The Pursuit of Parmenidean Clarity

Introduction

On many accounts, Parmenides is the first true philosopher of the Western tradition. So, for example, David Gallop tells us that Parmenides should be regarded as ‘the first extant author deserving to be called a philosopher in the present-day sense of the word’.^[1] Comparable statements of admiration and priority can be found throughout the English-language scholarship on Parmenides.^[2] Scholars are explicit about the grounds on which Parmenides is attributed this status; the fragments of his teachings are taken to represent the first attempt to treat philosophically respectable topics in a recognizably philosophical way.^[3] So, for example, Charles Kahn tells us that

Parmenides brought into being western philosophy in the technical sense, as the sustained argument for a general thesis involving lucid analysis of the concepts underlying rational thought on topics such as truth, cognition, contradiction, totality, homogeneity, continuity, and symmetry.

Over the last seventy years or so, Parmenides’ teachings have proved rich pickings for those interested in early logic and the development of deductive argumentation as well as in ancient Greek thinking about necessity and ontology. In admiring these aspects of Parmenides’ thought, modern scholars are part of a tradition that can be, and often is, traced back at least as far as Plato.^[4] Nevertheless, it is fair to suggest that the current dominance of the perception of Parmenides as ‘the father of logic’ is largely a product of the analytic approach to ancient philosophy that developed in the second half of the twentieth century.^[5] It is significant that, in emphasizing Parmenides’ philosophical worth, early exponents of this view were explicitly rejecting the previous orthodoxy, which read Parmenides’ poem as presenting a critique of the cosmological theories of his predecessors.^[6] In fact, interpretations seeking to emphasize Parmenides’ philosophical innovation have shown a recurrent tendency to want to understand the significance of his arguments as somehow insulated from the influences of purportedly less sophisticated physikoi.

One can only imagine the consternation of anyone who turns to the surviving fragments of Parmenides’ teachings, encouraged by his reputation as a thinker whose ‘considerable logical power was matched by an unflinching ontological parsimony’.^[7] For whilst few would doubt that some of the fragments present something that looks like extended argument, it is also undoubtedly the case that much else is present that is not obviously classifiable as philosophy ‘in the present-day sense of the word’.^[8] The fragments of this challenging hexameter poem describe a transcendent journey to commune with an unnamed goddess before going on to introduce the apparently personified forces of Fate and Necessity and issues of cosmogony, astronomy, theogony, and perhaps even embryology. Looking at his poem in its obscure and puzzling entirety (i. e. the entirety of its surviving fragments), Parmenides is, on the face of it, a surprising hero for a tradition that privileges argumentative clarity and conceptual precision.^[9]

In recent years, in fact, there has been a boom in attempts to challenge this exclusively or narrowly philosophical way of reading of Parmenides. Some have sought to argue against what they characterise as the ‘ratiocentric’ bias of the orthodox interpretation, championing in its place a reading that is sensitive to Parmenides’ possible mysticism.^[10] Others have attempted to rehabilitate Parmenides’ reputation as a successful empiricist astronomer.^[11] The ancient tradition clearly regards Parmenides as a physikos, but his status as such has often been ignored by those focusing on his logical or ontological innovations.^[12] Perhaps the most prominent challenge to exclusively analytic readings of Parmenides has come from those who have sought to defend the significance of Parmenides’ cultural (and philosophical) context for our understanding of his thought and the need to beware of anachronism in reconstructing his reasoning.^[13]

