Parmenides and Aristotle

[Anonymous No.22883636]

How exactly did Parmenides retroactively BTFO Aristotle again when it came to potentiality and actuality? I've heard some hubbub about how
>arrangements are things
but doesn't that confuse the question of what it means to "be"?

For example, if I change my position by walking across the room, I have actualized a potential and caused change, but this new spatial arrangement didn't change the essence of any of the things involved. It was only an accidental change.

It seems like Aristotle runs circles around Parmenides, Zeno, and Melissus by using potentiality and actuality as a way to speak coherently about the "presentist" POV that is relevant for human beings without completely erasing the "eternalist" POV.

[Anonymous No.22883649]

>>22883636
Parmenides is proven right by the block universe model. There is no such thing as THE present moment per special relativity.

[Anonymous No.22883678]

>>22883649
There are many moments. They are all real. You can't deny that moments exist. But they don't exist all at the same time, nor do they exist in random sequences.

[Anonymous No.22884014]

bump

[Anonymous No.22884066]

>>22883636
>>22883649
>>22883678
>>22884014
Imagine wasting your youth talking about this nonsense instead of having fun and getting girls

[Anonymous No.22884067]

>>22884014
This thread is a dumb attempt at calling Tweetophon. That guy is a massive douchebag and is going to only dogmatically talk around you if you try pointing out flaws in Parmenides though you already know that.

[Anonymous No.22884187]

>>22884066
>having fun
this is how I have fun

[Anonymous No.22884321]

>>22883636
What's a good book on the different approaches to philosophy of time? Sorry to hijack your thread.

[Anonymous No.22884333]

>>22884321
>philosophy
study physics first

[Anonymous No.22884350]

>>22884321
Baron and Miller's Introduction to the Philosophy of Time

[Anonymous No.22884392]

>>22883649
No, SR/GR tells us becoming is local. There is absolutely zero empirical evidence to support the block universe and eternalism over models of local becoming or other models like the growing block or the crystalizing block, multi-fingered time, etc.

The idea that "physics shows eternalism is true," is entirely based on philosophy that has become popular with writers of popular physics (e.g. Tegmark, etc.) who don't even specialize in this topic.

But the case for eternalism is often based on bad philosophy, and not even just bad philosophy but bad philosophy that was torn apart by Gödel, Robb, etc. almost a century ago now. It trades off bad intuitions related to the twin "paradox" which helps build the Andromeda "paradox," and has fooled some bright people like Tegmark and Davies. In fact, these are also completely consistent with local becoming and empirically there it is a fact that:
>There has never been an observation of multiple present moments existing
>No evidence that indeterminism isn't a core fact of the world
>No evidence to suggest the laws of physics are time reversible. Actually, our best current knowledge says this is not true and belief that this will be fixed is based purely on aesthetic intuitions about "neatness."

Plus, eternalism only gained ground because the world was interpreted in terms of the dominant (at the time) Platonist view of the mathematics that described it. But we could also consider Gisin's argument for intuitionist mathematics making more sense with QM, etc.

Eternalism is popular because it is popular with other philosophical views like ontic structural realism as well. And it might make more sense with Many Worlds and people have been embracing Many Worlds on the mistaken assumption that it resolved the Fine Tuning Problem (it doesn't, we just move to a problem where we have to ask why we have a specific multiverse production mechanism that would be more likely to lead to real law like universes than random ones that only briefly appear to be law-like to observers, Boltzmann Brains become more likely than observers, etc.)

The plausibility of eternalism also tends to hinge on interpretations of QM. There are currently 9+ major interpretations, none with majority support. The one with plurality support is not even consistent with the block universe because intdeterninism is a real feature of the world in it.

[Anonymous No.22884399]

>>22884392
>fine tuning
should have said you were a christcuck from the start

[Anonymous No.22884408]

>>22883636
The older I get the more I realise how metaphysics just proposes more questions and confusion rather than coming to a truth.

[Anonymous No.22884412]

>>22883649
This isn't true. There is no universal present moment. But the block universe is in no way consistent with Parmenides. Events and entities don't exist "at all times" in the block universe. They exist at the space time coordinates in which they occur. Entities go in and out of being in the block universe. Virtual particles springing into being and then annihilating each other, mountains crumbling. It's a mistake to think of some observer sitting outside spacetime looking at some eternal spacetime cube or something.

Processes have beginnings and ends in time. And then you have other theories with as much support anyhow.

We can follow Wilzek and others in seeing space-time as a metric field and Parmenidean intuitions really start to fall apart.

[Anonymous No.22884418]

>>22884399
My post had nothing to do with Christianity you mong. Plenty of physicists have been advocating for MWI on the grounds that it fixes FTP without God. This is generally an argument made by atheists if anything.

FTP and the naturalism problem has nothing to do specifically with religion.

[Anonymous No.22884987]

>>22883636
The problem stems from the fact that there only "is". Just like you can't get something from "nothing", you can't get something from some other thing (ie get an actual from a potential).

Consider the latter scenario carefully and you'll see it consists of the same error as "something from nothing". If a potential tree is different from an actual tree, and you only posit the potential tree, then what is the "actual tree"? Thasss right, it's something other than an "is" (the potential tree): it is an "is not", a "nothing", a clear contradiction. Aristotle isn't alone in making this embarrassing error, but yes, the problem was clearly pointed out by Parmenides and Melissus and people still blundered into it.

>>22884067
Tweetophon sounds pretty cool desu, we should probably all buy his book when it comes out in the next fortnight or so. What're we thinking, about $20 for paperback and $10 e-book?

[Anonymous No.22885382]

>>22884987
>Consider the latter scenario carefully and you'll see it consists of the same error as "something from nothing". If a potential tree is different from an actual tree, and you only posit the potential tree, then what is the "actual tree"? Thasss right, it's something other than an "is" (the potential tree): it is an "is not", a "nothing", a clear contradiction
What if I hold that the potential tree is not essentially different from the actual tree, only accidentally different?

[Anonymous No.22885422]

>>22884066
show me a beautiful woman and i'll show you a man who is sick of fucking her.

[Anonymous No.22885425]

>>22884067
I enjoy summoning Tweetophon and talking with him, and I'm thankful that he always answers his calls.

Unfortunately, he has yet to resolve his disagreement with me on the concept of nothing. Which is really only surface-level. Because, in reality, he is in agreement with me.

What do we nominally disagree about? The status of nothing. But if you were to point *what* we disagree about, then you would be pointing to a non-entity. And since there is nothing to disagree about, we must be in full agreement.

[Anonymous No.22885444]

>>22885382
The difference is still a problem. Aristotle can't fix his broken system by labelling certain details as essential or accidental.

The potential tree "is". The actual tree is something else which they can't account for, an "is not" or a "non-existent" or some other gibberish, contradictory term they can't explain. It's all very bizarre, but many supposedly intelligent people go crazy with grief and indignation when Eleatic philosophy begins to remove the veil from their eyes.

[Anonymous No.22885456]

>>22885444
>The difference is still a problem. Aristotle can't fix his broken system by labelling certain details as essential or accidental.
Why is it a problem? There's difference in Parmenides's poem too, but it is regarded as an illusion of sorts, no? When you conduct the correct "metaphysical accounting" to the structures that we perceive, then all becomes clear.

[Anonymous No.22885469]

>>22885425
>What do we nominally disagree about? The status of nothing. But if you were to point *what* we disagree about, then you would be pointing to a non-entity. And since there is nothing to disagree about, we must be in full agreement.

No, because I think your position involves a fatal contradiction. I don't think there is an is-not. It's like saying that Being is all and then positing a beyond-being, as if that isn't a contradiction and your words don't simply devolve into nonsense.

There are ways of discussing "nothing" if you understand that nothing is actually everything. In the sense that it is "no particular thing", a reference to the undifferentiated whole that subsumes all things, the One (not a reference to plato).

[Anonymous No.22885479]

>>22885469
>No, because I think your position involves a fatal contradiction.
On what topic do you disagree with me about? The topic of nothing? You disagree with me on nothing? Huh. I guess we are in full agreement then.
>There are ways of discussing "nothing" if you understand that nothing is actually everything. In the sense that it is "no particular thing", a reference to the undifferentiated whole that subsumes all things, the One (not a reference to plato).
This sure sounds like the moral of the story of Plato's Sophist. Are you sure you're not a closet Platonist?

[Anonymous No.22885487]

>>22885456
Illusion is not a term used in the fragments we possess. Further, if you open your copy of the fragments to the end of the Proem you will see that the Goddess says that our opinions must have genuine existence (ie must be subsumed by the steadfast heart of persuasive/well-rounded truth mentioned immediately prior). Similarly, in the fragments of Melissus you will find he says that if there is fire, earth, etc, then it will be just as the one is, which is to say it will similarly have to comply with the nature of the melissean One.

At any rate, the issue I have with potential/actual models isn't about the mere fact that they involve a lot of meaning or difference. It's about the reliance on generation and destruction.

[Anonymous No.22885499]

>>22885479
>You disagree with me on nothing? Huh. I guess we are in full agreement then.
very funny. if you agree entirely with me then welcome to the Eleatic fold, please leave your copies of plato and aristotle in the bin outside.

>Plato's Sophist
No. Plato fails to appreciate the scope of Being and pretends to go beyond it in order to resurrect his contradictory dream of change. He doesn't understand the omnipresence of Being and therefore commits terrible errors that doom his philosophical project.

[Anonymous No.22885520]

>>22885487
>Illusion is not a term used in the fragments we possess.
But isn't the language of illusion, i.e. false perceptions, used frequently? Night and day, deception, truth and falsehood, revelation and ignorance, etc. used to drive the point home?
>Further, if you open your copy of the fragments to the end of the Proem you will see that the Goddess says that our opinions must have genuine existence (ie must be subsumed by the steadfast heart of persuasive/well-rounded truth mentioned immediately prior).
Then how do we account for the fact that there are *two* kinds of belief mentioned in the fragments?
>It's about the reliance on generation and destruction.
Well, then isn't it really about what it means for something to "be"? Because if there is no creation or destruction, then there is no change, is there?
>very funny. if you agree entirely with me then welcome to the Eleatic fold, please leave your copies of plato and aristotle in the bin outside.
You want me to throw out Parmenides and Sophist? But they're certified Eleatic classics!
>No. Plato fails to appreciate the scope of Being and pretends to go beyond it in order to resurrect his contradictory dream of change.
We've been over this before. You need to re-read Sophist at some point before you finish writing your book. The Eleatic Stranger made exactly the same point you made earlier, and the whole dialogue is structured so that he's the apparent "victor."

[Anonymous No.22885554]

>>22883636
so it's Heidegger the new Parmenides and Deleuze the new Aristotle?

[Anonymous No.22885594]

>>22885520
>Language of illusion? Two kinds of beliefs?

The goddess says that people have a bunch of absurd opinions about reality and that they are confused, yes. Does that mean there is a dualist model here? No, although obviously a Platonist would love it if that were true because then they can reduce Being to their "world of forms" nonsense and have a separate, magical shadow world of change where they can make up whatever incoherent nonsense they please.

In the actual fragments, it is understood that the youth is going to return home at the end of his conversation with the Goddess. Therefore, she tells the youth to take her words to heart and she teaches him about the inferior accounts/opinions so that he can refute them.
The goddess doesn't posit a separate illusion world and say that the opinions exist there; whatever meaning is contained in the opinions is contained in the truth. The confusion is to pretend there is more than that.

She tells the youth he will learn two things, the steadfast heart of well-rounded truth and how the popular opinions of the day must have genuine existence (must be contained in the aforementioned truth). Because obviously there is no alternative to the truth, because Eleatic philosophy has one core teaching, "is", and whatever meaning we put forward must be traced to that teaching/must comply with it.

Platonists and others don't trace their teachings back to the core teaching. Instead they try to posit something independent from it, which is a direct contradiction for the reasons given. They then leverage that error in order to introduce all sorts of other errors, which is why Platonism fails when it comes to metaphysics.

>isn't it reall yabout what it means for something to "be"?
I don't think you've added anything to the conversation about potential/actual, desu. I stated the problem with generation and destruction as envisioned in the models of "potential/actual" that I encounter. They try to posit that there is that which is not, and then magically turn what is not into what is by pointing at some other thing that is. It's a total disaster.

>You want me to throw out the dialogues that mention the eleatics

we'll get you a new copy once you understand how Plato went off the rails

>We've been over this before.
Yeah, last time I said much what I said above, that Plato doesn't have a broad understanding of Being. You mentioned the platonic One, and when I pointed out that it is not omnipresent/all-subsuming, you went silent. This is core to why you're wrong about Plato's Sophist, you don't realise that Plato prevaricates over the scope of Being and thinks that he can posit something beyond it in order to alter what-is. Which is also what those aristotelean/thomistic clowns do with their "potential/actual" nonsense.

[Anonymous No.22885645]

>>22884066
>having fun
This is fun
>getting girls
Been there done that. Like 50 and counting. Shit is lame and soulless

[Anonymous No.22885697]

>>22885594
>The goddess says that people have a bunch of absurd opinions about reality and that they are confused, yes.
Well, now I'm confused. There are true opinions and then there are confused opinions. But earlier you said that these opinions were all real in some way.
>whatever meaning is contained in the opinions is contained in the truth. The confusion is to pretend there is more than that.
So, are there levels of realness in the opinions? What do we do with the rest of the opinions that aren't contained in the truth? If we're just preserving the truth of opinions and throwing out what isn't true, then aren't opinions not even a valid category anymore? Because, what makes an opinion "an opinion" and not the truth is the part of it that is illusory, confused, and gibberish. But obviously these parts of opinions are not real. And if the essence of an opinion isn't real, then we must conclude that opinions are not real.

Also, on the topic of "illusion", doesn't Zeno of Elea make use of explicit claims to illusion, deception, etc., regarding motion? It's not hard to imagine why he does so, considering that the language of illusion is present throughout the Eleatic corpus.

>I stated the problem with generation and destruction as envisioned in the models of "potential/actual" that I encounter. They try to posit that there is that which is not, and then magically turn what is not into what is by pointing at some other thing that is
And I've pointed out that potential vs. actual has nothing to do with changes in essence. So there is no generation or destruction going on, hence there is no conflict with Eleatic teachings.
>Yeah, last time I said much what I said above, that Plato doesn't have a broad understanding of Being. You mentioned the platonic One, and when I pointed out that it is not omnipresent/all-subsuming, you went silent.
First of all, I haven't mentioned the Platonic One in this thread, you did. Second, the Platonic One makes no appearance in Sophist, so I don't even know why you're bringing it up in the conversation. Third, I'm not willing to speak about the Platonic One because I am not sure if I fully understand what is being argued myself, as the Platonic One is one of the most abstract and speculative elements of his philosophy. In such situations, I find it prudent to avoid putting words in the mouths of others. Finally, I genuinely think that all the claims you're making right now about Plato's Sophist have nothing to do with what is actually taught in Sophist, and it's disappointing to me that all my exhortations for you to re-read the dialogue have been unfruitful.

