Parmenides biography

Parmenides of Elea (530 BC – 470 BC) philosopher and founder of ontology. He was born in the city of Elea, a southern colony of Magna, Greece. His father, Pires, was part of a rich and noble family. Parmenides was a pupil from early Xenophanes, and later became associated with a Pythagorean, Aminias, with whom he had a better connection. On the other hand, the tradition says that he was a disciple of Anaximander. In fact, we must mention that many facts about his life are not true because of the scarcity of information about his life.

Parmenides was a follower of Xenophanes of Colophon, founder of the Eleatic school. From his youth, he demonstrated the potential of his approach and ideas. Emphasized in political thought and although he was not a great writer, there are some testimonies that reflect his position. His intervention in the government, although it was not direct was very important, he made several dissertations on the laws of the city. Currently and since his philosophical thought was known, it has been very important for the advancement of this discipline thanks to the rigor of his arguments and the depth of his analysis.

Plato characterized him as a revered and terrible man, and the most important thing is that he recognized him as a spiritual father. His prestige was justified since Parmenides held, and was the first, the superiority of rational interpretation of the world and denied the veracity of sensitive perceptions: see, hear or feel this does not produce certainties, but only beliefs and opinions. This was the product of multiple debates, and today remains a topic of debate, although it is based on fragments that are preserved from his only work: On Nature, an extensive didactic poem.

The poem has two parts. The first of them, the necessary path to reach the truth is pointed out and traveled, using reason as a means. The second part explains the path that leads merely to the opinion, in this case, the means are the senses, these make possible the arrival of things. Naturally, his postulate and his idea of ​​reason are what has caused great admiration for being an innovative approach in the philosophy of the moment. It is necessary to mention that Parmenides moved away from the common principle defended at that moment, that of the beings of nature.

This with the intention of approaching the question from a rational perspective, Parmenides left aside the naturalistic observation and opted instead, by way of the intellect, what all beings have in common. Undeniably all beings are, exist, to the point that beings that are not cannot be considered beings. Following this line, noise or light are beings; Silence or darkness do not exist since this is the absence of noise and light. Clearly from this consideration arose his well-known and well-studied principle: being is and non-being is not. Parmenides presents this starting point in his poem as the first of the revelations he receives from a goddess.

Only afterward it is the true meaning and the least problematic nature of that axiom captured. In short, for this important Greek philosopher, “non-being is not” means that nothing, void or space does not exist. Following the postulates of Parmenides, the being or the real is imperishable and eternal: it cannot proceed from non-being, because as we mentioned earlier, it does not exist. The being is one, continuous and solid: it cannot be divided into several beings. The being or the real is identical to itself everywhere. Finally, the being or the real is immobile and immutable.

Therefore, Parmenides is considered the founder of ontology; it is a side of philosophy that emphasizes the study of being as being. Parmenides was the first philosopher who, only through reason (and not through the senses) comes to a necessary and rational truth. In other words, Parmenides identified the logical plane with the ontological one. According to him, nothing in the world can contradict what is necessarily true from the point of view of logical thought. His thesis affirms that the plurality and the movement, when subjected to a rigorous logical analysis, manifest their irrationality and, therefore, their impossibility.

This doctrine has been compared and has given rise to many polemics in which it is not possible to affirm whether it was first postulated by his contemporary Heraclitus of Ephesus, for whom the real is characterized precisely by being immersed in a perpetual future. The fact is that this antinomy was perceived by the later philosophers, who took as their task the conciliation of both positions. To enlarge the work were taken the postulates of other philosophers such as Empedocles and Anaxagoras, also the atomism of Leucippus and Democritus. Zeno of Elea was the disciple who most respected the approaches of his teacher Parmenides, whose doctrine tried to prove through a series of paradoxes (such as Achilles and the turtle) that after a long time was very recognized and analyzed.

To mention some philosophers and thinkers who analyzed and gave a point of view about their thinking are: Plato, who recognized the importance of their approaches, but he did not hesitate to say that it was complex to understand. Aristotle recognized the important position that Parmenides occupied within the first philosophers, he stands out from the group of monists. Now, characters like Hegel and Heidegger have recognized Parmenides’ postulates as the beginning of the history of metaphysics. It is correct to express that his doctrines had a strong impact on the Athenian environment.