de Rijk, Lambertus Marie. 1983. "Did Parmenides Reject the Sensible World?" In Graceful Reason: Essays in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy Presented to Joseph Owens, CSSR on the Occasion of his Seventy-Fifth Birthday and the Fiftieth Anniversary of his Ordination, edited by Lloyd, Gerson, 29-53. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies.

"Two camps of scholars interpreting Parmenides' poem have recently been distinguished and labeled as the Majority and the Minority. The former holds that, unlike the Alêtheia part, the Doxa part presents an altogether untrue account of things that properly speaking have no real existence. According to the Minority, however, the Doxa was put forward as possessing some kind or degree of cognitive validity. I shall try to show that both these two positions are ambiguous and accordingly fail in giving a clear insight into what Parmenides intends to tell us. They both seem to need correction to the extent that Parmenides does distinguish the Alêtheia route from the Doxa route(s), but there is nothing in the text to tell us that he makes a distinction between two separate domains. one true and the other untrue. As any genuine philosopher he was concerned about the sensible world, our world and it was that which he wanted to truly understand." (pp. 29-30)

(...)

One cannot deny that Heraclitus faced the primitive approach of the physicists in a radical way. So Parmenides in defending another steady inner nature ('Be-ing') sees in him his most dangerous rival. No wonder that his offences against Heraclitus are the most bitter. And indeed he tries to bring Heraclitus into the company of those who, two-headed as they are, are not able to make the great decision.

Subsequent thinkers had to take into account Parmenides' doctrine and in fact could not help digesting its rigidity. Plato was the first to take the big decision so seriously that he left the idea of one world as approached by mortals along two different Routes and settled on the assumption of two separate worlds, one of Unshakable Being, the other of Unreliable Becoming. Aristotle, for his part, thought it possible to dispose of Plato's chorismos and find the inner nature of things right in themselves. No doubt it is Parmenides, cited by Fr. Owens as 'one of the truly great philosophic geniuses in the history of Western thought,' (*) who was the catalyst of all subsequent metaphysics." (p. 53)

(*) Joseph Owens, A History of Ancient Western Philosophy (New York 1959) p. 76.
de Vivar, Carlos Montemayor Romo. 2006. Time and Necessity in Parmenides Astoria NY: Seaburn.

"This essay is not an exhaustive academic interpretation of Parmenides’ work. Rather, it is an informal presentation of some his most important ideas, intended to reach readers that have no previous philosophical training. One of the main goals of this text is to introduce the reader to Greek philosophy by focusing on one of philosophy’s earliest expressions, which influenced thinkers from all times. The reason for choosing Parmenides’ poem is that it was and still is considered a fundamental philosophical text, in spite of being highly controversial." (p. 9)

(...)

"Finally, it is important to acknowledge that although Parmenides’ poem departs from previous philosophical texts in its argumentative structure, it is continuous with these texts because it forms part of a tradition of thinking universally, without endorsing a particular political or theological agenda. This tradition, which started with Thales, is what we call today ancient Greek philosophy, and it is, without doubt, one of the most important events in our intellectual history.

I hus. thanks to these thinkers who called themselves philosophers (this term is reputedly coined by Pythagoras) because of their love of wisdom, knowledge was independent from any particular religion. For the first time, mankind’s wisdom could be explored for its own sake because such wisdom depended exclusively on the permanent and necessary conditions of truth and reality. For the first time, knowledge was truly universal. In the remainder of this text I will present the contributions of one of the first and most important exponents of this way of thinking: Parmenides of Elea.

This book is structured in four chapters. The first is a presentation of pre-Parmenidean notions of time. Chapter 2 presents Parmenides’ contributions to the relation between time and necessity. Finally, chapter 3 and 4 portrays some of Parmenides’ influence in philosophy and science respectively." (p. 12)
Decker, Jessica Elbert, and Mayock, Matthew 2016. "Parmenides and Empedocles." In The Cambridge Handbook of Western Mysticism and Esotericism, edited by Magee, Glenn Alexander, 26-37. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Chapter 3: Parmendies and Empedocles, pp. 26-37.