My purpose in what follows is to identify and scrutinize a particular assumption that seems to underly a significant number of attempts to interpret Parmenides’ philosophy. This is the assumption that our exegesis of his thought should pursue, or perhaps assume the priority of, clarity. This is not to question the need for interpretations to be clearly explained – my concern is not with the clarity with which scholars express themselves. Rather, I am interested in the degree to which interpreters want to ascribe the aim or intention of clarity to Parmenides, often as part of a process of resolving the surface ambiguities and obscurities of his verse. What follows is an attempt to get to grips with some of the ways in which this assumption seems to inform such interpretative efforts. I will consider how it affects scholars’ attitudes towards those aspects of the poem generally regarded as non-philosophical ‘in the present-day sense of the word’, such as its verse form and revelatory setting, which are sometimes treated as ‘getting in the way’ of understanding. I will then turn to consider an example of how different attitudes towards possible ambiguities inform detailed interpretation of Parmenides’ arguments, by looking at some approaches to the notorious difficulties of fragment B2’s introduction of the distinction between what ‘is and it cannot be that is not’ and what ‘is not and […] it is necessary that is not’.^[14] My proposal is that the obscurities and ambiguities of Parmenides’ poem, even those we find in the arguments of the Alētheia, should not be too hastily dismissed as unfortunate and unintentional failures of clear expression. There is, I shall suggest, good reason to consider that they are both intentional and significant, and to incorporate them into our overall interpretation of his thought. Once this is recognized, there is further reason to question, or at least to openly acknowledge, the expectations and assumptions that tend to guide interpretation of Parmenides as a ‘philosopher in the present-day sense of the word’ and the way that these expectations and assumptions inform the analysis of his thought.

It is worth emphasising that, in scrutinizing the role of clarification and attitudes towards ambiguity in the scholarship, it is not my intention to reject a rational reading altogether. That is not to say that I think that there is nothing of value in attempts to characterise Parmenides as more mystic than philosopher. In fact, I think that readings seeking to challenge the rationalising assumptions of the orthodoxy are to be welcomed, particularly when built on close textual analysis and an understanding of the appropriate cultural context. Nevertheless, I am inclined to agree with Alexander Mourelatos’ observation that, if Parmenides intended his poem to provoke a transcendental rather than a rational response, his reception from Zeno onwards marks a distinct failure in this respect.^[15]

It is also worth noting that I am not claiming that a preference for clarity and a wariness of ambiguity are specific to those interpretations of Parmenides explicitly informed by analytic philosophy. In fact, such concerns seem to be implicit in the vast majority of English-language treatments of Parmenides, even those seeking to rehabilitate awareness of his cultural context and verse form. Nor do I want to suggest that such interpretations are, in themselves, illegitimate responses to the text. I am not denying the value of considering what clarity can be found behind the ambiguity of Parmenides’ verse. I am well aware that this sort of interpretative approach has produced all manner of fascinating and valuable insights. Indeed, it may well be that adopting such assumptions is fundamental to the act of philosophical interpretation so that, whenever we approach Parmenides ‘as a philosopher’, they will necessarily inform that approach. I do, however, want to claim that there is some value in reflecting on these assumptions and, in particular, on the way that they shape the questions we ask of Parmenides’ poem and the criteria against which we judge the answers we find. In engaging in such reflection, we may come to better understand the questions we ask and the answers we find. It is not uncommon for scholars to assume that formal logic can provide an adequate rendering of Parmenides’ poem, or at least of what is philosophically significant in Parmenides’ poem.^[16] This chapter aims to encourage reflection both on how we decide what is philosophically significant, and on the interpretative choices we make as a result.

The Priority of Argument

There is a great deal that is unclear about and within Parmenides’ poem. Any comprehensive treatment must address, among much else, both the vexed issue of the status and significance of the Proem’s (fragment B1) introductory account of a journey to revelation and the notoriously difficult question of the status and purpose of the Doxa’s cosmological account (B9–19). In terms of more detailed philosophical analysis, scholars are faced with reconstructing the arguments of the Alētheia (B2–8) from evidence that is both indeterminate and incomplete. The problem is not simply that we rely on fragmentary evidence but that, even where we find something that looks like extended argumentation, as for example in the 61 lines of B8, Parmenides often appears to be reasoning from premises that are either indistinct or implicit.^[17]

Far from being disheartened by these substantial areas of obscurity, scholars have repeatedly set themselves the task of clarifying Parmenides’ thesis, or rather of establishing what it is that Parmenides intended his poem to make clear. This sort of clarificatory endeavour is founded on two assumptions. First, that the primary purpose of Parmenides’ poem is to communicate clearly some particular doctrine. Second, that this doctrine is to be found in (and throughout) the argumentative section of his poem. The Alētheia is often read as offering doctrinal didactic poetry. It is no surprise, therefore, that the task of clarifying Parmenides’ thought is so often represented as one of getting the arguments straight, i. e. of resolving the obscurities, ambiguities and, in some cases, even the perceived confusions of the Alētheia in order to get to the systematic doctrine.

