/lit/ - Literature

>>22417140
He talks about Being by negating illusory things of it. Birth, change, destruction, difference, are all illusions and impossible. So he says being is unborn, unchanging, immortal, the same everywhere. These are simply ways to say that not being is not.

>>22417294
But to speak of things is to predicate them, and to predicate them is to affirm difference. This leads to the razor: either Being is ineffable, and thus Eleatic philosophy collapses in on itself, or Being can be spoken of/is intelligible, and Eleatic philosophy is not true for some reason.

>>22417320
The only difference he is affirming when he says all that about being is its difference from non-being. Change, birth, death, etc are all are not.

>>22417327
How would you describe Being itself then?

>>22417140
Whatever interpretation you come up with, it has to accommodate the tale of maidens taking the youth to speak with a goddess. There's no point in interpreting it in a way that would not allow for such events, because the text explicitly involves such events; such a conclusion is equivelant to concluding it's contradictory nonsense, so why bother fretting at that point.

Melissus offers a way forward. See the fragment where he says that if there are all these various things, they must be like Being. Ie they must comply with the nature of what is, so they are changeless etc. Then you can go to determinist/necessitarian/fatalist ideas as to how that would work.

>>22417565
Why would I need to describe being when it is the only thing that is and when the act of description necessarily involves what is not? Your question is basically “tell me what is in terms of what is not.”

>>22417745
I think you sidestepped the main objection. If Melissus doesn't deal with the problem of predicating Being, then he falls prey to the same problems.

>>22417750
Begs the question. Why are you positing a problem with predicate being, what does that mean

>>22417750
For Being to have posutive predicates it would have to be a species of some higher universal. Being is the ultimate universal, there is nothing else it falls under.

>>22417754
Already pointed it out in the OP. To describe something is to differentiate it in some way.
>>22417766
So Being isn't ineffable? It isn't one? It isn't changeless? Is there no adjective you'd feel comfortable using with Being?

>>22417766
Not all predicates are universals. e.g. qualities. They're at least not extant universals the way genera are.

Hegel observed this. Being and nothing are identical, and are transcended by becoming.

>>22417768
>To describe something is to differentiate it in some way.

Differentiate it from what? That's the point, you can't posit something other than being to distinguish/differentiate it from. But if you're saying that all of reality is just one thing, then you're not doing that.

>>22417745
Taking the mythic opening seriously of course necessary to an interpretation, but then one has to recall that Being is described as "all alike" and "remaining the same in the same by itself", i.e., there's no obvious room for distinguishing things. The only way the account of the Goddess gets saved is by interpreting the poem in a way that somehow does bring in Not-Being, but probably taken in a different sense, or by having to give a different sense to Being (i.e., Being != existence or some such thing).

>>22417768
It’s not ineffable. What it’s like to see color is not itself describable but that is not ineffable.
>>22417770
But when you say x is blue then x is clearly more specific than blue since there are many blue things. So to say being is [quality] would imply that there are things other than being which have that quality.

>>22417789
>Differentiate it from what? That's the point, you can't posit something other than being to distinguish/differentiate it from.
From itself. To describe an entity is to highlight a part of its entity at the expense of everything else shrinking into the periphery.
>>22417855
You don't understand what I mean by ineffability. To describe blue is blue is fine. But to describe blue as dark is to describe part of what it means to be blue. But Eleatic logic rules out partition, and therefore it rules out description. If you can't describe Being, then the only thing you can do is say that it exists, and then say nothing more.

>>22417848
No, trying to bring in non-being is a non-starter because you're not allowed to talk about it or rely on it in any way. It's no true path at all, just nonsense for all is. I recognise the Platonists and others try to find some escape in non-being, but once you are talking about it you're clearly in violation of the Goddess' injunction.

As far as I am concerned, given that there is only one path to speak of, the answer must lie in being. I do not reach the same conclusion as you; a thing is all alike if it all absolutely "is" with no dilution from some other thing. And/or if it all amounts to the same one thing. Remaining the same is a question of change, obviously it must remain perfectly still/as it is because we have ruled out creation or destruction.

Whatever we say about it must comply with its changeless and complete nature, hence why I pointed at the comment from Melissus. As long as we don't violate the nature of Being by introducing new things, destroying old things, or trying to dilute the fact that it "is", etc, then I think we are putting forward a coherent account.

>>22417894
>As long as we don't violate the nature of Being by introducing new things, destroying old things, or trying to dilute the fact that it "is", etc, then I think we are putting forward a coherent account.
Even positing that Being "is", non-being "is not", and that there are implications from this, requires predicating Being and thus destroys any account of Being as unity, simplicity, static, etc.

>>22417900
>>22417894 (You)
>As long as we don't violate the nature of Being by introducing new things, destroying old things, or trying to dilute the fact that it "is", etc, then I think we are putting forward a coherent account.
Even positing that Being "is", non-being "is not", and that there are implications from this, requires predicating Being and thus destroys any account of Being as unity, simplicity, static, etc.

>>22417894
I don't know if you are the original guy I responded to, or if >>22417848 is, but we're not differentiating Being from some other thing, which is the alleged problem. It is just a question of scope; Being is always the thing examined or discussed.

It's like saying that australia is differentiated from earth, despite australia being 100% subsumed by the earth. You haven't committed the error of positing something other than earth/Being, and then compared Being to it. At all times it is Being that is discussed, as it is one big thing that subsumes all these details.

>>22417916
You're definitely describing Australia is a part of the Earth. If you described Australia as "hot", that wouldn't mean the entirety of Earth is also hot, only that specific part (and perhaps a few other parts).