"There is no dialectical process of methodically arriving at the pure singularity of “what is.” The interpretation that Parmenides intends us to “judge by reason” reflects a program of reading him that insists on limiting his focus.

Beyond the fact that there was no such conception of “reason” in Parmenides’s time and that reason only operates through a dialectic of “is” and “is not” that defies the logic Parmenides advances, this reading asserts that he consigns appearances to the category of “is not,” an unacceptable outcome as it would eliminate the world of experiences in which we live and move. Nevertheless, the classical depiction of Parmenides’s radical monism makes this assertion and can be traced back to Plato’s reading in Sophist, which set the precedent of exclusively focusing on “Truth” without the surrounding context that would allow it to be recognized as the endpoint of irony. Having artificially banished appearances from Parmenides’s account of what is, Plato retroactively generates the need to restore them to a role in philosophical inquiry, which he accomplishes by asserting them to be a mixture of “is” and “is not.” The irony in all this is that Plato ostensibly “saves” the appearances from Parmenides when it is the latter, in actuality, who gives them a higher ontological status by weaving them into his account of the eon. It would be absurd for Parmenides to say that sense experience “is not,” while maintaining that what “is not” cannot be experienced, recognized, or pointed out. But Plato’s interpretation prevailed, ensuring that the scope of what counted as a reading of Parmenides was all but permanently narrowed, and additionally that Empedocles could now only be seen as someone who tried – and failed – to resolve the problem generated by the Platonic reading of Parmenides." (pp. 31-32)
Della Rocca, Michael. 2020. The Parmenidean Ascent. New York: Oxford University Press.

"Throughout this book, you will see me engage with Parmenides and other historical figures in significant detail. You will also see me engage in deep explorations of contemporary and recent philosophy. This combination of pursuits may lead you to ask whether this is a book on the history of philosophy or in contemporary philosophy. And my playful but serious answer is: “Yes.” In other words, I reject the question, and this is precisely because I see the book as supporting a Parmenidean denial of the distinction between philosophy and the study of its history. In chapter 7, I will argue for this denial explicitly, but the book as a whole is meant to exhibit its truth.

I begin my Parmenidean journey in chapter 1 with what I take to be a strong case for a reading of Parmenides as what I (following others) will call a strict monism. Parmenides is, I contend, a strict monist in the sense that he rejects any kind of distinction or multiplicity whatsoever. On my reading, Parmenides affirms simply the reality of being; he does not affirm the reality of any individual being or beings and does not affirm any distinctions within being. (Proem, pp. XIII-XiV)
———. 2022. " Parmenides' insight and the possibility of logic." European Journal of Philosophy no. 30:565–577.

Abstract: "The purpose of this paper is twofold: to explain and render more accessible the arguments in a recent, important, and already famously difficult book and, on the basis of this appreciation and illumination, to level a criticism of the book that cuts deep and thereby opens up a new and powerful path to a paradoxical Parmenideanism. The book in question is Irad Kimhi's Thinking and Being. Kimhi is to be applauded for taking seriously Parmenidean challenges to negation and to nonbeing and for offering devastating criticisms of a Fregean (and Cartesian) distinction between the force and content of judgments, a distinction that Kimhi rightly shows to trade on unintelligible primitives. Nonetheless, in his response to the Parmenidean challenges, Kimhi is guilty of reliance on a number of similarly unintelligible primitives of his own. This failure on Kimhi's part leads the way to a radical Parmenidean view according to which distinctions, in general, are rejected."
DeLong, Jeremy C. 2015. "Rearranging Parmenides: B1: 31-32 and a Case for an Entirely Negative Doxa (Opinion)." Southwest Philosophy Review no. 31:177-186.

Abstract: "This essay explicates the primary interpretative import of B1: 31-32 in Parmenides poem (On Nature)—lines which have radical implications for the overall argument, and which the traditional arrangement forces into an irreconcilable dilemma. I argue that the “negative” reading of lines 31-32 is preferable, even on the traditional arrangement.

