophy: Immanuel Kant. Nebst einigen Bemerkungen über die Kantische Philosophie (1880).
———. 2018. Some examples of the authentic Parmenides' "physics": the Parmenides "ontologist" is the Parmenides phusikós.

English translation of Quelques exemples de la "physique" contestataire de Parménide: le Parménide "ontologue" est le Parménide phusikós, Anais de Filosofia Classica, vol. 12 n° 24, 2018, pp. 88-109.

"It is undeniable that Parmenides' philosophy, even if it implies problems of understanding for our post-modernity, shares the atmosphere of his presocratic colleagues. A careful reading of the fragments of his Poem -without taking into account the "citators" and commentators- shows us that distinguishing a "Parmenides ontologist" from a "Parmenides phusikós" is meaningless. There is "only one" Parmenides who explained reality (phúsis) first according to a very original principle (which supposes the rejection of "opinions", of what is "said" about things), and who then incited his disciple to carry out an explanation in a way that we today call "physical" but which, in his time, belonged also to a research on phúsis, that is, to the fact of being. We have just used the verb "to incite" because there remains almost nothing of the answers that Parmenides was able to give. In the recovered fragments of Parmenides we have found, alas, only four answers, which we will analyze towards the end of this work, because the avatars of the transmission of the Poem, starting already from Aristotle, have unfortunately mixed up what Parmenides criticized and what he affirmed. However, it is interesting to discover that an authentic "Parmenidean physics" arose naturally from his discovery of the fact of being." (p. 1)
———. 2020. "Parmenides by himself." Anais de Filosofia Clássica no. 27:200-223.

Abstract: "In order to know the thought of a philosopher the surest method is to read what he wrote. In the case of the Presocratics, however, a direct unmediated reading of the texts is almost impossible, because the vast majority of works of this period have disappeared. We propose the following methodological procedure concerning the Presocratics in general, and Parmenides in particular: Once a recovered citation (“fragment”) is confirmed as authentic, one must first attach oneself to it and try to pull from it the richest possible meaning. Only by this procedure can one understand the author on his own. The second step is to search for whether there are in a commentator some elements in accordance with the original text that are capable of enriching it.

We first consider Parmenides in his philosophical milieu, then outline the contents of the recovered fragments of his Poem. A Parmenides emerges who differs in many fundamental respects from that portrayed by Aristotle and his school. From an analysis of these fragments unburdened by Aristotelico-Simplician assumptions, we propose a new reading order for the fragments."
———. 2020. Gianfrancesco d'Asola, the creator of the third way of Parmenides.

English translation available on Academia.edu of: Gianfrancesco d’Asola, el “creador” de la tercera vía parmenídea.
———. 2020. Parmenides phusikós, yes, but...

English translation of Parmenides phusikós, oui mais..., commentary to "lezioni" of Livio Rossetti, Sulla filosofia virtuale di Parmenide, published as Verso la filosofia: Nuove prospettive su Parmenide, Zenone e Melisso, in N. S. Galgano, S. Giombini, F. Marcacci (ed.), ELEATICA 8, Academia, 2020, pp. 195-198.

"Livio Rossetti finds in Parmenides "molti insegnamenti in cui si articola il sapere su cielo, terra e organismi viventi" (p. 70), and this "other" Parmenides would be found in the "part" of the poem known as 'the Doxa'. In fact, the Goddess "ha apertamente assimilato alle 'doxai'" the "sub-trattazioni naturalistiche" (p. 74). And he says once again that "l'annuncio della trattazione perì phúseos era fatta in termini di discorso sulle dóxai" (p. 73). Consequentely, the natural phenomena that are treated from 8.50 onwards would be samples of the dóxai.

Obviously, the notion of dóxa is very important in Parmenides and already in the Introduction of the Poem (fr.1) the listener of the Goddess is supposed to know it, as well as the heart of the truth: "You must (kréo) be aware...". But -important detail- the Goddess already announces that in the dóxai brotôn there is no true trust (fr. 1.30). However, as Rossetti, forcefully points out, Parmenides "dopo i settantacinque esametri sull'essere", and despite its devalued character, he deals with "opinions".

In fact, it is precisely in his interpretation of the notion of dóxa, fundamental to Rossetti's analysis, where the weakest point of his excellent work lies, which, despite his efforts, is literally a "virtual" work: it is a very beautiful building, didactic, convincing, but built on something that does not exist; therefore, it collapses." (p. 1)
———. 2020. Why Simplicius quoted the fr. 7.2 (DK) of Parmenides after the fr. 1.30 (DK)?

Available on Academia.edu.

Abstract: "Sextus is the only source of verses 1 to 28a of Parmenides fr.1. His quotation continues until verse 1.30, but from verse 1.28b the passage is also quoted by Simplicius, who adds at the end the verses 1.31-32, absent in Sextus. Instead of these two verses, Sextus copies five verses from fr.7 (7.2-6). How to explain this discrepancy? One could say that Sextus literally copied the text of the Poem. However, this explanation would be erroneous. Parmenides is the first philosopher who presents his ideas in a certain order, which obliges us to place some quotations before or after others. All the assertions of fr.7 presuppose a preliminary explanation: the notion of the "path of research" (fr.7.2) as a path leading to truth or opinions had appeared before, in fr.2; the description of the authors of the rejected path (fr.7.1), and in particular their inability to see and listen (fr.7.4-5) had also been presented before, in fr.6, and, finally, no polúderin élegkhos (fr.7.5) "already pronounced" (rhethenta) can be found in the set fr.1.1-30. However, placing fr.2 and 6 after fr.7 is impossible. The explanation of the Sextus quotation is to be found in his interpretation of fr.1. As his exegesis of the images of the Proem shows, Sextus wants to show that Parmenides rejects sensations, the source of opinions, and privileges reason. Once presented the need to be aware of both truth and opinions (1.29-30) Sextus makes a collage: he does not quote verses 1.31-32, which would justify the study of opinions ("...and yet, all'empes) and adds a text that explicitly says that thought must be discarded from "this path of research" (fr.7.2), and that lógos must be used as a criterion (logo krinai, fr.7.5)."
———. 2021. The unfortunate lacuna of Parmenides' verse 6.3 DK.