The assumption that the primary purpose of Parmenides’ poem is the clear communication of philosophical doctrine has consequences for the way that scholars regard the relationship between the Alētheia, on the one hand, and the Proem and Doxa, on the other. Clarifying Parmenides’ thesis is presented not only as a matter of resolving the difficulties of the Alētheia’s arguments, but also as the key to understanding both the significance of the Proem and the status of the Doxa.^[18] As noted above, the purpose and status of the Proem and Doxa are notoriously difficult to decide. Nevertheless, by assuming a clear philosophical purpose for the poem as a whole and by both asserting the priority and establishing the thesis of the Alētheia, scholars seek to construct a firm foundation on which to build their explanations of the Proem and Doxa.^[19]

Concentrating on the Proem, we can see the further consequences of this kind of approach. The significance of the details of the Proem vexed even the earliest interpreters of Parmenides, who had a tendency to read it as allegory.^[20] As John Palmer notes, ‘allegorizers tend to try to find in [the Proem’s] imagery traces and hints of whatever they take Parmenides’ message to be in the rest of his poem’.^[21] This interpretative method, which works on the assumption that some pre-established, separable and clear message can be drawn out and isolated from the apparently indeterminate details of the Proem by matching them up with the arguments of the Alētheia, still plays a role in some modern interpretations.^[22] Here, then, the bias towards clarity informs both the interpretation of the philosophical arguments in the Alētheia and the interpretation of the poetic details of the Proem built upon it. The assumption is that there is a clear message behind the mythic and poetic detail of the Proem which is intended to serve as a complement to the clear philosophical thesis that can be constructed out of the Alētheia.

Even scholars resistant to the teleological bias of allegorical interpretations have a tendency to share this sort of assumption. So, for example, John Palmer explicitly rejects allegorical interpretations, whilst offering an explanation of the details of the Proem predicated on the assumption that ‘Parmenides doubtless relied on their being clear enough to his original audience’.^[23] For Palmer, it remains possible, in some sense, to decode the real meaning of the Proem. In fact, Palmer has other commitments in common with the allegorists. For, although he argues in favour of the interpretative significance of the Proem as ‘the best indication of the cultural context’ in which Parmenides’ thought should be understood, he goes on to deny the Proem any significant role in the interpretation of the Alētheia itself. For Palmer, the difficulties of the Alētheia are ‘to be resolved on internal interpretative criteria’ and it is only once we understand Parmenides’ arguments that the significance of the cultural context represented by the Proem can be understood. On this sort of reading, our understanding of the Proem is contingent on our interpretation of the Alētheia. Our understanding of the Alētheia, in contrast, is to be developed in isolation from the rest of the poem.^[24]

It is perhaps not surprising that scholars are inclined to prioritise the arguments of the Alētheia. After all, they represent the majority of the extant text. If we are to have any hope of achieving a firm foothold in the search for a clear understanding of Parmenides’ thought, it will presumably be by engaging with those fragments that give us the most complete material with which to work. We may, however, feel some unease in the face of an interpretation that both renders content prior to context and assumes that content is transparent in isolation from context.^[25]

Those seeking to reconstruct Parmenides’ arguments may be encouraged by one specific line of the Alētheia which seems precisely to invite an analysis in purely rational terms. At B7.5, having warned the kouros away from the ‘route of much experience’, the goddess recommends that he ‘judge by reasoning (κρῖναι δὲ λόγωι) the very contentious disproof/That has been uttered by me’.^[26] Here we find an apparent endorsement of efforts to gain a clear understanding of Parmenides’ thesis on the basis of reasoning a priori, in isolation from contextual concerns (albeit in the mouth of a goddess). Nevertheless, it remains the case that the rational reconstruction of Parmenides’ arguments depends on the reconstruction of his premises and it is hard to see how this could plausibly be done other than with a keen eye on Parmenides’ poetic and cultural context, both in terms of the general context provided by the Proem and, more specifically, in terms of his notoriously difficult mode of expression throughout the poem, and in the Alētheia in particular.