This negative reading denies that a third thing is to be taught to the reader by the goddess—a positive account of how the apparent world is to be “acceptably” understood. I then suggest that a rearrangement of the fragments would make more sense overall, while further supporting the “negative” reading as more natural and coherent. In particular, the rearrangement dispels the objection that, “if mortal opinions were not true, why would Parmenides include such a lengthy false account of the apparent world--an account which explicitly denies the conclusions of the earlier section, Truth?”
———. 2018. "Parmenides, Plato, and Mίμησις." In The Many Faces of Mimesis. Selected Essays from the 2017 Symposium on the Hellenic Heritage of Western Greece, edited by Reid, Heather L. and deLong, Jeremy C., 61-74. Sioux City, Iowa: Parnassos Press - Fonte Aretusa.

"Evidence for a Parmenidean influence on Plato’s Republic typically focuses on content from Bks. V-VI, and the development of Plato’s Theory of Forms. This essay aims to suggest that Plato’s censorship of poetic content in Bks. II-III—particularly the rules for portraying divine nature (376e-383c)—also draw heavily upon the Eleatic tradition, particularly Parmenides.(3) Identifying this further Eleatic influence will be enhanced by my own reading of Parmenides.(4) This reading advocates understanding Parmenides in a more Xenophanean-vein—i.e. by taking What-Is to be an explication of the essential qualities of divine nature, and the overall poem as rejecting traditional, mythopoetic accounts of divinity." (p. 61)

(3) Cf. John A Palmer, Plato's Reception of Parmenides (Oxford University Press, 1999); Ian Crystal, "Parmenidean Allusions in Republic V," Ancient Philosophy 16, no. 2 (1996).

(4) Jeremy DeLong, "From Ionian Speculation to Eleatic Deduction: Parmenides' Xenophanean-Based Theism," in Politics and Performance in Western Greece: Essays on the Hellenic Heritage of Sicily and Southern Italy, ed. Heather Reid; Davide Tanasi, The Heritage of Western Greece (Sioux City: Parnassos Press, 2017), 221-236.
Di Iulio, Erminia. 2020. "Identity’s Sustainability. Parmenides on Einai and Noein." In The Sustainability of Thought: An Itinerary through th History ofg Philosophy, edited by Giovannetti, Lorenzo, 19-43. Napoli: Bibliopolis.

"This paper deals with the problematic relationship between “being” and “thinking” – εἶναι and νοεῖν – in Parmenides’ Poem.

Roughly, two main interpretative approaches are to be distinguished: one that argues for the “identity of thinking and being”, the other, on the contrary, for their “non-identity”.

Broadly speaking, one of the main reasons for the “identity thesis” is Eleatic monism: some of the most important identity scholars, such as Gregory Vlastos, Charles Kahn, Anthony Long and David Sedley, actually maintain that the identity between “being” and “thinking” is a necessary consequence of the Eleatic system: if it were not the case that thinking coincides with being, they argue, it would follow that thinking is nothing at all. Conversely, many others, including Francesco Fronterotta and Michael Wedin, prefer to attribute to Parmenides a mere correspondence relation between the ontological and the logical-linguistic levels in order to avoid what they consider unpleasant yet necessary consequences of the identity thesis: it seems, they argue, that it is not really possible to ascribe to Parmenides the “identity between being and thinking” without committing Parmenides himself either to some kind of idealism or to a neo-platonic conception of being. Accordingly, it seems more reasonable to conclude that the fundamental concern arising from the Poem is to establish that it is not possible to conceive of a “thinking” that is not a “thought of something that exists”.

In the light of this, my proposal aims to answer those who reject the “identity thesis” in order to escape the idealistic and neo-platonic conclusions, by suggesting an alternative conception of “identity” and, thus, an alternative “identity thesis”.

Therefore, my paper will be structured as follows: in Section 1 those passages of the Poem where Parmenides seems to take a stand on this question will be examined; in Section 2 a specific account of the “identity thesis”, namely that proposed by Anthony Long, will be briefly discussed, since it is one of the most sophisticated opinions on this matter; in Section 3 a brief description of the contemporary “identity theories of truth” will be provided, because they are a useful instrument to highlight the difference between “identity between being and thinking” and “idealism”; finally, in Section 4 I will go back to the Eleatic perspective in order to provide a new account of the “identity thesis”. (pp. 19-20)
———. 2021. "Parmenides on ‘naming’ and ‘meaning’: a disjunctivist reading of the Poem." Philosophy no. 96:205-227.

