Journal of the History of Philosophy

Book Reviews Scott Austin. Parmenides. Being, Bounds, and Logic. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986. Pp. xi + 2o3. $20.oo. Mitchell H. Miller, Jr. Plato's "Parmenides." The Conversion of the Soul. Princeton: Princeton University Press, a986. Pp. 299. $3o.oo. Parmenides of Elea wrote only one book, but like the hedgehog's trick, one was enough. Interpreters since Empedocles have studied Parmenides' poem, but they have rarely agreed on its meaning. Like most recent philosophical work on Parmenides, Scott Austin's book focuses on fragment B 8. The first chapter gives Austin's "interpretation of Parmenides" (1 l), explaining "what exactly the goddess [of revelation in the poem] requires and prohibits" (7) and resolving what Austin sees as a paradox: the True Way is full of negations, despite Parmenides' "abhorrence of negative language" (l 1). The point is this: the goddess rules out only the "locution" ouk esti and any "sentences which say [i.e., can be reduced to] ouk esti in making an assertoric negative predication, or a negative assertoric existential statement" (22-23). Sentence negation and negated predicates are thus "canonical ," as is "modal ouk esti," due to the "unnegated copula.., at the core of each sentence" (29), and Austin claims that all of the goddess' negations fit these patterns. As it turns out, it is easy to make sentences canonical. The "sequence" ouk esti is relatively rare in hexameter poetry and occurs only in existential and modal usage. Ausdn counts all instances of "ouk F esti" as negated predicates, simply on the basis of word order, and all "nexal" negations as applying to the sentence, not the verb. Somehow Parmenides' contemporaries are supposed to have "recognized" the "essential positivity within" such sentences (31), but Austin cites no linguistic research which might support this analysis of negation. I find this quite unconvincing. Austin twists the text to exclude unwanted forms (2526 , 31-32). Then, on the basis of statistics for Iliad 1-12, he generalizes to the usage of early Greek: Parmenides found in his language negated modal, but not predicative, esti and formulated his rules accordingly? The argument is circular if based just on these "facts" of usage: Parmenides must actually explain why he feels he can only negate modal esti, otherwise he is merely speaking grammatically. 2 Now, there are negative existentials in early Greek hexameters: of nine Homeric uses of ouk esti, six are Note that predicative 0uk estioccurs in Herodotus (2.149, 3.62) and Aeschylus (Eura.658). ' Austin's answer to this is completely beside the point (3o: "the total absence even of an improbable predicative 0ukesticould have had a philosophical rationale."). [471 ] 472 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 26:3 JULY 1988 existential. What did Parmenides' reflection tell him about these, and if Parmenides' rules result from reflection on his own language, why are mortals said to be so wrong? Obviously, Austin attributes the rules to linguistic reflection to avoid claiming that Parmenides (anachronistically) had a clear theoretical understanding of Austin's distinctions (31). But, on the facts adduced, only the absence of negated existentials in Parmenides is noteworthy; that he does not negate the copula is without significance. Further, Austin never says why the negated modal esti is admitted by Parmenides, though the negative existential is abolished. Finally, I cannot see, nor does Austin explain, why Parmenides or anyone else would allow sentence negation, but not the negation of the copula. Why does the former and not the latter "really make a judgment " (37)? Austin wants the rest of his book to stand or fall independently of the first chapter. In chapters 2-4 he attempts "to see in Parmenides a method of systematic variation which covers all the possibilities in whatever realm he is exploring": the affirmation and negation of terms, the application of contraries, and the use of personifications and discussion of "the coming-to-be and movement out of what-is of an other besides what-is" (96). These chapters are interesting, and they point out the extraordinary variety of Parmenides' usage. Many will be dismayed at the "method" Austin attributes to Parmenides (1o8). I find its instances contrived and ultimately unpersuasive. Extracting a set of...