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Single Idea 444

[filed under theme 10. Modality / A. Necessity / 5. Metaphysical Necessity ]

Full Idea

The first way of enquiry is the one that IT IS, and it is not possible for IT NOT TO BE, which is the way of credibility, for it follows truth.

Gist of Idea

The first way of enquiry involves necessary existence

Source

Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE], B02), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 9.116.28-

Book Ref

'Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers', ed/tr. Freeman,Kathleen [Harvard 1957], p.42


A Reaction

also Proclus 'Timeus'


The 27 ideas from 'fragments/reports'

Parmenides at least saw Being as the same as Nous, and separate from the sensed realm [Parmenides, by Plotinus]
He taught that there are two elements, fire the maker, and earth the matter [Parmenides, by Diog. Laertius]
People who say that the cosmos is one forget that they must explain movement [Aristotle on Parmenides]
He was the first person to say the earth is spherical [Parmenides, by Diog. Laertius]
The one is without any kind of motion [Parmenides]
There could be movement within one thing, as there is within water [Aristotle on Parmenides]
The one can't be divisible, because if it was it could be infinitely divided down to nothing [Parmenides, by Simplicius]
Defenders of the One say motion needs the void - but that is not part of Being [Parmenides, by Aristotle]
Only reason can prove the truth of facts [Parmenides]
It is feeble-minded to look for explanations of everything being at rest [Aristotle on Parmenides]
The void can't exist, and without the void there can't be movement or separation [Parmenides, by Aristotle]
He was the first to discover the identity of the Morning and Evening Stars [Parmenides, by Diog. Laertius]
What could have triggered the beginning [of time and being]? [Parmenides]
Reason sees reality as one, the senses see it as many [Aristotle on Parmenides]
Something must be unchanging to make recognition and knowledge possible [Aristotle on Parmenides]
Parmenides was much more cautious about accepting ideas than his predecessors [Simplicius on Parmenides]
Parmenides treats perception and intellectual activity as the same [Theophrastus on Parmenides]
The first way of enquiry involves necessary existence [Parmenides]
The realm of necessary non-existence cannot be explored, because it is unknowable [Parmenides]
There is no such thing as nothing [Parmenides]
Thinking implies existence, because thinking depends on it [Parmenides]
All our concepts of change and permanence are just names, not the truth [Parmenides]
No necessity could produce Being either later or earlier, so it must exist absolutely or not at all [Parmenides]
Being is not divisible, since it is all alike [Parmenides]
Being must be eternal and uncreated, and hence it is timeless [Parmenides]
Reality is symmetrical and balanced, like a sphere, with no reason to be greater one way rather than another [Parmenides]
Necessity sets limits on being, in order to give it identity [Parmenides]