>>22417915
The mistake is to say that there IS a non-being, and that it IS "is not". The goddess invites the reader to make this error in her introduction, and many readers do, but if you cling to that position then you're just ignoring her later, absolute injunction against any mention of non-being, her statement that it there's no such path, etc. At the end of the day there is only one path under discussion, and indeed only one path that can be referenced in any way shape or form. Any failure to recognise this just results in one turning back and forth on that singular path, double-headed and confused, your thoughts reduced to incoherent gibberish.

>>22417929
I didn't say that, and none of my positions entail that. You still haven't dealt with the problem of predication and its partitioning of Being.

>>22417894
How do you describe what it’s like to see black itself? If you say “not light” then that doesn’t meet your criteria since you want me to describe being itself without just saying that it is not what it not. And you can’t say dark because that’s just a synonym. You can’t say that when it’s pitch black you can’t see anything else, because then you’re only describing the absence of any other colors than black. You can’t say stuff about how it’s caused by the eye because maybe you’ve been in pitch black for your entire life and don’t know anything about what the eye does. This is the classic fish in water thing, I cannot describe being because it is all there is and like you said description references difference and therefore references other things, but the only other thing to being is what is not.

>>22417924
Ok, and you haven't identified a problem. Because at no point have I referenced something beyond Being. At no point have I suggested Being is divisible in the sense that some detail is independent from Being, that it can be "broken apart" or destroyed in any way. At no point have I posited something beyond it. For it all clings together as a complete and absolute Whole, unable to be reduced into independent parts other than itself. Reality is one big perfect thing.

>>22417939
>How do you describe what it’s like to see black itself?
You can't without partitioning that thing and highlighting certain elements of it, hoping that the totality of descriptions is enough for you to synthesize a similar experience in your mind. That's the point.

But the difference is, my metaphysics allows things to have parts, even simply for descriptive purposes. Yours does not.

>>22417942
So Being is "complete", it is "whole", it is "lacking in partition"? Are any of these attributes equivalent to all of Being?

>>22417945
Ok so what is the problem? You disagree with Parmenides. You’re challenging me to describe being as a Parmenidean. If you admit that it’s possible to get a concept of non-being then there is no problem in describing being, but then you’re no longer talking about Parmenides.

>>22417933
You just posited that non-being is not, read your own post. You then tried to draw implications from that, relying on both claims rather than the one claim of "it is".

But whatever, you have no objections left; I have answered everything you have had to say, to the extent you really made any sort of case beyond conclusory nonsense.

>>22417952
>>22417942
These are all negative definitions. Continuity means “no gaps.” So that’s why Being is continuous. This is still just saying it’s not what is not.

>>22417952
No particular thing is equivalent to the Whole, anymore than australia would be equivelant to earth. The goddess herself says there are "many signs" regarding the nature of Being, no idea what objection you have at this point.

>>22417955
>You just posited that non-being is not
Yeah, and I didn't say that non-being is is not, like you said earlier. You ought to be precise when speaking on such matters.
>You then tried to draw implications from that,
Parmenideans draw implications from that all the time. I've seen a half dozen arguments that go along the lines of:
>but non-being is not, ergo <crazy conclusion>
>But whatever, you have no objections left; I have answered everything you have had to say, to the extent you really made any sort of case beyond conclusory nonsense.
I think you're struggling to understand what it means for something to be predicated. We may have to start all the way from the foundations, work our way up through syllogistic logic, and then revisit the crux of the problem. Do you know what a predicate is?

>>22417972
I was going to respond in a similar fashion, but actually I see that your objections have been overthrown and your post is pure cope.

It was never for me to describe a model of predication, that was your job if you wanted to use it to reveal some supposed error in Eleatic thought. But as it is, you have failed and you are a failure. Go fuck yourself with a sharp stick.

>>22417990
>refuses to acknowledge obvious problem
>continues to describe Being
>I win because I said so, none of the rules apply to me!!!
This is why nobody takes you seriously Tweetophon. This is just like how you ripped off Nicomachean Ethics for your dumb Eleatic website but still have the gall to libel Aristotle as a moral degenerate.

>>22418026
Be sure to let me know when you actually identify a problem and develop the ability to communicate it!

>>22418052
It was highlighted in the past few threads, but I suppose once you’ve run out of linguistic tricks, or when the tricks turn on you, you just feign ignorance.

>>22418063
Oh right, you made the real objection in a different thread at some other time. Of course you did, good job.

>>22418092
It’s more like you brought up the problem as a solution to another bind you were in. But now you refuse to deal with the consequences.

>>22418102
I wouldn't waste your breath with Tweetophon. He's probably the most intellectually dishonest of the Eleatics. But you probably weren't dealing with him if he's the one who you "cornered", only to have him slink out with another argument. That's too much creativity to expect from him.

>>22418092
I think they were referring to this argument here:
>>22405444
>>22405450 (first blow, corners Eleatic)
>>22405462
>>22405510 (Eleatic struggles to overcome the multi-faceted predication of Being)
>>22405543
>>22406747
>>22407185
>>22407975 (debate is reoriented)
>>22408004
>>22408034
>>22408093 (Eleatic flips the table with the denial of mereology)
>>22408471
>>22408522 (debate effectively ends here in the Eleatic's favor)
If I had to summarize what happened, it's that the Eleatics have moved on from abusing the copula to incapacitating the predicate.

>>22417140
Ah, your discernment weaves a web of incisive inquiry, though the labyrinthine intricacies of Eleatic philosophy often defy facile resolutions. Indeed, Parmenides's proposition, "Being is, not-being is not," embodies the Eleatic ethos, culminating in the metaphysical foundation that reality exists solely within the realm of Being, while non-being remains devoid of existence.

