Parmenides' "The Way of Truth"

Barrington Jones

Journal of the History of Philosophy, Volume 11, Number 3, July 1973, pp.
287-298 (Article)

Published by Johns Hopkins University Press

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/hph.2008.0796

For additional information about this article

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/227936/summary

Access provided by University of Athens (or National and Kapodistrian Univ. of Athens) (7 Mar 2018 22:50 GMT)
 Parmenides' "The Way of Truth"
BARRINGTON JONES

RECENT YEARS HAVE PRODUCED a number of distinct interpretations of Parmenides'

philosophical poem. Of these, one of the most interesting is that of Montgomery
Furth's "Elements of Eleatic Ontology, ''t and I shall use his treatment of the
poem as the basis for the development of a different interpretation, an interpret-
ation which, hopefully, can preserve the explanatory power of Furth's exposition
while avoiding certain of its difficulties.
Furth suggests that, at the start of his argument, Parmenides is concerned
to show the meaninglessness of negative "is" statements, whether "is" be t a k e n
in an existential or a predicative sense. One cannot say "Unicorns do not exist"
meaningfully; for, in order for the word "unicorns" to be meaningful, there must
be unicorns for the word to refer to. Therefore, negative existential statements
are self-defeating, because they purport to deny a necessary condition of their
own meaningfulness. Parallel considerations apply to the predicative sense of "is".
If "John is tall" is meaningful only if John is tall, or the fact of John's being tall
exists, or the like, then the statement "John is not tall" would be meaningful only
if, for instance, the fact of John's being tall did not exist, but if it did not exist.
then, again, there is nothing for the sentence to refer to, and therefore the sentence
must be meaningless.
Thus, according to Furth, underlying Parmenides' whole position there is a
strongly referential theory of meaning. In this way, it is easy to see how negative
uses of " is" statements can be held to be .unintelligible. Equally, once the possi-
bility of meaningful negative s~tements has been abandoned, it becomes impos-
sible to give an intelligible account of change. Finally, one can see how Parmenides
could have come to assert that being, or reality, was a monolithic, unitary,
homogeneous entity; for "given the is-not doctrine, Parmenides is in a position
to claim that the statement that something is asserts the same as the statement
that (ostensibly) something else is, because the attempted specification of the
alleged difference is unintelligible, ''2 and therefore all true (i.e. meaningful) state-

x Journal of the History of Philosophy, VI (1968), 111-132: (Repeated references to the

same book or article will be by indicating the author's name.)
2 Furth, p. 129.

[287]
288 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY

ments arc synonymous, and therefore they all refer to the same thing, and therefore
there is only one thing. For parallel reasons, the reality of temporal distinctions
between past, present and future would have to be abandoned. "It was" and
"it will be" can now be seen to be synonymous with "it is."
According to Furth's interpretation, sketched above, one of the first conclusions
to be drawn from this referential theory of meaning and the concomitant denial
of the meaningfulness of negative "is" statements is that one can only speak
and think of what is. As Furth puts it: "thou shalt find no thought that is not o~
what is ( = s o m e t h i n g that is), in relation to which it is said (B 8.34-36); what can
be thought or spoken of must be (B 3,6.1); what is not (=nothing) is both unthink-
able and unnameable (B 8.17), not being there to be thought or named. ''3
Not only would this conclusion be highly paradoxical but it would also cripple
thought, if it were true. Its paradoxicality hardly needs mentioning: I can think
of unicorns, the least rapidly divergent series and the golden mountain, and I am
even now speaking of them. But consider the crippling effects of the claim. Suppose
that I ask myself "Does x exist?" and eventually decide that the answer is " N o " ;
that would mean that my original question was meaningless, and therefore I could
not have known what it was that I was trying to find out, and I could not even
have considered the 'question' since it was unintelligible. A scientist could only
be engaged on an intelligible programme of research if he were successful. Again
consider conditional statements. Such a statement can be true as a whole even
though either its antecedent or both its antecedent and its consequent are false.
However, if they arc false, they are meaningless, and therefore units of language
that are meaningful as a whole can be composed of meaningless parts. Again,
there is contraposition, whereby we infer the truth of a sentence of the form
if not-q then not-p from the truth of one of the form if p then q. Suppose that p
and q and therefore also if p then q, are true. Therefore, i[ not-q then not-p is
also true and, ex hypothesi, meaningful. However, if p and q are true, not-p and
not-q must be false and therefore meaningless, and therefore if not-q then not-p
must also be meaningless.
This is sufficient to indicate what scarcely needs proving. Now, it is certainly
true that Parmenides does frequently state that one can only speak or think
of what is and that what is not unutterable and unintelligible (B 3, 6, 1; 8, 8-9;
8, 35-36). The difficulty, however, is that the thesis "the same thing is for think-
ing and for being" (B 3) is presented by him as a reason [or holding that only
"it is' is acceptable. F o r the passage runs:

