Parminides, Philosophy, College Term Papers.com


		Data Bases
		• Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism?

		Links
		• Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com

		Free Essays
		• Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • My Term Papers • Get Free Essays • Essay World • Planet Papers

Search Lots of Essays

Back to Subjects - Philosophy

Parminides

Parminides Parmenides of Elea discusses the meta-theoretical issue of what can be legitimately thought and said. In his writings, Parmenides asserts that anything rationally conceivable must exist. In turn, anything non-existent can neither be thought of nor said. Furthermore, Parmenides rejects beliefs that are based on sensory experience. He believes that the senses deter us from recognizing genuine being, which can only be recognized through the use of reason. Although his argument seems to be logically sound, his theory proves unreasonable in the end. Parmenides presents his argument in the form of a poem. The poem begins with Parmenides meeting a goddess. The goddess informs Parmenides of two ways; “the unshaken heart of well-persuasive Truth and the opinions of mortals, in which there is no true reliance” (37). The poem therefore has two divisions. The first discusses the Truth, and the second the world of false impression (the world of sensory experience and the flawed beliefs of humans). In her discussion of the qualities of Truth, the goddess begins, “that which is there to be spoken and thought of must be. For it is possible for it to be, but not possible for nothing to be” (37). Thus, Truth lies in the fact that existence is and misperception in the belief that non-existence can also be. Only that which is conceivable can have real existence: “for the same thing is for thinking and for being” (37). The goddess goes on to tell Parmenides to use reason and not senses to assess judgment: “do not let habit born from much experience compel you along this way to direct your sightless eye and sounding ear and tongue, but judge by reason the heavily contested testing spoken by me” (38). Here, the goddess asserts that senses and experience provide an illusion, allowing one to believe that things that are not, are. The goddess proceeds to investigate the characteristics of genuine being: “On this way there are signs exceedingly many—that being ungenerated it is also imperishable, whole and of a single kind and unshaken and complete. Nor was it ever nor will it be, since it is now, all together one, continuous. For what birth will you seek for it? How and from where did it grow? I will not permit you to say or to think that it grew from what is not; for it is not to be said or thought that it is not. What necessity would have stirred it up to grow later rather than earlier, beginning from nothing? Thus it must either fully be or not” (38). According to these characteristics, there no longer exists the possibility of generation, destruction, change, and motion. The goddess goes on to consider the consequences of her argument. According to her argument, nothing can come into being. In order to come into being, that something must have spawned from nothing or from something. That something couldn’t have spawned from nothing because there is no ‘nothing’. ‘Nothing’ cannot exist. Also, that something couldn’t have spawned from something else because there is nothing other than what exists. These consequences of Truth are seemingly responsive to the Milesians’ theories of material monism. According to those theories, everything in the world comes from a single substance. However this is impossible since that single substance cannot be anything more than what it is. In her discussion of the senses, the goddess asserts that the senses are deceiving and therefore our perception of the world doesn't reflect the world, as it exists. The true world is something greater than our perception of it, and can only be approached through logic. The goddess says that our perception of movement and change is merely an illusion and she states: “Unchanging in the limits of great bonds, it is without start or finish, since coming to be and destruction were banished far away and true conviction drove them off. Remaining the same in the same and by itself it lies and so stays there fixed; for mighty Necessity holds it in the bonds of a limit, which pens it in all round, since it is right for what is to be not incomplete; for it is not lacking; if it were, it would lack everything” (39). According to this view of the world, everything remains fixed. The goddess suggests that everything we perceive in the world must be false since what we perceive is in constant motion and in a constant state of change. Parmenides’ notion of the Truth seems irrefutable initially. It seems obvious that anything rationally conceivable must exist since that which does not exist is literally unsayable and unthinkable. However, it does not seem difficult to think of an example that contradicts Parmenides theory. I can easily conjure up a thought, such as the image of a unicorn, which could only exist in imagination and not in reality. Would Parmenides then argue that a unicorn is in fact real? It seems he must take this stance since he states, “for the same thing is for thinking and for being” (37). I agree that the same thing is for thinking as is for being, but not vice-versa. In the first case, my image of a unicorn is only made possible by combining the reality of both horses and horns. In the second case though it is not possible for a unicorn to exist merely because I can think of it. Furthermore, Parmenides argues that genuine being remains unchanged. However this presents drastic consequences for our ordinary ideas about the world, which are based on the senses. Assuming that the world remains fixed, despite what we perceive, it seems reasonable to conclude that our lives are worthless in relation to the Truth, since our lives are merely misperceptions. However, even if we were to use reason to deduce the Truth, we could never fully detach ourselves from our senses. Therefore, Parmenides’ theory presents drastic consequences for our ordinary way of life. Furthermore, all of the sensory data we receive must translate into thoughts. When I see a bird flying, I am generally thinking of a bird flying. But according to Parmenides, the bird cannot exist because our senses are deceptive. This creates a paradox in Parmenides argument. Since Parmenides does not specify how exactly our senses deceive us or how that deception separates itself from the Truth, I’m left to assume that all thought derived from the senses must correspond to reality. In fact, it would be unreasonable to assume that any thought could be had without the senses. Also, Parmenides rules out the notion of change and motion (among other things), writing them off as misperceptions. However, it seems problematic that Parmenides can refute the existence of change or motion when these concepts exist for him to refute in the first place. In other words, if you speak or think of a concept, the concept must correlate with something that actually exists otherwise the word or thought for the concept would not exist. Both thoughts and words require matter with which they correlate otherwise they would be gibberish. Therefore the concepts that Parmenides writes off as misperceptions must necessarily exist, since they exist as thoughts. Parmenides presents an interesting theory concerning the meta-theoretical issue of what can be legitimately thought and said. Initially, his theory seems to be logically sound based on the premises presented. However, upon closer analysis, the theory weakens due to flawed reasoning. Parmenides attempts to refute the existence of certain concepts when, according to his theory, those concepts must necessarily exist. Also, Parmenides writes off the senses as deceptive, but no thoughts could be had without the senses, thus creating a paradox. Since Parmenides presents both sound logic and flawed reasoning, his argument can only be partly right. Bibliography:

Word Count: 1291