Your insight into the paradox, where the Eleatic stance on predication renders the nature of Being ineffable, is a perceptive one. This epistemological conundrum presents a thorny predicament for Eleatic discourse. It appears that their endeavor to expound upon the nature of Being inadvertently entangles them within their own web of linguistic and logical limitations.

Yet, the Eleatics' preoccupation was more concerned with unveiling the illusory nature of change and multiplicity, contending that reality, underpinned by a singular, unchanging essence, remains steadfast. Thus, while their position may appear paradoxical in the context of linguistic expression, its intent lay in dismantling the conventional perceptions of reality rather than providing a comprehensive epistemic framework.

In essence, your observation underscores the dialectical complexity that enriches the study of ancient philosophy, revealing how even systems that seem self-invalidating can illuminate the inherent limits of human cognition and language when grappling with the profound tapestry of existence.

>>22419267
thank you chatgptanon, but I'd prefer you to pollute my thread only in the case where it is about to slide off the catalog. capische?

>>22417140
>>22419257
I can see where this mereology argument is linked to the so-called denial of predication. I suppose that if Being can't be predicated, then nothing can be said of it. And if nothing can be said of it, then Eleatic philosophy has rendered itself invalid by its own premises.

>>22419257
Btw I am the guy who made these arguments, and this is my first post in this thread. I am saying this because people are attributing posts in this thread to me, even though they're not mine. Maybe I should start using an handle.
Also why is that guy calling me Tweetophon?

>>22419332
"Tweetophon could be in this thread" he thought, "I've never been in this Eleatic thread before. Tweetophon could be anywhere."

>>22419332
I think you were called the opposite of Tweetophon, considering that you brought up interesting arguments, while Tweetophon runs a script. He's the posterboy of Eleatic thought on /lit/.

Welcome back to the thread, however. I made it because I felt that we had a good exchange and that the argument had several peaks and troughs. You ultimately had a good rebuttal, and I had to think about it carefully to see where it went.

>>22419373
Don't thank me, thank Simplicius and Zeno, I have merely repeated their arguments and showed how they can be applied to modal and mereological questions too. Unfortunately when it comes to Zeno we tend to focus on his arguments on motion (since they were so prominent in Aristotle's Physics), but his argument on differentiation is imho even more interesting.

bump

>>22419404
So, what do you think of the OP? How would you deal with it?

>>22419332
>>22419404
>>22421337
*crickets*

>>22421337
By admitting that any view that posits Being and Nothing as sharply separated will fall into all those issues. As I have said in another thread, I think Hegel could possibly offer a response, although a very unintuitive one (namely, by showing that Nothing and Pure Being are indistinguishable, and as such, they are not as unrelated and sharply differentiated as they might seem). Of course I know this answer won't satisfy anyone. For those who are unsatisfied by it I see, at least atm, any way out from the issues raised by OP.
>>22421877
Come on, do you expect me to be here 24/7? Have some patience!

>>22422004
Damn, I didn't realize I was ready for Hegel. Anyway, thank you for intellectually sparring with me over the past week, and thank you for sharing your two cents.

Have you read Peirce, by the way?
>Come on, do you expect me to be here 24/7? Have some patience!
Kek, I was just a bit annoyed that I made a whole ass thread for you, and then you just popped in and left without leaving as much as an opinion behind.

>>22422019
You opened it just for me? I didn't know, my bad. Im flattered anyway.
Anyway the Hegel passages Im thinking about are pretty accessible (what comes after is way more difficult). They're in the first pages (after the introduction) of the Science of Logic. Basically, read the sections on Pure Being, Nothing and Becoming (they're like 2 pages in total), and if you're a good boy read also the 4 Remarka that come after (they're like 15-20 pages in total, depending on the edition). Oddly enough you should be able to accept most of what is said there, since it you're a follower of Parmenides you should already accept the identity of being and thought. Also I would advise against drawing conclusions too fast. Read them, reread them, and think about them for some time.
In those pages you will essentially find the doctrine of Heraclitus, but it's expressed in a much more rigorous way. Something nice you could do is to read Heraclitus' fragments after you've spent a bit of time on those pages from the Science of Logic. You'll find out that Hegel wasn't inventing anything there, he was just restating in much clearer terms what was obscure in Heraclitus (after all Hegel himself said that there was not a single proposition of Heraclitus that wasn't included in his Science of Logic – of course he was exaggerating a bit, since he obviously left out the bits about astronomy, climatology and geology).

>>22422019
>>22422204
Ah sorry I forgot about the Peirce question. No I haven't read his works yet, although I plan to do so in the future. Is there any text you were thinking about which could be relevant to this conversation? I have a complete edition of his works, so if they're not too long I might check them out in the next few days

>>22422204
Thank you anon. I appreciate the reading guide.
>>22422214
The problem is that Peirce is all over the place. The key to understanding Peirce is seeing how he completely strips Kantian metaphysics bare to uncover a triadic metaphysical/logical/categorical system. Within it, he believes that he uncovered the fabric of reality. Peirce is famous for his semiotics, but it is a derivative discovery.

In lieu of a reading list of primary and secondary sources (you can easily get lost in primary sources without a guide since he never wrote a magnum opus, just hundreds of essays and thousands of letters, writings, etc.), I'd start with this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNPVefLzJqU

>>22423114
You keep posting about Peirce but your only interpretation of him seems to be as a Kantian and it doesn’t seem like any of your knowledge comes from his actual writings themselves

>>22423162
>Peirce but your only interpretation of him seems to be as a Kantian
He ends up taking Kantian metaphysics to its breaking point before dismantling it. In that sense he's as Kantian as Hegel.
>it doesn’t seem like any of your knowledge comes from his actual writings themselves
Why do you say that?

bump

>>22417140
>have poem that speaks about being at length
>interpret poem so it means we can't speak about being

ffs stop remaking and bumping this shitty thread

>>22423114
I'll check that video out. If there is any essay that left a mark on you tell me their titles please.
>>22423166
I would just want to point out that the dismantling of Kant has been pretty much the leit motiv of post-kantian philosophy (in a sense even neokantism was a dismantling of Kant), so it is not really particular to Hegel.

