Parmenides

By Miguel Santiago

Parmenides was an ancient Greek philosopher known as the founder of the Eleatic School of philosophy. He was born in the Greek city of Elea, in southern Italy, around 515 BCE and lived until approximately 450 BCE.

Parmenides is renowned for his doctrine of the nature of reality. His work mainly survives in a poem, “On Nature”, which describes two views of existence. First is “The way of truth”, where reality is one, change is impossible, and existence is timeless, uniform, necessary, and unchanging. The second is “The way of opinion”, where our sensory faculties lead to deceptive and imperfect conceptions.

Parmenides’ philosophical ideas directly challenged the theories of Heraclitus, his contemporaries, who believed in constant change as the fundamental essence of the universe. Parmenides proposed that it is impossible for something to arise from nothing, and thus, existence is eternal.

His ideas profoundly influenced the philosophical works of Plato and Aristotle, effectively shaping Western philosophy. Despite having only fragments of his original works available today, Parmenides is still studied and revered for his profound insights into metaphysical questions.

Parmenides Thought

“What is, is, and what is not, cannot be.”

This proposition lies at the heart of Parmenides’ philosophy and revolves around the fundamental principles of existence and non-existence. Parmenides maintains that “what…