Available at Academia.edu.

Summary: "After having written that "it is possible to be; nothingness, on the other hand, does not exist" (fr. 6.1b-2a), which is an almost literal allusion to the "path of persuasion, which is accompanied by truth" (already presented in fr. 2, verse 3), Parmenides describes the path of "the opinions of mortals who know nothing" (fr. 6.4ff.), and, concerning both paths, gives his disciple some advice. Unfortunately, we do not know what he advises, because instead of a verb that would describe an activity, there is a lacuna in Simplicius' Commentary on Aristotle's Physics, which copies a text, alas, already mutilated,: the verse 6.3. When the Commentary was edited in Venice in 1526, the person in charge of the edition proposed the verb "to remove", and this hypothesis was reinforced in 1892 by H. Diels. However, this verb is incompatible with Parmenides' dichotomous method, because, if it suggests that one must move away from two paths, a third path naturally emerges: the one to which one must cling. We present an analysis of the context that allows us to propose a different verb, consistent with Parmenides' dichotomous thinking."

"The version proposed by us was this one:

πρώτης γάρ τ' ἀφ' ὁδοῦ ταύτης διζήσιος <ἄρξει>(35)

"Because you'll <start> by this first path of research....."

(35) Cf. more precise details, as well as other examples, in N. L. Cordero op. cit. in Note 5 [Les deux chemins de Parménide, 1997², Vrin/Ousia, Paris/Brussels], pp. 168-175.
———. 2021. The "opinions of mortals" of Parmenides and a possible eleatic pythagoreanism.

English translation of "Les 'opinions des mortels' de Parménide et un éventuel pythagorisme éléatique", Archai, 31, 2021, pp.1-24, available on Academia.edu.

Abstract:"The Goddess of Parmenides always announces that the δόξαι are a human product. But there is one point that has not generally been noticed in the studies devoted to the study of the δόξαι: they describe a human activity that consists in explaining reality by the presence of opposite principles, and that is always related to "nomination" (see fr. 8.51, fr. 8.38-41, fr 9, fr. 19.3). Was there a school in Parmenides' time which corresponded to this sketch, or is it a collage of Parmenides'? In any case, it is attested the presence of a branch of Pythagorism which was characterized, precisely, by "placing" names on things."
———. 2022. The "opinions" in Parmenides and his ignorance of the unbearable weight of being.

Traduction of "Las 'opiniones' en Parménides y su desconocimiento del insoportable peso del ser" (Hypnos, 48, 2022, pp. 1-22).

Abstract: "The Greek language uses, to refer to things, the expression τὰ όντα, “things that are”. Everyday language already establishes a relation between “something that is” and the fact of being. Parmenides’ philosophy can be explained as a philosophical reflection on this linguistic fact. A non-philosophical view of language ignores this and explains reality in terms of “the way things seem to be”, or “opinions”. As Parmenides demonstrates in his Poem, only a relativizing of the fact of being can justify an explanation of reality based on opinions."
Cornford, Francis Macdonald. 1933. "Parmenides' Two Ways." Classical Quarterly no. 1933:97-111.

"The object of this paper is to determine the relations between the two parts of Parmenides' poem: the Way of Truth, which deduces the necessary properties of a One Being, and the False Way, which contains a cosmogony based on 'what seems to mortals, in which there is no true belief.'

The poem presents two problems. First, why does the appearance of the world belie its real nature? To Parmenides himself, as to any other mortal, diversity in time and space, change and motion, seem to exist; what is the source of error here?

This is a philosophical question; and it may be doubted whether Parmenides could have given an answer that would satisfy us. The second is an historical question: Whose is the cosmogony in the second part of the poem ? Is it Parmenides' own construction or a list of errors that he rejects ? To this there must be one right answer, which Parmenides, if we could summon him, could give us in a moment.

This is the problem I propose to discuss. The solution may throw some light on the other problem." (p. 97)
———. 1935. "A New Fragment of Parmenides." Classical Review no. 49:122-123.

"Plato, Theaet. I80D: ὀλίγου δὲ ἐπελαθόμην, ὦ Θεόδωρε, ὅτι ἄλλοι αὖ τἀναντία τούτοις ἀπεφήναντο,

οἷον ἀκίνητον τελέθει τῷ παντὶ ὄνομ᾽ εἶναι

If we punctuate (with Diels at Simplicius, Phys. 143, 10)

οἷον, ἀκίνητον τελέθει. τῷ παντὶ ὄνομ᾽ εἶναι

it can be translated: 'It is sole, immovable. The All has the name " Being." So Plato, and so Simplicius after him, must have understood it. If they found this line in Parmenides, they might well accept it as a line that Parmenides might have written. It is no odder than several verses now accepted without question. The sense is good and relevant." (p. 122)
———. 1939. Plato and Parmenides. Parmenides' Way of truth and Plato's Parmenides. Translated, with an Introduction and a Running Commentary. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.

Reprinted by Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980.

Chapter II: Parmenides Way of Truth, pp. 28-52. ("This chapter is partly based on an article, Parmenides' Two Ways, Classical Quarterly, xxvii (1933), 97-111, where some of the points are discussed at greater length.").

"Parmenides' premiss states in a more abstract form the first assumption common to all his predecessors, Milesian or Pythagorean: ultimately there exists a One Being. His thought is really at work upon this abstract concept ; he considers what further attributes can, or cannot, logically belong to a being that is one.