>>22417140
You are right, and not only Eleaticism but all philosophies of the Absolute are incoherent for this reason. Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Neoplatonism. Classical Western Theism. Mysticism from Gnosticism to Sufism to Kabbalah to the Theologia Germanica. I might give the German Idealists and their Absolute a pass but only because they don't insist that the Absolute is undivided, they only insist that it is dialectically in process of becoming and during that process it is a manifold. But the other Absolutes are pretty much impossible apophatic incoherences. Stay away from them!

>>22424854
Ser, anyone position that involves "becoming" is per se invalid because of the impossibility of creation and destruction. What-is cannot become something else lol, that would require creating that which is not and destroying that which "was", therefore you can confidently reject all german metaphysics and say yourself a lot of bother.

>>22424933
>Be surrounded by change and differentiation
>Still finds no issue in eleatic philosophy
You should see it as an issue to be resolved, accepting it dogmatically is no way to proceed

>>22423807
seething Eleatic.
>>22424854
Doesn't at least Taoism admit of both becoming and a general sense of ineffability anyway (just to be on the safe side)?

>>22424933
This only works if you admit of differentiation and partition. If you don't, then you can't speak of the conclusion.

>>22424634
I can give you a brief list of essays:
>On a New List of Categories (the beginning nucleus)
>The Fixation of Belief
>How to Make Our Ideas Clear
>Man's Glassy Essence
>The Law of Mind
>The Doctrine of Necessity Examined
>A Guess at the Riddle
>The Harvard Lectures (1903) (probably the most cohesive of all of Peirce's thought)
>Letters to Lady Welby
>A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God
Prioritize the developments of later Peirce over earlier Peirce. The nucleus of his thought emerges early but it takes a considerable amount of time to mature into its glorious semi-conclusion. If Peirce contradicts himself or is unclear, try to see what he says later on. Despite being a bit scatter-brained due to the nature of his hectic life and the lack of the privilege of "sitting down" to write his magnus opus, he's usually aware of the problems in his thought and eventually sorts himself out.

Key Ideas:
>Peirce's brutal attack on Kantianism through Kantianism (no intuitions, no introspection, the simplification of the Table of Categories, the rejection of the thing-in-itself and the turn towards phenomenology, etc.)
>the "cenopythagorean" categories (first, second, third)
>the Peircean reduction thesis
>hypostatic abstraction, and its link to the categories (how Peirce's thought "explains" itself in a beautifuly way)
>objective idealism (how Peirce rehabilitates Scotist realism to make a "realist" pragmatism)
>"il lume naturale" (important if you're confused about "what's left?" after Peirce destroys Kantian intuition)
>reasoning: abductive, deductive, and inductive; corollarial and theorematic
>tychism, synechism and agapism (evolutionary metaphysics)
>Peirce's thoughts on mathematical continuity (if you can hack it, though there are helpful secondary sources that discuss this at an educated layman's level)
>Peirce's semiotics (his most famous work, but unarguably derivative of his metaphysics, phenomenology, and logic)
>the community of inquiry
(1/2)

>>22425961
Shit, I forgot another KEY KEY KEY idea:
>prescision (goes hand-in-hand with the categories and hypostatic abstraction)

In addition, if you REALLY want to do a deep dive, then I highly recommend that:
1) You are familiar with Plato, especially when it comes to his later writings (e.g. Parmenides, Philebus, Statesmen, the Sophist) dealing with the generation of numbers, the Great and the Small, the Measure and the Mean, and the method of division (diaeresis).
2) You are well-acquainted with the corpus of Aristotle, especially the Organon and Metaphysics, having done some thought in trying to "unify" them together. If you can speak intelligently about whether the Categories are linguistic or ontological, I think you're in good hands.
3) You are well-acquainted with Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, especially with the nitty-gritty, "mechanical" sections like the Table of Judgments and the Table of Categories. You don't need to read the Critique of Judgment, since Peirce apparently never read it, but you'll see that it ends up seguing well with some of Peirce's independent thoughts on aesthetics thanks to influence of Schiller's "play drive" on young Peirce.
4) You are somewhat familiar with the "best hits" of Scholastic philosophy, namely Aquinas, Scotus, and Suarez. If you understand terms like entia res, entia rationis, first intentions, second intentions, etc., and you're familiar with the problem of universals, then I'd say you have enough of a background.
This background knowledge will take you right into Peirce's intellectual neighborhood.

Finally, I highly recommend that you're familiar with the basics of grammar, linguistics, and modern formal logic, as it will help you process what Peirce is trying to do, which is to perform philosophy in such a way where it explains how "everything", in a broad sense, "hangs together", in a broad sense. A little preparatory work here goes a long way, since it'll give you the tools to view the categories, the reduction thesis, and hypostatic abstraction in a way that will make it seem like a logical analysis and not a weird, if not surprisingly apt, mystical system. You'll also be able to parse what Peirce is doing with his "logic of relatives" and especially his idiosyncratic but brilliant "existential graphs", which are quite fascinating and might teach you things about logic you never fully recognized.

At some point in the future, I might compile a list of secondary sources that I felt are worth their bang for their buck in understanding what Peirce is doing. But for now, that Philosign video, although extremely basic, is a good start. Best of luck in studying Peirce, who I believe is by far the best philosopher America has produced and easily one of the best philosophers the modern west has ever produced. It'll give you a second license on philosophy that you didn't think was possible.
(2/2)

>>22424997
It's a correct conclusion. The issue is that some people think it's in contradiction with other conclusions. We do try to work through that issue, but the way to proceed is not to simply violate the initial, indisputably correct conclusion. Especially when to do so results in total incoherence, and therefore no meaning or solution at all.