Come, I will tell you, and do you hear my word and carry it away, what the only ways
of inquiry for thinking are. One, that it is and cannot not be, is the path of certainty
(for it accompanies truth), and another, that it is not and must not be, which I tell
you is altogether unintelligible; for neither would you know that which is not (for it is

Furth, p. 119. References to Parmenides are to H. Diels and W. Kranz, Die Fragmente
der Vorsokratiker (Berlin: Grunewald, 1951).
 PARMENIDES 289

impossible) n o r will y o u indicate it in speech. For the s a m e thing is for thinking a n d

for being. (B 2 and 3) 4

Clearly, this last sentence is given as a reason for holding that that which
is not is unintelligible, and therefore Parmenides cannot mean us to understand
the thesis that what is not is unintelligible as a reason for imposing restrictions
on what can (really) be thought of. T h e development of his argument is in preci-
sely the opposite direction. The same connection between thinking and the second
way as an argument for the first is made shortly afterwards. He says: " I t is
necessary that speaking and thinking be of that which is; for it is possible for
it to be, bttt nothing is not. For I hold you from this first way of inquiry viz. that
it is not" (B 6.113). 5
If this is so and if we followed Furth's interpretation in terms of reference,.
we would have to read Parmenides as offering a crippling paradox as a reason
for accepting something that is not (initially, at any rate) implausible, that meaning
is to be explained in terms of reference. This would be a most bizarre argument.
There is a second difficulty. According to Furth's interpretation, the "is" of
the first way is to be taken in the ordinary Greek sense. T h a t is, it would be the
equivalent of the negation of the "is not" of the second way and the equivalent
of the afftrmative use of "is" in the third way. However, when Parmenides comes
to summarize the findings of " T h e Way of Truth," he claims to have rejected
both "is" and "is not." For he writes: "Therefore, all these are mere names which
mortals have laid down, persuaded that they are true: to come to be and to cease
to be, to be and not to be, and to change position and vary in bright colour'"
(B 8.38-41). The obvious meaning of this passage is that both "is" and "is n o t "
are mere names produced by mortals, who "are carried along deaf and blind alike,
dazed, hordes devoid of judgement" (B 6.6-7). In that case, Parmenides must be
postulating a new sense if "is" and this new sense is not to be confused with the
normal use of "is." If this is so, Furth's treatment of "is" cannot be accepted.
However, Kirk and R a v e n suggest that what Parmenides is condemning in
this passage is not both "is" and, on the other hand, "is not," but rather the one
long expression "is and is not," that is, "is and is not at the same time," and they
construe this as a reference to the third way. 6
Mortals who follow the third way, they claim, " ' h a v e made up their minds
to believe that to be and not to be are the same and yet not the same' (i.e, they
believe that that which is can change and become n o t what it was before. T o be
and not to be are the same in that they are found in any event; and yet they are
obviously opposites and are therefore, in a more exact sense, not the same). ''~ It will

9 The translations given are my own, but they are heavily indebted to G. S. Kirk and
J. E. Raven, The Presocratic Philosophers (Cambridge, 1969), and to G~ E. L. Owen, "Eleatic
Questions," Classical Quarterly (N.S.), X (1960), 84-102.
s For the interpretation of this passage, see pp. 00-00.
s Kirk and Raven, pp. 227 and 271-272.
r Kirk and Raven, p. 272.
290 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY

