Parmenides and Presocratic Philosophy

Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press UK (2009)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

John Palmer develops and defends a modal interpretation of Parmenides, according to which he was the first philosopher to distinguish in a rigorous manner the fundamental modalities of necessary being, necessary non-being or impossibility, and non-necessary or contingent being. This book accordingly reconsiders his place in the historical development of Presocratic philosophy in light of this new interpretation. Careful treatment of Parmenides' specification of the ways of inquiry that define his metaphysical and epistemological outlook paves the way for detailed analyses of his arguments demonstrating the temporal and spatial attributes of what is and cannot not be. An appendix presents a Greek text of the fragments of Parmenides' poem with English translation and textual notes.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,593

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Chapters

Parmenides' Place in Histories of Presocratic Philosophy

This introductory chapter provides the orientation necessary to appreciate what is at stake in the book's development and defence of a modal interpretation of Parmenides. It focuses on the principal features of the narrative that typically structures accounts of early Greek philosophy's br... see more

The Way of the Goddess and the Way of Mortals

This chapter focuses on the goddess's directives to Parmenides in fragments 3, 6, and 7. In fragment 6, the goddess instructs Parmenides on how to remain on the first way of inquiry and criticizes ordinary mortals for mistakenly supposing that the object of true understanding is subject to... see more

Parmenides' Place in Presocratic Philosophy

After providing a retrospective summation of the modal interpretation of Parmenides developed in Chapters 2 tohrough 4, this concluding chapter reconsiders in light of these results his relation to Empedocles and Xenophanes, to his Milesian predecessors, and to Heraclitus, all with a view ... see more

Similar books and articles

Parmenides and Presocratic Philosophy. [REVIEW]Matthew R. Cosgrove - 2012 - Journal of the History of Philosophy 50 (1):131-132.
Plato's reception of Parmenides.John Anderson Palmer - 1999 - New York: Oxford University Press.
The world of Parmenides: essays on the pre-Socratic Enlightenment.Karl Raimund Popper - 1998 - New York: Routledge. Edited by Arne Friemuth Petersen & Jørgen Mejer.
Plato's Parmenides: A Principle of Interpretation and Seven Arguments.Sandra Lynne Peterson - 1996 - Journal of the History of Philosophy 34 (2):167-192.
Parmenides and Presocratic Philosophy by John Palmer.Barbara Michaela Sattler - 2014 - Classical World: A Quarterly Journal on Antiquity 107 (3):421-423.
Parmenides' modal fallacy.Frank Lewis - 2009 - Phronesis 54 (1):1-8.
Signs and arguments in the Parmenides B.Richard D. McKirahan - 2008 - In Patricia Curd & Daniel W. Graham (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Presocratic Philosophy. Oxford University Press.

Analytics

Added to PP
2010-05-19

Downloads
80 (#190,806)

6 months
8 (#157,827)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references