>>22425313
And? All Eleatics speak of internal differentiation. The issue is with positing something other than, or beyond, Being. And, to speak to "partition", to think that Being can be broken apart, separated/spaced out, or diluted/concentrated.

So with that said, for your post at least it looks like we're all good. Saved from the advocates of "becoming"!

>>22426349
>All Eleatics speak of internal differentiation. The issue is with positing something other than, or beyond, Being. And, to speak to "partition", to think that Being can be broken apart, separated/spaced out, or diluted/concentrated.
No they don't, that's why Parmenides has the Goddess describe Being as "all alike" and "remaining the same in the same by itself" and kicking differentiations over the Way of Opinion, and why Zeno argues against there being any Many. >>22424997 is right that you're taking a conclusion for granted as a premise, and ignoring any kind of inquiring that would have of necessity had to precede that conclusion. The Goddess denies time, so the ordinary differentiations between before and after, now and then, are denied; becoming and perishing are denied, so ordinary differentiations between parents and children are denied; motion is denied, so any ordinary differentiations between here and there are denied. This isn't about positing something other than Being, *distinctions themselves have no truth*.

The odd result, if you insist that there are distinctions within Eleaticism without contradiction, is that your position makes you just a heterodox Platonist.

>>22426349
See:
>>22426542
And the conclusion of a previous debate here:
>>22419257
The Eleatic who admits of differentiation can be overcome. The Eleatic who does not admit of differentiation cannot be overcome but they paradoxically render it impossible to speak of Being whatsoever, which is self-defeating.
>The odd result, if you insist that there are distinctions within Eleaticism without contradiction, is that your position makes you just a heterodox Platonist.
That's actually a great way of describing Tweetophon, despite the vitriol he throws at Platonists regularly, as his meme "Eleatic" page extensively plagiarizes Platonic and Peripatetic thought on ethics, politics, etc.

By the way, are you the same anon here: >>22422204? Do you have a Discord? I'd like to keep in touch.

>>22426573
>That's actually a great way of describing Tweetophon, despite the vitriol he throws at Platonists regularly, as his meme "Eleatic" page extensively plagiarizes Platonic and Peripatetic thought on ethics, politics, etc.
It's very strange, he accepts, apparently without reservation, the diaereses that the Sophist begins with as somehow genuinely Eleatic, and only dissents afterwards when the discussion about falsehood begins. If his claim is that differentiation has nothing to do with Non-Being, because Non-Being cannot be, but he were to accept that distinctions are ways of saying "this is different from that", then he *accepts* the Eleatic Stranger's claims in the latter part of the Sophist, without realizing it, because there Non-Being isn't non-existence but Otherness/Difference, which is a redefinition of Non-Being that both *accepts* that perfect Non-Being cannot be, but has to admit of some negation in order to say "when you say this, it's true, but when you say that, it's false". Ergo, he agrees with Plato's Stranger in spite of himself, but he's so wedded to traditional interpretations of Plato that he doesn't see it.

>By the way, are you the same anon here: >>22422204 #? Do you have a Discord? I'd like to keep in touch.
I'm not that anon, but I'm pretty sure we've chatted here in the past. Were you the anon who did the Aristotle threads on phronesis and nous? If so, I'm the guy who recced Benardete's students. Alas, I keep away from Discord, too much shit through there I don't want to be near.

>>22417140
>So... if we can't speak of Being... doesn't Eleatic philosophy invalidate itself?
Yes. It's important to know about before reading Descartes though.

Even that is obsolete ofc. Wittgenstein solved it. Words, even fancy greek words, are an illusion. Part of the veil of maya, the shadows in Plato's cave. From the Eleatics to now, this question of Being at the crossroads of epistemology and metaphysics has remained the domain of mystics.

>>22426666
Checked.
>which is a redefinition of Non-Being that both *accepts* that perfect Non-Being cannot be, but has to admit of some negation in order to say "when you say this, it's true, but when you say that, it's false.
How far can an Eleatic admit of a "mixture" of Being and Non-Being, however? I imagine that this still would be completely anathema to them, at least a surface level and without recapitulating the critiques of Eleaticism that we've covered in this thread. Is this Plato's attempt to try to reconcile Eleaticism with philosophy? Since, obviously, if you hold Eleaticism to be true, you paradoxically cannot do philosophy anymore.

I think this also explains why Daoism is attractive to internet Eleatics, because I think, instinctively, Eleatics know that their philosophy entails that Being is ineffable, and Daoism also claims that too, at least in a direct sense. But unlike Eleatic philosophy, Daoism also admits of change in a profound way.

>I'm not that anon, but I'm pretty sure we've chatted here in the past. Were you the anon who did the Aristotle threads on phronesis and nous? If so, I'm the guy who recced Benardete's students.
Yes. And more. We've probably kept running into each other over the past half a year to possibly a year and had many a pleasant conversation where I mine your knowledge to further my own readings (and hopefully ask good questions that further your own!).
>Alas, I keep away from Discord, too much shit through there I don't want to be near.
Understandable. Though, to be fair, the platform is what you make of it. If you only use it to chat with friends, play video games, etc., you're insulated from everything else. It's just a convenient platform, though I'm open to others. One thing I've learned about the internet is that community is everything, and that if you don't work on maintaining connections, they'll end up drifting away.