At the same time, this One Being is not a mere abstraction; it proves to be a single continuous and homogeneous substance filling the whole of space. So far, as it seemed to him, reason will carry us, but no farther. Such a being cannot become or cease to be or change; such a unity cannot also be a plurality. There is no possible transition from the One Being to the manifold and changing world which our senses seem to reveal. His work is accordingly divided, after the proem, into two parts. The Way of Truth deduces the nature of the one reality from premisses asserted as irrefragably true. It ends with a clear warning that the Way of Seeming, which follows, is not true or consistent with the truth.

This second part, accordingly, is not in the form of logical deduction, but gives a cosmogony in the traditional narrative manner. The starting-point is the false belief of mortals, who trust their senses and accept the appearance of two opposite powers contending in the world. Unfortunately very few fragments of the second part survive ; but it is probable that we possess nearly the whole of the Way of Truth, thanks to Simplicius, who copied it out in his commentary on the Physics because the book had become very rare.

And it is with the Way of Truth that we are chiefly concerned." (pp. 29-30)
Cosgrove, Matthew R. 1974. "The KOYPOΣ Motif in Parmenides: B 1.24." Phronesis.A Journal for Ancient Philosophy no. 19:81-94.

"Why does the goddess of Parmenides' poem address her mortal guest ω κουρέ (B 1.24)? The interpretations that have been proposed in answer to this question may be grouped generally under two opposed points of view. One finds in the goddess' address an autobiographical statement from the poet and a means of dating the poem's composition; the other takes it in some sense to contrast the humanity and/or discipleship of the κούρος with the divinity and/or teaching role of the goddess. Several other more recent and less widely noted suggestions have also appeared, but I think no satisfactory explanation of why the recipient of the goddess' discourse is presented as a κούρος has yet been found. The interpretation which I shall offer through an examination of previous answers to this question seeks for the goddess' address a more intrinsic meaning and coherent place within the proem and the whole of Parmenides' work." (p. 81)
———. 2011. "The Unknown 'Knowing Man' : Parmenides, B1.3." Classical Quarterly no. 61:28-47.

"Commentators on Parmenides' poem have long read the words of B1.3, εἰδότα φῶτα, with the secure assurance that this phrase must identify and praise the recipient of the divine discourse that is shortly to come. The journeying speaker of line 1, whom the goddess will greet in B1.24 as a κοῦρος, is assumed to be the ‘knowing man'; or, more precisely, it is anticipated that the goddess is about to make him so by revealing to him the heart of truth (B1.29). This ‘knowing man' (so the received view goes) is the goddess’s initiate,2 in contrast to whom are the ‘know-nothings', the βροτοὶ εἰδότες οὐδέν (B6.4).

But I argue here that this is all a mistake, and one that undermines at every turn our ability to understand what is going on in the proem."

(...)

"I do not claim to break new ground on all or even any one of these details save by providing a consistent and coherent framework for choosing among answers to them. For I submit that only the correct identification of the φὼς εἰδώς and of the two separate journeys, as proposed here, in which the speaker of line 1 becomes involved, ties those details together, makes sense of them, and unifies the opening of the poem. In what follows I first develop this interpretation without defensive interruptions, as though it were obvious, so that readers may envision from the outset the picture of the proem I have in mind. Of course, I am aware that my interpretation is very far from being incontrovertible.

Accordingly, after the initial exposition, I shall circle back into the eristic thicket." (p. 28)
———. 2014. "What are 'True' Doxai Worth to Parmenides? Essaying a Fresh Look at his Cosmology." Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy no. 46:1-31.

"In recent years the preserved portions of Parmenides' poem traditionally labelled 'Doxa' 1 have received more nuanced attention, focusing on their content and not just on their presumed role as some kind of foil or supplement to 'Aletheia', 'Truth'. While the age-old question of the relation between these two parts of the poem has been neither settled nor abandoned, some scholars have put this and related issues to one side and concentrated instead on assessing the sometimes startling scientific innovations introduced in the context of the Doxa." (p. 1)

(...)

"These approaches pose various problems, which this paper intends to explore.

(...)

As posed explicitly by Cordero, but bearing implicitly on Graham's, Kahn's, Mourelatos's, and Sedley's views, is the question in what sense, if any, these innovations in physical matters might be 'true', in Parmenidean terms. If they are 'true' for brotoi, possibly including us latter-day mortals, are they also 'true' for the goddess, but only in some 'lesser' sense, which she does not define? And what could that be? Or do they just simply and finally fail to follow her semata for what-is, as much as do any of the merest falsehoods of mortals' world? And if so, what are they then worth to her? And, perhaps more tantalizingly, what are they then worth to Parmenides? Could he really have been 'enthralled' by such fatally flawed 'truths'? And if so, to what end?

With this last query we are firmly back in the midst of the dilemma that has bedevilled commentators on Parmenides since antiquity, concerning not just Parmenides' own attitude towards the possibly revolutionary and astronomically accurate, or 'true', portions of the Doxa but the overall question of the philosophical relation between Truth and Doxa. These are questions not just of historical/biographical psychology but, at least as posed here, they have another import, one related to and calling for explication of Parmenides' proper philosophical concerns. In effect, as I hope to show, asking 'What are true doxai worth to Parmenides?' is an especially useful and revealing way of posing anew the timeworn problem of the relation between the two parts of Parmenides' poem, and in particular that of the philosophical status of the cosmology propounded by the goddess." (p. 4, notes omitted)
Coxon, Allan H. 1934. "The Philosophy of Parmenides." Classical Quarterly no. 28:134-144.

"In the Classical Quarterly for April, 1933, Professor Cornford maintains that the Two Ways' of Parmenides are not meant as alternatives: "The Way of Truth and the Way of Seeming are no more parallel and alternative systems of cosmology, each complete in itself, than are Plato's accounts of the intellectual and sensible worlds. (1)

I wish here to try to support his general view, which seems to me to be indisputably correct, while differing from Professor Cornford in some important details." (p. 134)

(1) p. 102.

(...)

