The Legacy of Parmenides: Eleatic Monism and Later Presocratic Thought

by Patricia Curd

Parmenides of Elea was the most important and influential philosopher before Plato. He rejected as impossible the scientific inquiry practiced by the earlier Presocratic philosophers and held that generation, destruction, and change are unreal and that only one thing exists. In this book, Patricia Curd argues that Parmenides sought to reform rather than to reject scientific inquiry, and she offers a more coherent account of his influence on later philosophers.

The Legacy of Parmenides examines Parmenides' arguments, considering his connection to earlier Greek thought and how his account of what-is could have served as a model for later philosophers. Curd also explores the theories of his successors, including the Pluralists (Anaxagoras and Empedocles), the Atomists (Leucippus and Democritus), the later Eleatics (Zeno and Melissus), and the later Presocratics (Philolaus of Croton and Diogenes of Apollonia). She concludes with a discussion of the importance of Parmenides' work to Plato's Theory of Forms. The Legacy of Parmenides challenges traditional views of early Greek philosophy and provides new insights into the work of Parmenides.

" The Legacy of Parmenides represents a milestone . . . of Parmenides' interpretation. It is full of ideas and tells a coherent story about Parmenides and early Greek thought." -- Alexander Nehamas, Princeton University

"Professor Curd offers a genuinely original and possibly correct interpretation of the core thesis of the poem of Parmenides in a field so well worked over that saying something both new and true is profoundly difficult, this is a notable achievement." -- Thomas M. Robinson, University of Toronto

"This will be a substantial book in the story of early Greek philosophy, and future writers on the tradition from Thales through Plato will not be able to ignore it without missing an important interpretive alternative. It will be of value to students of Presocratic philosophy or the Greek tradition, as well as to students of the scientific revolution, cosmology, the origins of logic, or comparative mysticism." -- Scott W. Austin, Texas A&M University



PATRICIA CURD is professor at Purdue University where she works primarily in Ancient Philosophy. She is a co-editor of Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy , and is the editor of A Presocratics Reader.

Genres: Philosophy

309 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

Reviews

[Dawson Escott · Rating 2 out of 5]

Parmenides is a philosopher that you almost can't say the first thing about-- there's such a diversity of interpretation and his own writing is so elusive that people from different academic camps disagree on the fundamental stances he took. Does Parmenides literally believe that the whole universe is one numerical thing? Did he follow in the footsteps of the cosmologists before him or did he make a clean break with them? How does he intend his readers to interpret the word "is"? The jury seems to be out, but each reading really makes him out to be a radical philosopher in his time-- arguably the inventor of both metaphysics and logic, seemingly the first to apply rigid and strict system of scrutiny to his own beliefs. After reading multiple works about him, I feel like his bold determination to strip all of reality down to the simple fundamental decision of "is" or "is not" is on the level with Descartes' "I think therefore I am."

To my eyes it looks like there's at least 3 different camps of thought, and Curd is the champion of a pluralist reading for Parmenides, interpreting his use of "is" as predicative. I still don't fully get what predicative means, but essentially what other writers would argue are the rules for Parmenides' *one* thing the universe is-- eternal, unchanging, homogenous, indivisible-- Curd argues are simply criteria that multiple elements in the universe could fulfill. Rather than the universe being one, there is the potential for a system of many different eternal and pure elements which interact with eachother to form the phenomenal world. I liked this interpretation because it's the only one for Parmenides that really provides an explanation of or reason for sensorial experience. (I find it hard to take any philosopher who totally disregards the senses seriously) In this reading, the pluralists and the atomists are all working within the system provided by Parmenides rather than challenging an existential threat others say he posed to cosmology.

The first 70 or so pages of this book drag hard for a non-professional reader, where Curd goes through a pretty disinterested line by line explication of Parmenides' preserved text. Once she moves on to her arguments of how the following philosophers incorporated Parmenides arguments it gets significantly more interesting, but still dry as a bone. My favorite is when she argues that Plato's world of forms are really Parmenidean subjects, which is an unfortunately short section in the conclusion, but I also liked the discussion of Anaxagoras (baffling system) and Empedocles' cosmologies. I was considering giving this book 3 stars because I found the arguments to be cogent and it helped me appreciate a writer I originally found obtuse, but then after reading it I worked through some other articles (M.M. Mackenzie "Parmenides' Dilemma" and A.A. Long "Parmenides on Thinking Being") where the writing was worlds better and the arguments a little more exciting. I realized after that change of pace how good this book could have been if written in a more poetic and passionate voice. Not to slight it too hard, I understand that I'm not really the target reader for Curd's book, but again, I'm approaching this project as a general interest reader so even with all my grains of salt I'm not going to be able to stomach fully academic writing for what it is.