be argued later s that this type of treatement of the third way is untenable. How-
ever, aside from this argument, it is extremely unlikely, on purely linguistic
grounds, that the line in question can bear the meaning ascribed it by Kirk and
Raven. The line runs TiTve60cd "re Icai 6X~.t)~0ctt, e~vat "re ~ai o6xi and therefore
if we take elvctt ze Kcti obxi, "to be and not to be," in the sense of "'to be and
not to be at the same time," we ought to take yiyve60ai 're r a i 6•Xutr0a% "to
come to be and to cease to be," in the sense of "to come to be and to cease to be
at the same time," that is, "to come to be as it is ceasing to be." However,
Parmenides has shown no signs of attempting to refute this latter, highly bizarre,
claim, but has given separate consideration to coming to be and to ceasing to be
(B 8.2-21). No one, so far as I know, has ever suggested that he did try to refute
the suggestion that something could come into existence as it was ceasing to exist.
Therefore, if we were still to follow Kirk and Raven in their treatment of the
second clause, we should have to suppose that Parmenides meant "all these are
mere names which mortals have laid d o w n . . . : 'to come to be' and 'to cease to be,'
'to be and not to be' (at the same time)" by saying "all these are mere names
which mortals have laid d o w n . . . : to come to be and to cease to be, to be and not
to be." This seems improbable, and it is certainly preferable t o suppose that he
does mean what he appears to be saying, that both "is" and "is not" are mere
n~es.
The suggestion that Parmenides is proposing a new sense of "is" is probable
on other grounds. In "The Way of Opinion," his description of the presuppositions
made by mortals in their way of describing the world, 9 he describes the two
opposite forms which they set up as "the flaming fire in the heavens" and "dark
night" (B 8.56-59), as "light and night" (B 9.1-3). We may take it that 'light' and
'fire' here mean day, the opposite of night. Now, we have already had mention
of day and night much earlier in the poem. For in the poem, Parmenides describes
the vision of how he journeyed to "the gates of day and night" (B l A D , and how
Justice was persuaded to unlock these gates and how Parmenides was guided onto
the highway that lies beyond the gates, the highway that leads to the Goddess
and to truth, "far from the track of men" (B-1.27). Now, if the 'day' and 'night'
of the poem are the same as the 'day' and 'night' postulated by mortals, and if
the 'mere names" "is" and "is not" are included each in their respective halves of
the mortal dichotomization of reality, and if Parmenides does mean us to take
the poem as an allegory of the argument that follows it, then we must suppose
that he believes that he has penetrated beyond the dehlsory forms of the way of
opinion onto the unitary path of truth, and that one of the features of the way
of truth leading to the Goddess is a sense of "is" distinct from that of the way
of opinion. Indeed, if his remark that "they made up their minds to name two
forms, of which it is not right to name one only" (B 8.53-54) is a way of putting
the observation that part of knowing how to use a word is knowing how to use
its negation, that 'eadem est scientia oppositorum,' he will have been well aware

t See p. 00.
) O w e n , p. 89.
 PARMENIDES 291

that he cannot ban negative "is" statements and continue to use "is" in the affirm-
ative in the same sense.
Furth's account, then, faces these two difficulties. Let us begin our positive
account by taking up the implications of the second one and relating them to the
observations of the first.
Anyone proposing a new sense of a word must give a criterion to enable us
to understand what this sense is. Parmenides does this in the one statement that
we have already seen to form the premiss of his rejection of the second way:
"'for the same thing is for thinking and for being" (B 3). That is, if you can think
of something, or if you can speak of it, then that 'something' must in some way,
be, for you to be able to think or speak of it. The criterion embedded in this for
"is" is that whatever can be spoken or thought of 'is,' that 'things that are' and
'objects of thought' are co-extensive.
We may put Parmenides' premiss as follows: (I) It is always the case that
if x can be thought of then x is. From this it immediately follows, by contraposition,
t h a t : (2) It is always the case that if x is not then x cannot be thought of; that is,
claims that something is not are unintelligible. Since premiss (1) admits of an
alternative formulation in terms of what can be spoken of (B 6.1; 8.8-9; 8.35-36),
what is not is both unthinkable and cannot be indicated in speech. This is exactly
what Parmenides claims in his rejection of the second way (B 2).
It must be emphasized that the premiss is formulated in an assertoric and
not a modal form. That is, that Parmenides formulates it as in (1) and not as in (3).
It is always the case that if x can be thought of then x can be.
Owen claims that (3) is the premiss upon which Parmenides relies 1~ and that
he argued: " ' W h a t can be spoken and thought of must exist; for it can exist,
whereas nothing cannot.' Hence, of course, it is n o t nothing; and hence it exists"; t t
and in so doing he would have committed the fallacy of de re modalities. This
assumes that he began by using the mortal sense of "is" and then argued from
this to a conclusion about the objects of thought. We have already seen reason
to reject both these assumptions, and therefore the third claim must also be
dismissed.
In view of the way in which fragments B 2 and B 3 have to be taken, we
must construe the difficult beginning to fragment B 6 in such a way that the theses
about what is follow from thesis (1), and not the other way about. This is quite
easy; for "for it is possible for it to be" (B 6.1) is to be taken as an explanatory
e x p a n s i o n of the preceeding sentence, "it is necessary that speaking and thinking
be of what is" (B 6.1), and not as a reason for it. This means that the conclusion
is "nothing is not" (B 6.2).
After disposing of the second way, Parmenides turns to a third suggestion
which holds that "to be and not to be are the sin-he and not the same"(B 6.8-9).
We have already noted that Kirk and Raven construe this as a denial of the law
of non-contradiction and explain the suggestion in terms of change. However,

