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Parmenides
Parmenides of Elea (/pɑːrˈmɛnɪdiːz ... ˈɛliə/; Ancient Greek: Παρμενίδης ὁ Ἐλεάτης; fl. late sixth or early fifth century BC) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher from Elea in Magna Graecia (Southern Italy).
Parmenides was born in the Greek colony of Elea to a wealthy and illustrious family. The exact date of his birth is not known with certainty; on the one hand, according to the doxographer Diogenes Laërtius, Parmenides flourished in the period immediately preceding 500 BC, which would place his year of birth around 540 BC; on the other hand, in the dialogue Parmenides Plato portrays him as visiting Athens at the age of 65, when Socrates was a young man, c. 450 BC, which, if true, suggests a potential year of birth of c. 515 BC. Parmenides is thought to have been in his prime (or "floruit") around 475 BC.
The single known work by Parmenides is a philosophical poem in dactylic hexameter verse whose original title is unknown but which is often referred to as On Nature. Only fragments of it survive, but the integrity of the poem is remarkably higher than what has come down to us from the works of almost all other pre-Socratic philosophers, and therefore classicists can reconstruct the philosophical doctrines with greater precision. In his poem, Parmenides prescribes two views of reality. The first, the way of "Aletheia" or truth, describes how all reality is one, change is impossible, and existence is timeless and uniform. The second view, the way of "Doxa" or opinion, describes the world of appearances, in which one's sensory faculties lead to conceptions which are false and deceitful.
Parmenides has been considered the founder of ontology and has, through his influence on Plato, influenced the whole history of Western philosophy. He is also considered to be the founder of the Eleatic school of philosophy, which also included Zeno of Elea and Melissus of Samos. Zeno's paradoxes of motion were developed to defend Parmenides's views. In contemporary philosophy, Parmenides's work has remained relevant in debates about the philosophy of time.
Parmenides was born in Elea to an aristocratic family. Diogenes Laertius says that his father was Pires. Laertius transmits two divergent sources regarding the teacher of the philosopher. One, dependent on Sotion, indicates that he was first a student of Xenophanes, but did not follow him, and later became associated with a Pythagorean, Aminias, whom he preferred as his teacher. Another tradition, dependent on Theophrastus, indicates that he was a disciple of Anaximander.
Parmenides was one of the pre-Socratic philosophers. As with all pre-Socratic philosophers, the little known about his life and work comes from writings and quotations by later philosophers. Parmenides founded his school of thought in Elea. His ideas were followed by Melissus of Samos and Zeno of Elea, with the latter being a close friend of Parmenides.
All conjectures regarding Parmenides's date of birth are based on two ancient sources. One comes from Apollodorus and is transmitted to us by Diogenes Laertius: this source marks the Olympiad 69th (between 504 BC and 500 BC) as the moment of maturity, placing his birth 40 years earlier (544 BC – 540 BC). The other is Plato, in his dialogue Parmenides. There Plato composes a situation in which Parmenides, 65, and Zeno, 40, travel to Athens to attend the Panathenaic Games. On that occasion they meet Socrates, who was still very young according to the Platonic text.
The inaccuracy of the dating from Apollodorus is well known, who chooses the date of a historical event to make it coincide with the maturity (the floruit) of a philosopher, a maturity that he invariably reached at forty years of age. He tries to always match the maturity of a philosopher with the birth of his alleged disciple. In this case Apollodorus, according to Burnet, based his date of the foundation of Elea (540 BC) to chronologically locate the maturity of Xenophanes and thus the birth of his supposed disciple, Parmenides. Knowing this, Burnet and later classicists like Cornford, Raven, Guthrie, and Schofield preferred to base the calculations on the Platonic dialogue. According to the latter, the fact that Plato adds so much detail regarding ages in his text is a sign that he writes with chronological precision. Plato says that Socrates was very young, and this is interpreted to mean that he was less than twenty years old. We know the year of Socrates's death (399 BC) and his age—he was about seventy years old—making the date of his birth 469 BC. The Panathenaic games were held every four years, and of those held during Socrates's youth (454, 450, 446), the most likely is that of 450 BC, when Socrates was nineteen years old. Thus, if at this meeting Parmenides was about sixty-five years old, his birth occurred around 515 BC.