Abstract: "A well-established tradition has argued that it is not legitimate to attribute to Parmenides a Fregean semantics, i.e. the distinction between ‘naming’ and ‘meaning’. Nonetheless, Parmenides claims more than once (B 8.53, B 9.1) that mortals do name reality, although incorrectly. As many scholars have emphasised, because it is fair neither to conclude that mortals’ names are ‘empty names’ nor dismiss Opinion's account (i.e., broadly speaking, the mortals’ account of reality) itself as meaningless, it seems that Parmenides is suggesting that some kind of distinction between what names refer to and what names mean must be drawn. In view of this, what is Parmenides’ account of names?

My suggestion is that in order to explain the Eleatic philosophy of language (and the Eleatic account of names) a step back is required. More specifically, Parmenides’ epistemology has to be taken into account. Indeed, if we assume that Parmenides is arguing for an ‘epistemological disjunctivism’ – such that the veridical and truthful state and the erroneous and deceptive state are essentially different – it will be clear that he is further arguing for what could be defined as a ‘semantic disjunctivism’, so that true speech and false speech are essentially different as well."
Diaz, María Elena. 2011. "Thought as perception: Aristotle's criticism of Parmenides in Metaphysics IV, 5." In Parmenides, 'Venerable and Awesome' (Plato, Theaetetus 183e), edited by Cordero, Néstor-Luis, 319-330. Las Vegas: Parmenides Publishing.

Summary: "This article analyzes the reasons for the inclusion of Parmenides inthe list of physicists who strayed away from the conception of phenomena contemplated in Aristotle’s support of the principle of non-contradiction in Metaphysics IV, 5, and the partial appropriation of the perceptual model of thinking present in Parmenidean developments. In this passage of Metaphysics, Aristotle mentions the verses that form part of fragment B16, where thought is explained in terms of a perception understood as a physical alteration. Aristotelian opposition to such conception of perception and thought is radical. In B3, however, there also appears a thinking scheme which involves capturing processes similar to perception, only that in this case, Aristotle appears to act both as critic and as heir of the Eleatic philosopher in his explanation of the capturing process of the simple objects of thought."
Dilcher, Roman. 2006. "Parmenides on the Place of Mind." In Common to Body and Soul: Philosophical Approaches to Explaining Living Behaviour in Greco-Roman Antiquity, edited by King, R. A. H., 31-48. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

"Parmenides seems to have no place in the history of the philosophical problems that are indicated by the phrase "common to body and soul".

While in Heraclitus we do find for the very first time a concept of soul as something distinct from the body that is responsible for thought, action and feeling, there is a basic dichotomy in Parmenides' thought that also has a bearing on the question of a possible relation of "body" and "soul": on the one hand the account of Being which involves the exercise of mind; on the other hand a theory of the physical world on the basis of the two elements Light and Night. The coherence of these two parts of Parmenides' poem has been much debated in terms of the possible relation of Being to Doxa. Fr.16, however, provides an account of mind in relation to the two elements of the doxastic world, and so it might contribute in a different way to a better understanding of how the two parts cohere." (p. 31)
Dolin Jr., Edwin F. 1962. "Parmenides and Hesiod." Harvard Studies in Classical Philology:93-98.

"It should be said at once, of course, that the power and brilliance are Parmenides' own and not borrowed from anyone. To assume, as this paper does, that the tradition from which Parmenides drew was the main poetic tradition of Homer and Hesiod is not to imply that hexameter poetry by itself somehow accounts for Parmenides. Rather, the assumption is that the tradition was there, pervasively and ineluctably, in the cultural atmosphere, that Parmenides used its motifs and imagery as freely and naturally as he breathed, counting them as allies in his poetic communication with Hellas, and that he criticized this cultural donnée whenever he saw fit, which was not seldom, by the very manner in which he made use of what he liked of it." (p. 93)

(...)