"The unity of the whole poem should now be clear. It opens with Parmenides realization of the difference between knowledge and belief, symbolized by his entry into the realm of Day. There he is welcomed by Justice, or Destiny,(1) who narrates to him, first the features of the world he has just entered, then the nature of the world he has left. The former narrative he has himself to test of λόγος, the possession of which has gained him admission. The latter, she warns him, is a myth.(2) True, even those to whom the door remains shut can produce such; the point is that anyone who knows that this dark world is not the real world is likely to produce a better myth about it than those who believe it to be the only reality and their myth to be truth.

The thesis of this paper has been that Parmenides was, and was conscious of being, the first genuine philosopher in the Greek world. It follows that he was the founder of European philosophy; that, while his predecessors discovered the main principle of what we know as science, Parmenides was the first metaphysician. If that is true, it is a splendid achievement; and he deserves considerably more recognition than he has usually, since Plato, been given." (p. 144)

(1) On this vide Fränkel, [Parmenidesstudien, Berlin, 1930] p. 158 sq.

(2) Just as Plato's Timaeus is a myth.
———. 1969. "The Text of Parmenides fr. 1.3." Classical Quarterly no. 18:69.

"In all texts of the fragments of Parmenides printed in the last fifty years he begins his poem by speaking of "the way which" (or, according to some, "the goddess who") "carries through all towns the man who knows"

(...)

"In fact ἄστη, which is alleged to be the reading of the best manuscript of Sextus' books Adversus Dogmaticos, has no manuscript authority at all. ἄστη first appeared in the text of the third edition of Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker published in 1912, where it is attributed to the Ms. N (= Laur.85.19), so called by Mutschmann".

(...)

The "countless attempts at emendation" of [the readings of L and E et al., πάντὰ τε and πάντα τὴ respectively] did not include aste. Variants from N were first published in 1911 by A. Kochalsky in his dissertation,...but his professedly complete list of new readings from N for these books of Sextus includes no reference to Parmenides 1.3. It follows that aste can hardly have appeared among the variants which he says he had already communicated to Diels. The word aste appears, however, as the reading of N in vol. II of Mutschmann's text of Sextus, which was published in 1914. It would seem, therefore, that Diels got the reading privately from Mutschmann, who collated N in 1909 and 1911. . . . In any case, the word is a simple misreading of the manuscript, which has pant' ate." (p. 69)
———. 1969. "The Manuscript Tradition of Simplicius' Commentary on Aristotle's Physics I-IV." Classical Quarterly no. 18:70-75.

Abstract: "The following discussion' of the manuscript tradition of Simplicius' commentary on Aristotle's Physics I-IV originated in an examination of the tradition of the fragments of Parmenides. It is therefore illustrated not only from Simplicius but particularly from the texts of Parmenides quoted by him. This will not be misleading, since, though many of these texts are quoted by Simplicius more than once, there is little or no sign in any manuscript of interpolation from one passage to another and it is not likely that any scribe could have interpolated the text from an independent manuscript of Parmenides."
———. 2003. "Parmenides on Thinking and Being." Mnemosyne no. 56:210-212.

"The incomplete verse which constitutes Fragment B3 of Parmenides τὸ γὰρ αὐτὸ νοεῖν ἐστίν τε καὶ εἶναι is of central importance for the interpretation of his argument. Since what may be called the traditional understanding of the phrase, as opposed to that proposed by Zeller,(2) has been recently revived in The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy(3) (CC) and elsewhere, it seems worthwhile to recapitulate the evidence on either side.

The sentence is cited only by Clement, Plotinus and Proclus, by all isolation from its context, and by all as asserting the identity of thinking with being. The English translation, 'For it is the same to think and be', is said to be "the only natural reading of the Greek" (CC, 120). is at least questionable, since it postulates a substantival use with no article, which would be unparalleled in the first half of the fifth century, and even later, and which its assumption by Clement and the Neoplatonists does nothing to guarantee." (p. 211)

(2) E. Zeller, Die Philosophie der Griechen, I, i, ed. Nestle (Leipzig 1923), 678 1).

(3) [A. A. Long ed.,] The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy (Cambridge 1999).
———. 2009. The Fragments of Parmenides: A Critical Text with Introduction and Translation, the Ancient Testimonia and a Commentary. Las Vegas: Parmenides Publishing.

Revised and expanded edition edited with new translations by Richard McKirahan and a new Preface by Malcolm Schofield (First edition Gorcum: Van Assen 1986).

"Parmenides' poem is dominated by his conviction that human beings can attain knowledge of reality or understanding (nóos). This faith is expressed in the apocalyptic form of the poem, which at the same time offers an analysis of its presuppositions, and which may be regarded as an attempt to answer the questions, 'what must reality be, if it is knowable by the human mind, and what is the nature of human experience?

The ontological part of the work comprises an account of two intellectually conceivable ways of discovering reality (aletheín), followed by a summary analysis of its character as revealed by pursuing the only way allowed to be genuine. The ways are defined respectively by the formulae 'is and is not for not being', and 'is not and must needs not be', and the recognition that they are mutually exclusive and exhaustive is represented (in opposition to the evidence of the senses) as itself constituting the only criterion (fr. 7, 5) for determining what is real: nothing is to be so considered, unless it either is intrinsically something, or of necessity is not anything. Since the second way is argued to be concerned with nothing and to lead nowhere, reality is to he identified by pursuing the first, i.e. by asking what can and must be made the subject of an unconditional 'is'.

