Parmenides on What There Is (Part Two)

Continuing with guest Peter Adamson with ""On Nature"" (475 BCE).

We finally get to the great ""fragment 8,"" which describes why Being must be singular and eternal, given that the notion of Non-Being is nonsense. So does it make any sense to talk of this eternal, uniform Being as a finite sphere? Would this absolute unity of Being make it impossible for us to even be individuals engaging in this inquiry? Parmenides perhaps uses the ""Way of Seeming"" to explain the world of appearance, but it's unclear to what extent this view can approximate, say, the Kantian distinction between appearance and reality.

End song: ""Circle"" by Gareth Mitchell, as discussed on Nakedly Examined Music #4.

#philosophy #ontology #metaphysics #being #presocratic #truth

Go to the blog: http://partiallyexaminedlife.com/2018/08/27/ep197-2-parmenides/