(b) Passages relating to Parmenides in Plato and Aristotle.

Plato, Theaet. 180 D. I almost forgot, Theodoros, that there were others who asserted opinions the very opposite of these: ‘the all is alone, unmoved; to this all names apply,’ and the other emphatic statements in opposition to those referred to, which the school of Melissos and Parmenides make, to the effect that all things are one, and that the all stands itself in itself, not having space in which it is moved.

Ibid. 183 E. Feeling ashamed before Melissos and the rest who assert that the all is one being, for fear we should examine the matter somewhat crudely, I am even more ashamed in view of the fact that Parmenides is one of them. Parmenides seems to me, in the words of Homer, a man to be reverenced and at the same time feared. For when I was a mere youth and he a very old man, I conversed with him, and he seemed to me to have an exceedingly wonderful depth of mind. I fear lest we may not understand what he said, and that we may fail still more to understand his thoughts in saying it; and, what is most important, I fear lest the question before us should fail to receive due consideration....⁠[60]⁠

Soph. 238 C (concluding a discussion of Parmenides). You understand then that it is really impossible to speak of not-being or to say anything about it or to conceive it by itself, but it is inconceivable, not to be spoken of or mentioned, and irrational.

Parm. 150 E. Accordingly the unity itself in relation to itself is as follows: Having in itself neither greatness nor littleness, it could not be exceeded by itself nor could it exceed itself, but being equal it would be equal to itself.

[104]

Ibid. 168 C. This statement: It does not exist, means absolutely that it does not exist anywhere in any way, nor does not-being have any share at all in being. Accordingly not-being could not exist, nor in any other way could it have a share in being.

(Symp. 178 B, 195 C: Reference to the stories which Hesiod and Parmenides told about the gods. Line 132 is quoted.)

Arist. Phys. i. 2; 184 b 16. The first principle must be one, unmoved, as Parmenides and Melissos say,...

Ibid. i. 3; 186 a 4. To those proceeding after this impossible manner things seem to be one, and it is not difficult to refute them from their own statements. For both of them reason in a fallacious manner, both Parmenides and Melissos; for they make false assumptions, and at the same time their course of reasoning is not logical.... And the same sort of arguments are used by Parmenides, although he has some others of his own, and the refutation consists in showing both that he makes mistakes of fact and that he does not draw his conclusions correctly. He makes a mistake in assuming that being is to be spoken of absolutely, speaking of it thus many times; and he draws the false conclusion that, in case only whites are considered, white meaning one thing, none the less there are many whites and not one; since neither in the succession of things nor in the argument will whiteness be one. For what is predicated of white will not be the same as what is predicated of the object which is white, and nothing except white will be separated from the object; since there is no other ground of separation except the fact that the white is different from the object in which the white exists. But Parmenides had not yet arrived at the knowledge of this.

Ibid. i. 5; 188 a 20. Parmenides also makes heat [105]and cold first principles; and he calls them fire and earth.

Ibid. iii. 6; 207 a 15. Wherefore we must regard Parmenides as a more acute thinker than Melissos, for the latter says that the infinite is the all, but the former asserts that the all is limited, equally distant from the centre [on every side].⁠[61]⁠

Gen. Corr. i. 3; 318 b 6. Parmenides says that the two exist, both being and not being—i.e. earth and water.

Metaph. i. 3; 984 b 1. None of those who have affirmed that the all is one have, it happens, seen the nature of such a cause clearly, except, perhaps, Parmenides, and he in so far as he sometimes asserts that there is not one cause alone, but two causes.

Metaph. i. 5; 986 b 18. For Parmenides seemed to lay hold of a unity according to reason, and Melissos according to matter; wherefore the former says it is limited, the latter that it is unlimited. Xenophanes first taught the unity of things (Parmenides is said to have been his pupil), but he did not make anything clear, nor did he seem to get at the nature of either finiteness or infinity, but, looking up into the broad heavens, he said, the unity is god. These, as we said, are to be dismissed from the present investigation, two of them entirely as being somewhat more crude, Xenophanes and Melissos; but Parmenides seems to speak in some places with greater care. For believing that not-being does not exist in addition to being, of necessity he thinks that being is one and that there is nothing else,... and being compelled to account for phenomena, and assuming that things are one from the standpoint of reason, plural from the standpoint of sense, he again asserts that there are two causes and two first principles, heat and [106]cold, or, as he calls them, fire and earth; of these he regards heat as being, its opposite as not-being.

Metaph. ii. 4; 1001 a 32. There is nothing different from being, so that it is necessary to agree with the reasoning of Parmenides that all things are one, and that this is being.