le O w e n , pp. 93-94.
n O w e n , p. 94.
292 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY

this is extremely improbable; for this section of the argument follows directly
on Parmenides' rejection of the second way (/3 6.2-5), and there has been, as yet.
no mention of change in the poem. That is only dealt with later (B 8). Nor does
it seem likely that there is any allusion to change here (unless, perhaps, we c l a i m
that the reference is not after all to mankind in general but to Heraclitus and his
followers). F o r it seems improbable that people listening to his p o e m could be
expected to appreciate, as yet, that the way in which they viewed change could
be said to involve them in treating "to b e " and "not to b e " as the same and yet
as different. Furthermore, it is not clear that the explanation offered of the
meaning of "the same and not the s a m e " is convincing. When he does come to
discuss change there is no hint of the view that "to be and not to b e . . . are both
found in any event ''12 but only of the fact that if something is or has come to
be then there ought to have been a time when it was not. Indeed, the suggestion
that to be and not to be are the same because they are found in any event sounds
like saying that stone and glass are the same because they are found in any build-
hag, or that red is different from itself because it is found in both chalk and cheese.
Furth, on the other hand, takes the suggestion to be that when something is
said not to be then the term for the 'something' still does have a referent, but
this referent is not an existing thing. Thus, if I say "Unicorns do not exist."
there are indeed no unicorns out in the world to be referred to, but the word does
still have a reference to, for instance, ideas, la This way of treating the suggestion
is, I think, basically right. I only add the proviso "basically" here because the
specific formulation adopted clearly presupposes the general interpretation of the
basic thesis of the work in terms of 'reference'. However, the same point can easily
be made in terms of two senses of "is." Let us call them "existence" and "subsist-
ence"; the suggestion will then run somewhat as follows: "when you use a
sentence of the form 'x is not' you mean that x does not exist, but this does not
mean that x cannot be thought of; for x still is, it subsists, and the objects of
thought are not just existent but also subsistent entities. Therefore, 'x is not'
means 'x, which subsists, does not exist'."
Furth maintains that Parmenides' reply to this is to point out that this would
involve changing the subject, frown existent to subsistent entities. However, there
is no trace of any such argument in the text. This is because there does not
a p p e a r to be any trace of any argument at all. Taking fragments B 6 and B 7
together, the 'argument' runs:

For I hold you from this first way of inquiry [viz. that which holds that 'it is not'], and
then from that one which mortals wander knowing nothing, looking two ways. For
helplessness guides the wandering thought in their breasts; they are carried along deaf
and blind alike, dazed, hordes devoid of judgement, who are persuaded that to be and
not to be are the same and not the same, and the path of everything moves in opposite
directions. (B 6)

1, Kirk and Raven, p. 272.

t, Furth, p. 119.
 PARMENIDES 293

F o r never shall it be proved that what is not is; but do you [se. says the Goddess to
Parmenides] keep your thought from this way of inquiry, nor let custom born of much
experience force an unseeing eye and echoing heating and tongue to wander down this
way, but judge by reason the strife-ridden refutation spoken by me. (B 7)