I have noted that interpreters often work back from the Alētheia to the Proem. In fact, however, it is possible to offer an account of the significance of the Proem on its own terms, namely as providing a context or introduction to the arguments that follow (a possibility that is attractive in view of the fact that the Proem did, after all, precede the Alētheia in the performance or presentation of the poem). In thematic terms, scholars have often pointed to the fact that the Proem describes a journey towards an encounter with divinity as introducing the possibility of achieving the kind of knowledge reserved by other poets for the gods.^[27] Similarly, the journey away from ‘the well-trodden path of men’ (B1.27) seems to signal that philosophical progress will mean leaving behind the mundane confusions of the majority in coming to understand the truths of the Alētheia. Beyond these thematic concerns, it is also possible to find significance in the details of the Proem, as well as in the manner in which those details are expressed. As has often been noted, the description of the journey in the Proem is provocatively indefinite. The goddess and the kouros who travels to meet her are both unnamed (for all that the latter is generally assumed to be Parmenides). Both the topography of the revelatory landscape and the direction of travel are indeterminate.^[28] Mourelatos rightly speaks of the ‘impressionistic, sketchy, dreamy quality’ of the Proem’s journey.^[29] Bearing this in mind, it is plausible, in fact, that at least part of Parmenides’ purpose in the Proem is to establish a context of indeterminacy and interpretative difficulty for the arguments that follow. Rather than reading the Proem as simply foreshadowing the doctrine of the Alētheia, it may be that ‘the vagueness intrinsic to the proem’^[30] is intended to signal the difficulties we will face in in our attempts to ‘learn all things’ (B1.28).^[31] On this reading, the Proem provides a context for our engagement with the rest of the poem by indicating the significance of the instances of indeterminacy and ambiguity we will encounter therein. In doing so, it flags up the possibility that the difficulty of the poem is both intentional and important, and that it may, in itself, be part of the ‘doctrine’ communicated by the goddess.

Obscurity in the Arguments

Some interpreters have been explicit in identifying what they regard as the primary cause of the difficulty in getting Parmenides’ arguments straight: his decision to present them in hexameter verse. A recurrent complaint is that his poetic form of exposition undermines the clarity of his thesis.^[32] So, for example, we find the lament that Parmenides’ ‘struggle to force novel, difficult and highly abstract philosophical ideas into metrical form frequently results in ineradicable obscurity, especially syntactic obscurity’.^[33]

This sort of complaint is evidence of the preference for clarity that tends to underlie and inform attempts to interpret Parmenides’ thought. I noted above how often the arguments of the Alētheia are granted priority not only in the way that scholars conceive of the purpose of Parmenides’ poem, but also in the manner in which they construct their interpretations, including interpretations of the Proem. Expressions of regret over Parmenides’ ‘choice’ of verse form are further indicative of the way such assumptions about the priority of the argument manifest themselves within the scholarship.

The preference for clarity is most obvious in the assertion that the obscurity ‘introduced’ by the verse form of Parmenides’ philosophy is regrettable. A general, and perfectly understandable, preference for clarity is bound to lead us to regard obscure expression as unwelcome. This is connected to the assumption that the lack of clarity is an accidental by-product of Parmenides’ unfortunate choice. The implication is that, had Parmenides made the (presumably preferable) choice to embrace the novelty of early prose, he might successfully have avoided at least some of this unfortunate obscurity. Underlying these complaints, then, is a perception that Parmenides would have succeeded more fully in his presumed purpose (i. e. to communicate clearly his philosophical arguments), had he not hindered himself by adopting a mode of expression unsuited to such an endeavour.^[34] Further, the assumption that clarity of expression would or should have been Parmenides’ aim leads to the suggestion that his choice of verse, which is the cause of his obscurity, is both regrettable and accidental (since he surely would not have intended to make his teachings unclear). Finally, this perception of the obscurity of Parmenides’ mode of expression as unfortunate and unintentional serves as an implicit justification for attempts to resolve and avoid these difficulties in giving a clear account of his thesis, thereby solving the problem he created for himself, more or less writing the arguments as Parmenides would have if he had been able to properly achieve his desired aims. This approach aims to free Parmenides of the unfortunate consequences of his compositional choice, to help him better fulfil his perceived philosophical purpose.