Although Parmenides defines his conception of philosophy in terms of the expressions 'is' and 'is not', he gives no explicit indication of the sense which he conceives these expressions to bear. Modern exegesis has in consequence saddled him with, most generally, an existential understanding of the verb, or else with an archaic failure to distinguish between its existential and copulative uses. It is better to recognise that his approach is purely formal or dialectical, i.e. that, so far from positing any given sense of the verb, he is concerned to determine what sense attaches to it, given its essential role in 'asserting and thinking'. In the prologue and in the cosmological part of the poem he uses the verb `to be' either with an adverbial qualification or with a further predicate (e.g. frr. 1, 32; 8, 39, 57; 20, 1), but in defining 'the only ways of enquiry which can be thought' (fr. 3, 2), he isolates the expressions 'is' and 'is not' deliberately both from any determinate subject and from any further completion. In so doing he assigns to them no restricted sense but treats them as the marks of 'asserting and thinking', with the possibility and presuppositions of which he is concerned throughout (cf. fr. 3, 8n.). His aim in defining the 'genuine way of enquiry' as the expression 'is' is to discover (I) what, if anything, can be said and thought `to be' something without the possibility of denial that it is that thing, and (ii) what this subject can further be said 'to be', i.e. what further predicates can be asserted of it. He answers these questions by converting the verb 'is' to the noun-expression 'Being' (eon) and then arguing for the nature of what this name must denote. The 'is' which constitutes the definition of the way is thus reformulated as the copula with 'Being' as its subject: 'Being is ungenerated and imperishable, complete, unique, unvarying' etc. (fr. 8, 3-5). Initially the nature and number of 'Being', like the sense of 'is', remain wholly undetermined except as what 'is and is not for not being'. Its further determination, culminating in its characterisation as non-physical, is argued in the account in fr. 8 of the many landmarks or monuments on the authentic way of enquiry, i.e. of the terms which can be asserted of the subject, and the question arises, 'how does Parmenides envisage the relation between the subject, 'Being', and the terms joined with it by the copula?'

Among the landmarks on the authentic way are the unity or indivisibility of Being and its uniqueness. If what is is one and unique, Parmenides cannot well suppose that the terms which he predicates of it are the names of distinct attributes, which would have their own being and so be eonta. He must therefore regard them as alternative names of Being. This was Plato's understanding of his meaning (cf. Sections 7 and 8 below), which is confirmed by Eudemus' assertion that it was Plato himself who first introduced two senses of the verb `to be' by discriminating between its substantial and attributive uses (cf. Sect. 8). It is confirmed also by the Megarian view of predication as identification (cf. Sect. 6 ad fin.), for the Megarians were regarded as latter days (tt. 102, 132). Aristotle likewise insists (tt. 19, 21, 27) that Parmenides ascribed to 'being' only a single sense, whence he was led to suppose that what is other than Being itself has no being at all. Thus both the text and the Platonic and Peripatetic exegesis of it indicate that Parmenides' copulative use of 'is' in his account of the authentic way signifies an identity which is the direct expression of the perfect identity of substantial Being." (pp. 19-21)
Crubellier, Michel. 2019. "Looking for a Starting Point—The Eleatic Paradox Put to Good Use." In Aristotle’s Physics Alpha: Symposium Aristotelicum, edited by Ierodiakonou, Katerina, Kalligas, Paul and Karasmanis, Vassilis, 53-88. New York: Oxford University Press.

"After the general epistemological reflections in chapter 1, the opening lines of chapter 2 seem to mark the beginning of the inquiry of book I. The rest of the book shows an indisputable continuity; indeed, it consists mainly in one long argument in which an accurate and consistent model of natural change is built up step by step.

I have divided the chapter into five sections, which correspond to the paragraphs in Ross’s edition except that in the last paragraph I take 185b5–25 and 185b25–186a3 to be two distinct units (that is, I do not see a particularly close relation between the mention of ‘the more recent of the Ancients’ and the part of the discussion preceding it immediately, about the many senses of ‘one’).

Actually, chapter 2, as it stands (i.e. as it has been articulated by Renaissance editors), is not a well-individuated unity. Its first section is linked to the subsequent chapters at least until I 5; the second is an introduction to the discussion of the immobilist monistic (‘Eleatic’) position, i.e. to chapters 2 and 3 taken together.

Only the last three sections form a distinct unity (which nevertheless is closely related to chapter 3).

I will spend much more time on the first two sections than on the rest, on account of their strategical importance."
Crystal, Ian. 2002. "The Scope of Thought in Parmenides." Classical Quarterly no. 52:207-219.

"Much has been written recently about the relation between thinking and what is thought in Parmenides.(1) Long has recently argued that the relation between the cognitive act and its object is a weak form of identity in which thinking and being are coextensively related.(2) Curd in her recent study of Parmenides argued for a weaker relation in which being constituted a necessary condition for thinking.3 In this paper, I want to argue that Parmenides offers a different account of the relation between thinking and what is thought. I shall argue that Parmenides puts forth a monistic thesis which entails the strict identification of the epistemic subject and object. I am not the first to posit the strict identity of thinking and being. Vlastos and, more recently, Sedley also attribute this view to Parmenides.4 However, the argument of this paper will be that the identity relation, pace Vlastos and Sedley, does not emerge until Parmenides' account of qualitative homogeneity in Fragment 8. As a result, we cannot attribute this position to Parmenides prior to Fragment 8.

My argument will proceed in two main stages. First (Section I), I shall argue that Fragments 1-7 do not establish the strong identity thesis. I shall do this by canvassing two possible interpretations of how it is that thinking relates to what can be thought in Fragments 1-7. These readings I shall refer to as ‘realist' and ‘idealist' respectively. Secondly (Section II), I shall turn to the Parmenidean account of what ‘is' in Fragment 8 in order to show (Section III) how this does establish the strict identity between the thinker and that which is thought." (p. 207)

(1) To cite just a few recent examples on this subject matter, sec A. A. Long, ‘Parmenides on thinking being', in J. Cleary (ed.), Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy 12. (New York, 1996), 125-51; D. Sedley. 'Parmenides and Melissus'. in A. A. Long (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy (Cambridge, 1999), 113-33; P. Curd. The Legacy of Parmenides (Princeton. 1998), chs. 1 and 2.

(2) Long (n. 1), 140-6. .See n. 38 below.