B u t where is this " s t r i f e - r i d d e n r e f u t a t i o n " ? T h e o n l y suggestion in these

two fragments, b e y o n d a great d e a l of abuse, seems to be a d e m a n d f o r p r o o f
f r o m erring m o r t a l s , a s t a t e m e n t of w h e r e the onus probandi lies. But if it lies
a n y w h e r e , it lies w i t h P a r m e n i d e s a n d his p a r a d o x e s , a n d , in a n y case, such a
cautious answer can h a r d l y be c h a r a c t e r i z e d as " s t r i f e - r i d d e n . " I f we a d o p t e d
K i r k a n d R a v e n ' s i n t e r p r e t a t i o n , we c o u l d p e r h a p s s a y t h a t a n y i n f r i n g e m e n t
o f the l a w of n o n - c o n t r a d i c t i o n is self-refuting, a sell-evident falsehood. H o w e v e r ,
even so, the G o d d e s s speaks no r e f u t a t i o n a n d yet she s a y s t h a t she has. F u r t h e r -
m o r e , even those scholars who a t t r i b u t e use of the l a w to P a r m e n i d e s are a t
s o m e t h i n g of a loss to e x p l a i n such a p u r e l y i m p l i c i t a p p e a l to it at such an e a r l y
stage in G r e e k thought. 14
H o w e v e r , there is w h a t seems to m e a n a r g u m e n t a g a i n s t the t h i r d w a y , to
the effect t h a t one c a n n o t distinguish t w o senses of " i s , " ' s u b s i s t e n c e ' a n d 'exist-
ence', or, to p u t the s a m e p o i n t in t h e m a t e r i a l m o d e , t h a t one c a n n o t d i s t i n g u i s h
two types of being, ' s u b s i s t e n t ' a n d ' e x i s t e n t ' ones. T h i s is to b e f o u n d in f r a g m e n t
B 4. T h e f r a g m e n t runs as follows:

Yet look at things which though far off are firmly present to your mind; for you shall
not cut off that which is from cleaving to that which is, neither scattered in every way
everywhere as to order nor crowded together.

I f we d o take this as r e l e v a n t to the t h i r d way, the a r g u m e n t will run some-

thing like this:

Suppose that t h e r e / s a distinction between subsistence and existence, still it is the case
that one can speak and think just as easily of subsistent as of existent objects. This is
forcibly illustrated in those cases where one has a mental attitude towards something
which, at the time of your having the attitude, either must or can be subsistent and
yet enters into the attitude, as it were, in an existent way. Take, for example, hoping.
Since you are hoping for something, the object of y o u r hope is not yet present but
'is fax off', even though it is 'firmly present to your mind'. Let us suppose your hope is
satisfied, that you receive what it was that you were hoping for. It is surely one and
the same thing that is now present and satisfies your hope as was once not present and

~( E . g . C . H . Kahn, "The Thesis of Parmenides," The Review of Metaphysics, XXII

(1969), 708: "We may say that he is presenting the law of excluded middle in its strong form,
with the disjunction understood as exclusive . . . . so that the principle of non-contradiction is
immediately entailed . . . . Now the law of non-contradiction was not formulated explicitly
(as far as we know) until Plato's Republic (IV. 436B-437A); and the excludeA middle is first
recognized as such by Aristotle (Meta., Gamma, 7). But these principles are here on the tip
o f Parmenides' tongue, and it is not very difficult to imagine that he could have explained
them orally to this disciples." See also A. R. Lacey, "The Eleaties and Aristotle on Some
Problems of Change," Journal of the History of Ideas, XXVI (1965), 451.
294 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY

merely hoped for. However, according to the suggestion under review, they cannot be
one and the same thing; for in the one case we have a subsistent object, the object of
your hope while you were hoping, and then, when the hope is satisfied, an existent
object. Therefore, it would seem, you could never really receive what you were hoping
for. Furthermore, during the whole time you have been hoping, it is one and the same
object you have been hoping to receive. Therefore, you cannot 'cut off that which is
from cleaving to that which is'. This whole argument apphes not only to hoping but to
all those mental phenomena which admit, to one degree or another, of a characterization
in terms of 'intensional inexistence', from imagination, where what is imagined is
necessarily not present and can even have never existed, to memory, where it is merely
necessary that the object in question be no longer present at the time of remembering
it.15