If you're unwilling to consider anything to do with Plato, then I'd like to table all mentions of Plato's Sophist for another day. I'd rather focus on notions of Eleatic illusions and the relationship between potentiality/actuality and being, if that's alright with you. I don't want there to be so many clashing lines of thought that we lose focus.

[Anonymous No.22885794]

>>22885697
>Well, now I'm confused. There are true opinions and then there are confused opinions. But earlier you said that these opinions were all real in some way.

What is the confusion? I said everything is real. There is only the steadfast heart of well-rounded truth (existence).

The opinions, whatever we make of them, must be accounted for in that truth. I believe this is why the goddess says that the opinions must have genuine existence. They can't be anything beyond or "in addition to" the truth.

So why do we identify some opinions as confused? Because they contain internal contradictions, therefore they do not identify or convey as much meaning as the speaker hoped. But to the extent that the words do cohere, that there is such meaning, it is "genuine existence"/contained in the aforementioned truth.

>Illusion
I don't think Zeno posits an illusory world. I also think your "language of illusion" can just as easily be termed "language of confusion", which has the benefit of not introducing in a "shadow world" that is beyond being or otherwise independent of what-is.

My basic interpretation of Zeno is that he is pointing out several problems that arise when one fails to take existence as a perfectly complete whole.

>And I've pointed out that potential vs. actual has nothing to do with changes in essence.

and I said that's irrelevant, because you're still generating the things that you label "accidents". It doesn't matter how these various things are labelled if the process still involves the same basic contradiction.

>I haven't mentioned the Platonic One in this thread, you did.

I only mentioned it because I believe you mentioned it in the last thread, and that you went silent when I responded. If that wasn't you, ok. I think it gets to the heart of the matter: the works of Plato fail to honour the omnipresence of existence. The limitation of the neoplatonic One was the perfect example, because in that thread it was raised as an attempt to prove that Plato did accept omnipresent existence / the perfect completeness of being. Yet it falls short, thus refuting the claim.

But I don't need to mention it again, I only did so because I thought you had previously made that post. And I felt that post was an important aspect of how our previous discussion of the Sophist ended.


We can just talk about illusions and potential/actual, that's fine. I'm going to go work out but will be around.

[Anonymous No.22885829]

>>22885794
>What is the confusion? I said everything is real. There is only the steadfast heart of well-rounded truth (existence).
Okay, fair enough. I think we need to delve into the heart of the matter before I can find a satisfying answer.

First of all, would it be fair to say that, in the Fragments of Parmenides, there are two ways spoken of, that of truth and opinion? If so, what is truth, and what is opinion?

>I don't think Zeno posits an illusory world. I also think your "language of illusion" can just as easily be termed "language of confusion", which has the benefit of not introducing in a "shadow world" that is beyond being or otherwise independent of what-is.
So, I've been noticing that you keep mentioning an "illusory" world, and now it has evolved into a reference to another "shadowy" realm. I don't want to speak of another world. I want to speak of this world. Couldn't we have both seeming and reality in this world? And isn't this problem of appearances and reality what the Eleatic philosophers sought to make sense of, what it means when we notice that things *seem* to change in this world?

>and I said that's irrelevant, because you're still generating the things that you label "accidents". It doesn't matter how these various things are labelled if the process still involves the same basic contradiction
I think you are missing the point. The distinction between essence and accidents are distinctions of being. Specifically, "beings" exist in terms of their essence, not their accidents. A change in essence is a change in being, while a change in accident is no substantial change at all. If the "thing" that is being "generated" is an accident, then it is no "thing" at all, and thus no change has happened.

[Anonymous No.22885915]

>>22885794
Also, I didn't want you to leave you feeling gaslit in case there you were operating with a conversation in the back of your mind.
>I only mentioned it because I believe you mentioned it in the last thread, and that you went silent when I responded. If that wasn't you, ok.
That was me. But that was quite a while ago, and I dropped the One since. I think the problem was that your rebuttal raised another, deeper problem not immediately relevant to what we were talking about. I wasn't willing to go down that rabbit hole because I thought it would have muddied the debate, and that there were better paths for discussion. Plus, my understanding of the Platonic One has since grown more qualified, and I've grown more unwilling to talk about it for the time being, which is why I haven't brought it up since then.

>The limitation of the neoplatonic One was the perfect example
Notice how you mention the Neoplatonic One in the same breath as the Platonic One. Well, I'm not convinced that the Neoplatonics were in alignment with each other when it comes to the "metaphysical accounting" of "the One" relative to everything else, let alone in alignment with Plato himself. Sometimes, the One is taken to be synonymous with Being in a way that is similar to:
>a reference to the undifferentiated whole that subsumes all things
Sometimes it is seen as "beyond being" in some sense, though that would bring up paradoxes like saying that "the One" "is" (as you may have rightfully intuited).

I think I was right to interrogate the relationship between unity and being, but it was not a problem that I had a solid answer for. And every time I tried to make sense of the One, I needed to employ philosophical machinery that I wasn't fully convinced I understood the implications of. For example, understanding "the One" through the Aristotelian metaphysics of substance. If being is substance, and form is what gives identity to substance, then "the One" could be seen as a "form-dense" whole, containing all forms yet defined by none of them, making the One undifferentiated. In the context of form and matter, you can contrast this form-laden "One" with the concept of "prime matter", an undifferentiated mass that is completely lacking in form ("prime matter" is often seen as a "reductio" thought experiment, as it would not have any identity, thus making it synonymous with non-being and running into problems.).

There was also the related problems of trying to understand what it means to predicate being, if being could be a genus, what it means for being to be univocal (e.g. the argument that God's transcendence would make Him infinitely different from man, except for the infinitesimally yet significant commonality that both God and man "are", in other words that they both share in being), etc.

In short, the One was a can of worms that I realized was inappropriate and needed to be shelved for another time. That's at least where I stand in my thinking right now.

[Anonymous No.22885942]

>>22885829
>First of all, would it be fair to say that, in the Fragments of Parmenides, there are two ways spoken of, that of truth and opinion? If so, what is truth, and what is opinion?

In my interpretation, there is only one thing to speak of, the truth. The youth is specifically advised about opinions, which are contained in the truth. So existence is one perfectly complete whole in my interpretation, within which we necessarily find the opinions and whatever else we posit.

>evolved into a reference to another shadowy realm

The shadow vs illusion language is because the shadow term can be found in such interpretations. But the point is that this line of thinking results in a world of changlessness and a world of changes, and the perfectly complete nature of existence that would spread over both (and therefore necessitate that both comply with its overall nature) is forgotten.

If you put seeming and reality in this world, then you're adopting the same, unified interpretation that I endorsed above. And yes, that is the Eleatic project, to describe all the things that are in accordance with the nature of Being/the Whole. Which is why there are these serious problems with popular accounts of change, because they don't comply with the nature of what-is (and therefore degenerate at some point into incoherent strings of words).

>distinction between essence and accidents are distinctions of being...

Now you reveal you are not adopting the same interpretation as I am. Because you remove "accident" from what-is, yet continue to rely on it as though it were there to perform some function for you.

The initial question must be, are we positing essence and accident? The answer is yes, because they both serve some purpose in your model. Okay, so if reality is this perfectly complete whole, which apparently you agree with me on, then essence and accident must be placed in that context.

If they are placed in that context, they must comply with that context. Is essence complying with the context? Why yes, it remains complete and inviolate. Is accident complying with the context? No, it is generated and destroyed by means of some mysterious process that goes beyond what-is, beyond that perfectly complete whole of reality. There are irreparable contradictions here, this model of change is not coherent.

[Anonymous No.22885985]

>>22885942
>In my interpretation, there is only one thing to speak of, the truth. The youth is specifically advised about opinions, which are contained in the truth. So existence is one perfectly complete whole in my interpretation, within which we necessarily find the opinions and whatever else we posit.
So, what are opinions, then? Can we "bracket out" opinions from the whole and define what they are? After all, we are clearly speaking about opinions here, with a relatively high degree of intelligibility.
>If you put seeming and reality in this world, then you're adopting the same, unified interpretation that I endorsed above. And yes, that is the Eleatic project, to describe all the things that are in accordance with the nature of Being/the Whole. Which is why there are these serious problems with popular accounts of change, because they don't comply with the nature of what-is (and therefore degenerate at some point into incoherent strings of words).
Okay, good, so we're on the same page here. Can we continue the language of "illusions", "deceptions", and "untruths" while remaining in the same world? Because I think that is what is meant here, distinguishing between truth and opinion in *one* world.
>If they are placed in that context, they must comply with that context. Is essence complying with the context? Why yes, it remains complete and inviolate. Is accident complying with the context? No, it is generated and destroyed by means of some mysterious process that goes beyond what-is, beyond that perfectly complete whole of reality. There are irreparable contradictions here, this model of change is not coherent.
Let me counter your argument with another analogy. If essence is truth, then accidents are as real as opinions. They both serve the same linchpin function in tying the world into one coherent whole. Otherwise, we have to place opinion, "seeming" change, and other contradictions as damning Eleatic models as much as they damn Peripatetic models. Because, in this world, we have seeming change in a unified whole, and thus we have the task of explaining why that is and what is truly going on without committing the cardinal sins of generation, destruction, and speaking of non-being.

[Anonymous No.22886070]

>>22885985
>So, what are opinions, then? Can we "bracket out" opinions from the whole and define what they are?

Yes, opinions can be discussed, and we can try to describe them. All the Eleatics discuss various opinions or accounts of the world. The point is that whatever you say they are, they must comply with the nature of Being. Because given that reality is a perfectly complete whole, all the things we mention should be found there.

I only have a problem with terms like "bracket out" if they try to remove the thing from what-is, and give it some independent existence beyond existence/Being. Considering something "alone" is a project with certain limitations, too; a particular thing is not the whole truth and will always be lacking in some sense, and further any model we put forward is inherently distinct from the thing modelled, it's not identical to that thing.

> Can we continue the language of "illusions", "deceptions", and "untruths" while remaining in the same world? Because I think that is what is meant here, distinguishing between truth and opinion in *one* world.

I don't think you can continue that language, because I think you invariably forgot the fact that you also agree that Being is a perfectly complete whole. But I suppose you will have to decide for yourself whether or not you can consistently honour Being and not fall into that mistake. I think the language that describes it more as "confusion", "incoherence", "contradiction", etc, is safer and will not lead us into basic metaphysical mistakes.

>Let me counter your argument with another analogy.

The analogy doesn't work for a number of reasons. First, the relationship between "essence" and "accident" is different from that of "truth" and "opinion". Existentially speaking, truth is what is, and "opinion" is a lesser-included of that. So the relationship between truth and opinion here is one of scope. Whereas "essence" is not the whole of what-is, nor "accident" some detail wholly contained in its scope. It's truth and all its content vs essence and accident as distinct types of details of limited composite things.

You can flesh out what you mean by essence and accident and how you think they cohere and what reality consists of, but in doing so I think this objection will become even clearer and undeniably obvious.

There are other related objections, but I think they all stem from this basic issue that essence is not analogous to what-is/truth. For example, we don't posit an opinion that "is not", there is no alternative "false" category in this existential sense. So if accidents are analogised with opinions here, then we also can't say that there are accidents that "are not"; therefore we cannot generate or destroy accidents because they can only be spoken of insofar as they're in the perfectly complete whole. Therefore the potential/actual model fails.

I just see the whole analogy as a non-starter.

[Anonymous No.22886116]

>>22886070
>Yes, opinions can be discussed, and we can try to describe them. All the Eleatics discuss various opinions or accounts of the world. The point is that whatever you say they are, they must comply with the nature of Being. Because given that reality is a perfectly complete whole, all the things we mention should be found there.
Okay, so what is an opinion? Describe it in such a manner that is part dictionary-like and part philosophical. After that, tell me how an opinion relate to truth. Actually, I noticed how later on, you say that:
>Existentially speaking, truth is what is, and "opinion" is a lesser-included of that. So the relationship between truth and opinion here is one of scope.
Would you like to stick with this definition, so we could critique it together?

>I don't think you can continue that language, because I think you invariably forgot the fact that you also agree that Being is a perfectly complete whole.
I haven't forgotten it. The problem is that we both see that the world appears to be changing, yet being must be one coherent whole. These observations exist side-by-side, so we have to figure out how to reconcile them.
>First, the relationship between "essence" and "accident" is different from that of "truth" and "opinion".
>Whereas "essence" is not the whole of what-is, nor "accident" some detail wholly contained in its scope. It's truth and all its content vs essence and accident as distinct types of details of limited composite things.
The thing is, if *truth* is what is, and *essence* is what is, then there is no distinction between the two.
>So if accidents are analogised with opinions here, then we also can't say that there are accidents that "are not"; therefore we cannot generate or destroy accidents because they can only be spoken of insofar as they're in the perfectly complete whole.
Let's return to this once we figure out what opinions are. But you bring up a good point.

[Anonymous No.22886657]

>>22886116
>What is an opinion? Describe it in such a manner that is part dictionary like and part philosophical.

Well if you want a dictionary definition you could just go to a dictionary, and the philosophical part is in the next section you quote. Specifically: whatever we have to say about it, it must comply with the context in which we place it, the perfectly complete whole.

but if you really want me to come up with a dictionary style definition then I guess I would venture something like, opinion is our account of what something is, or our feeling or relationship to something. In the section of the proem which we sort of focused on, it will be closer to the former.

>Would you like to stick with this definition, so we could critique it together?

I don't think there's any question of whether I would stick by that assertion, given that it's what I've said all along. Literally everything we have to say will have to be placed in or assigned to what-is/truth/Being.

>The problem is that we both see that the world appears to be changing, yet being must be one coherent whole

This seems to assume the error. I would say that we know there is, and that it is full of meaning, and our challenge is to appreciate how the meaning all hangs together.

Saying "we both see the world appears to be changing," just begs the question/assumes the error, because I'm saying that what others term "change" is just incoherent nonsense. Yes, Being is full, but that doesn't mean we necessarily perceive "change" when "change" is itself a term being objected to as incoherent in the form presented.

>Let's return to this once we figure out what opinions are. But you bring up a good point.

ok

[Anonymous No.22887109]

>>22886657
>Saying "we both see the world appears to be changing," just begs the question/assumes the error, because I'm saying that what others term "change" is just incoherent nonsense. Yes, Being is full, but that doesn't mean we necessarily perceive "change" when "change" is itself a term being objected to as incoherent in the form presented.
At the very least, we have to admit that there is an intuition of change that causes us to looker deeper into the underlying causes, no? We have to account for it, even if we end up denying that there is any change happening.
>but if you really want me to come up with a dictionary style definition then I guess I would venture something like, opinion is our account of what something is, or our feeling or relationship to something. In the section of the proem which we sort of focused on, it will be closer to the former.
So, here's the question I have for you. If truth is what is, and an opinion is a lesser-included of that, then what distinguishes an opinion from truth? Why not say that they're synonyms and have no different being? What is the "added on" quality to opinion that makes it different from mere truth?