(38) Long (n. 1), 140-6, I think, wrongly attributes a weak identity-relation between thinking and being in which, although identical, they are coextensively related. He maintains that thinking and being do not connote the same thing or are different in semantic value just as the other attributes such as being ungenerated and everlasting are different in semantic value However, even allowing for these differences in connotation or semantic value one nonetheless cannot avoid the problem that thinking cannot be treated like the other attributes in that it requires the differentiation outlined above; the sort of differentiation which Parmenides appears to rule out when he offers his complete account of being in Fragment 8. Moreover, as I have argued elsewhere, it would seem that Plato picked up on this point when setting out his account of mental faculties and their objects in Republic 5. That is. in the midst of a backdrop couched in allusions to Parmenides' Proem. Plato sets out an account of thinking and its objects which is based upon the sort of differentiation that Long talks about, namely as coextensive relata. But more to the point, it would seem that Plato is setting out his account in this manner in contrast to the Parmenidean account. See I. Crystal, ‘Parmenidean allusions in Republic V', Ancient Philosophy 16 (1996), 351-63.
Curd, Patricia. 1991. "Parmenidean Monism." Phronesis.A Journal for Ancient Philosophy no. 36:241-264.

"Is Parmenides indeed a monist? If so, what sort of monist is he? This paper undertakes a re-thinking of these issues." (p. 242)

(...)

"I shall argue that Parmenides adopts neither material nor numerical monism; but that his arguments about the only true account of being show him to be committed to predicational monism.(10) Whatever is must be a predicational unity; but this is consistent with there being many ones. I begin by considering the esti and its subject in B2, and by giving some attention to the setting and context of Parmenides' philosophical project. I next consider a number of the arguments of the Alêtheia section of the poem, and then turn to the relation to Parmenides of philosophers who came after him, especially the atomists and the pluralists." (p. 243)

(10) Barnes, for instance, is thus correct in denying that Parmenides adopts numerical monism (in "Eleatic One"). But because Barnes insists on an existential 'is' in Parmenides he does not give full weight to the metaphysical and methodological force of Parmenides' arguments; and so he does not see that Parmenides is indeed committed to a kind of monism. Parmenides himself speaks of the unity of being and argues that being is both suneches and mounogenes; my argument is that these claims are equivalent to predicational monism. I do not mean that Parmenides formulated a theory to which he gave the name 'predicational monism.' Rather, given that the three types of monism can be distinguished, it is crucial in understanding Parmenides to attribute this view to him.
———. 1992. "Deception and Belief in Parmenides' "Doxa"." Apeiron.A Journal for Ancient Philosophy and Science no. 25:109-134.

"In this paper I examine the problem of the Doxa, and offer an account of it that is consistent with the claims of Aletheia and explains why Parmenides included it in the poem.(6) I shall argue that, while there is deception in the Doxa (though not in the goddess' account of it), nonetheless the Doxa does not in principle renounce all human belief. For, although Parmenides argues that the sensible world alone cannot be the source of knowledge of what is, he does not reject it completely. Moreover, I propose that, while Parmenides himself does not give such an account, a story about the sensible world that is consistent with the metaphysical and epistemological claims of Aletheia can be told. Thus, while I agree with those who argue that the particular account given in the Doxa fails, I also agree with those who see the Doxa as having something positive to say about mortal belief. But I go further, arguing that Parmenides supposes that a trustworthy cosmology may be possible and discloses what such a theory might be like and how it would be tested. I begin by considering some of the difficulties faced by interpretations of Parmenides' Doxa; I then consider the problems of deception and mortal belief." (pp. 110-111, two notes omitted)

(6) For a summary of views concerning the Doxa held earlier in the century, see W.J. Verdenius, Parmenides: Some Comments on his Poem (Groningen/Batavia 1942), 45-9.
———. 1998. "Eleatic Arguments." In Method in Ancient Philosophy, edited by Gentzler, Jyl, 1-28. New York: Oxford University Press.

"In this essay I shall limit my discussion of philosophical method to issues connected with presenting and arguing for philosophical theories or with appraising the adequacy of theories. I shall suggest that there are three stages in the development of pre-Socratic method. First, there is the mere assertion of one's theory; second, there is the giving of arguments for first principles or against other theories. Finally, in the third stage, there are the development and application of criteria for acceptable theories, combined with using these criteria to rule out whole classes of competing theories. I shall argue that the second stage appears in a rough form in Xenophanes and Heraclitus (for they reject, but do not actually argue against, the views of others), but that the full-blown philosophical method of the second and third stages together first appears in Parmenides; it is he who first uses arguments directly in support of his philosophical position (and against the positions of others) and who first stresses the criteria for the acceptability of arguments about nature. But, as I shall also argue, since in Parmenides there is also the reliance on assertion as opposed to argument that characterizes nearly all pre-Eleatic philosophy, Parmenides himself is a transitional figure. I begin with a survey of pre-Eleatic pre-Socratic theories. I then examine the various roles played by assertion, argument, and theory evaluation in Parmenides' thought. Finally, I discuss some of the argumentative strategies in Parmenides' Eleatic followers, Zeno and Melissus." (p. 2)
———. 1998. The Legacy of Parmenides: Eleatic Monism and Later Presocratic Thought. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Second edition with a new Introduction to the Paperback Version (pp. XVII-XXIX), Las Vegas: Parmenides Publishing, 2004.

Contents: Preface: IX; Acknowledgments XI; A note on texts and translations XIII; Abbreviations XV; Introduction 3; I. Parmenides and the inquiry into Nature 24; II. Parmenides' Monism and the argument of B8 64; III. Doxa and deception 98; IV. Pluralism after Parmenides 127; V. Atoms, void, and rearrangement 180, VI. Final remarks 217; Bibliography 243; Index locorum 257; Index nominum 264; General index 269-280.