It is possible to identify a further thought underlying these complaints: that, for Parmenides as much as for us, philosophical thesis and mode of expression were somehow not only separable, but, at some point in the composition of his poem, separate.^[35] This is clear from the specific complaint that Parmenides has ‘forced’ his thought into a particular medium, unsuited to his project. These scholars, then, imagine Parmenides’ compositional activity as one of shaping his chosen medium to fit inelegantly around his thought (or, rather, contorting his thought to fit the restrictions of his chosen form) in a manner that inevitably and regrettably undermines his fundamental philosophical purpose of the clear communication of doctrine.

It is both possible and worthwhile to reflect on these assumptions and on the combined effect they have on our interpretative efforts. On the standard account, Parmenides had an innovative and difficult philosophical thesis that he wished to communicate. For whatever (extraneous) reason, he chose to deliver this thesis in verse form, despite the fact that to do so compromised the clarity of his message.^[36] On this account, Parmenides manages to combine an impressive capacity for philosophical innovation with both a disappointing literary conventionalism and a regrettable willingness to compromise the former for the sake of the latter. Such a perception of the connection between form and content is then taken to provide licence for attempts to reconstruct the latter in isolation from the former, resolving any ambiguities and obscurities of expression by liberating Parmenides’ thought from the hindrance of its poetic form.

There are, however, alternative ways to conceive of Parmenides’ attitude towards the connection between form and content in his poem. In fact, as Catherine Rowett (formerly Osborne) has argued, there is reason to doubt that Parmenides made an active ‘choice’ to present his thesis in verse form.^[37] More subtle notions of composition, combined with an awareness of the cultural background to which Parmenides was unquestionably responding, emphasize the artificiality of separating form and content in this way, as well as the difficulty of justifying the assumption that these were separate concerns for Parmenides himself.

In fact, even if we were to regard Parmenides’ mode of expression as an active choice, it is not obvious that this justifies the dismissal of the resulting obscurity as either accidental or unfortunate (assuming that it is correct to say that the hexameter is the source of the obscurity). Here, it is useful to compare scholarly attitudes towards the notorious obscurity of Parmenides’ near contemporary Heraclitus. Like Parmenides, Heraclitus’ teachings contain syntactic ambiguities.^[38] In Heraclitus’ case the origin of these ambiguities cannot be attributed to verse form, since he is writing prose, albeit a poetical sort of prose.^[39] Unlike in the case of Parmenides, however, scholars are inclined to regard the difficulty of Heraclitus’ mode of expression as both intentional and fundamental to his philosophical project.^[40] To understand Heraclitus is to understand the way that he employs paradox and ambiguity to demonstrate the underlying logos and to encourage his audience to think beyond their narrow range of experience.

Should we, then, consider the possibility that Parmenides, like Heraclitus, is aiming for deliberate and significant ambiguity and obscurity in communicating his teaching?^[41] Some may want to resist the analogy with Heraclitus on the grounds that, whereas the connection between his thought and mode of expression is somehow obvious, it is rather a tension between the two that is perceptible in Parmenides. The problem here is that this perception of tension is, to a degree, informed by precisely the assumption identified above, namely that the philosophical content and poetic expression of Parmenides’ poem can be taken apart, or that they came apart for Parmenides. Even if we want to say that the two are in tension (whether or not Parmenides regarded them as separate or even separable), it is not clear quite how we should then characterise an interpretation that sets out to isolate one from the other. One might think that, in doing so, we are not so much reconstructing as constructing some prose equivalent to ‘Parmenides’ thesis’.

Others seeking to resist the comparison with Heraclitus’ deliberate obscurity may point, once again, to the presence of explicit argument in Parmenides’ poem. For it is not clear that anything similarly deductive is to be found in the fragments of Heraclitus. As noted above, a focus on the arguments brings with it an assumption of the priority of clarity, not only in reconstructing Parmenides’ thesis, but also in discussing the purpose of the poem as a whole. If we assume that the presentation of arguments is Parmenides’ primary purpose in composing his poem, we will be predisposed to seek a clear account of how they work, in an effort to reconstruct the doctrine for which he argues. Equally, if we are predisposed to prioritise clarity in reconstructing Parmenides’ thought, we are more likely to focus on those aspects of his poem that are most conducive to clarification, namely the arguments (or the ‘decoding’ of the details of the Proem). The questions remain to what degree it is necessary to impose such expectations on the text, and to what degree such readings overlook the possibility that the obscurities of Parmenides’ poem are more than unfortunate accidents.