[Anonymous No.22887485]

>>22885425
Yea and that is the part where he just talks around you or mischaracterizes a remark you made. Like I said before it is going in circles.

[Anonymous No.22887731]

>>22887109
>intuition of change
Again, you are just using the word "change" without giving the term any coherent meaning. Initially you said it was some system of potentiality and actuality, in which case it is like I said earlier: you are baking the error into the pie.

The project is about giving a coherent account of all the meaning that we find. That doesn’t involve forcing an incoherent term or system into the picture.

>So, here's the question I have for you. If truth is what is, and an opinion is a lesser-included of that, then what distinguishes an opinion from truth? Why not say that they're synonyms and have no different being? What is the "added on" quality to opinion that makes it different from mere truth?

It is distinguished by scope, which is admitted in your question where you accept that opinion is a lesser included of truth. Just like everything is a lesser included of truth/what is/Being/the perfectly complete whole/the melissean One.

Your question also answers the subsequent question: the lesser included is not synonymous with the greater because they differ in scope/breadth. All these particular details are of that perfectly complete reality. I don't know why someone would think that they could take some particular detail to the total exclusion of all others, and furthermore turn around and say that this particular detail is synonymous with the whole it was somehow carved out of.

In regards to the last question, there is no added-on quality that opinion has that grants it some independence or separate existence or quality from truth/Being. Opinion is what it is: that particular aspect or detail of the whole. With no possible question regarding whether it could be something other than what it is, or could have something "in addition" to what it is, or depends on something else to be what it is, etc. We can only discuss what is, and whatever you say about it will be entirely found there in the domain of what is. Your use of the term "mere truth" is concerning as it suggests a move towards the confused people who think being is just one predicate or attribute among many that may or may not apply to a thing.

[Anonymous No.22887811]

>>22887731
>
Again, you are just using the word "change" without giving the term any coherent meaning. Initially you said it was some system of potentiality and actuality, in which case it is like I said earlier: you are baking the error into the pie.
When I refer to an intuition of change, I'm not trying to sneakily push any system forward. I'm only making the same observation that we perceive things to be generated and destroyed. Is that actually the case? No. But we still have to explain both the truth and the misconception.
>The project is about giving a coherent account of all the meaning that we find. That doesn’t involve forcing an incoherent term or system into the picture.
From what I understand, we both share the same exact motivation, even if our solutions appear to be different. I don't understand the miscommunication that seems to be happening here.
>It is distinguished by scope, which is admitted in your question where you accept that opinion is a lesser included of truth.
What do you mean by "scope", here? What even is "scope"? Both truth and opinion share the same "scope", at least in what subjects they are about. I can have the truth about something, or I can have an opinion about it. You could even hazard that I can have true opinions about things (and this could be reduced to a truth that I happen to possess). But the range of topics here are identical. I could have truths about things that are general or particular, or opinions about things that are general or particular. It makes no difference.

Or perhaps "scope" refers to the subsets of right and wrong. Truth could be everything under the subset of reality, and opinions could include both the subset of reality and the subset of confusion.

[Anonymous No.22887818]

>>22887731
>Again, you are just using the word "change" without giving the term any coherent meaning. Initially you said it was some system of potentiality and actuality, in which case it is like I said earlier: you are baking the error into the pie.
When I refer to an intuition of change, I'm not trying to sneakily push any system forward. I'm only making the same observation that we perceive things to be generated and destroyed. Is that actually the case? No. But we still have to explain both the truth and the misconception.
>The project is about giving a coherent account of all the meaning that we find. That doesn’t involve forcing an incoherent term or system into the picture.
From what I understand, we both share the same exact motivation, even if our solutions appear to be different. I don't understand the miscommunication that seems to be happening here.
>It is distinguished by scope, which is admitted in your question where you accept that opinion is a lesser included of truth.
What do you mean by "scope", here? What even is "scope" when it comes to metaphysics? Both truth and opinion share the same "scope", at least in what subjects they are about. I can have the truth about something, or I can have an opinion about it. You could even hazard that I can have true opinions about things (and this could be reduced to a truth that I happen to possess). But the range of topics here are identical. I could have truths about things that are general or particular, or opinions about things that are general or particular. It makes no difference.

Or perhaps "scope" refers to differing subsets, dealing with right and wrong. Truth could be everything under the subset of reality, and opinions could include both the subset of reality and the subset of confusion.

[Anonymous No.22888708]

bump

[Anonymous No.22889141]

>>22887818
>we perceive things to be generated and destroyed.

There you go again. You’re doing exactly what I said, you’re just assuming the error. For if we perceive things a certain way, then there is that certain way to be perceived, but my whole point is that the “certain way” in question is incoherent and therefore insufficient to serve as something for you to point at in this context. The answer is no, we do not perceive your initial understanding of change (the potentiality/actuality system) and we do not perceive that things are “generated and destroyed”. At a certain point those systems break down into meaningless strings of words, if you want to follow the thread of coherence then you have to let them go.
It just seems absurd for you to read an explanation of why those terms are nonsense, and then say “well that is what we perceive”. What is it you perceive, again? The nonsense gibberish term/system? And we have to accept this why, assuming there even is something to accept in nonsense? What a complete non-starter, it’s the death of the whole project before it can get off the ground.

To be clear: our experience are not incoherent gibberish. Hence they are not change or generation and destruction as defined by you and other advocates of such things. If I am

>we both share the same exact motivation, even if our solutions appear to be different.
The way we approach it is clearly different. You are just trying to force contradictory nonsense into the process and it spoils everything. You can’t start by declaring that our experiences are defined as an objectionable, incoherent mess of a system, and now we have to say that the system truly is our experience and we have to square it with what-is. I’m telling you that those philosophers that you love committed irredeemable errors in their metaphysics and as a result much of what they say is ultimately worthless and misleading, and telling me “well what they say is what we experience, now square it with the truth” is not a respectable response.

>What do you mean by scope.
I mean lesser-included. Like page 1 is in a book. Obviously the book wholly contains page 1, so page 1 is completely subsumed within the context of the book, but the book is broader because it will contain the other pages, cover, binding, etc. I would not adopt the definition you gave at the end, where truth is no longer omnipresent Being.

The distinction you draw between “having the truth about something” or “hav[ing] an opinion about it” ignores the requested definition I gave about opinion. Whatever account you’re giving of something, it would fall under the definition of opinion, just scroll back. Whether it is a good opinion could also be discussed, I suppose you would judge it by whether it is coherent and provides a reasonably accurate description of some thing.

[Anonymous No.22889184]

>>22884392
Do you have any recommendations for reading more about where eternalism/block universe goes wrong?

[Anonymous No.22889292]

>>22883636
>if I change my position by walking across the room
you can't, read Zeno retard.

[Anonymous No.22890446]

>>22889141
>There you go again. You’re doing exactly what I said, you’re just assuming the error.
>You can’t start by declaring that our experiences are defined as an objectionable, incoherent mess of a system, and now we have to say that the system truly is our experience and we have to square it with what-is.
Okay, now I'm utterly confused. Earlier, I was told that actuality and potentiality, essence and accidents, etc., were incoherent. Why? Because even if they were able to show that apparent change was not actually change, there would still be "difference" present. You're going to need to rescue me. Or, perhaps we can table it until we have a better understanding of truth versus opinion, as I'm about to problematize in a second.

>>What do you mean by scope?
>Like page 1 is in a book. Obviously the book wholly contains page 1, so page 1 is completely subsumed within the context of the book, but the book is broader because it will contain the other pages, cover, binding, etc. I would not adopt the definition you gave at the end, where truth is no longer omnipresent Being.
Okay, so I think truth/opinion as scope is a major problem, primarily because it seems to make it impossible to tell falsehoods and to acknowledge simple facts.

Chiefly, opinions can be general as much as they are particular. I could have an opinion about the whole of being, and the Fragments of Parmenides talk about such opinions as one of the two ways to approaching Being. So that has to be accounted for.

And if we reduce truth/opinion to scope, then the main problem with opinions would no longer be that it is not identical to the world as it is (i.e. false), but rather that it would be lacking in some "fullness of account" (i.e. scope). For example, I could say that "creation and destruction are", and within scope paradigm, your only recourse would be to affirm that my opinions, then qualify them as lesser-included within the greater truth of being. This means that it is practically impossible to utter a falsehood, and that it even undermines your earlier criticisms of the worldview of act/potency, essence/accidents, etc.

In reverse, truths can be as particular as they can be general. Otherwise, if truths could not be particular, then every minor statement would be false in some way. For example, it is strange to say that "page 1 is in a book" is like an opinion, as it is something that involves no judgment, interpretation, or valuation of reality. Page 1 is in a book, that's it. It is a true piece of the whole, without the complications that come with opining.

Perhaps there is a wholeness of being that is left unexamined with particular truths, but that's merely part of the "bracketing" element of speech. If we say that the house is large, we're only drawing out one particular element out of the subject, the largeness of the house, for examination. I think this is more functional for mere creatures like us than suggestive of any problem in metaphysics.

[Anonymous No.22890888]

>>22889292
Zeno:
>motion is impossible!
Diogenes:
>gets up and leaves the lecture

[Anonymous No.22891047]

>>22890446
>Okay, now I'm utterly confused. Earlier, I was told that...

You were told they were incoherent because they say that what is not is, that there is something other than/beyond what is. No idea what you are going on about how the broken systems would "show that apparent change was not actually change." Not sure if there's anything to table here, it seems pretty squared away.

>The fragments of Parmendies talk about such opinions as one of two ways ot approach Being.

No, I disagree. You might have an interpretation of the text where that is claimed, I don't know, but I have stated my interpretation above and elsewhere, and I disagree.

> if we reduce truth/opinion to scope...

The series of three paragraphs seems incredibly confused and/or confusing to me.

Opinions, as with everything else that exists, would not individually be the full truth, and I already pointed this out. On the other hand, not sure why you would consider that the "main problem", or even a problem at all, at least in any metaphysical sense.

If you said to me, "creation and destruction are", my actual recourse is much different than the one you state. And throughout this thread and elsewhere it is the recourse I have taken. Which is to say that the terms "creation" and "destruction" and all the other terminology you use are part of a broken system that fails to convey the meaning you hope to present. I am saying the terms fail to cohere at some point, and that is where the meaning terminates.

So I don't need to affirm some model of creation and destruction, because I would just say you have presented a bundle of words that only go so far and are irrelevant or incoherent if presented in our discussion. Which has always been my point; in this thread I immediately said that the potentiality/actuality system is broken nonsense.

I would indeed put that broken nonsense, to the extent it constitutes any meaning, in Being. But that's not a problem at all, and rather is in full compliance with my understanding of reality as a perfectly complete whole.

As another example of where you contradict your claim that you accept a perfectly complete whole, see how you conclude that it would be "practically impossible to utter a falsehood". Which is presumably because you think that a "falsehood" is something opposing this existential sense of truth. So you are left acting as though there are two worlds instead of one: a truth and a false.

But I stick to the perfectly complete whole and understand that there is no alternative to the omnipresent existential sense that truth is being used in here. If we want to talk about falsehood, we can do so, but that is a more narrow subject; we are just describing results in some binary system, or alternatively describing whether something reflects/resembles something else closely enough for us to be satisfied. There is absolutely no need or even question of seeking something beyond the perfectly complete whole.

[Anonymous No.22891064]

>>22890446
>>22891047
>For example, it is strange to say that "page 1 is in a book" is like an opinion, as it is something that involves no judgment, interpretation, or valuation of reality.

It absolutely does involve judgment/interpretation/valuation of reality. A person isn't randomly concluding that detail, they have some model of a book in mind and how it all works. That you agree with the opinion doesn't make that opinion the book itself.

Anyway, it's all in line with the definition I gave earlier at your insistence, and in keeping with how opinions seem to be in the fragments of parmenides. But if you don't like my definition of opinion, present your own and put it out there for us to play with. At any rate, I don't see any issue with my use of the term opinion in terms of it being coherent.

[Anonymous No.22891135]

>>22891047
It seems that you have been interpreting my past arguments incorrectly.
>No idea what you are going on about how the broken systems would "show that apparent change was not actually change."
The whole point of my argument that *if* the things that were purported to beings were not actually beings, then the apparent phenomena of "change" would not actually be change. If there is no change, then there is no problem. Hence your claim:
>You were told they were incoherent because they say that what is not "is"
Is actually reverse. What I was saying is, that what was claimed to be, is actually not. So, there is no problem. Actuality/potentiality ensures that there is no creation and destruction in one sense (since the potential "is"), and the essence/accidents distinction ensures that another sense there is no creation or destruction (since the accident "is not"). It's all metaphysical accounting.

Moving on,
>No, I disagree. You might have an interpretation of the text where that is claimed, I don't know, but I have stated my interpretation above and elsewhere, and I disagree.
The Fragments of Parmenides are divided into two main sections, "The Way of Truth", and "The Way of Belief."

>If you said to me, "creation and destruction are", my actual recourse is much different than the one you state. And throughout this thread and elsewhere it is the recourse I have taken. Which is to say that the terms "creation" and "destruction" and all the other terminology you use are part of a broken system that fails to convey the meaning you hope to present. I am saying the terms fail to cohere at some point, and that is where the meaning terminates.
Okay, so now we have introduced a third distinction, that which was previously contained in opinion but has now been brought out. There is the truth, there are opinions, and there is incoherence. Would that be correct?

>As another example of where you contradict your claim that you accept a perfectly complete whole, see how you conclude that it would be "practically impossible to utter a falsehood". Which is presumably because you think that a "falsehood" is something opposing this existential sense of truth. So you are left acting as though there are two worlds instead of one: a truth and a false.
It could be more in the sense that falsehood is when one claims A when it is actually B. But both A and B are "things" with "substance." I can easily have a definition of falsity without either introducing a metaphysical dualism, relying on non-being, or making it impossible to distinguish truth from falsehood.

>>22891064
Here is another example then. What if we have an opinion that doesn't seem to make sense? Here's an empirical example:
>page 365 is in the book (there are only 300 pages in the book)
Here's another empirical example:
>Chapter 2 begins on page 35 (it actually begins on page 45)
Here's a logical example:
>page -5 is in the book
What is going on here?

[Anonymous No.22891202]

>>22891135
>It seems you have been interpreting my past arguments incorrectly...

I disagree, and I think there's a serious problem with saying "if the things that were purported to [be] beings were not actually beings..." as if there are these "things" that may or may not be subsumed by truth/Being. There's no "thing" that "is not actually being", like it's just hanging outside. Similarly, there is no "apparent phenomena of "change"", because the term "change" remains gibberish and there is nothing "of" it to perceive, the conversation is a non starter because upon examination we're being forced to assume there is meaning in what amounts to confused noise.

