En este artículo presentamos una posible vía para interpretar las nociones de posibilidad y necesidad desarrolladas en el seno de la lógica megárico-estoica como operadores modales aléticos. Se introducirá la semántica megárico-estoica como trasfondo metafísico de las definiciones de necesidad y posibilidad y se ofrecerán argumentos para abandonar las interpretaciones predominantes que incluyen variables temporales ad hoc. Tras proponer la lectura de las definiciones diodóricas desde una semántica modal relacional se señalará una serie de temas que merecen ser revisitados desde (...) esta óptica. (shrink)

It is generally accepted that the enigmatic fragment 12 of Parmenides, supplemented by the first part of A.tius II 7.1, represents an unlikely cosmos which comprises alternating spherical crowns of fire and night, surrounding the earth. A comparison of the fragment and A.tius’ text shows that the latter adds nothing substantial to the fragment. Thus, fragment 12 can actually represent the structure of the earth, which consists of a core of fire, is surrounded by the layers of the earth’s crust, (...) into which heat is transmitted from within, and on which the goddess of life dwells. (shrink)

First thoughts about classification inevitably turn to the simultaneously mundane and extraordinary ambition to capture the universe of all that there is and has been. This dream of the universal has two basic modes (and so the process begins!). First, I will follow the spirit of theos and logos as represented by the Platonic embrace of totality enshrined in Socrates’ scrupulous rejection of rhetorical dishonesty. Second, I will address the later part of the march to subjectivity as expressed by the (...) mechanics of atomism and Cartesian reduction. Following this move from theology to ontology, from in other words the post-synthetic to the post-analytic, I will connect with the sociological destruction of such pretensions to absolute classificatory veracity – a necessary pre-requisite for the engagement of reflexivity and classification to be found in the work of Georges Perec. (shrink)

This page is dedicated to an analysis of the first section of Parmenides' Poem, the Way of Truth, with a selection of critical judgments by the most important commentators and critics. In the Annotated Bibliography I list the main critical editions (from the first printed edition of 1573 to present days) and the translations in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish, with a selection of studies on Parmenides; in future, a section will be dedicated to an examination of some critical (...) variants of the Greek text, with particular attention to corrections to the Diels-Kranz (abbreviated DK) edition of the Fragmente der Vorsokratiker. The fragments of Parmenides' Poem are cited according to Diels-Kranz numbering system as adopted in the 6th edition, Berlin 1952; the Poem is divided into three parts: the Proem fr. I, 1-32; the Way of Truth (Alethéia) from fr. II to VIII, 49, and the Way of Mortal Opinion (Doxa) fr. VIII, 50 to XIX, 3. (shrink)

Les Études sur Parménide viennent s'ajouter à cette liste déjà impressionnante d'ouvrages qui, dans la dernière décennie, ont été consacrés au texte et a l'interprétation du Poème de Parménide. Celui-ci contient les études issues du Centre de Recherches sur la Pensée Antique ou Centre L. Robin de l'Université de Paris-Sorbonne que dirigeait le professeur P. Aubenque. Les spécialistes de Parménide de la nouvelle génération ne manqueront pas d'instruments de travail pour leur lecture du Poème. Mais ils risquent du même coup (...) de pénétrer dans un véritable labyrinthe d'interprétations d'où ils auront vraisemblablement plus de difficultés à sortir que leurs devanciers. La somme de connaissances accumulées autour des quelques cent soixante vers de ce Poème au niveau des manuscrits, de la langue grecque et de la littérature de l'époque est considerable, la diversité des lectures codicologiques, philologiques et philosophiques qui touché chaque vers du Poème, pour ne pas dire chaque mot, est déroutantc puisque les arguments qui fondent chacune de ces lectures ne manquent pas de vraisemblance. (shrink)

Against the traditional interpretation of Doxa as intrinsically and thoroughly deceiving and untrustworthy, the present essay examines the passages which follow the self-characterization of the goddess’ speech as ‘deceitful.’ The traits of an extensive cosmogony and cosmology open up the possibility for discerning two aspects of Doxa: first a presentation of mortal erroneous opinions, but then also their correction within the framework of the ‘appropriate world-arrangement’ presented by the goddess.

Abstract The great german Scholar, Eduard Zeller, suggested that the reference to male and female in Parmenides B12.5-6 was probably an allusion to the physical principles of `mortal opinion': Night and Light. This suggestion has been rejected by some scholars because such an association would lead us to admit that, in B12, male was associated with Night and female with Light, a theory which would be at odds with the supposed misogyny of Greek culture. However, Parmenides' account of `mortal opinion' (...) certainly associates male with coldness and density, the attributes of Night, and female with hotness and greater rarity, the attibutes of Light. The aims of this paper are, then, first, to show that the association of female with Light and of male with Night is in fact right; and secondly to investigate the main dualistic features of Parmenides' `mortal opinion' (embryology, sleep, death, knowledge) in relation to this theme. This will lead us, finally, to focus our attention on the Proem, which introduces us to a world full of female divinities, among whom - beyond the gates of the ways of day and night - is the unnamed goddess who will initiate her young male auditor into the two `ways'. (shrink)

A well-established tradition has argued that it is not legitimate to attribute to Parmenides a Fregean semantics, i.e. the distinction between ‘naming’ and ‘meaning’. Nonetheless, Parmenides claims more than once (B 8.53, B 9.1) that mortalsdo namereality, although incorrectly. As many scholars have emphasised, because it is fair neither to conclude that mortals’ names are ‘empty names’ nor dismiss Opinion's account (i.e., broadly speaking, the mortals’ account of reality) itself as meaningless, it seems that Parmenides is suggesting that some kind (...) of distinction between what names refer to and what names mean must be drawn. In view of this, what is Parmenides’ account of names?My suggestion is that in order to explain the Eleatic philosophy of language (and the Eleatic account of names) a step back is required. More specifically, Parmenides’ epistemology has to be taken into account. Indeed, if we assume that Parmenides is arguing for an ‘epistemological disjunctivism’ – such that the veridical and truthful state and the erroneous and deceptive state are essentially different – it will be clear that he is further arguing for what could be defined as a ‘semantic disjunctivism’, so that true speech and false speech are essentially different as well. (shrink)

In this paper we offer a new solution to the old paradox of nothingness. This new solution develops in two steps. The first step consists in showing how to resolve the contradiction generated by the notion of nothingness by claiming that the contradiction shows the indefinite extensibility of the concept of object. The second step consists in showing that, having accepted the idea of indefinite extensibility, we can have absolute generality without the emergence of the contradiction connected to the absolute (...) notion of nothingness. The idea of indefinite extensibility allows us to have our cake and to eat it too. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 60, Issue 1, pp 3 - 39 This paper pursues a new approach to the problem of the relation between Alētheia and Doxa. It investigates as interrelated matters Parmenides’ impetus for developing and including Doxa, his conception of the mortal epistemic agent in relation both to Doxa’s investigations and to those in Alētheia, and the relation between mortal and divine in his poem. Parmenides, it is argued, maintained that Doxastic cognition is an ineluctable and even appropriate aspect (...) of mortal life. The mortal agent, however, is nonetheless capable of sustaining the cognition of Alētheia by momentarily coming to think with—or as—his divine soul. (shrink)