Main
Greek philosopher of Elea in southern Italy who founded
Eleaticism, one of the leading pre-Socratic schools of Greek
thought. His general teaching has been diligently
reconstructed from the few surviving fragments of his
principal work, a lengthy three-part verse composition
titled On Nature.
Parmenides held that the multiplicity of existing things,
their changing forms and motion, are but an appearance of a
single eternal reality (“Being”), thus giving rise to the
Parmenidean principle that “all is one.” From this concept
of Being, he went on to say that all claims of change or of
non-Being are illogical. Because he introduced the method of
basing claims about appearances on a logical concept of
Being, he is considered one of the founders of metaphysics.
Plato’s dialogue the Parmenides deals with his thought.
An English translation of his work was edited by L. Tarán
(1965).
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