Essay Portrait 'Parmenides'

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The pre-Socratic philosopher sparked an intellectual revolution that still echoes today. Yet for philosophy and science to continue to progress in the 21st century, we may need to embark on an entirely new cognitive journey

Raymond Tallis

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@Pythagorean,

Parmenides is great. If memory serves: the One, the Way of Opinion, deductive method versus "common sense."

Nietzsche talks about the "noble taste" of these counter-sensual presocratics. Common sense has its merits in regards to practical matters, but what about philosophy as an art?

Didn't Parmenides write his work in verse? He was explicitly a poet, implicitly a mystic (or so I might argue). And yet explicitly a rationalist (is this the right word?) using the deductive method. Maybe even some language philosophy implicit in his presentation.

Forgive any errors. It's been awhile. But I have always love the pseudo-monotheist sequence of Parmenides, Spinoza, Hegel.

Kojeve writes brilliantly on all of them in his book on Hegel.

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Parmenides is considered as the most profound of the pre-Socratic philosophers and the grandfather of Western philosophy. From the wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parmenides

Quote:

Parmenides' considerable influence on the thinking of Plato is undeniable, and in this respect Parmenides has influenced the whole history of Western philosophy, and is often seen as its grandfather.

Influence on the development of science:

Quote:

Parmenides made the ontological argument against nothingness, essentially denying the possible existence of a void.

Modern quantum physics consider empty space has vacuum energy.

Influence on Schrodinger and Einstein:

Quote:

Erwin Schrödinger identified Parmenides' monad of the "Way of Truth" as being the conscious self in "Nature and the Greeks".[16] For a discussion of the scientific implications of this view see:Hyman, Anthony, (2007); "The Selfseeker", Teignvalley Press.

A shadow of Parmenides' ideas can be seen in the physical concept of Block time, which considers existence to consist of past, present, and future, and the flow of time to be illusory. In his critique of this idea, Karl Popper remarked to Einstein "You are Parmenides".

Influence on contemporary philosophy of reality:

Quote:

In The Way of Truth (a part of the poem), he explains how reality is one, change is impossible, and existence is timeless, uniform, and unchanging.

In the June 2010 issue of Scientific American, there is an article by Craig Callender on "Is time an illusion?" where he argues "that time and change may emerge from a universe that, at root, is utterly static".

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=is-time-an-illusion

So, Parmenides' ideas and influence are very relevant even in the 21st century.

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Essay Portrait 'Parmenides'

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