You seem to prove my interpretation/fear correct when you say,

"What I was saying is, that what was claimed to be, is actually not." You are saying that as a result of the examination we can see that it IS what IS NOT, but this is also nonsense.

>The Fragments of Parmenides are divided into two main sections, "The Way of Truth", and "The Way of Belief."

Irrelevant if you think that the Goddess is explaining that truth subsumes the opinions.

>There is the truth, there are opinions, and there is incoherence. Would that be correct?

I already accept every conceivable distinction, I'm not adding or substracting anything. In terms of incoherence, the idea of ensuring coherence via compliance with the nature of Being has been here since the start of this thread. I don't know what this new system of three that you are positing involves, you would need to explain it if you wish to discuss it.

>it could be more in the sense that... I can easily have a definition of...

Why don't you just state your definition of falsehood then, because I just view you as flipflopping between adopting and then betraying a monist position, and it results in endless misunderstanding.

What is your position on falsehood, what do you mean by the term/what do you expect to find here? Do you absolute agree that whatever it is, it is absolutely and totally contained in the truth? (and by truth I mean it in the existential sense it has been used here, synonymous with Being, the melissean One, etc.)


>Here is another example then. What if we have an opinion that doesn't seem to make sense? Here's an empirical example:
>page 365 is in the book (there are only 300 pages in the book)

Great, let's analyse it:

You have posited a book that consists of 300 pages. Then you say that it has 365 pages. Do you see how you have contradicted yourself? I would say the meaning ends at a certain point, it is limited. You posited a book with 300 pages and the idea of a 365th page, but they don't fit together. I just have two mismatched pieces and that's as far as your meaning extends, your opinion or account has a certain shape to it, and the points of contradiction are like corners or boundaries.

[Anonymous No.22891221]

>>22891202
>"What I was saying is, that what was claimed to be, is actually not." You are saying that as a result of the examination we can see that it IS what IS NOT, but this is also nonsense.
Think of it this way. What you claimed is, is actually gibberish. I showed you the path.

>Irrelevant if you think that the Goddess is explaining that truth subsumes the opinions.
Give me the evidence. The fact that the Fragments can be broken up roughly into two substantial pieces after the introduction shows that this is a significant dualism.

>I already accept every conceivable distinction, I'm not adding or substracting anything. In terms of incoherence, the idea of ensuring coherence via compliance with the nature of Being has been here since the start of this thread. I don't know what this new system of three that you are positing involves, you would need to explain it if you wish to discuss it.
You have a system that includes statements of truth, statements of opinion, and statements of incoherence. I had tried to explain previously that change would be an opinion, but then you told me it was incoherent. And obviously, this can't be truth either. So we had to come up with a third category to include the incoherent kind of statement.
>Why don't you just state your definition of falsehood then, because I just view you as flipflopping between adopting and then betraying a monist position, and it results in endless misunderstanding.
I've already stated it here:
>>22891135
>It could be more in the sense that falsehood is when one claims A when it is actually B. But both A and B are "things" with "substance." I can easily have a definition of falsity without either introducing a metaphysical dualism, relying on non-being, or making it impossible to distinguish truth from falsehood.
The key is that both A and B "are" in a potential sense. Things in an actual sense revolve around orderings in a sequence. Ideally, it encompasses the whole, but in practice occurs from a limited POV, so it must be taken with a grain of salt.
>You have posited a book that consists of 300 pages. Then you say that it has 365 pages. Do you see how you have contradicted yourself? I would say the meaning ends at a certain point, it is limited. You posited a book with 300 pages and the idea of a 365th page, but they don't fit together. I just have two mismatched pieces and that's as far as your meaning extends, your opinion or account has a certain shape to it, and the points of contradiction are like corners or boundaries.
Okay, so would you consider my claim of 365 pages to be a statement of opinion, or a statement of incoherence? It is certainly a belief I hold though, so in a sense by denying it is an opinion, we're denying part of what it typically means for an opinion to be an opinion.

I might be putting words in your mouth though when it comes to this tripartite classification, however. How would you best distinguish between truth, true opinions, and false opinions?

[Anonymous No.22891225]

>>22891202
>>22891221
Also, feel free to examine the other statements I made regarding book pages if you think it would reveal something important.

[Anonymous No.22891328]

>>22891221
>Give me the evidence. The fact that the Fragments can be broken up roughly into two substantial pieces after the introduction shows that this is a significant dualism.

So if there's three sections in what we have, why not call it trinitarian? Surely dualism is insufficient.

More seriously, earlier in this thread I discussed the proem. There is your evidence. If you want to have a more detailed exegetical discussion of Parmenides, I enjoy that, but I also know that there are several popular different interpretations and I don't pretend to have some direct and unquestionable knowledge of what the Goddess really intended by her words. I do not find the partitioning of the poem to be strong evidence of your claim, though. There also comes a point in the philosophical project where I don't feel bound to obey a particular interpretation of the text when presenting what I believe to be true about reality; I am philosophising alongside all the other philosophers, and I mention the Eleatics because those are some of philosophers I feel were on the right track, not because I should shelve my examination/conclusions and just parrot their words verbatim regardless of my thoughts.

>statements of truth, statements of opinion, and statements of incoherence.

No I don't, that's something you came up with. What you describe does not appear to resemble anything I have said.

There are opinions. Just like everything else, they are subsumed by truth/Being (which is the perfectly complete whole). You could also present some words and we can see how they cohere.

Totally different than your bizarre model of three distinct categories, "statements of truth", "statements of opinion", "statements of incoherence", which is so wild and out of the blue.

>I've already stated it here:
No, that's not an answer to my question. "Maybe it's like x, could be like y, I could do something that won't introduce dualism" really doesn't answer the series of questions I posed.

>Okay, so would you consider my claim of 365 pages to be a statement of opinion, or a statement of incoherence? It is certainly a belief I hold though, so in a sense by denying it is an opinion, we're denying part of what it typically means for an opinion to be an opinion.

I would say that you have an opinion about a book. Because you're saying there's a book, it has pages, etc, and I understand all that. If you think a book has 300 pages, and you also think there is a page 365th, I would say that you have two opinions that won't cohere if you try to find the place where they fit together.

You don't think that page 365 is in a book that you think does not have a page 365. That sentence is contradictory and therefore lacks meaning, it fails to communicate the presence or lack thereof for page 365, so how could it communicate your opinion of such a detail?

[Anonymous No.22891348]

>>22891328
>So if there's three sections in what we have, why not call it trinitarian? Surely dualism is insufficient.
How many ways are there? How many are explicitly mentioned?
>earlier in this thread I discussed the proem.
You described it, but you haven't cited any excerpts from it to explain your interpretation. You're leaving us with no other choice except to either take it at your word or disagree based off of our own evidence and interpretations.
>There are opinions. Just like everything else, they are subsumed by truth/Being (which is the perfectly complete whole). You could also present some words and we can see how they cohere.
And what if the words don't cohere? Don't we need a category to describe those kinds of statements?
>No, that's not an answer to my question. "Maybe it's like x, could be like y, I could do something that won't introduce dualism" really doesn't answer the series of questions I posed.
It is an answer to your question. I phrased truth as a coherence and falsity as an incoherence, where the relation is between the claim and the world. I don't know why you dislike my definition so much. It seems clear to me.
>I would say that you have an opinion about a book. Because you're saying there's a book, it has pages, etc, and I understand all that. If you think a book has 300 pages, and you also think there is a page 365th, I would say that you have two opinions that won't cohere if you try to find the place where they fit together.
What if I don't know that the book has only 300 pages (e.g. I'm going off of poor memory). Also, don't forget about the other examples.

[Anonymous No.22891393]

>>22891348
>How many ways are there? How many are explicitly mentioned?

Is this a rhetorical question? I mean, there are two "paths" of inquiry mentioned right at the beginning of fragment two, which begins the section on truth. But that's not what you initially referenced by the two section headings. The "second path" of inquiry is a non-starter and actually there is only one path, as explicitly stated repeatedly by the goddess throughout the section on truth. But generally speaking in the literature I think you'll find that there is a debate about how many "paths" there are in the goddess' teaching, one two or three. I go for there being one.

>You described it, but you haven't cited any excerpts from it to explain your interpretation. You're leaving us with no other choice except to either take it at your word or disagree based off of our own evidence and interpretations.

What, just hit ctrl f and type "proem", it's the first hit. I said that if you open your copy to the end of the proem it's right there, and I gave a very close paraphrasing of the section. It's the first fragment, right at the end, I did it off the top of my head but it's very close. Similarly with Melissus.

I don't know what to do for you other than give you a link to the fragments for you to read for yourself if you don't own a copy? I have an audio recording of a discussion I hosted on the proem with the fragments provided as screenshots, you could go to the end of fragment one and listen/read along.

Definitely not leaving you to take me at my word, as if I am giving a fake/malicious quote when I presented the end of the first fragment.

>And what if the words don't cohere? Don't we need a category to describe those kinds of statements?
No more than we need categories to describe "opinions about apples", "opinions about oranges", "opinions about birds", and any other number of ways we can examine and categorise things. We can draw up a chart of how things cohere, but I don't see that chart as strictly relevant to the discussion that was occurring. At any rate it would not result in the unclear, three-part model you came up with.

>It is an answer to your questionS.
It's not, but whatever.

>What if I don't know that the book has only 300 pages (e.g. I'm going off of poor memory).

Yeah, I said you can have an opinion that there's a book and it has a 365th page. If you say it is about a particular book, and it turns out that book only has 300 pages, we would say the comparison is false because the two sides of the tally don't fit/the description or model is not close enough or is incommensurate with the other thing.

>Also, don't forget about the other examples.
What new material or meaning do they offer that should be discussed?

[Anonymous No.22891483]

>>22891393
>Is this a rhetorical question? I mean, there are two "paths" of inquiry mentioned right at the beginning of fragment two, which begins the section on truth. But that's not what you initially referenced by the two section headings.
No, it's a genuine question, and one that seems controversial.

I'll begin by rounding up all of the mentions of *multiple* ways/paths/etc:
>There are the gates of the ways of Night and Day, fitted above with a lintel and below with a threshold of stone. (Fragment 1)
2 "ways": Night and Day
>Welcome, O youth, that comest to my abode on the car that bears thee tended by immortal charioteers! It is no ill chance, but right and justice that has sent thee forth to travel on this way. Far, indeed, does it lie from the beaten track of men! Meet it is that thou shouldst learn all things, as well the unshaken heart of well-rounded truth, as the opinions of mortals in which is no true belief at all. (Fragment 1)
2 "ways": the way to the goddess, and the "beaten track of men." also framed as truth vs. opinion.
>titles: The Way of Truth, and The Way of Belief
again, 2 "ways", and it's worth noting that the Greek word for belief is "doxa", which is also the word for opinion.
>the only two ways of search that can be thought of. The first, namely, that It is, and that it is impossible for it not to be, is the way of belief, for truth is its companion. The other, namely, that It is not, and that it must needs not be,—that, I tell thee, is a path that none can learn of at all. (Fragment 4/5)
1/2/3 ways. I suppose this is where the most controversy happens. because now we have truth "and its companion opinion" (so, 1 or 2?), but then they are both contrasted with a third option, which is also said to not be a real option in some way. (so, 1, 2, or 3?). there is a possible interpretation that seems to resemble the categories of truth, opinion, and incoherence that I posited earlier, but I digress.

(1/?)

[Anonymous No.22891487]

>>22891393
>>22891483
>It needs must be that what can be spoken and thought is; for it is possible for it to be, and it is not possible for what is nothing to be. This is what I bid thee ponder. I hold thee back from this first way of inquiry, and from this other also, upon which mortals knowing naught wander two-faced (Fragment 6)
again, 2 "ways of inquiry", where the lesser way is conflated with the "mortal" way. (now we see a reversal, with opinion being associated with non-being).
>The thing that can be thought and that for the sake of which the thought exists is the same; for you cannot find thought without something that is, as to which it is uttered. And there is not, and never shall be, anything besides what is, since fate has chained it so as to be whole and immovable. Wherefore all these things are but names which mortals have given, believing them to be true—coming into being and passing away, being and not being, change of place and alteration of bright colour. (Fragment 8.)
2 ways implied: the one continuous whole, and the fragmented multitude of "mortal names" (which seems to be what opinions are and related to change)
>Mortals have made up their minds to name two forms, one of which they should not name, and that is where they go astray from the truth. They have distinguished them as opposite in form, and have assigned to them marks distinct from one another. To the one they allot the fire of heaven, gentle, very light, in every direction the same as itself, but not the same as the other. The other is just the opposite to it, dark night, a compact and heavy body. (Fragment 9)
2 forms: one that is named and one without name. again, light/night.
>Thus, according to men's opinions, did things come into being, and thus they are now. In time they will grow up and pass away. To each of these things men have assigned a fixed name.
one last mention of opinions.

There are more dualisms present, e.g. one of gender, but they either seem entirely unrelated to the "two paths", or they are so metaphorical as if they could mean anything.

(2/?)

[Anonymous No.22891543]

>>22891393
>>22891483
>>22891487
>I mean, there are two "paths" of inquiry mentioned right at the beginning of fragment two, which begins the section on truth. But that's not what you initially referenced by the two section headings. The "second path" of inquiry is a non-starter and actually there is only one path, as explicitly stated repeatedly by the goddess throughout the section on truth.
So, to summarize my findings, the proem mentions:
>a persistent duality of ways
>a persistent theme of divine/mortal, light/night, truth/opinion, is/is not, etc., whose collective orderings seems consistent with one way or the other.
>an occasional impulse to monism where opinion "floats" between is and is not, e.g. associated with "truth" like in Fragment 4/5 or associated with "non-being" in the later fragments.
>a possibility of a trinitism by seeing all of these categories: way of truth, way of opinion, and the "off-limit" way of not-being as subjects to be considered.
To be clear, it is a trinitism in terms of metaphysics. Earlier, you posited that there's "three sections" (ostensibly: the introduction, the way of truth, and the way of belief) hence a trinity, but I think this is not a precise way of thinking. The introduction is an introduction. The two section headings refer to two different ways. And if there's a third way, it is only because there is a third hypothetical category that is at least considered within both sections.

I think it's noting one last thing where: there are two ways that can be thought of:
>Come now, I will tell thee—and do thou hearken to my saying and carry it away—the only two ways of search that can be thought of. (Fragment 4/5)
... but only one path that can be spoken of:
>One path only is left for us to speak of, namely, that It is. (Fragment 8)
So, in the Fragments of Parmenides, we have a tenuous connection between being, thought, and language present throughout the proem.