The comparison with Heraclitus throws up another possible indication of the significance of Parmenides’ less than clear expression. Scholars often point to the proclaimed divine provenance of Parmenides’ poem as indicative of its intended authority. The poem is presented as a revelation, albeit one that is apparently structured around rational argument, as B7 makes clear. There is, however, another (complementary) way to understand the divine context of the poem, namely as signalling the interpretative efforts expected of the audience. Heraclitus B93 signals an awareness of the interpretative demands of divine logoi, noting that Apollo (via the Delphic oracle) ‘neither declares (λέγει) nor conceals, but gives a sign (σημαίνει).’^[42] My suggestion is that the divine register of Parmenides’ philosophy, preceded as it is by the emphatic indeterminacy of the Proem, gives us as much, if not more, reason to expect and reflect upon the ambiguity here as to seek clarity.

My point is not that the pursuit of clarity should not have a role to play in the interpretation of the poem, but rather that pursuing it at the cost of everything else to be found in the poem, including its manner of expression, may be overly hasty. In order to try to clarify my own position, I turn now to a brief case study of the way that the assumptions about Parmenides’ philosophical aims inform interpretations of fragment B2.

The Ambiguity of What Is

Interpretation of Parmenides’ B2 is generally considered fundamental for those aiming at a clear account of his philosophical thesis. This is not, however, the only reason that it provides a useful test case for considering the way that the assumption of clarity has informed analysis of the specifics of Parmenides’ argument. Its value in this regard comes primarily from the fact that the fragment presents what is taken to be a fundamental statement of Parmenides’ philosophical thesis in a notoriously difficult form. In constructing their philosophical interpretations of B2, scholars are forced to address the difficulty, specifically the ambiguity, of the fragment’s phrasing:

Come, I’ll tell you, and you listen and pay heed to my words,

Which are the only roads of inquiry to be thought:

The one, that is and it cannot be that is not (ὅπως ἔστιν τε καὶ ὡς οὐκ ἔστι μὴ εἶναι),

is the path of conviction (for it accompanies truth);

the other, that is not and that it is necessary that is not (ὡς οὐκ ἔστιν τε καὶ ὡς χρεών ἐστι μὴ εἶναι),      5

this, I show you to be a path that cannot be inquired into in any way,

for you could not know what is not (for it is not to be accomplished),

nor could you show it.^[43]

B2’s distinction between the path ‘that is and it cannot be that is not’ and the path ‘that is not and that it is necessary that is not’ has possibly attracted more scholarly scrutiny than anything else in Parmenides’ poem. The degree of speculation and disagreement that these lines have generated is testament to the obscurity of Parmenides’ point and phrasing here. This obscurity results, at least in part, from several ambiguities in the text. It is useful to consider the way that scholars attempt to explain and resolve these particular ambiguities. As we shall see, readers have a tendency to assume that these ambiguities are merely apparent, so that it is often tacitly accepted that a ‘correct’ reading of B2 is one that establishes the precise thinking that informs its fundamental distinction, irrespective of the difficulty with which that thinking is expressed.