This would be a very reasonable and plausible argument. Furthermore, if a

consideration of the nature of the objects of thought forms the basis of Parmenides'
general course of argumentation, it is not surprising to find him appealing to
tbinking in this more specific case. If a consideration of thinking can be taken
as showing that a distinction between existence and subsistence is untenable, then,
for Parmenides, it is untenable.
It might be supposed that this fragment is concerned with the supposed physical
unity and homogeneity of reality, but, in that case, I just cannot see what the
connection is between such a position and the injunction to "look at things
which though far off are firmly present to the mind."
Therefore, in short, I propose that fragment B 4 be read between B 6 and B 7,
and that this is the Goddess' "strife-ridden refutation."
We are now in a position to see the character of Parmenides' argument against
change, whether it be coming to be or ceasing to be, and of his suggestion that
the temporal distinction between past, present and future are spurious. Let us
take the question of time first.
In the p o e m this question is closely related to change, and it is clear that
he is concerned with time only in so far as it applies to an analysis of change.
There are two relevant passages. H e first says: " O n l y one way is left to be
spoken of, that it is. On this there are very m a n y signs how being uncreated
it is also not destroyed; for it is entire, immovable and without end, nor was
it once nor will it be, since it is now, equally whole, one, continuous" (B 8.1-6);
and then, a little later, he writes: " H o w would it come to be? For if it did come
to be, it is not, even if it is about to be at some time" (B 8.19-20).
In the light of fragment B 4, we can see that the issue here is not one of
any synonymity of temporally diverse statements. Keeping to the terminology used
so far, that of senses of the verb "is," we m a y express this argument as claiming
that since people can think of objects which, to put it in the tensed language of
mortals, no longer or do not yet exist at the time of thinking, as when we r e m e m b e r
something that no longer exists or hope for something not yet in existence, these

x5 Clement, who cites the passage, appears to take it in this way, and the example of
hoping is his; see Diels-Kranz, B 4.
 PARMENIDES 295

objects must be, and they must be at the time of thinking for us to be able to
think of them. It is not good suggesting that when things are not yet or are no
longer, then they are in a different way, that they subsist; for, as we have seen,
being is one, "is" has only one sense. Equally, of course, we cannot say that
at the time of thinking, or speaking, they are not, since that would produce the
contradiction that we are thinking or speaking of something which, by premiss (2),
cannot be spoken or thought of. Being is 'continuous' because all things that
can be thought of must equally be and do not become less so the greater the
temporal distance from the present, either towards the past or towards the future.
When we expect something for a certain period of time and our expectation is
eventually satisfied then throughout the whole period of expectation and satis-
faction it is one and the same object in question. This is summed up in frag-
ment B 8.22-25: "Nor is it divisible, since it is equally whole; nor is it more in
one way, since that would prevent it from holding together, nor is some less, but
it is all full of what is. ''16 However, given Parmenides' position that his sense
of "is" is the only legitimate sense, Parmenides' denial of the reality of temporal
distinctions amounts to a general denial of the reality of time.
The fact that his comments on time are interrelated with his criticism of
the notion of change deserves emphasis since it is frequently supposed that he
considers only one analysis of change. His dismissal of time shows that there
are at least two analyses considered. In fact it could be that there are three
analyses under review, although the third is perhaps no more than a restatement
of the second. I shall sketch what seem to be the analyses suggested, and present
them in relation to coming to be, since their application to ceasing to be will be
obvious.
The first suggestion takes Parmenides' own sense of "is" and claims that
when something comes to be what this means is that something was, or is not yet,
or is in the past, and then the same thing is, or is now, o r / s in the present. Or, to
change the temporal perspective, it is claimed that at one time the thing is about
to be (B 8.19-20) and at that time also is. Thus all change would be change in 'tem-
poral properties'. However, once the meaninglessness of temporal distinctions has
been demonstrated, this suggestion may be dismissed ('B 8.1-6 and 19-20).
Alternatively, the analysis envisaged may be to the effect that what has come
to be and now is, it, which now is, once was not. In this case, Parmenides will be
applying his general denial of time, and further his denial of the significance
of negation will be applicable, as in the next argument.
T h e second suggestion is that at one time it is not and then, at a later time,
it is. However, of course, if it is not then it is unthinkable, that is, unintelligible
(B 8.8-9). He also appeals to a version of the principle of sufficient reason: "Also,
what need would have driven it to grow later rather than before, having begun
from nothing" (B 8.9-10).
The third suggestion may well be no more than the second with a restatement
of the unintelligibility of what is not. However, in view of the fact that "it is

x6 See also B 8.4; 5-6; 26; 29-30; 37-38; 42-49.