(3/4)

[Anonymous No.22891584]

>>22891393
Alright, interpretations of the Fragments aside, let's return to our debate.
>No more than we need categories to describe "opinions about apples", "opinions about oranges", "opinions about birds", and any other number of ways we can examine and categorise things.
This is a categorical error. The kinds of statements you listed are all opinions as such. An incoherent statement about apples, oranges, birds, etc., would all be statements, but would not meet the previously-stated criteria for an opinion. So, we need a new category.
>We can draw up a chart of how things cohere, but I don't see that chart as strictly relevant to the discussion that was occurring
It is highly relevant because it better illustrates the relationship between truth and opinion.
>At any rate it would not result in the unclear, three-part model you came up with.
Well, we have truth, and we have opinion. What would we call the third kind, that of incoherent statement? They still exist as statements.

>It's not, but whatever.
I genuinely do not understand the problem that you have with it. I felt like I've described what a falsehood was multiple times. It's a failed relation of identity between two extant things. A falsehood is when one claims A, but actually B. A and B still exist as referents. Hence, there is no reference to non-being, and no untenable dualist metaphysics posited.

This is the third time I'm giving a definition of falsehood, and I think I did due diligence in making myself clear. If you still have problems with it without giving a clear and rigorous answer as to why, then I'm going to have an aneurysm.

>If you say it is about a particular book, and it turns out that book only has 300 pages, we would say the comparison is false
"And it turns out." What if you have no means of finding out? e.g. I'm referring to a book out of print whose last copy was destroyed. From our POV, the claim I made is still coherent. It is only incoherent with a POV that is inaccessible to us (perhaps permanently).

(4/4)

[Anonymous No.22891599]

>>22884066
Imagine wasting your youth on the female jew instead of having fun and debating metaphysics with the bros. You can always buy pussy when you’re older and have money (remember: all girls have a price), but good luck making any meaningful developments in philosophy when you’re a shrivelled boomer enervated of all spirit and with no pre-existing foundation in rigorous intellectual thought.

[Anonymous No.22892221]

>>22891483
>No, it's a genuine question, and one that seems controversial.

Yeah, that's what I said, just as I also said we wind up with 3 options being discussed. Some might attempt reaching the number 3 a little differently, by making a combo of the is and is not from the beginning of fragment 2.

Anyway, besides immediately stating the conclusion, I also cut to the chase regarding where we differ: the two paths mentioned at the beginning of fragment 2 and revisited several times in that section of the poem. I don't think there are two paths being presented by the goddess in the section on truth, and she explicitly says as much.

So when people interpret the text as having the Goddess believe that there are two ways of inquiry, I am saying that this the wrong interpretation. The goddess is talking to a youth who is presumably like the others from the mortal realm: people who wander confused and double-headed, so she adopts his language. But then she immediately and repeatedly says there is no second path to be discussed.

So no, there is not "two ways that can be thought of". That is the way that the confused youth and other mortals speak of it, and she addresses the matter and immediately rejects it for you could never point such an alternative path out, and she later (a) repeats this objection and (b) ties though to what is.

Therefore, she actually only posits one path of inquiry. And just as she said prior to the section on truth, she is going to tell him 2 things: steadfast heart of persuasive/well rounded truth, and that the opinions must have genuine existence. In effect, Being and all the meaning it subsumes. For the goddess knows there is this richness of meaning (herself, the youth, all the opinions, etc), and they must have genuine existence (be subsumed by the steadfast truth/Being), for there is nowhere else that could ever be conceivably mentioned to place them. All such dualisms are subsumed in that core teaching of "is", and the only route of inquiry is in that core teaching, that it is. The mortals are confused precisely because they don't understand how it all necessarily hangs together in a solitary perfectly complete whole.

>let's return to our debate.
>This is a categorical error.
Your attempt to posit three categories was itself an error given the structure that I clearly gave you. Ie, that of scope, where opinion is a lesser-included of truth/Being. So you cannot possibly have three independent categories when one is wholly subsumed by another, and the third category you posit instead a description of how extensive or substantive the things being discussed are. Ie, the third category you provide is a category error on top of the previous error of making the categories independent, because it is not a statement so much as a discussion about the extent that meaning is present.

You should probably just address the model I provided if you want to discuss my position. or you could flesh out your model.

[Anonymous No.22892278]

>>22892221
>I don't think there are two paths being presented by the goddess in the section on truth, and she explicitly says as much.
The goddess explicitly says that
>"the only *two* ways of search that can be thought of"
in Fragment 4/5. What are the ways? It is "it is", which includes truth and surprisingly opinion, and "it is not." And the thing is, before and after this passage in the proem, the dichotomy is truth versus opinion, with the implication that truth "is" and opinion is something worse or perhaps "is not" or "is merely names." Now, truth and opinion are on one edge of the canyon, and the abyss of "is not" is on the other side.

And of course, we have this strange problem where even though "the way of search" of it is not can be thought of, "it is not" itself cannot be thought of. What are we supposed to make of this paradox, given that
>"It needs must be that what can be spoken and thought is for it is possible for it to be, and it is not possible for what is nothing to be." (Fragment 6)
Are we supposed to imagine that the latter half of Fragment 4/5 ought to be best presented with a giant strike through it?
>Your attempt to posit three categories was itself an error given the structure that I clearly gave you. Ie, that of scope, where opinion is a lesser-included of truth/Being.
I don't see how three categories is an error, when there's clearly a distinction to be made between truth and opinion, even if one is subsumed by the other. If life is a category, and animal is subsumed by life, then it isn't wrong to posit animal as a category, as long as we recognize the hierarchy in being. But I digress.

Let's put that aside. We're speaking of the kinds of statements that can be made. We have truth (and all its contents and subsidiaries) on one side. What would we make of the statements which fail to meet the standard of truth in any sense of the word? We can't merely deny their existence, for they can still be spoken of. And as the Goddess says in Fragment 6:
>It needs must be that what can be spoken and thought is for it is possible for it to be, and it is not possible for what is nothing to be.
So, what are we to do with the problematic statements?

By the way, I'm assuming that you're still typing a response to falsehood after I gave a third definition and the problem with the statements about the book. We shouldn't drop it. I think they're crucial to the debate.

[Anonymous No.22892290]

>>22891584
>I genuinely do not understand the problem that you have with it.
I asked three questions, you arguably answer one. Namely I ask you for your account of falsehood, what you expect to find in an account of falsehood for it to be satisfactory, and whether you agree that whatever is said it will absolutely and totally be contained in the truth. If you don't want to answer I can accept that, but you shouldn't pretend like you did so. I can make do with the 1 out of 3 answer.

>What if you have no means of finding out?

It doesn't matter. Where is it said that a person will absolutely know with absolute specificity everything about everything? Only the Whole satisfies that standard; if that were the expectation for humans then it's a mistake, because a particular thing is not the whole.

You can have a coherent account of a long lost book. That is, it would be an internally consistent account of a book. Whether it maps on to a particular book is a question of a true or false comparison, and it is assumed in the scenario ("long lost book") that we don't have a clear understanding of that particular book looks like. So we should expect the conclusions to be limited.

[Anonymous No.22892327]

>>22892278
I'm going to bed, but I will say this: why are you only quoting part of that opening section of fragment 2 (I don't know why you call it "Fragment 4/5"), and why are you ignoring what I said of what follows?

Here: what does the goddess immediately say after that section you reference:
>>"the only *two* ways of search that can be thought of"
?

Oh, right, in regards to the supposed second path she says,

That I point out to you is a path wholly unlearnable, for you could not know what-is-not (that that is not feasible), nor could you point it out.

And this position is repeated by the goddess repeatedly in the section on truth. See the start of frag 6, whole of 7, start of 8. Continue reading 8 if you want a reminder that thought is tied with being, and you will find it elsewhere too.

All this is to say, this notion of a second path is totally exposed as incomprehensible gibberish. For it is not possible to speak in that direction, point in that direction, think of it, anything! There is what is and that is it, full stop, and those who don't appreciate it are the mortals who wander double-headed and tie themselves in absurd knots.

>Are we supposed to imagine that the latter half of Fragment 4/5 ought to be best presented with a giant strike through it?

YES. That is the whole point, the Goddess is addressing the youth, who has come from the mortal realm, and is saying "Look, how are we going to chat about the truth, shall we talk of what is or what is not? THE SECOND OPTION IS NO OPTION AT ALL, THERE IS NECESSARILY ONLY ONE OPTION." This is also exactly how Melissus opens his own essay!!

Again, you are not reading what I said if you think that saying "strike it out" will seem ridiculous to me. She must do that, it is the chief error of the double-headed fools she is blessing with her philosophical insight.

>Let's put that aside. We're speaking of the kinds of statements that can be made. We have truth (and all its contents and subsidiaries) on one side. What would we make of the statements which fail to meet the standard of truth in any sense of the word? We can't merely deny their existence, for they can still be spoken of...

What do you mean, a statement that fails to meet the standard of truth? Any identifiable statement is in the "truth (and all its contents and subsidiaries)". The question is how much has been said, hence my treating of contradiction as a boundary or part of the shape of the statement.

The "failure to meet the standard of truth" in the existential sense is just a discussion of its shape or how it hangs together, how extensive the meaning is.

The "failure to meet the standard of truth" in terms of whether A is a good model or description of B is a distinct use of "truth" that does admit of an alternative category, "false", and is based on how close things are or any other language I gave above (and it seems similar to your brief attempt at describing a theory of falsehood).

[Anonymous No.22892363]

>>22892290
>Namely I ask you for (1) your account of falsehood, (2) what you expect to find in an account of falsehood for it to be satisfactory, and (3) whether you agree that whatever is said it will absolutely and totally be contained in the truth.
Okay, I wasn't aware that there were two more aspects to it that you wanted addressed. I labeled the three questions for clarity.

(1) I feel like I've addressed to death. (2) I expect a good definition of falsehood to be capable of meeting the Eleatic demand of referring only to "is" without referring to "is not" while remaining coherent. (3) Everything is contained in the truth in some sense if it is possible to be spoken of. The question is of the "ordering in sequence", if that makes sense. I also make heavy use of potency and act behind the scenes, but we don't have to rely on that for the purposes of this debate.

>It doesn't matter. Where is it said that a person will absolutely know with absolute specificity everything about everything? Only the Whole satisfies that standard; if that were the expectation for humans then it's a mistake, because a particular thing is not the whole.
Well, first of all, it matters because our ability to distinguish truth from incoherence depends on that fact. If I tell you that there is a page 365, and it seems plausible but unverifiable, then how would you know if it is the truth or not?

Furthermore, it matters because it seems like there is a spectrum of particularity and generality. The page question is at the particular end, and the question of being is at the generality end. However, it seems that we can also speak of relative particularity and generality. Our question regarding the book would take the whole of the book as being "general" relative to the question of the page, and the truth of the statement would ultimately be dependent on this "particular generality."

>You can have a coherent account of a long lost book. That is, it would be an internally consistent account of a book.
But, *is* it a coherent account from the perspective of the goddess? Or are we supposed to have two different accounts of coherence now, one for deities and another for humans?

(1/?)

[Anonymous No.22892387]

>>22892327
why are you only quoting part of that opening section of fragment 2 (I don't know why you call it "Fragment 4/5"),
I'm using the Wikisource link of John Burnet's translation here, and using the labels as fragments: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Fragments_of_Parmenides
I apologize if that was a confusing and incorrect way to refer to the fragments.
>That I point out to you is a path wholly unlearnable, for you could not know what-is-not (that that is not feasible), nor could you point it out.
>if you want a reminder that thought is tied with being, and you will find it elsewhere too.
Here's another question for you. In the poem, the Goddess says that everything that can be spoken and thought of is possible to be. However, does that imply the opposite, that everything that is can be spoken of and thought of? We are making a massive error in assuming that the converse holds true (formal logic fallacy IIRC).
>All this is to say, this notion of a second path is totally exposed as incomprehensible gibberish. For it is not possible to speak in that direction, point in that direction, think of it, anything!
But that is completely wrong according to what the goddess herself says! Remember, the goddess definitely describes the "way of search" for it as thinkable, and merely describes the end of the path as being "unlearnable." Simply because it is not learnable doesn't mean that the whole subject is completely null and void. We CANNOT conflate the search with the object of the search. The search is valid, and the end is simply unattainable, and that is all we can say about it. But it can be said, and that is the key here. What does the goddess say about things that can be said?
>YES. That is the whole point. THE SECOND OPTION IS NO OPTION AT ALL, THERE IS NECESSARILY ONLY ONE OPTION."
Okay, so why was it spoken of at all? I'm reminded of Wittgenstein. Whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent. Yet even a goddess felt the need to speak, and it was intelligible.
>This is also exactly how Melissus opens his own essay!!
Which essay? I need to get on reading Melissus.

--

>What do you mean, a statement that fails to meet the standard of truth?
Look, there are statements that you describe as nonsense, incoherent, gibberish, etc. They're still statements, and they are not true or even opinions or whatever (anything on the side of truth), but they need to be accounted for. If we have two categories of statements, one with true statements of all kinds (including opinions as a lesser-included), and another with something else, then tell me about that something else.

>I'm going to bed
No worries. I live in an opposite time zone, and I'll do my best to keep the thread alive for as long as I can. I've enjoyed the discussion we've had and probably interrogated the Fragments of Parmenides more than I ever had in my life.

(2/2)

[Anonymous No.22892390]

>>22892363
>>22892327
>why are you only quoting part of that opening section of fragment 2 (I don't know why you call it "Fragment 4/5"),
I'm using the Wikisource link of John Burnet's translation here, and using the labels as fragments: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Fragments_of_Parmenides
I apologize if that was a confusing and incorrect way to refer to the fragments.
>That I point out to you is a path wholly unlearnable, for you could not know what-is-not (that that is not feasible), nor could you point it out.
>if you want a reminder that thought is tied with being, and you will find it elsewhere too.
Here's another question for you. In the poem, the Goddess says that everything that can be spoken and thought of is possible to be. However, does that imply the opposite, that everything that is can be spoken of and thought of? We are making a massive error in assuming that the converse holds true (formal logic fallacy IIRC).
>All this is to say, this notion of a second path is totally exposed as incomprehensible gibberish. For it is not possible to speak in that direction, point in that direction, think of it, anything!
But that is completely wrong according to what the goddess herself says! Remember, the goddess definitely describes the "way of search" for it as thinkable, and merely describes the end of the path as being "unlearnable." Simply because it is not learnable doesn't mean that the whole subject is completely null and void. We CANNOT conflate the search with the object of the search. The search is valid, and the end is simply unattainable, and that is all we can say about it. But it can be said, and that is the key here. What does the goddess say about things that can be said?
>YES. That is the whole point. THE SECOND OPTION IS NO OPTION AT ALL, THERE IS NECESSARILY ONLY ONE OPTION."
Okay, so why was it spoken of at all? I'm reminded of Wittgenstein. Whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent. Yet even a goddess felt the need to speak, and it was intelligible.
>This is also exactly how Melissus opens his own essay!!
Which essay? I need to get on reading Melissus.