"This article seeks to extend the comparison with the Theogony by suggesting a specific parallel between Parmenides' daughters of the sun and the Theogony's Muses and by commenting on the parallel between Parmenides' gates of night and day and those of the Theogony.(3)

Its hypothesis is that Parmenides was deliberately attacking the archaic thought processes represented by Hesiod and wished to present himself as the exponent of a new intellectual approach which would be associated in its spirit with the Homeric ideal of the heroic individual." (p. 94)

(3) Theogony 736-57; Parmenides B. 1.11.
Domanski, Andrew. 2006. "The Journey of the Soul in Parmenides and the Katha Upanishad." Phronimon no. 7:47-59.

Abstract: "In the terse and compressed language of poetry, the Presocratic philosopher Parmenides of Elea expressed, for the first time in the West, the deepest ideas of nondualistic metaphysics. These ideas bear a close resemblance to, but are not necessarily derived from, the Vedantic philosophy which informs the Upanishads and other metaphysical texts of ancient India. The prooemium to the poem of Parmenides contains a graphic metaphor in which the soul’s progress towards ultimate truth is represented by the journey of a chariot. In developing his metaphor, Parmenides shows how it is Justice which determines the progress of the soul. His vision of Justice is both individual and universal.

This atricle examines Parmenides’s parable of the chariot in comparison with a remarkably similar image which occurs in the Katha Upanishad."
Drozdek, Adam. 2001. "Eleatic being: finite or infinite?" Hermes.Zeitschrift für Klassische Philologie no. 129:306-313.

Abstract: "The extant fragments indicate that there is a fundamental agreement between the two Eleatic philosophers, Melissus and Parmenides concerning characteristics of Being. Like Parmenides Melissus asserts that Being is eternal (30B1, B2, B4), immovable (B7.7-10, B10). complete (82), and unique (B5, B6). The physical world is unreal because it is characterized by "change, multiplicity, temporal succession and imperfection" (B8). Being cannot be known through sensory perception because senses indicate that things are constantly changing, which directly contradicts the immutability of Being (B7). However, as commonly assumed, there is at least one fundamental difference between them. Melissus considers Being infinite, whereas for Parmenides Being is finite because it is held in limits (28B8.26,31,42) and is compared to a sphere (B8.42-43). Does the limited/unlimited difference signify the modification introduced by Melissus to the Eleatic philosophy?"
———. 2001. "Parmenides' Theology." Eranos.Acta Philologica Suecana no. 99:4-15.

Reprinted as Chapter 4 in: A. Drozdek, Greek Philosophers as Theologians. The Divine Arche, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007. pp. 43-52.

Abstract: "Parmenides' system has always been an inexhaustible source of fascination because of the grandeur and, at the same time, paradoxical character of the ontological vision.

Even after centuries of interpretations, there is little agreement on the meaning of the system and its particular components. However, there seems to be a common slant in these interpretations, at least in the last hundred years, starting with the groundbreaking publication of Hermann Diels on Parmenides' poem,(1) which deemphasizes the religious and theological components of Parmenidean ontology and epistemology. These theological components are very often glossed over – sometimes they are barely mentioned, sometimes discounted as a mere metaphor (beginning with Diels), sometimes treated as mere embellishments.(2) One reason is that Parmenides nowhere calls Being, which he discusses in particular in fr. B8, God, and the Olympian personae he mentions are discounted as a bow toward traditional mythology with very little religious significance. It seems, however, that such an approach is unjustified, that the main concern of Parmenides in his poem is with theological issues, and that the poem is an attempt to show the way of truth, which is the way of acquiring true religious knowledge about God."

(1) Hermann Diels, Parmenides Lehrgedicht (Berlin: Reimer, 1897).

(2) It is said, for instance, that “the fact that the goddess remains anonymous shows that she represents no religious figure at all … Parmenides could not have attributed any reality to the goddess because for him there exists only one thing, the unique and homogenous Being,” Leonardo Tarán, Parmenides (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965), p. 31.
Duman, Musa. 2012. "Reflections on Parmenides’ Monism." Kaygı: Uludağ Üniversitesi Fen Edebiyat Fakültesi Felsefe Dergisi no. 19:105-121.

