Tao Te Ching
Parmenides
540 – 450 BCE
Grandfather of Western philosophy
Parmenides of Elea Παρμενίδης ὁ Ἐλεάτης (c. 540 - 450 BCE)
Father of Western logic, grandfather of Western philosophy, major influence on the development of science, promoter of the most paradoxical (contrary to appearances) vision of reality, and venerated by Plato and Aristotle; Parmenides taught that our experiences of “reality” are illusory, that the profound oneness of life makes change impossible, existence timeless, and that nothing either dies or is born. In The Way of Opinion, he explains the world of appearances, in which one's sensory faculties lead to conceptions which are false and deceitful. In The Way of Truth, he describes a mystical experience of absolute, unborn reality. These categories parallel our theme of “the words or the sense.”
Lineages
Greek Poets Scientists Shamanistic
Eras
Western
Egyptian Civilization (3150 – 305 BCE)Greek Civilization (480 – 146 BCE)
The Axial Age, “The Great Leap of Being” (800 – 200 BCE)
Chinese
Eastern Zhou 東周 (770 – 256 BCE)Spring and Autumn period 春秋时代 (770 – 476 BCE)
Warring States period 春秋时代 (476 – 221 BCE)
Sources
Quotes by Parmenides (9 quotes)
“to be aware and to be are the same.”
from On Nature
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“reality is unborn and imperishable, whole, unique, immovable and without end it was not in the past, not yet shall it be, since it now is, altogether, one and continuous.”
from On Nature
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“the daughters of the Sun, hasting to convey me into the light, threw back their veils”
from On Nature
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“all these things are but the names which mortals have given, believing them, to be true”
from On Nature
Chapters:
1. The Unnamed
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“All things travel in opposite directions!”
from On Nature
Chapters:
22. Heaven's Door
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“How could what is real end? How could it have been created? For if it came into being, it would have had to come from nothing. But nothing is not. Therefore there is no birth or death.”
from On Nature
Chapters:
6. The Source
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“Reality is now, all at once, one and continuous, not divisible, never any more or less of it and nothing that could stop it holding together but always alike and full of what is.”
from On Nature
Chapters:
12. This Over That
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“Learn the unshaken heart of persuasive truth. Don’t believe status quo opinions in which there is no truth at all.”
from On Nature
Chapters:
65. Simplicity: the Hidden Power of Goodness
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“People have lost sight of the truth by coming to believe in two forms: one with the fire of heaven and light, one the opposite as a dark, heavy night. But in truth, everything at the same time is full of both light and dark, both equal.”
from On Nature
Chapters:
22. Heaven's Door
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Quotes about Parmenides (2 quotes)
“What subsequent philosophy, down to quite modern times, accepted from Parmenides, was not the impossibility of all change, which was too violent a paradox, but the indestructibility of substance.”
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“This god was identified by Xenophanes with the universe... all change in history, and all separateness in things, are superficial phenomena; beneath the flux and variety of forms is an unchanging unity, which is the innermost reality of God. From this starting point, Xenophanes's disciple, Parmenides, proceeded to that idealistic philosophy what was in turn to mold the thought of Plato and Platonists throughout antiquity, and of Europe even to our day.”
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