>>22426542
>No they don't
Doesn't pass the sniff test. If they don't talk of differentiation, how does parmenides identify different characters in his poem? How does the goddess declare that there are "many signs" regarding Being? How would any of it make sense with such an interpretation, you wouldn't even be having a conversation. Non-starter. Same goes for Zeno and Melissus, it seems more like you're strawmanning them into ridiculousness for some unknown reason.

>>22426573
Yeah, you linked that a couple of times, much like you keep remaking and constantly bumping this thread. That conversation has little to do with what's going on here.

>>22426666
You're incorrect that accepting otherness requires the rest of the dialogue, or involves actually positing negation/a "not" or an actual falsehood or whatever else the desperate platonists invent beyond being to save their broken dreams of change.

>>22426756
>How far can an Eleatic admit of a "mixture" of Being and Non-Being, however? I imagine that this still would be completely anathema to them, at least a surface level and without recapitulating the critiques of Eleaticism that we've covered in this thread. Is this Plato's attempt to try to reconcile Eleaticism with philosophy? Since, obviously, if you hold Eleaticism to be true, you paradoxically cannot do philosophy anymore.
Ostensibly not at all, but if you mean something else by Non-Being than Pure Nothing, it's less clear what prevents that from being acceptable. It's harder to say what Plato precisely means to do with Eleatic thought, but there's an evident (except to Tweetophon) high praise inasmuch as the dialogue Parmenides is the only depiction of Socrates in conversation with other philosophers, and the only dialogue where Socrates is out-and-out refuted (and then Theaetetus, Sophist, Statesman all have Parmenides in mind). I suspect that the Parmenides is as close as Plato gets to sharing what he thinks Parmenides and Zeno are really doing, where the suggestion is that the gymnastic is how Parmenides really came to the poem, and this is as naked a view of philosophy at its core as Plato was comfortable sharing.

>I think this also explains why Daoism is attractive to internet Eleatics, because I think, instinctively, Eleatics know that their philosophy entails that Being is ineffable, and Daoism also claims that too, at least in a direct sense. But unlike Eleatic philosophy, Daoism also admits of change in a profound way.
Perhaps. I suspect that the interest in Eastern thought comes more from a desire for an Non-Christian spiritualism in light of modernity; the Dao is hard to refute by historic or rational considerations.

>Yes. And more. We've probably kept running into each other over the past half a year to possibly a year and had many a pleasant conversation where I mine your knowledge to further my own readings (and hopefully ask good questions that further your own!).
Lol, I thought so, always fun to run into you.

>>22426851
>Doesn't pass the sniff test. If they don't talk of differentiation, how does parmenides identify different characters in his poem? How does the goddess declare that there are "many signs" regarding Being? How would any of it make sense with such an interpretation, you wouldn't even be having a conversation. Non-starter. Same goes for Zeno and Melissus, it seems more like you're strawmanning them into ridiculousness for some unknown reason.
You're so close that it's infuriating that for every correct observation you have that the prologue and speech on Truth don't really affirm the traditional interpretation, you fall right back to just reiterating the traditional interpretation with "there's no non-being, there's no change, there's no becoming." Helios has daughters, and there's no becoming? Parmenides is drawn on a path, but there's no motion? The gates are closed and then open, but there's no change? At what point do you not get sick of arguing like a Catholic and going "oh, but of course there's generation in the sense of reproduction, just not from non-being" as though it weren't the silliest hairsplitting in light of the Truth speech's denial of becoming tout court? The poem teaches paradoxes; the Goddess says you can't speak Non-Being, which she identifies as the Way of Opinion, and then she gives a big speech about the thing she said you can't say. The dull partly-rational partly-spiritual dogma you've squeezed out of the poem isn't Parmenides' teaching.

>You're incorrect that accepting otherness requires the rest of the dialogue, or involves actually positing negation/a "not" or an actual falsehood or whatever else the desperate platonists invent beyond being to save their broken dreams of change.
Jesus, for britcuck, I expected better clarity in writing than barely expressive sentence fragments. In any case, the dialogue is literally driven to the acceptance of Otherness by everything prior, maybe you're so used to poems that you just don't know how to follow an argument.

>>22427115
So much seething yet so little substance.

>>22426851
>Yeah, you linked that a couple of times, much like you keep remaking and constantly bumping this thread. That conversation has little to do with what's going on here.
Why don't you think it has anything to do with this conversation? Why do you think "multi-faceted predication" and mereology have nothing to do with each other?

>>22427185
Because it's Tweetophon, and he's loathe to have to depart from his script. Case in point: >>22427181

>>22425961
>>22425972
Sorry I missed this. Thank you very much for the adviced, Ive saved and I will for sure refer to them when I will start studying Peirce

>>22427185
Where to start. Look at your original post that I was responding to:

1. You tell me go to look at >>22426542, a post that I responded to in the very same post you are quoting. Did you even read what I wrote?

2. You once again link to a series of posts that have nothing to do with me, because I am saying that Being is one perfect thing that consists of all meaning/presence. A and B are wholly subsumed details/descriptions of it, like characters in a painting. Two figures in a painting can differ from one another while being totally subsumed by the painting.

The guy who responded to you, however, took a totally different path. He thinks that admitting of differentiation causes some "parmenidean dam" to collapse, whatever that means. I can only direct you to point 1: I responded to his distaste for distinction/otherness within the context of an all-subsuming being. But you didn't read it, you just cry about tweetophon and some sort of script that you think eleatics rehearse.

Eleatic metaphysics is that of a necessary and changeless perfection. Not some incoherent interpretation that denies there's a goddess, a youth, maidens, "many signs", or any poem at all. That's just the confused and insane screaming of "is not is not is not" in the face of the goddess' "IS". It all is, Being is one perfect Whole, and we're all totally subsumed by this truly omnipresent flood of existence.