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Parmenides
Parmenides of Elea (/pɑːrˈmɛnɪdiːz ... ˈɛliə/; Ancient Greek: Παρμενίδης ὁ Ἐλεάτης; fl. late sixth or early fifth century BC) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher from Elea in Magna Graecia (Southern Italy).
Parmenides was born in the Greek colony of Elea to a wealthy and illustrious family. The exact date of his birth is not known with certainty; on the one hand, according to the doxographer Diogenes Laërtius, Parmenides flourished in the period immediately preceding 500 BC, which would place his year of birth around 540 BC; on the other hand, in the dialogue Parmenides Plato portrays him as visiting Athens at the age of 65, when Socrates was a young man, c. 450 BC, which, if true, suggests a potential year of birth of c. 515 BC. Parmenides is thought to have been in his prime (or "floruit") around 475 BC.
The single known work by Parmenides is a philosophical poem in dactylic hexameter verse whose original title is unknown but which is often referred to as On Nature. Only fragments of it survive, but the integrity of the poem is remarkably higher than what has come down to us from the works of almost all other pre-Socratic philosophers, and therefore classicists can reconstruct the philosophical doctrines with greater precision. In his poem, Parmenides prescribes two views of reality. The first, the way of "Aletheia" or truth, describes how all reality is one, change is impossible, and existence is timeless and uniform. The second view, the way of "Doxa" or opinion, describes the world of appearances, in which one's sensory faculties lead to conceptions which are false and deceitful.
Parmenides has been considered the founder of ontology and has, through his influence on Plato, influenced the whole history of Western philosophy. He is also considered to be the founder of the Eleatic school of philosophy, which also included Zeno of Elea and Melissus of Samos. Zeno's paradoxes of motion were developed to defend Parmenides's views. In contemporary philosophy, Parmenides's work has remained relevant in debates about the philosophy of time.
Parmenides was born in Elea to an aristocratic family. Diogenes Laertius says that his father was Pires. Laertius transmits two divergent sources regarding the teacher of the philosopher. One, dependent on Sotion, indicates that he was first a student of Xenophanes, but did not follow him, and later became associated with a Pythagorean, Aminias, whom he preferred as his teacher. Another tradition, dependent on Theophrastus, indicates that he was a disciple of Anaximander.
Parmenides was one of the pre-Socratic philosophers. As with all pre-Socratic philosophers, the little known about his life and work comes from writings and quotations by later philosophers. Parmenides founded his school of thought in Elea. His ideas were followed by Melissus of Samos and Zeno of Elea, with the latter being a close friend of Parmenides.
All conjectures regarding Parmenides's date of birth are based on two ancient sources. One comes from Apollodorus and is transmitted to us by Diogenes Laertius: this source marks the Olympiad 69th (between 504 BC and 500 BC) as the moment of maturity, placing his birth 40 years earlier (544 BC – 540 BC). The other is Plato, in his dialogue Parmenides. There Plato composes a situation in which Parmenides, 65, and Zeno, 40, travel to Athens to attend the Panathenaic Games. On that occasion they meet Socrates, who was still very young according to the Platonic text.
The inaccuracy of the dating from Apollodorus is well known, who chooses the date of a historical event to make it coincide with the maturity (the floruit) of a philosopher, a maturity that he invariably reached at forty years of age. He tries to always match the maturity of a philosopher with the birth of his alleged disciple. In this case Apollodorus, according to Burnet, based his date of the foundation of Elea (540 BC) to chronologically locate the maturity of Xenophanes and thus the birth of his supposed disciple, Parmenides. Knowing this, Burnet and later classicists like Cornford, Raven, Guthrie, and Schofield preferred to base the calculations on the Platonic dialogue. According to the latter, the fact that Plato adds so much detail regarding ages in his text is a sign that he writes with chronological precision. Plato says that Socrates was very young, and this is interpreted to mean that he was less than twenty years old. We know the year of Socrates's death (399 BC) and his age—he was about seventy years old—making the date of his birth 469 BC. The Panathenaic games were held every four years, and of those held during Socrates's youth (454, 450, 446), the most likely is that of 450 BC, when Socrates was nineteen years old. Thus, if at this meeting Parmenides was about sixty-five years old, his birth occurred around 515 BC.
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