--

>What do you mean, a statement that fails to meet the standard of truth?
Look, there are statements that you describe as nonsense, incoherent, gibberish, etc. They're still statements, and they are not true or even opinions or whatever (anything on the side of truth), but they need to be accounted for. If we have two categories of statements, one with true statements of all kinds (including opinions as a lesser-included), and another with something else, then tell me about that something else. What is it? I want to draw lines around it, label it, and define it.

>I'm going to bed
No worries. I live in an opposite time zone, and I'll do my best to keep the thread alive for as long as I can. I've enjoyed the discussion we've had and probably interrogated the Fragments of Parmenides more than I ever had in my life.

(2/2)

[Anonymous No.22892717]

bump

[Anonymous No.22892805]

>>22883636
You didn't understand him.

[Anonymous No.22892827]

One wonders how I can be conscious at one point, and not at others. Or how the 1986 World Series Mets came into existence and now no longer exist.

[Anonymous No.22892828]

>We come back to that one thing which tends to be quite certain when dealing with initiatory language and riddles. The easy choice will lead you astray. The obvious and simple meaning, the one that seems so clearly right, is the wrong one: just a red herring, a dead end. For those who are willing to look, to watch how everything hangs together, to resist the quick solution, there will always be another meaning waiting to be seen. And, in this case, Parmenides has left all the signs we need to discover what it is. First words are often the most important ones; but it can be easy to miss how, right at the start of her announcement about the existence of two different paths, the goddess introduces them as the only roads that "exist for thinking." This expression, "exist for thinking," is a striking one in the original Greek. Translated literally, Parmenides' particular choice of words would mean these are the only two paths that "are to think." For the words to mean "exist for thinking": that was perfectly acceptable in the Greek language of his time. But, even so, it was a rather special way of choosing to express oneself. And the same kind of wording occurs here yet again, just as it will keep on appearing at key points in the poem. All we have to do is take Parmenides' hint and give it the same meaning in this second passage that it certainly has in the first. Then everything falls straight into place:
>For what exists for thinking, and being, are one and the same.
>What exists for thinking is whatever you are able to think about. So, in other words, Parmenides is saying that anything you can think about has to exist for you to think about it. And thanks to the strange logic only found in the realms of nonsense, this immediately makes perfect sense when set alongside what the goddess has already said.

[Anonymous No.22892852]

>To state that thinking and being are the same would be to say something about the existence of the thinker. But to bring up the question of what exists for thinking is very different: is to say something instead about the existence of what can be thought, of what can be pondered or recognized or considered. And, as we already know, this is the goddess' fundamental concern. For as soon as she introduces the two paths of inquiry she dismisses the second one straightaway because
>there is no way you can recognize
>what is not-there is no travelling that path-
>or tell anything about it.
>Non-existence is unrecognizable, unmentionable, unthinkable. Whatever you think about must exist simply because it exists for you to think about. And of course this is totally absurd. It means unicorns would have to exist just because we can think about them or imagine one. But if we want to understand Parmenides then the worst thing we can do is dismiss the absurd. On the contrary, we have to hold on to it as tight as possible.
>And this is where we have to remember, again, the place Parmenides happens to find himself in as he hears these words from the goddess.
>He is "far away from the beaten track of humans" in the world of the gods. And, for Greeks, the world of the gods had one very particular feature. This is that simply to think something is to make it exist: is to make it real.
>Parmenides is bringing back a message from the realm of goddesses and divine beings to people in the world of the living-or at least to the world of those who imagine they are living. To be more precise, he is returning with a revelation about the laws of divine reality and about the laws of human existence. The human law is that you will spend the greater part of your life desperately th inking of ways to make the things you want exist and the things you fear not exist.
>As for the divine law: the very fact of thinking something is the assurance that it already is.

Good but dense book, it criticizes previous translations of the poem.

[Anonymous No.22893937]

Bump

[Anonymous No.22894109]

>>22892363
>I labeled the three questions for clarity.
Regarding (2), then I think we've satisfied this when we say that falsehood consists of a relationship between things. Because the things exist their relationship exists, every aspect of the comparison is affirmative, including where two details differ. For (3), I am a little less rosy, because I would have thought it to be the easiest answer imaginable: yes. Why do you have to qualify "in the truth in some sense", rather than yes? Where else will we find the meaning if not in that omnipresent sense of truth? If you draw an all-subsuming circle, whatever you have to say will be in it somewhere, correct?

>Well, first of all, it matters because...
The first objection is purely practical, so I don't think it relevant to the discussion. I don't claim to be the whole so I don't expect to be able to know everything always. A practical problem also gets a practical answer, I go look at the book, or whatever evidence is remaining for it, and form my opinion of the matter.

I don't know what you're trying to say in the second paragraph.

>But, *is* it a coherent account from the perspective of the goddess?

Yes, she would just have a better view of the extent of the meaning, assuming she had some insider knowledge on the book. Here, another example to join your own:

We are indians and we are discussing the Goddess. We see so many statues of many-armed goddesses, so we say that the Godess who met Parmenides must have had many arms. That's the account we give of her, and the youth happens to hear it.

Next time he gets summoned to the godddess, he mentions it to her. She laughs because she knows that she only has two arms. Yet, she can understand the opinion to the extent it coheres, she grasps the reason within it, it's just as true for her as much as it was for us. But she stands at a point where the edge of its meaning is clearer.

>fragment discussion
> the Goddess says that everything that can be spoken and thought of is possible to be. However, does that imply the opposite, that everything that is can be spoken of and thought of?

I will end up disagreeing with you about the use of the word "possible" in your quote, but for your specific question: it means that everything is interrelated. So everything touches on speech and thought. But each thing is what it is in its own right, its not that talking about a tree is a tree, or that the full nature of the tree is in the words or thoughts, that is an error. A model or description of something is not that something. It is something additional or next to it, just like everything is next to each other. This also goes into some arguments from sophists (meant in a good sense) who discussed man as a measure and the ability to communicate across mediums (protagoras & gorgias).

ill be back to finish this i need to go out but dont want hte thread to die

[Anonymous No.22894514]

>>22892828
>>22892852
I already understood this about the poem. What more could he have to say for hundreds of pages?

[Anonymous No.22894661]

>>22892390
>>22894109
>continuing
>I'm using the wikisource link of John Burnet's...

The standard these days seems to be to reference the fragments per Diels-Kranz. Not saying it's wrong to do otherwise, I don't care much for the expectations of academia, but that's just how I always see it done. I'm not sure why the wikisource draws them from some book by John Burnet, but at any rate "4/5" is longer than what you were suggesting. It includes the part I pointed at, which immediately follows the supposed second path (that it's unlearnable/unknowable/unreferencable). This is a very important detail to just omit, it speaks directly to what we are debating, and it is where fragment 2 ends as far as I can tell. I assume frg 2 is Burnet's 4.

Burnet then seems to takes a second fragment from a different source (5) for that last sentence, which is the usual order people put it in (albeit they keep it clear that this last line is a separate fragment).

>But that is completely wrong according to what the goddess herself says!
I think at this point you are just repeating yourself and failing to engage with what I said. I explained my position on why the goddess begins fragment 2 that way. Again: She has just welcomed the youth and told him she will teach him about two things: the truth, and how opinions must have genuine existence. We then start the section on truth, where I paraphrased her approach as,

>Look, how are we going to chat about the truth, shall we talk of what is or what is not? THE SECOND OPTION IS NO OPTION AT ALL, THERE IS NECESSARILY ONLY ONE OPTION.

I feel this is a fair interpretation when you actually present fragment 2 (Burnet's 4) in full, rather than cut out what is immediately said after the second path. I further supported this with fr 6, 7, 8. If you want me to quote the sections I can, but you have the source material, just follow the DK ordering.

I should stress that in addition to noting that 6, 7, 8 also hold that there is only one path, we should not forget the proem. What did she say first? She is going to teach the truth. What is the section on truth? "is", existence. What did she say second in the proem? She will teach opinion, which must have genuine existence. So the opinion must be in truth, because truth is what is per the section on truth. So again, in the proem she is not talking about teaching the youth two paths. There is one path and she's going explain why it follows that all we say must be on that path/have genuine existence. Which is what she does when she goes on in the section on truth to eliminate any possible conception of an alternative path to is.

It appears Kingsley largely agrees with me here,
>>22892828
>>22892852
but I also know he is empedoclean and we wind up disagreeing when it comes to change/generation. Also, I was recommended that book years ago and did give it a read, but holy hell it needs an editor. Really, really badly needs an editor. Extremely repetitive.

[Anonymous No.22894750]

>>22892390
>>22894109
>>22894661

>Which essay? I need to get on reading Melissus.

Here, the opening line to Melissus' work:

>Melissus the Samian says the following concerning nature or what there is. If it is nothing, what could be said about it as if it were something?

Basically I interpret it very similarly to how I interpret the opening of fragment 2 (Burnet 4). In frg 2, it's "look, how are we going to talk about the truth, is it what is or what is not? lol, there's only one option dummy", and in melissus it's "Let's talk about what there is. If it was nothing, what could we be talking about? lol, we necessarily talk about something, so let's get it on." And my own opening line when the player enters the temple, which signifies where the text starts to seriously discuss metaphysics:

>I am talking about something, for what is the alternative? ...

I see myself as writing very much in the Eleatic tradition here, beginning the metaphysics with this observation, which is really the core Eleatic teaching I have mentioned elsewhere.

>Look, there are statements that you describe as nonsense, incoherent, gibberish, etc.

With any statement, we consider how much meaning is conveyed. As I said before, this question of incoherence is about the shape or extent of the statement's meaning, how it all hangs together.

The statements are all on the side of truth/Being, as is everything else. The point is, how much has been said. If you said "well I have given an account of change, and it describes our experience", and I said the account is incoherent, I mean it breaks down or is limited in some significant way that means it cannot live up to your goal.

Every statement is true in its own right, just as literally everything is true/Being. The question is, what is it? How much is said, what is communicated?

When the words totally don't cohere/don't fit together, you might be presenting me with little more than a string of unrelated words. But we were hoping to receive something more. To what extent have we received meaning via these words.

There is no third category of "non-being statements", or "incoherent statements per se" (unless by that you mean that bare minimum I mention, namely you just a random jumble of words with no connection between them beyond that; I suppose we could say it is not a statement but a string that doesn't bear meaning beyond the sound, like a bird's tweets).

Coherence here is a quality of statements. Incoherence, a sort of border drawn around them that limits their meaning.

>No worries...
Parmenides' text is fun to piece together. There are lots of competing interpretations and a lot of people who care about it, and the material is not too vast to just jump in and get at it. I would recommend getting the Phoenix Pre-Socratics copy, it's a short little book with sufficient notes and references to be able to quickly reference the primary source material for the fragments and understand how it all comes together.

[Anonymous No.22894820]

>>22894661
Before I respond to anything else, I want to first stop the Fragments of Parmenides from derailing any further.

>but at any rate "4/5" is longer than what you were suggesting.
>which immediately follows the supposed second path (that it's unlearnable/unknowable/unreferencable). This is a very important detail to just omit,
At this point, we need to move on from my initial, comprehensive quote-mining endeavor, since it seems like you've ignored the points I've been making since then. In the beginning I sought to demonstrate that there is a consistent duality, perhaps even a trinity, within the Fragments of Parmenides. What does that mean? That we have to explain it. Since then, we've been addressing the text as a whole in a dialectical movement.

In the meantime, I have definitely brought up the rest of Fragment 4/5, especially in response to your claims, and I've problematized them even further. So, please do not claim that I have not been addressing them.

>the Goddess says that everything that can be spoken and thought of is possible to be. However, does that imply the opposite, that everything that is can be spoken of and thought of?
I didn't think your response touched upon the root of the problem. Are being and thought supposed to be overlapping Venn diagrams? Or is it speculative or fallacious to conclude that, given that we only have "all that is thinkable, is" and not "all that is, is thinkable"? It's not a flowery, metaphorical excerpt that we're referencing here, but rather a simple, direct, and declarative statement.

By the way,
>I will end up disagreeing with you about the use of the word "possible" in your quote
I'm pretty sure I pulled that word-for-word from the Burnet translation. I don't know what other translations are there and how else they would word that.

>It includes the part I pointed at, which immediately follows the supposed second path (that it's unlearnable/unknowable/unreferencable).
So, here's another problem. Are "the way of searching" the same, or different, from their objects/ends? Are we assuming the cause of their unknowability from a presumption of metaphysics here (think back to the problem of the converse I pointed out earlier)? And again, if all of this is being spoken about, what does that say about its intelligibility?

[Anonymous No.22894863]

>>22884066
What if I already have a beautiful gf/wife?

[Anonymous No.22895309]

Parmenides? Why not Parwomenides?

[Anonymous No.22896033]

>>22895309
ywnbaw (not because I'm transphobic, but because change is not possible)

[Anonymous No.22896436]

bump

[Anonymous No.22897431]

happy new year anon
>>22894820
>Before I respond to anything else, I want to first stop the Fragments of Parmenides from derailing any further.

>At this point, we need to move on from my initial, comprehensive quote-mining endeavor, since it seems like you've ignored the points I've been making since then.

You should never have been relying on "quote mining" in the first place, it caused you to totally ignore what I said about the work as a whole and where the quotes occur.

You can't just go through a text and pull out every dichotomy or hint of dualism, and then say it's a dualist text. What does the Goddess say, what overall picture does she paint?

She specifically says that the people like you, who go around fixated on two or more, wander double-headed and confused. As a blessing to the youth, she specifically tells him that it all resolves to one (end of proem), and that any attempt to posit two paths (start of section on truth) is illegitimate nonsense that can't be done (multiple fragments as I listed). Hence the overall teaching of the text, Being is alone, perfectly complete, ungenerated, indestructible, etc.

It is actually you who have ignored the meaning of the text and my attempt to illuminate it for you, in favour of quote mining instead it seems. I don't see you as having raised any problems with my interpretation of the text, desu; that you don't want to follow me in my overall understanding and contextual interpretation of the specific statements is not a refutation of my reading.

>the Goddess says that everything that can be spoken and thought of is possible to be. However, does that imply the opposite, that everything that is can be spoken of and thought of?

I answered that >>22894109

> I'm pretty sure I pulled that word-for-word from the Burnet translation.

My meaning is that the term possible will need to be defined, and if you are defining it in a way that introduces metaphysical indeterminacy then we will be in disagreement. Because whatever is possible is necessary. But I didn't pursue it because maybe you agree with me or at any rate it isn't of immediate interest.

>So, here's another problem.
At the beginning you said you wanted to finish with the fragments before going anywhere else, now you are raising a new thing to discuss. Each detail is distinct, and is subsumed by a solitary, perfectly complete whole. I don't see how you would otherwise say that the statement "we must speak of what is" is the same or different than what we are speaking of.

