Mourelatos' study of the fragments of Parmenides' poem combines traditional philological reconstruction with the approaches of literary criticism and philosophical analysis in order to reveal the thought structure and expressive unity of the best preserved and most important, influential, and coherent text of Greek philosophy before Plato. Through philosophical, philological, and literary analysis, Mourelatos examines the morphology of images and metaphors in Parmenides' text with the aim of articulating and interpreting the poem's key concepts and component arguments. Relevant antecedents and parallels from the tradition of epic poetry, especially from Homer's Odyssey, are explored in depth.

This book claims that Aristotle followed an aspect theory of predication. On it statements make a basic assertion of existence that can be more or less qualified. It is claimed that the aspect theory solves many puzzles about Aristotle's philosophy and gives a new unity to his logic and metaphysics. The book considers Aristotle's views on predication relative to Greek philology, Aristotle's philosophical milieu, and the history and philosophy of predication theory. It offers new perspectives on such issues as existential import; the relation of "Categories" 2 & 4; the place of "differentiae" and "propria"; the predication of matter; unnatural predication; and the square of opposition. It ends by comparing Aristotle's theory with current ones.

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.

Parmenides and To Eon offers a new historical and philosophical reading of Parmenides of Elea by exploring the significance and dynamics of the oral tradition of ancient Greece. The book disentangles our theories of language from what evidence suggests is an archaic Greek experience of speech. With this in mind, the author reconsiders Parmenides' poem, arguing that the way we divide up his text is inconsistent with the oral tradition Parmenides inherits. Wilkinson proposes that, although Parmenides may have composed his poem in writing, it is probable that the poem was orally performed rather than silently read. This book explores the aural and oral components of the poem and its performance in terms of their significance to Parmenides' philosophy. Wilkinson's approach yields an interpretative strategy that permits us to engage with the ancient Greeks in terms closer to their own without, however, forgetting the historical distance that separates us or sacrificing our own philosophical concerns.

In this careful study of the fragments of Parmenides' hexameter poem, ""On Nature,"" Alexander P. D. Mourelatos combines traditional philological reconstruction with the approaches of literary criticism and philosophical analysis to reveal the thought structure and expressive unity of the best preserved, most important and coherent text of Greek philosophy before Plato. The author shows how Parmenides' deduction of the ""signposts"" and ""bounds"" of ""what-is"" critically defines the concept of reality implicit in Greek-cognitive vocabulary and in early speculative cosmologies. He interprets the second part of the poem, the ""Doxa,"" as a cosmology designed to bring out both similarities and contrasts with Parmenides' own doctrine of ""what-is."" The ""Doxa"" thus serves as a semantic commentary on the first part, the ""Truth."" Mourelatos' discussions of the concepts of ""persuasion,"" ""fidelity,"" ""opinion,"" ""belief,"" and ""appearance"" elucidate terms strategically important for interpreting Parmenides and contribute in the history of Greek philosophical vocabulary. This first-time in paperback edition includes a new Introduction by the author. Also included are three essays by him, as well as one previously unpublished paper by Gregory Vlastos. (The Route of Parmenides was first published in hardcover in 1970 by Yale University Press.)

This book intends to establish, against his numerous modern critics, that the ancient philosopher Parmenides was a mystic. Instead of arriving at his conclusions by cold reason, Parmenides found the unity of Being, which he called “the Truth,” by turning to a life of meditation. His use of reason throughout his poem was not intended to discover the Truth, but to undermine those who would disallow the Truth which had been revealed to him: the Truth as living and intelligent that is, some One, not something. In making the case that Parmenides was basically a religious seer, this book makes clear that the rationalist opponents of this interpretation have inevitably misread and emended the text to suit their views. Far from rejecting a mythic presentation of ultimate Reality, Parmenides’ narrative upholds the doctrine that all Truth is one, as the mystics proclaim. This book also attempts to explain how, if Reality is ultimately one, multiplicity and flux can be part of the human experience.

In a new interpretation of Parmenides' philosophical poem On Nature, Vishwa Adluri considers Parmenides as a thinker of mortal singularity, a thinker who is concerned with the fate of irreducibly unique individuals. Adluri argues that the tripartite division of Parmenides' poem allows the thinker to brilliantly hold together the paradox of speaking about being in time and articulates a tragic knowing: mortals may aspire to the transcendence of metaphysics, but are inescapably returned to their mortal condition. Hence, Parmenides' poem articulates a "tragic return", i.e., a turn away from metaphysics to the community of mortals. In this interpretation, Parmenides' philosophy resonates with post-metaphysical and contemporary thought. The themes of human finitude, mortality, love, and singularity echo in thinkers such as Arendt, and Schürmann as well. Plato, Parmenides and Mortal Philosophy also includes a complete new translation of 'On Nature' and a substantial overview and bibliography of contemporary scholarship on Parmenides.

This unique collection of essays, published together for the first time, not only elucidates the complexity of ancient Greek thought, but also reveals Karl Popper's engagement with Presocratic philosophy and the enlightenment he experienced in his reading of Parmenides. As Karl Popper himself states himself in his introduction, he was inspired to write about Presocratic philosophy for two reasons - firstly to illustrate the thesis that all history is the history of problem situations and secondly, to show the greatness of the early Greek philosophers, who gave Europe its philosophy, its science and its humanism.

With a new foreword by Scott Austin 'I hope that these essays may illustrate the thesis that all history is or should be the history of problem situations, and that in following this principle we may further our understanding of the Presocratics and other thinkers of the past. The essays also try to show the greatness of the early Greek philosophers, who gave Europe its philosophy, its science, and its humanism.' - Karl Popper, from the preface The World of Parmenides is a brilliant exploration of the complexity of ancient Greek thought and science by one of the twentieth century’s leading philosophers. It reveals the great importance of Presocratic philosophy to Popper’s thought as a whole and shows the profound enlightenment he experienced reading not only Parmenides but the wider world of Greek science and philosophy including Xenophanes and Heraclitus. Edited by Arne F. Petersen, Associate Professor in the Faculty of Humanities, University of Copenhagen.

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.