The Legacy of Parmenides

by Curd, Patricia

• ISBN13: 9780691011820
• ISBN10: 0691011826
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1997-12-22
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr

Summary

Parmenides of Elea was the most important and influential philosopher before Plato. Patricia Curd here reinterprets Parmenides' views and offers a new account of his relation to his predecessors and successors. On the traditional interpretation, Parmenides argues that generation, destruction, and change are unreal and that only one thing exists. He therefore rejected as impossible the scientific inquiry practiced by the earlier Presocratic philosophers. But the philosophers who came after Parmenides attempted to explain natural change and they assumed the reality of a plurality of basic entities. Thus, on the traditional interpretation, the later Presocratics either ignored or contradicted his arguments. In this book, Patricia Curd argues that Parmenides sought to reform rather than to reject scientific inquiry and offers a more coherent account of his influence on the philosophers who came after him. The Legacy of Parmenidesprovides a detailed examination of Parmenides' arguments, considering his connection to earlier Greek thought and how his account of what-is could serve as a model for later philosophers. It then considers the theories of those who came after him, including the Pluralists (Anaxagoras and Empedocles), the Atomists (Leucippus and Democritus), the later Eleatics (Zeno and Melissus), and the later Presocratics Philolaus of Croton and Diogenes of Apollonia. The book closes with a discussion of the importance of Parmenides' views for the development of Plato's Theory of Forms.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix	(2)
Acknowledgments	xi	(2)
A Note on Texts and Translations	xiii	(2)
Abbreviations	xv
Introduction	3	(21)
1. The Standard Interpretation of Parmenides	9	(6)
2. Chronology	15	(3)
3. The Proem	18	(6)
I. Parmenides and the Inquiry into Nature	24	(40)
1. The Problem of the Argument in Aletheia	28	(6)
2. Parmenides' esti and the Search for Nature	34	(17)
3. Mortal Error and the Routes of Inquiry	51	(13)
II. Parmenides' Monism and the Arguments of B8	64	(34)
1. Monism	65	(10)
2. The Arguments of B8	75	(19)
3. Difference, Division, and Monism	94	(4)
III. Doxa and Deception	98	(29)
1. Puzzles	100	(4)
2. Doxa: Opposite Forms	104	(7)
3. The Lessons of Mortal Beliefs	111	(5)
4. Objections: Mortal Beliefs and Accounts of Experience	116	(11)
IV. Pluralism after Parmenides	127	(53)
1. The Question of Pluralism	128	(3)
2. Anaxagoras	131	(24)
2.1. Anaxagoras and the Indefinitely Many Things	131	(10)
2.2. Anaxagoras: Nous and the Chremata	141	(6)
2.3. Anaxagoras and the Problem of Large and Small	147	(4)
2.4. Anaxagoras and the Opposites	151	(4)
3. Empedocles	155	(16)
3.1. Empedocles and the Roots of All Things	155	(9)
3.2. Empedocles: Particles and Pores	164	(7)
4. Zeno and Some Problems of Divisibility	171	(9)
V. Atoms, Void, and Rearrangement	180	(37)
1. Atoms and Void	184	(4)
2. Void, Being, and the ou mallon Arguments	188	(10)
3. Knowing Void	198	(8)
4. Melissus on the One	206	(11)
VI. Final Remarks	217	(26)
1. Philolaus of Croton and Diogenes of Apollonia	218	(10)
2. The Last Presocratic: Plato and the Legacy of Parmenides	228	(13)
3. Conclusion	241	(2)
Bibliography	243	(14)
Index Locorum	257	(7)
Index Nominum	264	(5)
General Index	269