Parmenides

nationality

American

occupation / innovator as

philosopher

university teacher

classical scholar

scientific organization

Society for Classical Studies

American Academy of Arts and Sciences

British Academy

American Philosophical Society

's most important single contribution to the history of thought was the projection of the logic of Being (i.e. logic and reason) upon the alien world of Becoming. He thus laid the foundations for the greatest achievement of the scientific imagination of Greece, the atomic hypothesis.

The philosophy of Parmenides is a strange blend of mysticism and logic. It is mysticism, for its goal is not the gradual and cumulative correction of empirical knowledge, but deliverance from it through the instantaneous and absolute grasp of "immovable" truth. This is not the way of techne, but the way of revelation: it lies "beyond the path of men" (B. 1.27). Yet this revelation is itself addressed to man's reason and must be judged by reason. Its core is pure logic: a rigorous venture in deductive thinking, the first of its kind in European thought. This kind of thinking could be used against the world of the senses … This projection of the logic of Being upon the alien world of Becoming was Parmenides' most important single contribution to the history of thought, though it is seldom recognized as such. Without it, his doctrine of Being could have remained a speculative curiosity. With it, he laid the foundations for the greatest achievement of the scientific imagination of Greece, the atomic hypothesis.

's philosophy is a rigorous venture in deductive thinking, the first of its kind in European thought. This kind of thinking could be used against the world of the senses.

's philosophy is a strange blend of mysticism and logic. It is mysticism, for its goal is not the gradual and cumulative correction of empirical knowledge, but deliverance from it through the instantaneous and absolute grasp of "immovable" truth. This is not the way of techne, but the way of revelation: it lies "beyond the path of men".

Gregory Vlastos

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Gregory Vlastos