"This book offers an alternative account of the views of Parmenides and his influence on later Presocratic thought, especially Pluralism and Atomism, in the period immediately preceding Plato's Theory of Forms. It challenges what has become the standard account of the development of Pluralism (in the theories of Empedocles and Anaxagoras) and Atomism (adopted by Leucippus and Democritus). This alternative interpretation places Parmenides firmly in the tradition of physical inquiry in Presocratic thought, arguing that Parmenides was concerned with the same problems that had occupied his predecessors (although his concern took a different form). Further, this account explains how Parmenides' metaphysical and cosmological doctrines had a positive influence on his successors, and how they were used and modified by the later Eleatics Zeno and Melissus.

In the course of this book, I shall argue against both the prevailing interpretation of Parmenides' monism and the usual explanation of the "is" in Parmenides. Instead, I shall claim that Parmenides' subject is what it is to be the genuine nature of something, thus linking Parmenides with the inquiries into nature of his philosophical predecessors. On the view for which I shall argue, the "is" that concerns Parmenides is a predicational "is" of a particularly strong sort rather than an existential "is." I accept that Parmenides is a monist, but I deny that he is a numerical monist. Rather, I claim that Parmenides is committed to what I call predicational monism. (5)

Numerical monism asserts that there exists only one thing: a complete list of entities in the universe would have only one entry. This is the kind of monism that has traditionally been attributed to Parmenides and (rightly) to Melissus. Predicational monism is the claim that each thing that is can be only one thing; and must be that in a particularly strong way. To be a genuine entity, something that is metaphysically basic, a thing must be a predicational unity, a being of a single kind (mounogenes, as Parmenides says in B8.4), with a single account of what it is; but it need not be the case that there exists only one such thing. What must be the case is that the thing itself must be a unified whole. If it is, say F (whatever F turns out to be), it must be all, only, and completely F. On predicational monism, a numerical plurality of such one-beings (as we might call them) is possible. (6) The interpretation of Parmenides' "is" becomes relevant here, for I argue that to be for Parmenides is to be the nature of a thing, what a thing genuinely is, and thus metaphysically basic. The arguments of Parmenides' fragment B8 concern the criteria for what-is, that is, for being the nature of something, where such a nature is what a thing really is. Those arguments purport to show that what-is must be whole, complete, unchanging, and of a single kind. Each thing that is can have only one nature, but there may be many such things that satisfy Parmenides' criteria.' These issues are the subjects of Chapters I and II." (pp. 4-5)

(5) Mourelatos (in Route) and Barnes ("Eleatic One") have also questioned the predominant view that Parmenides is a numerical monist; Barnes denies any sort of monism to Parmenides, and Mourelatos emphasizes Parmenides' anti-dualism.

(6)Thus, the failure of later Presocratic thinkers to argue for their pluralistic theories, while working within a Parmenidean framework and stressing the reality and predicational unity of their basic entities, is evidence for my view that it is possible for there to be a numerical plurality of entities each of which is predicationally one.

(7) In later terminology we might say that Parmenides is searching for an account of what it is to be the essence of something, although I have avoided the word essence because it is an anachronistic term in Presocratic thought. There is, however, a connection between Parmenides' search for what-is and Aristotle's accounts of ousia and to ti en einai; the connection runs through Plato's Theory of Forms, which itself has Parmenidean roots.
———. 2006. "Parmenides and After: Unity and Plurality." In A Companion to Ancient Philosophy, edited by Louise, Gill Mary and Pierre, Pellegrin, 34-55. Oxford: Blackwell.

"A helpful way to approach the question of Parmenides' importance for Greek philosophy is to examine questions of unity and plurality in pre-Socratic thought. seeing how these questions dovetail with those about the possibility of genuine knowledge and its object.(2) In this chapter, I shall argue that Parmenides' criticisms of his predecessors rest on the principle that what can be genuinely known must be a unity of a particular sort, which I call a predicational unity. On this view, anything that genuinely is (that truly can be said to be). and so can be known, must be of a single, wholly unified kind. Parmenides drew confusions from this that later philosophers took very seriously. One consequence is that what is genuinely real cannot come to be, pass away, or after, thus posing the problems of change and knowledge: How can we account for the appearance of change that we see in the world around us? And how can we have knowledge of such a changing world? An advantage of viewing Parmenides in this way is that it makes sense of the cosmological theorizing of post-Parmenidean figures such as Anaxagoras, Empedocles, and Democritus. All these philosophers were (in their different ways) pluralists, holding that there is a numerical plurality of metaphysically basic entities: and yet, I shall argue, all were working in the Parmenidean tradition because they all accepted Parmenides' criteria for what is genuinely real." (p. 34)

(2) [Stokes (1971) provides a comprehensive treatment of unity and plurality in early Greek thought in English. [M. C. Stokes, One and Many in Presocratic Philosophy, Washington, DC: The Center for Hellenic Studies 1971]
———. 2011. "Thought and Body in Parmenides." In Parmenides, 'Venerable and Awesome' (Plato, Theaetetus 183e), edited by Cordero, Néstor-Luis, 115-134. Las Vegas: Parmenides Publishing.

Summary: "Parmenides' fragment B16 is a puzzle: it seems to be about thought, but Theophrastus uses it in his account of Parmenides' views on perception.

Scholars have disagreed about its proper place in Parmenides' poem: does it belong to Alētheia or to Doxa? I suggest that the fragment indeed belongs to Doxa, and in it Parmenides claims that mortals, who fail to use noos correctly, mistake the passive experiences of sense perception for genuine thought about what-is, and hence fail to understand the true nature of what-is. I argue that genuine thought (the correct use of noos) must go beyond sense experience and grasp what is truly intelligible; in doing so I explore the question of immateriality in Presocratic thinking."
———. 2015. "Thinking, supposing, and « physis » in Parmenides." Études platoniciennes no. 12.

