Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Simone de Beauvoir, Hamid Vahid and Parmenides

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7 ideas

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / a. Nature of Being

448	No necessity could produce Being either later or earlier, so it must exist absolutely or not at all [Parmenides]
	Full Idea: What necessity impelled Being, if it did spring from nothing, to be produced later or earlier? Thus it must be absolutely, or not at all.
	From: Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE], B08 ll.?), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 9.145.1-
	A reaction: If there is a moment when Being is created, it is reasonable to ask why then, and not some other time? Obviously a conscious God can fill that gap,but that only defers the problem.

449	Being is not divisible, since it is all alike [Parmenides]
	Full Idea: Being is not divisible, since it is all alike.
	From: Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE], B08 ll.?), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 9.145.1-
	A reaction: A baffling proposal when it appears to be extremely diverse. A microscope would have forced him to rethink somewhat.

447	Being must be eternal and uncreated, and hence it is timeless [Parmenides]
	Full Idea: Being has no coming-to-be and no destruction, for it is whole of limb, without motion, and without end. And it never was, nor will be, because it is now, a whole all together, one, continuous; for what creation of it will you look for?
	From: Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE], B08 ll.?), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 9.145.1-
	A reaction: That being is eternal is a reasonable speculation, since its creation seems inconceivable. But why think it is without motion, when we see motion everywhere? That was Aristotle's reaction, too.

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / d. Non-being

445	The realm of necessary non-existence cannot be explored, because it is unknowable [Parmenides]
	Full Idea: The other way of enquiry, that IT IS NOT, and IT is bound NOT TO BE, cannot be explored, for you could neither recognise nor express that which IS NOT.
	From: Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE], B02), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 9.116.28-
	A reaction: There is not much to say about that which is not, but quite a lot, I would have thought, about what is 'bound not to be'. What prevents it from being?

1503	There is no such thing as nothing [Parmenides]
	Full Idea: There is no such thing as nothing.
	From: Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE], B06), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 9.86.27-
	A reaction: See Meinong on this. It is not an empty concept, because things can be predicated of nothing, such as weighing less than an apple. CF. the role of zero in arithmetic.

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / f. Primary being

21820	Parmenides at least saw Being as the same as Nous, and separate from the sensed realm [Parmenides, by Plotinus]
	Full Idea: Parmenides made some approach to the doctrine of Plato in identifying Being with Intellectual-Principle [Nous] while separating Real Being from the realm of sense.
	From: report of Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE]) by Plotinus - The Enneads 5.1.08
	A reaction: The point is that for Parmenides the One is the essence of Being, but for platonists there is something prior to and higher than Being. For Plato it is the Good; for Plotinus it is a revised (non-Being) concept of the One.

7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 1. Nature of Change

452	All our concepts of change and permanence are just names, not the truth [Parmenides]
	Full Idea: All things that mortals have established, believing in their truth, are just a name: Becoming and Perishing, Being and Not-Being, and change of position, and alteration of bright colour.
	From: Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE], B08 ll.?), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 9.145.1-
	A reaction: He has to say this, once he has decided that Being is homogeneous eternal unity, but if normal human beliefs are just names, presumably that applies to his views too. Is 'Being' just a name?