296 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY

or it is not" (B 8.16) can so easily be construed as a denial of "'it is and it is not,"

by taking the "or" to be exclusive, and that "it is and it is n o t " is the third way
(B 6.8). it is extremely tempting to see here a rebuttal of a suggestion that we
distinguish senses of "is," such that one time the thing 'subsists' and then at a later
time it 'exists'. In any case, it is interesting to see how he would deal with such
a suggestion. Adding in brackets a specification of the relevant sense of "'is," the
argument goes as follows: " N o r will the strength of certainty allow anything to
come to be from what is not [i.e. from what subsists] other than it [i.e. something
that subsists]; because of this Justice has not loosed the fetters and let it come
to be [i.e. come to exist] or pass away [i.e. cease to exist], but holds it fast.
The decision a b o u t these things lies in this: it is or it is not [so. there is no
third alternative, no second sense of "is"]" (B 8.12-16). 17 However, we have
already seen that talk of 'subsistence' reduces to talk of not being, and therefore
this third suggestion would also reduce to the second. Accordingly, Parmenides
sums up the basic objection to the second and third suggestions by saying:
"Therefore, it has been decided, as it must, to leave the one unthinkable and
nameless (for it is no true way), and the other, that it is, is in fact true" (B 8.16-18).
So far, the discussion has been conducted in terms of the senses of words.
However, it is more than probable that this is something of a distortion of
Parmenides' position, although it is, I feel, the easiest way for moderns to under-
stand his thought. It seems not at all improbable that Parmenides assumed that
when one thinks of something, then what one is thinking is the very thing itself. Is
Therefore, to be historically accurate, we ought to put Parmenides' various theses
into the material, as opposed to the formal, mode, and say, for example, that
everything that is is of a single type.
Now, it must be emphasized that the unity of being is not a conclusion from
the denial of change but a reason /or it. This is clear from the passage which
introduces the discussion of change: " H o w being uncreated it is also not destroyed;
lot" it is entire, immovable and without end, nor was it once nor will it be, since it
is now, equally whole, one, continuous" (B 8.3-6). The important point remains
that he did hold that reality is one and continuous. This, however, does not as
such commit him to any position as regards the question of whether or not being,
as a whole, is one monolithic lump. He can maintain quite consistently that all
that he has shown is that all the various entities in the world have each the same
ontological status. Indeed, as A. P. D. Mourelatos has observed, "the term 7r6XXct,

~7 Cf. also Plato, Parmenides, 133A-134E.

xa The places where Parmenides could be stating something like this are more than
usually obscure. He does seem to suggest that thinking and the thought that is thought are
one and the same (B 8.34), where the point is presumably that "thought" is the 'internal
accusative' of "think," as "dream" is in "to dream a dream." Further, if B 8.16 does suggest
that the having of a thought is the having of a certain composition, then he could have
identified the thinking with the thought (as opposed to maintaining that the thought is nothing
o v e r and a b o v e the thinking) and identified the thought with what the thought is of, and s o
claimed that thinking is the having of a certain thing. The passages in question are, I feel, t o o
o b s c u r e t o allow more than guess-work. However, such a claim is not alien to Eleatic thought;
see Gorgias' parody of Eleatic argument, Sextus Empiricus, Adversus Mathematicos, VII,
77-82.
 PARMENIDES 297

" m a n y , " the whipping boy of generations of monists after Parmenides, is never
used in a pejorative sense in the extant fragments. T h e adjective occurs only once,
at fragment 8.3, where it is embedded in a context that gives it a good sense:
"and along that route there are very m a n y signposts. ''19
However, if we attribute enough muddle to Parmenides, we can see how
he could perhaps have reached the conclusion that being is a unitary agglomerate.
He has shown, to speak in the material mode, that being is one, indivisible and
continuous. If we assume that he then took these in the sense that being is phys-
ically indivisible, physically unitary and physically continuous, without variations
of physical density, then we shall have the traditional picture of Parmenides'
theory. This would clearly be fallacious. It m a y be suggested that Parmenides
confused the material and the formal z~ objects of thinking, and inferred from
the fact that all thinking has one and only one formal object, being, or what is, 21
that thinking has one and only one material object; that the fact that all thinking
is of what is makes it impossible for it also to be of cabbages and kings. This last
move is objectionable not only because of the fallacy involved but also because
it would provide a proponent of the third way with a retort to Parmenides' argu-
ment against him. Thus, take remembering something; the formal object of
remembering is what is past and therefore, according to Parmenides' supposed
argument, we cannot also remember things like the taste of coffee, and therefore
there is no question about whether the taste that we r e m e m b e r is one and the same
taste that we once had. Furthermore, Parmenides would have to restrict the h u m a n
cognitive factors to only one, z2 thinking, since if we also admitted, say, recollection,
the same argument would allow us to maintain that there must be at least two
objects, what is and what is past. In the example of recollection is found objection-
able on the score of the rejection of time, we can appeal to the formal objects of,
for instance, envy and pride.
A final possibility is that Parmenides inferred from his thesis that "is" means
only one thing (i.e. has only one sense) that "is," or rather " w h a t is," means only
one thing (i.e. refers to one and only one thing). This seems to have been the
way in which Aristotle understood Parmenides' argument. 23
T o repeat, the only reason for attributing any of these inferences to Parmenides
is the fact that he has almost universally 24 been supposed to have adopted a
monistic position, but there is no trace for any such inference in the text.