[Anonymous No.22897696]

>>22897431
Happy new years!
>You should never have been relying on "quote mining" in the first place, it caused you to totally ignore what I said about the work as a whole and where the quotes occur.
>You can't just go through a text and pull out every dichotomy or hint of dualism, and then say it's a dualist text. What does the Goddess say, what overall picture does she paint?
Perhaps "quote mining" was the wrong way of putting it, since you're taking it to be like cherry-picking. What I was doing was building a complete set evidence, and the evidence was substantially so. Like I said before, even if it isn't true, it's a problem that needed to be addressed. Even many ancient Greek philosophers themselves saw Parmenides as a dualist of some stripe, so it's not a crazy opinion to have.

In any case, I've been addressing other parts of the text, so it's not like I've been cherry-picking. I also acknowledged parts of the text where the Goddess said things were one (or possibly insinuated they were three if you read things a certain way).

>I don't see you as having raised any problems with my interpretation of the text, desu; that you don't want to follow me in my overall understanding and contextual interpretation of the specific statements is not a refutation of my reading.
I've brought up numerous problems with the reading where it contradicts with other quotes that seem decisive in laying out the overall philosophical outlook of Parmenides. e.g., the supposed being = thought and speech symmetry, the distinction between the way and the search of the way, etc.
>I answered that >>22894109
I mean, you did, but not in a way that addressed the problem. The text made a claim in a certain direct way, and that led to the problem where the converse had to be assumed, but you then gave a loose metaphorical interpretation.
>My meaning is that the term possible will need to be defined, and if you are defining it in a way that introduces metaphysical indeterminacy then we will be in disagreement. Because whatever is possible is necessary. But I didn't pursue it because maybe you agree with me or at any rate it isn't of immediate interest.
Let's assume it means "is" and shelve that other question for later. In any case, the quote brings out the problem of assuming whether being and thought are overlapping Venn diagrams.
>At the beginning you said you wanted to finish with the fragments before going anywhere else, now you are raising a new thing to discuss.
The being of "the way" itself versus "the way of search" itself is actually an old problem that I raised here: >>22892390. You didn't address it much, if at all, in your last reply, so I'm bringing it up again.

[Anonymous No.22898434]

>>22897696
>it's a problem that needed to be addressed. Even many ancient Greek philosophers themselves saw Parmenides as a dualist of some stripe...

In terms of the interpretation, the "problem" has been addressed. You can quote mine comments about night and day, etc, and I can repeat that they are in the context of (a) the goddess maintaining all is one perfectly complete whole (dualisms resolved to one), & (b) those who conclude with opposing details are wandering double-headed and confused.

So, she is not adopting the opposites / a dualistic model. Also, as I said when you first asked about interpretations, I appreciate there are other views that are ancient. I said (Neo)Platonists view it differently. Personally, I have what I take to be a melissean interpretation on the Goddess' words.

>In any case, I've been addressing other parts of the text
I don't think that's true, but I also don't see this conversation going anywhere on this point.

>I've brought up numerous problems with the reading where it contradicts with other quotes that seem decisive in laying out the overall philosophical outlook of Parmenides.

Simply not true. I have told you why the goddess uses the language you highlight, how it should be interpreted given both the context of that scene in the poem and the speakers, and in the context of the general account of reality given. I don't think you have identified any notable interpretative challenges to what I've said. You mostly just ignore the context I put forward and put a different spin on the meaning of what is said in the fragments.


>The being of "the way" itself versus "the way of search" itself is actually an old problem

Again, what problem? Maybe due to some unspoken detail of your makeshift interpretation there is another problem. There isn't a "the way" versus "the way of search" dichotomy that is raising some great problem, especially no problem that would impact the refutation of the claims that started this thread, ie the aristotelean nonsense about change (potential/actual).

Again, how am I to interpret "the way" in your post? It would be defined as the existential truth, "is", that core Eleatic teaching I have gone on about at length.

How am I to interpret "the way of search" in your post? It is the conversation they have, where they discuss the necessary inferences of the core teaching. If you want to talk about a "way of search", what it is is demonstrated at length in fragment 8, the longest fragment and a prolonged discussion of "the way"/is.

So your "the way of search" is "talking about "is"". Because again, what is the Goddess doing? She welcomes the youth and says you'll learn the truth (what is) and how even opinions must be truth (they are in what is). And the "way of search" is just where she says "we're going to be talking about what is" and then proceeds to do so, exactly as Melissus does so, rather than "wander double headed" and contradict herself like the mortals.

[Anonymous No.22898483]

>>22898434
I'm going to boil it down to a few main points:
>Things that are thinkable or speakable, are.
>It is not certain whether the converse is true, e.g. all that is, is thinkable and speakable. This implies that there are some things that are thinkable and speakable.
>The goddess lays out two paths of inquiry, one where the object of one is knowable, and the other is not.
>The paths themselves are thinkable and thus have to be for some reason. But the objects are sometimes not
>(un)-knowability is not the same as a definitive account of (un)-existence. Both can be read here.
We're left with an account that affirms one way, but leaves the other way uncertain. This can either be said to be a denial of that second path on absolute theoretical terms, or in relative practical terms. For an example of the latter, there is a famous 20th century pessimistic philosopher named Carlo Michelstaedter who argued that Parmenides discovered "the truth" about wisdom, which he called persuasion and deemed ineffable. All other philosophers who continued foolishly speaking on the subject (for which he includes Plato but wraps in almost everybody) were lumped into rhetoric. The reason why this account makes sense here is because it:
>acknowledges that being = thought, but not all thought can be spoken of, so it denies the converse of the goddess in a qualified way
>it acknowledges the difference between the way of inquiry and the object of the way of inquiry
>it does not rule out the second way entirely because there is still that interpretive wiggle room opened up by the other theoretical precepts upheld by the goddess.

The thing is, you're going to have to do more than say that "the way of search" is some weird dead-end. Because how can a way of search be a complete dead-end if it can be spoken of, let alone spoken of by a goddess? It would deny one of the fundamental tenets of the text.

[Anonymous No.22898496]

>>22898434
I'm going to boil it down to a few main points:
>Things that are thinkable or speakable, are.
>It is not certain whether the converse is true, e.g. all that is, is thinkable and speakable. This implies that there might be some things that are, yet are NOT thinkable and speakable.
>The goddess lays out two paths of inquiry, one where the object of one is knowable, and the other is not.
>The paths themselves are thinkable and thus have to be for some reason. But the objects are sometimes not
>(un)-knowability is not the same as a definitive account of (un)-existence. Both can be read here.
We're left with an account that affirms one way, but leaves the other way uncertain. This can either be said to be a denial of that second path on absolute theoretical terms, or in relative practical terms. For an example of the latter, there is a famous 20th century pessimistic philosopher named Carlo Michelstaedter who argued that Parmenides discovered "the truth" about wisdom, which he called persuasion and deemed ineffable. All other philosophers who continued foolishly speaking on the subject (for which he includes Plato but wraps in almost everybody) were lumped into rhetoric. The reason why this account makes sense here is because it:
>acknowledges that being = thought, but not all thought can be spoken of, so it denies the converse of the goddess in a qualified way
>it acknowledges the difference between the way of inquiry and the object of the way of inquiry
>it does not rule out the second way entirely because there is still that interpretive wiggle room opened up by the other theoretical precepts upheld by the goddess.

The thing is, you're going to have to do more than say that "the way of search" is some weird dead-end. Because how can a way of search be a complete dead-end if it can be spoken of, let alone spoken of by a goddess? It would deny one of the fundamental tenets of the text. I think this goes back to the whole problem I raised earlier where I tried to see if we could categorize statements into a binary of "truth, truth lesser-included" and "incoherent, gibberish, etc." Because, in some sense, this "the way of search" is gibberish. Yet it clearly isn't, for not only can it be spoken of, but it is a goddess speaking about it.

And yes, I admit that it could be in pursuit of a greater purpose, to tie it together with some kind of unity. But you accepting my "strikethrough" solution raises a paradox, because every time you cross it out, it ends up not being addressed, and thus the account remains incomplete. Yet it can be spoken of, and more yet it HAS TO BE spoken of, so it needs to have some kind of essence by the theoretical logic of the whole text. So then you have to revert your strikethrough. But because it is gibberish or whatever, we have to go back and strike it through. Repeat ad nauseum. See the problem?

[Anonymous No.22898539]

>>22898434
Also:
>The other, namely, that It is not, and that it must needs not be,—that, I tell thee, is a path that none can learn of at all. For thou canst not know what is not—that is impossible—nor utter it;
>for it is the same thing that can be thought and that can be.
What the hell does that last part of Fragment 4/5 mean? It sounds like the goddess is saying that the path of it is not is the same thing as the path of it is.

[Anonymous No.22899165]

bump

[Anonymous No.22899594]

bump

[Anonymous No.22901008]

>>22898496
>I’m going to boil it down to a few main points:

>1. We’re left with an account that affirms one way, but leaves the other way uncertain.

Disagree, as stated repeatedly for reasons never addressed by you. Thanks for sharing your interpretation again but I still find it unconvincing and disagreeable; there is no second way, that is confused double-headed nonsense per the goddess. I don’t intend to address your personal, preferred way of reading the text any more, again for reasons repeatedly stated in this thread.
>2. You’re going to have to do more than say that “the way of search” is some weird dead-end.

I addressed how I view your use of the terms “the way” and “the way of search”, which again you don’t really acknowledge or engage in any substantial manner. More importantly, there is 0% chance of me adopting your truly weird dead-end interpretation, where the goddess grants special “wiggle-room” to say that what is not is. That reading is pure cope as far as I am concerned, probably rooted in a deep desire to hold other beliefs that would otherwise obviously collapse.
>

Actually, the rest of your post just misses the point. It isn’t addressed to me, so much as simply being an expression of your frustration or anger that there just is what there is. You outright contradict the goddess in saying that we can speak about this other realm beyond being, a supposed land of “is not”. It’s just a misreading in my opinion, and more importantly it is philosophically incorrect and the reason why the sort of aristotelean position in your first post is a non-starter that can only lead us into confusion.
You are simply wrong that the “strikethrough” solution raises some sort of paradox or fatal error. The setting of the poem/conversation supports it, as does the other major Eleatic work. But you don’t care about that, so let’s keep it philosophical/tied to the core teaching: when we say that there is, and then draw out the necessary inferences (ie that it is solitary and complete), this entails that people who say you can oppose or posit an alternative (ie treat it like merely night or day) are confused. The meaning offered by these “double-headed” fools terminates at a certain point, and that is all it is. The way they speak is just an invitation to confusion, the result of a blinkered metaphysical system that doesn’t perceive the full scope of Being.


You can keep your interpretation. As I said at the very beginning when you switched the topic to exegesis, I am very aware there are many interpretations. I said I am confident in standing by my own despite not convincing everyone else. I don’t see any value in discussing exegesis with you; you have nothing insightful to say about my interpretation, and I long ago rejected dualism and dualistic readings of Parmenides.

[Anonymous No.22901030]

>>22898539
The last line you quote is just "Fragment 5" in burnet, frag 3 in DK. It is given in that order, but it comes from a separate source.

I don't see how you get that reading, but whatever. If you are saying that there is not, and there is, and they are resolved to one thing, you are just reinventing the omnipresent sense of truth and essentially reverting to my position (where all is one again). But I don’t see any value in further exegetical discussion with you. It won’t benefit me (because you barely engage with my position at all), and it won’t benefit you because at some point it is instead your personal, philosophical beliefs that need to be addressed. After all, they led you to make the first post, where you thought that the aristotelean model was obviously correct (whereupon that belief either immediately crumbled or at least disappeared in face of adversity). Thank you for the exegetical conversation but no, I am not convinced by your personal reading and I think your criticisms of mine are mostly rooted in a reading I rejected and/or other philosophical views that you hold and that led you to the reading I find disagreeable.

[Anonymous No.22901392]

>>22901008
>You are simply wrong that the “strikethrough” solution raises some sort of paradox or fatal error.
I don't understand how you can think the strikethrough problem isn't a paradox. First, what is even the point of including that part of Fragment 4/5 if we could do without it anyway?
>>22901030
>I don't see how you get that reading, but whatever.
I don't see how you fail to see that reading.
>The other, namely, that It is not, and that it must needs not be,—
>that, I tell thee, is a path that none can learn of at all.
>For thou canst not know what is not—that is impossible—nor utter it;
>for it is the same thing that can be thought and that can be.
That very last line. for [the path of that it is not] is the same thing that can be thought and can be [the path of it is]. At least, that's what it sounds like it's saying to me.

[Anonymous No.22902042]

>>22901392
>I don’t understand how you can think the strikethrough problem isn’t a paradox. First, what is even the point of including that part of Fragment 4/5 if we could do without it anyway?

I don’t understand how you can keep repeating the question as though it hasn’t been answered. I handled it in detail. You want to focus on “what is the point of including that part?” Okay, I'll repeat two points,

1) To address the audience/reader. The dialogue is between the goddess and a mortal. Per the goddess, the mortal realm is where people wander double-headed and confused, speaking of opposites/dualism when they should realise it’s all one. Therefore, she begins by speaking to the mortal in his own dualistic language, and IMMEDIATELY & repeatedly declares this is confused nonsense and that there only is what is. This is the same approach taken by Melissus at the beginning of his essay, where he points out the only legitimate topic is what-is.

2) To establish the breadth of the core Eleatic teaching, “is”. It is omnipresent/all that is, that’s why Parmenides & Melissus are both making this point. They must establish that it is all-encompassing. Then necessity will support all of the ramifications that the goddess subsequently lists. Her reasoning works because of the all-subsuming context of Being.

>That very last line.

That line is not the “last line”, it’s a separate fragment. I’m in my office and can't double-check, but it should be from Clement. It's also mirrored in other fragments where thought and being are strictly joined/identified as one. It’s not “thought as what-is-not” providing possibility for a distinct “that which is”, as two realms.

I don’t find your reading plausible for the reasons given throughout this thread and in the poem. You could even just reread the end of fragment 2 (Burnet 4): the what is not path is totally cut off. Again, repeated in multiple fragments I listed. The prohibition is absolute and repeated. There are so many signs that you are on the wrong track here.

I suggest you read Burnet’s text to see his commentary and determine why he translated it that way, and further read alternative translations and commentaries. I recommended a brief and accessible text that includes multiple different translations, references to where the fragments are found, and commentaries on why the text is translated in certain ways. The text is very appropriate for any newcomer who wants to engage with Parmenides (Phoenix Pre-Socratics Series).

With that said, I contradicted my earlier decision not to further discuss exegesis in this thread. We’re just repeating ourselves and I think you are just talking past me and ignoring what I’ve said. I’m sure you feel somewhat similarly, given what I read in your posts. So thank you for the thread, it was nice, but it’s clearly just hung up on exegesis now, and I don’t see us achieving anything today/here. Until next time.

