Parmenides and the History of Dialectic is a study of Greek philosophical method as it affects contemporary philosophical issues. What was distinctive about the method of Parmenides, the inventor of philosophical argument as we know it? How did Parmenides' method affect Plato's dialectic, which was supposed to provide the solution to all ultimate philosophical problems? How, in turn, did Plato influence Hegel and our subsequent tradition?There are many studies of Parmenides' text, its philosophical content, and its influence. This study aims to do something different, to look at the form of the argument, the scope of its positive and negative language, the balanced structure its author generates, and the clear parallels with Plato's Parmenides.

The most striking merits of Guthrie's work are his mastery of a tremendous range of ancient literature and modern scholarship.

Despite Parmenides' tremendous importance during his own lifetime and his perennial influence on philosophical thought ever since, the great Eleatic-born ca. 515 BCE and described by Plato as "e;Venerable and Awesome"e; (Theaetetus, 183e)-had never been the subject of an international conference until 2007, when some of the world's most eminent specialists on Parmenides' philosophy convened for a multinational and multilingual Symposium in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The present volume offers a collection of the papers (translated, where applicable) presented at the conference, each advancing the respective scholar's current state of research on Parmenides and his Poem, "e;On Nature,"e; often with far-reaching and sometimes controversial results.

Plato's Parmenides and Its Heritage presents in two volumes ground-breaking results in the history of interpretation of Plato's Parmenides, the culmination of six years of international collaboration by the SBL Annual Meeting seminar, “Rethinking Plato's Parmenides and Its Platonic, Gnostic and Patristic Reception” (2001–2007).The theme of Volume 1 is the dissolution of firm boundaries for thinking about the tradition of Parmenides interpretation from the Old Academy through Middle Platonism and Gnosticism. The volume suggests a radically different interpretation of the history of thought from Plato to Proclus than is customary by arguing against Proclus's generally accepted view that there was no metaphysical interpretation of the Parmenides before Plotinus in the third century C.E. Instead, this volume traces such metaphysical interpretations, first, to Speusippus and the early Platonic Academy; second, to the Platonism of the first and second centuries C.E. in figures like Moderatus and Numenius; third, to the emergence of an exegetical tradition that read Aristotle's categories in relation to the Parmenides; and, fourth, to important Middle Platonic figures and texts. The contributors to Volume 1 are Kevin Corrigan, Gerald Bechtle, Luc Brisson, John Dillon, Thomas Szlezák, Zlatko Pleše, Noel Hubler, John D. Turner, Johanna Brankaer, Volker Henning Drecoll, and Alain Lernould.

This monograph develops an extensively fresh approach for interpreting logical philosophy as a way to understand the universal unity of thinking and being (Fichte and Hegel) and interpreting the meaning of its harmony (Dostoevsky). The book offers a starting, easy-to-read overview of the essence and meaning of the universal unity of thought and being, as a core concept of the classical philosophy—from the teachings of Parmenides to those of the early Christian Fathers—and the philosophy of law, that tries to demonstrate how this universal unity, which is the foundation of the absolute harmony of existence, manifests in itself the certainty of law and legal awareness. Gradually, it proceeds to introduce increasingly difficult aspects of the German philosophy of 18th–19th centuries by presenting a synthesis of the logical form of philosophy until landing in metaphysics of law, as well as major long-term issues of modern jurisprudence. The authors present a specialized knowledge about law as a complex and multidimensional notion; they discuss the problem of monism-dualism, look at the law-morality, law-religion dualisms and at the concept of the Absolute in law. Their approach is aimed to develop theoretical and methodological premises of a modern, comprehensive theory of law based on an updated notion of freedom in law. This paper synthesizes the results that this trio of researchers, regarded as experts by the Russian scientific community, has achieved after many years of systematic studies of philosophy of law. It is addressed to specialists in the field of theory and philosophy of law, university tutors, post-graduate students, graduate students, legal experts and to everyone who is interested in improving their knowledge of history of philosophy and legal thought as well as exploring Dostoevsky’s ideas from an unusual perspective.

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. Since the existence of this necessary being does not preclude the existence of other entities that are but need not be, Parmenides' cosmology can straightforwardly be taken as his account of the origin and operation of the world's mutable entities. Later chapters reassess the major Presocratics' relation to Parmenides in light of the modal interpretation, focusing particularly on Zeno, Melissus, Anaxagoras, and Empedocles. In the end, Parmenides' distinction among the principal modes of being, and his arguments regarding what what must be must be like, simply in virtue of its mode of being, entitle him to be seen as the founder of metaphysics or ontology as a domain of inquiry distinct from natural philosophy and theology. An appendix presents a Greek text of the fragments of Parmenides' poem with English translation and textual notes.

Parmenides of Elea was the most important and influential philosopher before Plato. He rejected as impossible the scientific inquiry practiced by the earlier Presocratic philosophers and held that generation, destruction, and change are unreal and that only one thing exists. In this book, Patricia Curd argues that Parmenides sought to reform rather than to reject scientific inquiry, and she offers a more coherent account of his influence on later philosophers.The Legacy of Parmenides examines Parmenides' arguments, considering his connection to earlier Greek thought and how his account of what-is could have served as a model for later philosophers. Curd also explores the theories of his successors, including the Pluralists (Anaxagoras and Empedocles), the Atomists (Leucippus and Democritus), the later Eleatics (Zeno and Melissus), and the later Presocratics (Philolaus of Croton and Diogenes of Apollonia). She concludes with a discussion of the importance of Parmenides' work to Plato's Theory of Forms.The Legacy of Parmenides challenges traditional views of early Greek philosophy and provides new insights into the work of Parmenides.

A plainly written one-volume history of western philosophy.