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Single Idea 448

[filed under theme 7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / a. Nature of Being ]

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.

Gist of Idea

No necessity could produce Being either later or earlier, so it must exist absolutely or not at all

Source

Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE], B08 ll.?), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 9.145.1-

Book Ref

'Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers', ed/tr. Freeman,Kathleen [Harvard 1957], p.43

The 27 ideas from Parmenides

21820 Parmenides at least saw Being as the same as Nous, and separate from the sensed realm [Parmenides, by Plotinus]
555 People who say that the cosmos is one forget that they must explain movement [Aristotle on Parmenides]
1791 He was the first person to say the earth is spherical [Parmenides, by Diog. Laertius]
5081 There could be movement within one thing, as there is within water [Aristotle on Parmenides]
1509 The one can't be divisible, because if it was it could be infinitely divided down to nothing [Parmenides, by Simplicius]
20900 Defenders of the One say motion needs the void - but that is not part of Being [Parmenides, by Aristotle]
226 The one is without any kind of motion [Parmenides]
3058 Only reason can prove the truth of facts [Parmenides]
1792 He taught that there are two elements, fire the maker, and earth the matter [Parmenides, by Diog. Laertius]
1794 He was the first to discover the identity of the Morning and Evening Stars [Parmenides, by Diog. Laertius]
5115 It is feeble-minded to look for explanations of everything being at rest [Aristotle on Parmenides]
13217 The void can't exist, and without the void there can't be movement or separation [Parmenides, by Aristotle]
22918 What could have triggered the beginning [of time and being]? [Parmenides]
1505 Reason sees reality as one, the senses see it as many [Aristotle on Parmenides]
1504 Something must be unchanging to make recognition and knowledge possible [Aristotle on Parmenides]
1502 Parmenides was much more cautious about accepting ideas than his predecessors [Simplicius on Parmenides]
1506 Parmenides treats perception and intellectual activity as the same [Theophrastus on Parmenides]
444 The first way of enquiry involves necessary existence [Parmenides]
445 The realm of necessary non-existence cannot be explored, because it is unknowable [Parmenides]
1503 There is no such thing as nothing [Parmenides]
450 Necessity sets limits on being, in order to give it identity [Parmenides]
451 Thinking implies existence, because thinking depends on it [Parmenides]
452 All our concepts of change and permanence are just names, not the truth [Parmenides]
448 No necessity could produce Being either later or earlier, so it must exist absolutely or not at all [Parmenides]
447 Being must be eternal and uncreated, and hence it is timeless [Parmenides]
449 Being is not divisible, since it is all alike [Parmenides]
453 Reality is symmetrical and balanced, like a sphere, with no reason to be greater one way rather than another [Parmenides]