One of the many notorious difficulties for the interpretation of B2 turns on what we might label an ‘ambiguity of omission’. Parmenides notoriously fails to supply a subject for his verb ‘is’ (esti) in line 3, so that we are pressed, in interpreting the fragment, to ask ourselves ‘what is?’.^[44] For many, the problem is easily solved by supplying a subject, on the assumption that, whether he expressed it or not, Parmenides intended a subject (either particular or general) to be recognized.^[45] For a long time, a popular candidate for the subject of B2’s esti has been something along the lines of ‘what can be talked or thought about’. As John Palmer has noted, this suggestion has its modern origins in Bertrand Russell’s characterisation of Parmenides as sharing his interest in negative existential statements, so that B2 becomes an account of what constitutes a suitable referent.^[46] Interestingly, this sort of reading, informed by analytic philosophy as it is, goes some way towards embracing the ambiguity of Parmenides’ formulation as deliberate. So, on Owen’s influential interpretation, the subject is deliberately left undetermined at this stage; it is only by proceeding through the remainder of the arguments that we come to see it ‘filled in with the attributes (beginning with existence) that are deduced for it’.^[47] At the same time, however, the reading works on the assumption both that this general subject is somehow obvious as the appropriate candidate to fill in the apparent gap, and that this was equally obvious to Parmenides’ contemporary audience. This assumption has worried even those who are minded to adopt a reading along these lines. So, for example, Jonathan Barnes is motivated to revise our understanding of the general subject of esti by an explicit worry that the introductory context provides no clue that it is to be understood as ‘what can be talked and thought about’.^[48] As Barnes puts it, ‘reflexion on the subsequent argument may indeed lead us to “what can be thought of”, but it will also lead us to berate Parmenides for a gratuitously roundabout and allusive way of expressing himself’. On this sort of reading, it is acceptable for Parmenides to indulge in a certain degree of indeterminacy, insofar as it can usefully express a generalisation about appropriate objects of inquiry. Less palatable, however, is the sort of ambiguity that serves to undermine clear philosophical argumentation.

There are, however, interpretations of B2 that are rather more open to the possibility that Parmenides’ failure to specify a subject for esti is significant in itself (rather than simply as signifying the generality or indeterminacy of some implicit subject). So, for example, John Palmer argues that the presumption of a need to supply a subject is misplaced, since Parmenides is not here offering presuppositions of his thesis, but rather describing ‘ways of inquiry’.^[49] This suggestion that Parmenides B2 represents not the assertion of a thesis, but something more like the posing of a question is, perhaps, more in keeping with the kind of indeterminate, problematizing context I have suggested that the Proem provides.

Intepretations of the lack of a subject for esti differ in terms of whether they assume that a subject is implied (i. e. that the ambiguity is only on the surface) or concede the possibility that Parmenides might intend his audience to recognize and consider the problem raised by the lack of an explicit subject (i. e. that the ambiguity is intentional and significant).^[50] In the end, our decision as to whether we need to supply a subject for esti is informed by the expectations we have of the text. If we think that Parmenides’ basic aim is to express a philosophical thesis as clearly as possible (notwithstanding his ‘unfortunate’ choice of poetic medium), then we are likely both to assess and to reconstruct his premises on the basis of our own philosophical priorities of clarity and precision. Most significantly, we are likely to prefer an interpretation that attributes a (failed) attempt at transparency and rigour to Parmenides over one that makes room for his deliberate use of allusiveness and convolution.^[51] A regrettable consequence of this preference is that such interpretations are forced to attribute to Parmenides a failure to be as clear as possible in specifying his intended subject, i. e. a failure to fulfil his purpose.

Above, I referred to the discussion of the subject of esti as a response to an instance of the ‘ambiguity of omission’. It is rather harder to offer a straightforward characterisation of the ambiguity of Parmenides’ intended sense for the verb einai in B2, not least because the scholarly discussion itself is, in part, a debate about whether Parmenides recognizes its potential ambiguity.^[52] One suggestion, now generally rejected, is that Parmenides is laying the foundations for his argument in ‘the ambiguity, of which Parmenides himself was unconscious, between the predicative and existential senses of the Greek word esti’.^[53] On this explanation, it is Parmenides’ failure to distinguish these two senses that leads him to conclude the impossibility of negative predications on the basis of the impossibility of conceiving of what does not exist. Parmenides himself is not aiming at ambiguity; he is rather the victim of his failure to recognize the ambiguity of einai.