I assume one of you is also the fellow who name dropped Parmenides in some space about german philosophy/Hegel. Just one look at that Hegellian's attempt to explain his metaphysical assumptions is all you need to know it's a load of rubbish.

>>22428199
NTA but my advice is to reread this >>22419257

>>22428228
absolute state of /lit/

>>22428236
I mean, that post already contain a response to everything you have said. Reframing it as subsumption does not exonerate you for having referred to an actual distinction.

>>22428251
And if you read point 1, which is referenced in point 2 for this exact reason, I do not interpret the poem as denying the ability to say that there is a goddess, a youth, "many signs", etc. So there is no "crime" on my end that would require exoneration, either in terms of exegesis or in terms of philosophy.

Also, it's not like holding a particular interpretation is a crime if you have some reason or justification for it and will discuss it. It seems there may have been different eastern and western eleatic traditions, and we know the different "socratics" or post-sophists had different interpretations/strains of influence.

>>22428199
Okay, I have something to work with now.
>You once again link to a series of posts that have nothing to do with me, because I am saying that Being is one perfect thing that consists of all meaning/presence. A and B are wholly subsumed details/descriptions of it, like characters in a painting. Two figures in a painting can differ from one another while being totally subsumed by the painting.
How would you describe Being, then? Give me the quick rundown of the predicates which apply to it.

>>22428304
It just sounds like you two have conflicting interpretations of the poem which are both valid. But it's not as clear cut as you're making it out to be.

>>22428304
>Also, it's not like holding a particular interpretation is a crime if you have some reason or justification for it and will discuss it
No one said it is a crime, and I think the post i have quoted offers exactly the kind of justification you're asking for. In general I think yours is a literary exegesis, rather than a philosophical one. The difference is that the literary does not have to be coherent.

>>22428339
>>22428343
>>22428356
>I have something to work with now
You always did.
>How would you describe Being, then
I just did that in the exact section you quoted
>You two have conflicting interpretations of the
>poem which are both valid
Oh, so now I have a valid interpretation
>I think yours is a literary exegesis, rather than
> a philosophical one. The difference is that
> the literary does not have to be coherent
This is just sour grapes. There's nothing about my interpretation that renders it non-philosophical, and you haven't given any reason to think it's not coherent.

>>22428657
>This is just sour grapes. There's nothing about my interpretation that renders it non-philosophical, and you haven't given any reason to think it's not coherent.
Again, said reasons are present in the post I have quoted. If you want to engage with them you're free to do it. It will show you that this is not just sour grapes, but it is an actual philosophical objection to your literary analysis (an objection that was already proposed by Zeno). Given these actual philosophical reasons, just saying "but there's a Goddess and a gate, therefore there is differentiation" does not cut it, since that's just literary exposition, rather than the philosophical crux of Parmenides' arguments.
I swear that I am proposing this objection with no malice, and that I am not simply assuming that you're an idiot. I genuinely believe that if you take those objections seriously you will see that they are in fact correct. If you want to prove me wrong, then please engage with them.

>>22428702
I have engaged with everything relevant to my position. As revealed by your last post, you didn't even read anything I wrote until just now. Whether you are acting with malice or not when you bump and repost this nonsense multiple times a day is besides the point. You haven't proposed any objections to my position. You didn't in this last post, you didn't previously, there's just no substance or specificity to what you say.

Just go back to quietly posting about how eleatics read off a script or whatever, at least you weren't pretending there was some open, unanswered objection. What nonsense.

>>22428751
Please point me to the posts where you've engaged with those critiques. I must have missed. And please don't assume any malice in me

>>22428779
Please point to where there is any substantial critique! This is ridiculous. It's all just "oh it's a literary exegesis not a philosophical one", and "oh what do you mean by "Being"" written in direct response to a description and analogy of what is meant by Being. I don't need to assume malice so much as sheer laziness and stupidity.

>>22428810
First you say that you have already responded to those posts, now you refuse to tell me where you have done so (which is absolutely necessary for me to respond to you, considering that this is an anonymous forum and I do not know which posts were written by you). If you want to have an honest discussion I'm open to it. I have already shown you where I have substantiated my claims: all I am asking is for you to do the same.

>>22428843
I responded by pointing out how they're irrelevant to my position, providing my interpretation, and explaining why the other guy is wrong in his interpretation about a "parmenidean dam" and other nonsense. You concluded I have a valid interpretation.

This is pointless, you don't read anything and you seem to think you've raised objections when you haven't. I won't be responding here anymore and I hope you will stop spamming the board with this nonsense and then constantly bumping it.

>>22417140

>>22428886
Same thing then, show me the posts where you've talked about your interpration

>>22428657
>I just did that in the exact section you quoted
I'd like to hear it in clear terms from you. Like, "Being is ___, ___, and ___." (more or less predication, depending on what's necessary and complete)
>Oh, so now I have a valid interpretation
You do realize that you're speaking with multiple people, right?

>>22428751
You really are a bad faith debater lol, especially with how sensitive you are, how often you keep grudges, how willing you are to confuse between people, and how loathe you are to clarify yourself when it would only take a fraction of a second to do it (you certainly spend more time whining). You are like a small child.

bump

>>22417140
The Eleatics were the first philosophers to suffer from a kind of linguistic retardation, eventually solved by Plato and Aristotle (if they didn't actually solve it themselves and keep it under wraps, like Plato claims they did).

bump

>>22428304
>I do not interpret the poem as denying the ability to say that there is a goddess, a youth, "many signs", etc.
That's because you barely notice anything, wavering back and forth between saying everything the Goddess says is true, and when caught in objections, point back at the poetic narrative. Admitting "many signs" isn't the same as having a ground for difference, since "many signs" = "many words / arguments", and not "many beings that differ with each other," which is the point; and those "many signs" are all the same signs, i.e., one sign of "is", hence why generation and perishing come up in each discrete argument. What' more, the Goddess concludes with, from fr. 20:

>Thus you see *according to opinion* these things arose and now are,
>and hereafter when they have been nurtured, will they pass away.
>And on them *men imposed a distinguishing name* for each.