Abstract: "What could justify the Presocratic conviction that human beings can have knowledge? The answer that I am exploring in a larger project is that most Presocratic thinkers share a commitment to the possibility of a “natural fit” between the world and human understanding. Two claims underlie this commitment: the first is the basic intelligibility of the cosmos. The second is that human beings can come to know things beyond their limited sensory experience, for in properly exercising their capacities for perception, thought, and understanding, they can come to have the knowledge that earlier Greeks thought was reserved for the gods. Here I explore a small part of one chapter of the story I want to tell: Parmenides' accounts of what-is and of thinking and the implications of these views for the possibility of human knowledge about the world around us. The paper concentrates on Parmenides, beginning with a few comments about Heraclitus."
———. 2023. "Aristotle, Parmenides, Melissus (and Plato?)." In Eleatica Vol. 9: Aristotle and the Eleatics = Aristotele e gli Eleati, edited by Pulpito, Massimo and Berruecos Frank, Bernardo, 147-156. Baden-Baden: Academia Verlsg.

"While Aristotle is often praised as the first critical historian of philosophy, he is almost as often chided for his high-handed and almost frivolous accounts of his predecessors’ views. Indeed, one might at times wonder who it is that Aristotle is actually discussing, given what we think we know of his philosophical elders.(1) In his lectures, “Aristotle and the Eleatics,” Richard McKirahan gives (and defends) lively, evenhanded, and convincing accounts of the Eleatic thinkers and of Aristotle’s interpretation of them. In thinking about how to respond to these lectures, my first inclination was to say, “yes, of course,” and leave it that. While that would make for a (perhaps blessedly) short article from me, I think that I should expand upon those three words. So, there are two parts to this response. First, I say a few things about Richard’s “Aristotelianizing Parmenides,” and then I go on to make some suggestions about “Aristotle’s Melissus:” I think that in Aristotle’s account of Melissus we can see the shadow of Plato’s Parmenides." (p. 147)

(1) These claims, of course, are not made merely about Aristotle.
Dahlstrom, Daniel O. 2017. "Heidegger's initial interpretation of Parmenides: an excursus in the 1922 Lectures on aristotelian texts." The Review of Metaphysics no. 70:507-527.

Abstract: "In lectures and writings during the 1920s, Heidegger appropriates what he takes to be the basic insights expressed in Parmenides’ Poem, even as he criticizes other decisive and fateful aspects of it. He gives his most ample, early account of major parts of Parmenides’ Poem in 1922 lectures on Aristotle. The aim of this study is to review Heidegger’s account in those lectures, with a view to showing how Heidegger’s reading of Parmenides contributes to thinking that culminates in the project of fundamental ontology. To this end, following the detailed review of that account, the article addresses the significance of Heidegger’s references to Parmenides in Sein und Zeit."

References
de Jáuregui, Migule Herrero. 2018. "Protreptic and Poetry. Hesiod, Parmenides, Empedocles." In When Wisdom Calls: Philosophical Protreptic in Antiquity, edited by Alieva, Olga, Kotzé, Annemaré and Van der Meeren, Sophie, 49-69. Turnhout: Brepols.

"However, the idea of conversion is prominent in some of the early poets, and not only those who are usually called, with assumed anachronism, ‘philosophers’, like Parmenides or Empedocles, but also in some key passages of Hesiod’s Works and Days. To locate these passages and identify the literary elements that characterize them is the purpose of this chapter." (p. 50)

(...)

"Our three poets fabricate the first elaborations of an idea of salvation that is valid in any circumstance, and that therefore demands a general conversion to it.

Nock’s sharp distinction between philosophy and religion, therefore, is useless in these authors, since the divine authority is as essential as human argumentation in their presentation of an objective salvation.

For Hesiod such ideal is justice, for Parmenides a certain kind of knowledge, and for Empedocles a specific self-conscious behaviour.

Their proposals, notwithstanding the many formal parallels, are very different, and it is clear that being κακός, for instance, has a very different meaning in Hesiod or Empedocles. However, what they all have in common is that they turned the formulas and loose topoi of a didactic tradition into specific calls for conversion by elaborating a new idea towards which men should turn their lives. The divine was their source of legitimacy and traditional poetry was their vehicle for creating these first protreptic works. The first Greek ideas about an objective salvation that transcends the realm of physical security and requires a complete change of thinking did not originate in the cabinet of bookish philosophers and rhetoricians. The first προτρεπτικοὶ λόγοι were pronounced by the Muses." (p. 69)

References

Arthur D. Nock, Conversion. The Old and the New in Religion from Alexander the Great to Augustine of Hippo (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1933).
De Long, Jeremy. 2017. "From Ionian Speculation to Eleatic Deduction: Parmenides’s Xenophanean-Based Theism." In Politics and Performance in Western Greece: Essays on the Hellenic Heritage of Sicily and Southern Italy, edited by Reid, Heather L., Tanasi, Davide and Kimbell, Susi, 217-231. Fonte Aretusa: Parnassus Press.

"This essay aims to challenge the skeptical position, and establish a direct link disseminating Ionian philosophy to Magna Graecia via Xenophanes and Parmenides.

The argument is straightforward. First, the ancient geographical and temporal evidence is noted, establishing that it was possible for Parmenides to have been influenced and/or taught by Xenophanes. Next, the metaphysical and epistemological parallels between these thinkers are considered. Despite notable differences, on balance, these close parallels suggest against the skeptical view, making it quite plausible to impute a direct intellectual link between these thinkers. Third, I consider ancient claims that both thinkers were engaging with religious topics, offering a sort of “rational theology.” This evidence for a close intellectual relationship between these thinkers has been entirely ignored by modern scholars, and orthodox interpretative models cannot readily provide a charitable explanation for them. However, by reconsidering the theistic content in Parmenides’s poem, a new interpretative approach is revealed which can. Once this evidence is considered in its totality, the case for imputing a close and direct intellectual heritage from Xenophanes to Parmenides proves quite substantial." (p. 217)

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