l0 "Comments on 'The Thesis of Parmenides'," The Review oJ Metaphysics, XXII (1969),

739, n. 9.
~o "Material" and "formal" are here used in a different sense from the earlier, Carnapian
occurrences whereby talk of language is contrasted with talk of extra-linguistic entities. For an
account of 'material' and 'formal' objects; see A. Kenny, Action, Emotion and Will (London:
1969), Chapter IX.
2~ See Kenny, pp. 190 and 190, n. 1. After completing the present paper, l came across this
interpretation in J. Moreau, L'Espace et le Temps selon Aristote, (Padua: 1965), pp. 79-80.
22 Or perhaps two, see B 16.
23 See Physics, 186a22-bl2.
2, With the possible exception of Heidegger; see G. R. Vick, "Heidegger's Linguistic
Rehabilitation of Parmenides' Being," American Philosophical Quarterly, VIII (1971), 147-148
and 147, n. 44.
298 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY

Finally, it is worth observing that there is no longer any good reason against
construing the subject of the three ways as 'what there is', because the "is" of
"it is," "it is not" and "it is and it is not" is to be taken, ultimately, in Parmenides'
new sense. 'What there is' is usually rejected as the subject of the three ways on
the grounds that its adoption would m a k e the first way a trivial tautology and
the second an uninteresting contradiction. 25 However, since Parmenides is adopt-
ing a new sense of "is" and is playing this off throughout against the customary
mortal sense of the word, and since the criterion for this new sense is only intro-
duced alter the dismissal of the second way and the affirmation of the first, the
appearance of being a trivial tautology and a trivial contradiction becomes a
valuable dialectical device and will eventually be seen to be a different, and
interesting, tautology and contradiction. T o bring this out clearly let us use the
subscripts 'p' and ' m ' to indicate, respectively, the Parmenidean and the mortal
senses of "is". Then, what the first argument, that of fragment B 2, appears to be
saying is that
what is= is=
and that
what is,, not is,, not,
which no one would disagree with, but what in fact he is saying is that
what isp isp
and that
what isp not isp not,
and this is not trivial, although, like m a n y philosophical claims, it is a tautology.
F o r it involves the claim that
what can bc thought of isp, despite the fact that we can speak and think
of what is,, not or ism no longer or is~ not yet.
T o summarize the course of the discussion, then. We have seen that, if we do
not take Parmenides as postulating monism, the argument proceeds with consider-
able force to the conclusions that Parmenides claims, and does so without involv-
ing him in any direct fallacy, such as a failure to distinguish between an 'exis-
tential' and a 'predicative' sense of "is." For just as I can think of something,
so I can think of something's being the case, and the same considerations will
apply. N o r does he impose impossibly stringent restrictions on meaningfulness;
if anything, he is over-liberal in his admissions of existence and being. Given
acceptance of the claim that what can be thought of m u s t be, his argument has
force. 26

University of London

2, Owen, p. 90.
2, Throughout I have assumed that voeIv is to be taken in its customary sense of "to
think." C. H. Kahn (pp. 703-711), however, has maintained that it is to be taken in the
stronger sense of "to know." This can hardly be so in view of the fact that Parmenides does
ascribe v6or to deluded mankind, who, he claims, are totally enmeshed in 86~a, opinion
(B 6.6; I6.2). Furthermore, he uses the expression "wandering v6ov," and, had he meant
"knowledge," this would be a striking 'contradictio in adiecto' (B 6.6).