[Anonymous No.22902638]

>>22902042
>it's clearly just hung up on exegesis now, and I don’t see us achieving anything today/here. Until next time.
So, there's only one last issue I want to address if I can have one more round. Because, even though you feel like Fragment 4/5 has been done to death, it is NOT an *exegetical* issue, but rather a *metaphysical* issue. We *agree* on what it is doing, literarily-speaking. But the problem is deeper than that.

>I don’t understand how you can keep repeating the question as though it hasn’t been answered.
Because you haven't addressed the crux of the problem. You keep thinking that you can address it as a functional part of the text (e.g. it's about addressing the audience), even though the problem is much deeper than that, metaphysically-speaking.

>1) To address the audience/reader. The dialogue is between the goddess and a mortal
Here lies the problem. You cannot just speak about something that doesn't exist, for your speech would refer to nothing, and thus would be gibberish. It doesn't matter what function the speech serves, for speech should always refer to things that "are." It doesn't matter who is speaking, for even deities are beings. This is what has been said over and over again in the poem. Yet we have the problem of speech which refers to a nonexistent path, the path of it is not. Even if it is meant for clarifying reality for mortals, the speech itself is on metaphysically contradictory grounds.

Yet at the same time, if the poem doesn't address the second way of thought, the path of that it is not, then isn't it an incomplete account, both by the poem's own setup of two paths and for the sake of metaphysical "completeness"? Hence, we have this strange situation where we want to "strike through" parts of Fragments 4/5, but then we would be missing something, and thus we would need to revert the strikethrough to have a full account. Both reasons are valid, so we have a paradox where we would be perpetually striking it out and reinstating the text.

If you wanted to be metaphysically clean, I'd say "don't even talk about the it is not" path. Leave it as an implication for the reader to grapple. Even hinting at it is to say something dishonest in some level. Yet the poem does not do that. Instead, it takes the more metaphysically-fraught path. You cannot explain this away by explaining its literary function, because the poem's own metaphysical claims undermine the capacity to be functionally meaningful in the first place.

Am I making sense now? Because if this last framing doesn't work, I'm just going to have to call it a day on my end, too.

>That line is not the “last line”, it’s a separate fragment.
That is a good point, it's only Fragment 5. I think the editing of the translation may be forcing the juxtaposition I claimed more than what is plausible. I can concede my point because of that issue alone.

[Anonymous No.22903517]

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[Anonymous No.22903570]

>said the world was round first time
>said the moon got its light from sun
>said thinking and being are the same 2500 years before descartes
the fuck was up with this guy, seriously.

[Anonymous No.22903776]

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[Anonymous No.22904830]

>>22902638
>One last *metaphysical* issue re: frg2&3

Okay, another lap, let’s look at the metaphysical issue. I’ll just thank this anon, >>22903570 , who offers the simple, literal meaning of fr 3 that thinking and being are the same. And yes, anon, Parmenides/goddess was p amazing in terms of presenting cutting edge theories of the naturalists/physiologoi and coupling it with the absolute best metaphysical insight.

>You keep thinking you can address it as a functional part of the text… yet we have the problem of speech which refers to a nonexistent path, the path of it is not.

You criticize my repeating of point 1 as not responding to the metaphysical issue, and outright ignore point 2 which does speak to the metaphysical purpose of the section: showing the reader the absolute and unchallengable breadth/omnipresence of "is". And I have addressed the metaphysics at further length in prior posts, from which I pulled 1 and 2 from as examples. It is baffling how you can home in on point 1 to say I failed to address the metaphysical point, and then ignore point 2 which points at the omnipresent nature of “is” (and therefore eliminating your reading/metaphysical position).

Actually, if you read point 1 carefully what do I say about the Goddess’ position? That your “path of it is not” is confused nonsense. The goddess literally says in the poem that it is no true path at all, there is only one path. You are the double-headed sort who say two when you should say one, the goddess literally identifies such people as her metaphysical target.

I have been saying all along that you are wrong. The text doesn’t identify a second path of “it is not”. If you read point 1 and point 2, and indeed if you read anything further I explained in this thread, you will see that the text identifies your chosen statement as confused gibberish, a contradiction. Because “is” is omnipresent, therefore saying “There IS something beyond everything that IS” doesn’t provide any additional meaning, doesn’t identify a second path, it’s just a contradiction and the limit of your meaning. You haven’t identified anything to address! And as a result all the goddess subsequently says about Being follows! Hence the absolute and undeniable truth of Eleatic metaphysics, and how people who supposedly posit “wiggle room” are only offering contradictory jumbles of words. The contradictions are compounded from there, and we wind up with nonsense like Aristotle’s meme of “potentiality/actuality” change.

[Anonymous No.22904834]

>>22904830
>we want to strike through parts of frg 2, but then we would be missing something

No, we would be indicating the extent of meaning. We are striking through a jumble of mismatched words, because “is” is omnipresent and saying that there “IS what IS NOT” is a contradiction and therefore fails to cohere/point out any alternative path. Because absolute omnipresence by nature swallows all, it's a contradiction to accept that and then posit something that isn't swallowed up by it, the meaning breaks down/hits a wall/terminates, you didn't magically present some meaning that goes beyond the boundless, any more than I could identify such a thing. At this point we're both offering demonstrable contradictions and cease to speak sense.

>if you wanted to be metaphysically clean, I’d say “don’t even talk about the it is not” path.

Yes, that’s what the goddess says repeatedly in the fragments, including in fragment 2. You could never speak it, think it, know it, whatever medium you want to mention, she 100% disavows as contradictory nonsense any supposed reference to a second path. That’s also the point of Melissus’ opening line of his essay, with the rhetorical question of how can we talk about it in any other way than that it is, so we necessarily talk about it as what is. Being therefore serves as an omnipresent whole that absolutely justifies all the necessary ramifications teased out by the Eleatics.
There is absolutely no dishonesty in the goddess’ words, which is shown in my point 1 of the last post, which you fault for not being an answer to your particular metaphysical claim but now ignore when you speak to the literary content of the poem/character of the goddess and her conversation with the youth (again, the youth has come from the realm where people wander double-headed and say two when they should say one).
>Am I making sense now?

I can read your posts. Your position on metaphysics is contradictory because you confess that Being is omnipresent (Reality is a perfectly complete whole), but then fixate on more specific theories (such as Aristotle’s view on change) and wind up writing contradictory phrases that boil down to “is not is”. So I would say you make sense to a point, but you seem deeply confused; at a point you are like the double-headed people the goddess discusses, who say two when they should say one, and thereby fall into contradiction.

I don't see anything in your position that is unanswered. I see several points where you fall into demonstrable contradiction, just as I see the same with the model of change referenced in the first post. You just keep repeating the contradiction and ignoring what I say, so have a nice day and I hope these last two posts have given you something you desired.

[Anonymous No.22905113]

>>22904830
>>22904834
I don't think we have any more to say on this matter. Since apparently in your views, as long as one block of text is qualified by another block of text, it doesn't matter if the first one is referring to nothing, because the second block of text can always say "just kidding, we didn't mean to" and all is fine. I firmly disagree that that is a coherent method of argument, at best a band-aid fix that barely covers the problematic metaphysical issue underneath. I don't think we have anything more to say.

[Anonymous No.22905226]

>>22905113
>Since apparently in your views, as long as one block of text is qualified by another block of text, it doesn't matter if the first one is referring to nothing, because the second block of text can always say "just kidding, we didn't mean to" and all is fine.

Mischaracterisation of what I wrote. There is no "just kidding, we didn't mean to" from the Goddess. She is demonstrating the contradiction of the double-headed mortals who name two when they should name one. The text serves a clear literary and philosophical purpose as explained.

>at best a band-aid fix that barely covers the problematic metaphysical issue underneath.

There is no problematic metaphysical issue; the metaphysics is perfect because it treats Being as omnipresent. There is what is, and this entails necessary inferences that are teased out in Eleatic works.

>I don't think we have anything more to say.

Agreed, at least until next time someone puts forward an obvious contradiction and compounds it with further errors.

[Anonymous No.22905348]

>>22883636
Parmenides's view is incoherent and self-defeating. If all change is an illusion, that means changing your mind is also an illusion. But if you convince me to buy into Parmenides's philosophy, I've changed my mind, thus refuting it. Or I haven't changed my mind and I never believed in it, in which case it's a pointless thing to philosophize about. Aristotle's metaphysics is still relevant and useful today to make sense of the world because it possesses explanatory power, there's even been a renewed interest in him in the last few years. By contrast who uses Parmenides to explain the world anymore?

[Anonymous No.22905566]

>>22905226
>She is demonstrating the contradiction of the double-headed mortals who name two when they should name one.
... by committing the sin of speaking of two and referring to the path of it is not, only to double-back and to say that it is off-limits. That is simply hypocrisy and incoherence. You're simply not grasping the subtlety of the argument here.

Like I said before, the only honest position here is to not mention it AT ALL, not even to refute it. The Goddess should have only spoken of the path of "it is", said everything is included in it, neglected to mention "it is not", and then left the implication about "it is not" as an exercise for the reader. Why? Because otherwise you have to incorporate some measure of "it is not"—whether it is the path itself, the search for the path, or even the slightest mention of the path necessary in order to condemn it—into the omnipresent whole of being.

Thus, thanks to the structure of the poem, we have the paradox of "it is not" being said to be, if it is even in the infinitesimally smallest way possible, thanks to the use of language to convey meaning about it. This is the cardinal sin of Eleatic metaphysics, yet it is present in the presentation of the poem. Even if it is meant rhetorically, if being is said to parallel thought, and thought is said to parallel speech, then we have speech that is referring to non-being and thus cannot be. To try to include it as some larger gambit of demonstrating the omnipresence of Being is to kick the can down the road with an even graver sin, to say that being is non-being or that non-being is a part of being.

[Anonymous No.22906498]

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[Anonymous No.22907002]

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[Anonymous No.22907357]

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[Anonymous No.22907935]

>>22883678
>they don't exist all at the same time
Define time.

[Anonymous No.22908360]

Very sad how the goddess's words have been twisted out to fit Plato's agenda.

[Anonymous No.22909715]

>>22908360
the goddess breaks the rules and then fixes it in real time, literally deus ex machina. who the fuck writes this shit?

[Anonymous No.22910649]

>>22909715
it wasn't written by just anybody you Peripatetic heathen

[Anonymous No.22912312]

last bump before I declare a total Peripatetic victory

[Anonymous No.22912382]

>>22912312
What are you bumping for? You already said there was nothing more to say. You are deeply confused and your posts are a broken record; Anon basically sums it up here: >>22908360

[Anonymous No.22912428]

>>22912382
Well, I said there was nothing more to say on the literary exegesis of the poem. We agree. But the metaphysics of how the poem's intent does or does not contradict the poem's execution, is a different story.

[Anonymous No.22912490]

>>22912428
Everything you had to say received a response. You're just a broken record at this point, unwilling to confess that statements like "beyond the boundless" are contradictory and break down. Eventually you'll either tire out and accept the truth, or you'll keep going on about how such phrases might really be magical and able to impart some meaning to your fantasies of "wiggle room" in metaphysics. The latter is demonstrably ridiculous and has in fact been demonstrated repeatedly in this thread.

You are literally behaving like the double-headed and confused sort that the goddess talked about. Per her general wishes, your contradictory nature has been exposed. So stop bumping a dead thread and instead work on the appropriate reaction. This is your opportunity to adopt a consistent metaphysical framework and make some coherent progress in philosophy, rather than indulge in endless errors, compounding the problem until absolutely everything you have to say should be binned.

[Anonymous No.22912651]

>>22912490
Honestly?
>unwilling to confess that statements like "beyond the boundless" are contradictory and break down. Eventually you'll either tire out and accept the truth, or you'll keep going on about how such phrases might really be magical and able to impart some meaning to your fantasies of "wiggle room" in metaphysics. The latter is demonstrably ridiculous and has in fact been demonstrated repeatedly in this thread.
I've confessed all this, and then shown how the goddess violates all of these constraints. When I had done so most clearly and shown that your attempts at explaining away the problem as a mere exercise in addressing the audience didn't work, you stopped talking.
>This is your opportunity to adopt a consistent metaphysical framework and make some coherent progress in philosophy, rather than indulge in endless errors, compounding the problem until absolutely everything you have to say should be binned.
This is ironic considering that I'm not particularly attached to any philosophy, yet this is the hill you've chosen to die on.

[Anonymous No.22912827]

>>22912651
>I've confessed all this, and then shown how the goddess violates all of these constraints. When I had done so most clearly and shown that your attempts at explaining away the problem as a mere exercise in addressing the audience didn't work, you stopped talking.

This is false, and your constant repeating of such nonsense is why the thread is over and we have nothing valuable to say to each other here. The other anon concurs that you are simply misinterpreting the goddess. You also continue to pretend that I only explained that section of the poem by one angle (goddess addressing the youth/the audience from the mortal realm where people wander double-headed, confused, naming two when they should name one), when I justified it by other means too, such as the way it establishes the breadth of the core eleatic teaching (which is crucial for the necessary inferences that follow in the poem).

The last part of your post made me laugh pretty hard, though. This thread is a good showing for eleatic philosophy, a sort of going through the motions. Clearly some anons appreciated it, and at some point you'll no doubt decide to join us in exploring a coherent metaphysics/philosophy. Just not in this thread, it seems. Bye.

[Anonymous No.22912917]

>>22912827
>This is false
There's no reason to lie about the facts when anybody can scroll up a few seconds and see what happened.
>The other anon concurs that you are simply misinterpreting the goddess
Tweetophon, we all know that was you, complete with the same diction and concerns. Stop pretending to be other people. It's cute when you first walk into a thread and go like "I heard this interesting Tweetophon fellow is writing a book, we should all buy it," but it's downright dishonest when you play pretend to desperately salvage a losing argument.
>when I justified it by other means too, such as the way it establishes the breadth of the core eleatic teaching
... by allowing the parts of the explanation to violate the core tenets. Huh. So I guess it doesn't matter if the parts of the explanation are "nothing" or "referencing nothing" if the whole is supposed to be about something? Wow, I guess we magically *can* turn an "it is not" into an "it is"!

Like, how the hell can you live with yourself with this kind of parsel-tongued contradiction? It's embarrassing.

[Anonymous No.22913469]

>>22912917
Holy shit, you've been making these threads since the summer and they always go the same way. Stop inviting the wannabe cult-leader, and stop attention-seeking by posting the same threads and bumping them when they're clearly dead.

[Anonymous No.22914021]

>>22913469
Why should I? I like the threads. It's a good challenge, and I learn a lot from them.

Besides, the thread might be moribund, but it isn't quite *dead* yet.

[Anonymous No.22914537]

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[Anonymous No.22914889]

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[Anonymous No.22915967]

>>22914021
>>22914537
>>22914889
Making my fucking point, are ya? Total attention whore.