A popular alternative account takes Parmenides’ use of einai in B2 to reflect an ambiguity inherent in the Greek use of the verb. On this account, Parmenides does not intend either the existential or veridical sense of einai or confuse the two, but rather (to put it very crudely) founds his argument on the Greek conceptual connection between some or all of ‘being’, ‘being something’ and ‘being something about which it is possible to make true statements’.^[54] This way of reading allows Parmenides’ einai to be ambiguous (in a manner that reflects the ambiguity of the standard Greek use of the verb) and saves him from a charge of confusion for failing to recognize modern philosophical distinctions.^[55] It does not go so far as to attribute to Parmenides an awareness of this ambiguity, presumably because to do so would be to grant him precisely the kind of understanding of distinct senses of ‘is’ that has been discounted as anachronistic and illegitimate.

Above, I noted the possibility that Parmenides’ ambiguity of omission might be deliberate, insofar as it provides a suitable starting point for an enquiry into the nature of what is real. Rather than harbouring the relatively optimistic expectation that his audience would supply the appropriate logical subject despite the obscurity of his expression, it is possible that Parmenides’ intention in B2 is to stimulate precisely the kind of puzzlement that we see manifested in the scholarship. Perhaps the question that strikes every interpreter of B2 (‘what is?’) is precisely the question Parmenides intends to engender. He does this not by withholding a specific subject, but rather by trading on the lack of clarity that his particular manner of expression brings with it. In fact, I think it is possible to offer a related explanation for the difficulty we find in getting to grips with the intended sense of his use of einai. Others have noted that it is implausible for Parmenides to expect his audience to understand einai in B2 as introducing some ‘unusual and restrictive sense of the verb’.^[56] Rather, perhaps Parmenides offers this introductory distinction in general terms on the expectation that what follows represents a clarificatory inquiry into the nuances and implications of what it means to be whatever it is that ‘is and it cannot be that is not’ and how it is distinguished from its unknowable alternative.

Again, we see how interpretations of Parmenides’ poem are shaped by interpreters’ expectations and philosophical preconceptions. In reading B2 as aiming to express a clear thought about how it is that some determined (albeit general) subject ‘is’ in some particular (albeit potentially ambiguous) way, scholars sometimes assume that a clear philosophical thesis can and should be immediately identifiable beneath the apparent obscurity of its expression. It is, however, possible to read it in a less determined fashion, as an introductory statement intended less to express doctrine than to motivate the audience to consider the questions engendered by its lack of precision (or, in the case of the meaning of einai, by the lack of precision in the standard use of the word). This is to read B2 as setting up a problem, rather than as providing an answer. In this respect it is, as I have noted, more in keeping with the context of indeterminacy created by the Proem. It is also more faithful to the language of inquiry and progress that dominate not only B2, but the majority of the poem (both Proem and Alētheia at least).^[57] For if, at B2, we are expected immediately to understand both what it is that is and how it is, then it is not clear quite where or how it will be possible for us to make progress, or quite what we still have to learn. Such a reading of B2 also has the advantage of not forcing us to regard Parmenides as failing in his intention to make his thesis clear.^[58]

Conclusion

I have suggested that there are good reasons to consider that the difficulties and obscurities of Parmenides’ poem may be both intentional and significant for our understanding of the philosophical purpose of the poem.^[59] Parmenides is not simply offering a regrettably inadequate attempt at the clear statement of his thesis, but rather relying on the presence of obscurities and ambiguities of expression to motivate our attempts to reason our way through the difficulties of the argument that the goddess presents. I do not want to go so far as to deny that Parmenides intends us to reason alongside him to some particular doctrinal answer. I do, however, want to suggest that the didactic element of the poem should be regarded as methodological as much as doctrinal (as it is for Heraclitus) and that, in this respect, there is value in the provocation and indeterminacy signalled by the Proem and manifested in B2. Parmenides is as much concerned to show the potential of reasoning to make conceptual progress as to argue for a clear conception of what is. This potential is neatly encapsulated in the progress encouraged by the Alētheia, to shift from indeterminacy and obscurity to conceptual precision and clarity. In attempting to follow the arguments and to supply plausible answers to the questions set in B2, scholars are responding to the challenge set down by the goddess. And yet, in assuming that these answers are intended to be clear from the very outset, scholars ignore the context provided by the Proem and undermine the significance of the route of inquiry and the progress to understanding promised throughout the poem. They also set Parmenides against himself, by assuming that his status as a ‘philosopher in the present-day sense of the world’ is separable from and prior to his role as the author of his poem.