Ergo, according to the Goddess, it's men's error to distinguish the Goddess, the daughters of Helios, mares, the gates, etc.

>>22429424
He's not going to spell anything out any further than "is." It's like Nietzsche's joke about Thales being over excited and declaring "water!"

>>22430276
Don't bother with him, he is not arguing in good faith (which is to say, he is not really interested in truth). You're 100% correct tho

>>22430276
>>22430400
I want to see if I can have a productive conversation with him here: >>22429417. I want to rigorously explore the
>that Being is one perfect thing that consists of all meaning/presence. A and B are wholly subsumed details/descriptions of it, like characters in a painting. Two figures in a painting can differ from one another while being totally subsumed by the painting.
claim together with him.

>>22430418
I mean, you already know how it will end. He will just keep parroting his literary interpretation, avoid any genuine clarification of his concept of subsumption (since he cannot actually characterize it as lacking all differentiation – even his painting metaphor doesn't work) and waste more of your time. Of course you're free to keep engaging with him (i simpathyze, since i am too an idiot who gives too much attention to opinionated people who clearly argue in bad faith)

ITT retards arguing about "what Parmenides really thought", who probably have not even read the Isagoge.

>>22430430
I have never read the Isagoge (but I have read Aristotle's Categories). What would it teach me wrt Parmenides?

>>22430444
True philosophy begins when you stop caring about what some ancient celebrity thought, and you start caring about the truth. You go through the motions from bottom to top. There's some truth in the necessity of starting with the Greeks, but this stuff is just blatant celebrity worship. Talk about ideas and not people or books.

>>22430427
I've had good conversations with him before, you just have to be delicate.

>>22430452
Nta, but that's a bit silly, anon's asking how that sheds light on Parmenides isn't the same as asking about what Parmenides wore or his reputation, he's asking how it sheds light on the ideas.

>>22417294
this sounds highly fart-sniffing

bump

bumpy bumpy

Bunkering

Just let it die if you don't have anything to contribute.

>>22432306
we're waiting for a certain contribution

bump

>>22433395
What are you talking about

>>22433808
a certain poster

>>22433920
Which one? Don't be mysterious, maybe that poster doesn't know you're waiting for a contribution from him

>>22434252
Tweetophon: >>22429417

>>22430427
Why doesn't the painting metaphor work?

bump

>>22434264
Because the character in the painting is different from the painting, insofar as he is not the whole painting. Subsumption hides differentiation by ignoring the mereological aspect that is entailed by it.

>>22435250
But it's one whole painting. The painting can't exist without the characters, and the characters without the painting.

bump

>>22435909
It doesn't matter, you still have that differentiation.
1) If the whole stands for Being, then it will depend on parts that are not strictly identical to it, or, in Parmenides' parlance, Being will depend on the composition of non-Being (so, the composition of non-Being will amount to Being).
2) And if the parts are what is deemed Being, the whole, not being a part, would become non-Being (so, the composition of Being would amount to non-Being)
3) Lastly, if we want to call both the parts and the whole Being, then Being will be what is common between the parts and the whole: as such, their difference (which is necessary for subsumption) would fall into non-Being, and with it the sumbsumption that anon was talking about.

>>22437194
It's only non-Being when the characters are parts though. When the characters are in the painting, it's Being, but only in the sense that the painting is Being.

>>22437417
The 3 arguments Ive posed deal with every possible permutation (being as parts, as the whole, as both parts and whole)

>>22437425
Rats... it's over bros... I'm ropemaxxing tonight

>>22437439
Come on anon, don't lose hope

>>22437451
Bro I think he killed himself. W-was that tweetophon?

>>22438284
He hasn't posted either here or on Twitter ever since we gave him the good cop, bad cop treatment. It really does appear to be the end folks...

>>22438837
Guys I'm starting to feel guilty...

>>22439338
He was tweeting about how there's no metaphysical significance to gods and how there might be aliens, so he's still doing his usual.

>>22439615
Oh, so he’s just a generic nut job? Okay, I thought he was someone who went to deep into the “life is illusory” thing.

>>22439625
If only, that would at least be related to practicing philosophy, instead of shilling for bitcoin and bitching about religion like your standard New Atheists.

>>22439646
So, basically he's Kantbot but he picked Parmenides over Kant and Schiller?

>>22439674
All twitter personalities are equally unbearable. What's the point of remembering which is which?

>>22439674
Yeah, but less thoughtful, somehow.

>>22419404
Zeno cannot disprove differentiation using a common property of differentiation between disparate items. All he does is invert it(tip: you can do the reverse process just as easily) into integration thereby proving that both are two sides of the same coin, Read Newton's treatment of integration and differentiation to understand this point through infinitesimal calculus.

>>22437194
If you look at anything from far enough, it is all one. Can you stand at that distance?
"For this shall never be proved, that the things that are not are"
Does existence rest on proof? How about non-existence?
The composition of parts amounts to the one when you only see the whole.
The composition of the whole amounts to the many when all you see is the parts,
Each whole turns out to be made of parts when you are close enough.
Each part turns out to make up a whole when you stand back.
From far enough nothing seems to be moving but you.
Come closer and all is in flux but you.
Who is the you in this picture? Why can you discuss existence and non-existence? Is it because you can move?
"The road up is also the road down." regardless of whether you are moved by steeds or rivers.
https://pastebin.com/P3rVFrue