Parmenides of Elea
515-450 BC · Early Greek Thought · Prominent
Parmenides belonged to the Greek thinkers who came before Socrates, and he set his philosophy down in a poem. Try to think about nothing and you find there is nothing there to think. From that he argued that nothing can come from nothing, so change and coming-to-be are illusions, and only being has any claim to be: one, whole, eternal and undivided. Your senses report otherwise, and that report he called mortal opinion.
Signature
The position Parmenides is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Nature of Reality
- strongly leans Unity
- Knowledge
- Pure Reason
Positions on the 6 axes the sources answer
- Identity
- strongly leans Unchanging (7 on a 0–100 scale from Unchanging to Changing)
- Nature of Reality
- strongly leans Unity (0 on a 0–100 scale from Unity to Multiplicity)
- Ground of Being
- leans Transcendence (75 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
- Truth
- strongly leans Objective (100 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Opposition
- leans Concurrence (75 on a 0–100 scale from Sublation to Concurrence)
- Conviction
- leans Certain (75 on a 0–100 scale from Uncertain to Certain)
14 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Parmenides refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Highest Good
- Knowledge
What is the highest good? - End of Things
- Indistinct from Present
What is the ultimate end of all things? - Knowledge
- Pure Reason
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Beginning of Things
- Indistinct from Present
What is the origin of reality? - Time
- Eternal Present
What is the fundamental shape of time? - Paradox
- Paradox as Error
What is the status of paradox?