Parmenides

Qu'est-ce que l'Absolu ? Dieu existe-t-il ?

What is: one, ungenerated, imperishable and complete like a sphere

Un Absolu impersonnelCela se déduit de sa doctrine

Parmenides does not speak of God in the Way of Truth. What his poem presents as ultimate is “what is”: that which cannot not be, which is neither born nor perishes, which is all at once, one and continuous, and complete on every side like the bulk of a well-rounded sphere. It is held within its limits by Justice and Necessity, divine figures that in the poem function almost as names of logical law. The revelation itself is spoken by a nameless goddess who welcomes the youth in the proem. What the text allows us to affirm is an absolute without personal features, accessible only to thought, from which all genesis, change and plurality are excluded.

Qui suis-je ? Existe-t-il un vrai soi ?

The poem does not treat the self: only being and thinking

Ne s'est pas prononcé

The surviving fragments of Parmenides contain no doctrine of the self or of the individual soul. The Way of Truth deals with “what is” and its relation to thought — the same is thinking and being, says B3 — but this thinking is not presented as the consciousness of a subject. In the Way of Opinion, B16 explains that the mind of humans depends on the mixture of their limbs at each moment, a physical psychology the goddess herself has labelled the opinion of mortals. The figure of the youth brought before the goddess in the proem is narrative. Readings that see in B3 an identity between consciousness and being belong to the later tradition.

Pourquoi souffrons-nous ?

The poem deals with mortals' error, not their pain

Ne s'est pas prononcé

Parmenides does not ask why we suffer. What his poem diagnoses is something else: the straying of “two-headed” mortals, who know nothing, wander deaf and blind, and take being and not-being as the same and not the same (B6). That error is cognitive, not moral or existential, and the remedy the goddess offers is to judge by reason and not be carried along by the habit of the senses (B7). Neither the Way of Truth nor the remains of the Way of Opinion, devoted to cosmology and physiology, treat human pain as a problem. Attributing a doctrine of suffering to him would be inventing it.

Que se passe-t-il après la mort ?

What is is neither born nor dies; the poem ignores the individual

Ne s'est pas prononcé

The fragments of Parmenides do not deal with what happens to the person after death. The Way of Truth holds that what is is ungenerated and imperishable, because from what is not nothing can come and into it nothing can go; Justice does not loosen her fetters to let it be born or perish. But that argument concerns being as such, not the individual soul, and applying it to the soul would be an extrapolation. The Way of Opinion, which contains the cosmology, mentions a divinity that governs birth and the union of the sexes, but the surviving remains say nothing of a destiny after death.

Comment atteint-on la libération ou le salut ?

A journey from night to light to learn well-rounded truth

Par la connaissance directeCela se déduit de sa doctrine

Parmenides' proem narrates a journey: mares carry the youth, “the man who knows”, along the road of the goddess; the daughters of the Sun leave the halls of Night and open for him the gates guarded by Justice. There the goddess promises to teach him everything: both the unshaken heart of well-rounded truth and the opinions of mortals, in which there is no true belief. The rest of the poem is that teaching, and its condition is to judge by reason and not by the unseeing eye or the echoing ear. If one can speak of liberation in Parmenides, it is that of thought leaving the path of mortals.

Faut-il un maître ?

A goddess teaches, but asks that her proof be judged by reason

Utile mais pas indispensableCela se déduit de sa doctrine

Parmenides' poem takes the form of teaching: a nameless goddess welcomes the youth, takes his right hand and promises to teach him the truth and the opinions of mortals. It might seem a revelation accepted on authority. Yet the goddess asks for no faith: she urges him not to be carried by the habit of the senses and to judge by reason the much-contested refutation she sets before him (B7). The divine guide opens the way, but assent depends on the disciple's reasoning. The fragments say nothing of human teachers; tradition makes Parmenides a pupil of Xenophanes and of the Pythagorean Ameinias, and teacher of Zeno of Elea.

Le monde est-il réel ?

Only what is is; the world of mortals is name and opinion

Apparence sur l'unique réalitéIl le dit expressément

The Way of Truth proves that what is can neither come to be nor perish, nor move, nor be divided, because that would mean admitting what is not. It follows that the world the senses perceive — birth, death, change of place, alteration of colour — consists of names mortals have laid down trusting them to be true. Yet the goddess does not simply dismiss that world: in the second part of the poem she sets out a complete cosmology, based on light and night, so that no mortal may outstrip him in knowledge, although she warns that its arrangement is deceptive. The world has the consistency of appearance; only what is is fully real.

Qu'est-ce que l'amour ?

Eros appears only in the cosmogony, as the first of the gods

Ne s'est pas prononcé

Parmenides does not treat love as a human experience or as a path. In the Way of Opinion, devoted to the cosmology of mortals, a divinity who governs all things drives the union of female and male (B12), and of her it is said that she devised Eros, first of all the gods (B13), a line Plato quotes in the Symposium. It is a cosmogonic force explaining generation, not a doctrine of love as a bond between persons or as longing for the divine. Moreover, the goddess presents that whole section of the poem as the opinion of mortals. On love in an ethical or mystical sense, Parmenides is silent.

Sommes-nous libres ou tout est-il déterminé ?

Necessity binds being, but the poem says nothing of human action

Ne s'est pas prononcé

In Parmenides' poem Necessity and Justice appear often, but not as forces governing human life. In the Way of Truth mighty Necessity holds what is in the bonds of the limit, and Justice does not loosen her fetters to let it come to be or perish: they are figures of the immutability of being. In the cosmology, Necessity binds the heaven to hold the limits of the stars (B10). None of the fragments asks whether humans choose their acts or whether everything is determined. Ancient tradition made Parmenides lawgiver of Elea, but his laws do not survive. On this question he is silent.

Pourquoi méditer ou prier ?

The proem's journey is no method of prayer or meditation

Ne s'est pas prononcé

The fragments of Parmenides contain no teachings on prayer or meditative practices. The proem narrates a chariot journey to a goddess and is full of religious imagery — the daughters of the Sun, Justice holding the keys, the gates of the paths of Night and Day —, but its function in the poem is to introduce a teaching that must be judged by reason. A recent line of interpretation, represented by Peter Kingsley, has linked Parmenides with Apollo's healer-priests at Elea and with incubation practices; it rests on inscriptions found at Velia, not on the poem. Attributing a doctrine of prayer to him would go beyond the texts.

La raison peut-elle connaître l'ultime ?

A goddess reveals the truth, but demands it be judged by reason alone

La foi et la raison s'entraidentCela se déduit de sa doctrine

Parmenides is at once the thinker of revelation and the founder of deductive argument. His poem puts the truth in the mouth of a goddess, reached by a journey far from the paths of men; but what the goddess teaches is rigorous reasoning, and her watchword is not to be carried by the habit of the senses but to judge by reason the refutation she proposes. For Parmenides thought does reach the ultimate: thinking and being are the same, and what is not cannot be thought or said. Divine revelation and reason do not compete: the first provides the frame, the second the proof; the senses are relegated to opinion.

Se retirer du monde ou le transformer ?

The poem does not treat social life; tradition made him a lawgiver

Ne s'est pas prononcé

The fragments of Parmenides' poem contain no reflection on how to live among humans, whether to withdraw or act in the city. The proem's journey takes the youth far from the paths of men, but that distance is one of knowledge, not a programme of life. Reports of his public life come from other sources: Speusippus, according to Diogenes Laertius, said he gave laws to his fellow citizens of Elea, and Plutarch adds that magistrates swore each year to observe them. If so, Parmenides would have been an active citizen; but his laws do not survive and cannot be connected with his doctrine. On this question his work is silent.