Abstract: "In this article, I attempt at exploring Parmenides’ understanding of Being, that is, the notion of esti, and the basic function of esti in his overall monistic vision. I also discuss, in this context, the identity of einai and noein, the internal connections between esti and aletheia as well as what he means by the concept of logos. I argue in detail that Parmenides’ monism has a very peculiar character in that he does not speak about one big single entity, but about the uniqueness of Being itself as the ground of all things in the cosmos. In that sense, one can qualify it as non-material monism and, at the same time, as non-ontical monism. But it also contains an identity philosophy, that is, the view that Being can only be spoken of in terms of identity statements. I try to develop the thesis that it is possible to interpret Parmenides’ reflections on esti with respect to the difference between Being itself and a being, (the ontological difference) which, arguably, corresponds to the way Parmenides contrasts esti vis-à-vis plurality and change, while identifying the former with pure being (to eon) and the latter with non-being (to me eon)."
Dunham, Jeremy, Gran, Iain Hamilton, and Watson, Sean. 2011. Idealism: The History of a Philosophy. New York: Routledge.

Chapter 1. Parmenides and the birth of ancient idealism, pp. 10-18.

"Thus Parmenides’ axioms outline a problem for any systematic, monistic philosophy. If all is one, as the Way of Truth claims, then all that is must be accounted for in its terms. Parmenides does this by negation: the one is uncreated, indestructible, does not come into being, has no parts, and so on.

The problem is, if being and thinking are the same, and yet what- is- not cannot be thought, how is negation thinkable? If the goddess’s test is solely logical, then there must be a divide between the logical (what can be thought) and the ontological (what is), marring the consistency of the system. If, as Kahn has it, the logical laws of thought constitute the very structure of reality, then “what is not” must be. One solution to this is to argue that the difference lies in the content of thought: the thought of what is, that is, has an object, whereas the thought of what is not has none whatsoever. Would it then remain true, however, that “thinking and being are the same”, or would a better translation run “for it is the same thing that can be thought and can be” (Cornford [Plato and Parmenides. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul] 1939: 31; Burnet [Early Greek Philosophy, 4th edn. London: Adam & Charles Black] 1930: 173), since this would allow that “what is not” cannot be thought, without sacrificing consistency?

The problem of negation continues to play a major role in the development of idealism, most especially in Hegel’s dialectic (see ch. 8). Plato’s attempted accommodation of not-being, against Parmenidean strictures, is crucial in the subsequent development of idealism, and we turn to it in Chapter 2. Yet Parmenides’ renown is equally due to his advocacy of this direct contact between thought and reality. There are accordingly many realist accounts of the same identity in subsequent idealists. Bosanquet, for example, argues that “It is all but impossible to distinguish nature from mind; to separate them is impossible” (1912 [The Principle of Individuality and Value: The Gifford Lectures for 1911. London: Macmillan] 367); Whitehead, that “No entity can be conceived in complete abstraction from the system of the universe” (PR [Process and Reality. London: Macmillan. 1929] 3). As a simultaneous testament to the range of Parmenides’ identity thesis, and warning against an oversimplified account of idealism as inherently anti-naturalistic, both retain their idealism within a naturalistic framework." (pp. 17-18)
English, Robert B. 1912. "Parmenides' indebtedness to the Pythagoreans." Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association no. 43:81-94.

"A close examination of all the "opinions" shows that they, even more than his statements of "truth," relate to the doctrines ascribed to the Pythagoreans. There is scarcely a tenet set forth in the " opinions" which may not be referred directly or indirectly to them as they are represented in Aristotle. Not more than ten different propositions exist in this part of his work. Of these, two deal with first principles, three deal with astronomical truths, three have an astrophysical significance, one deals with procreation, and one with the nature of thought. The six dealing with astronomical or astrophysical theories undoubtedly have reference to the Pythagoreans. Of the two referring to first principles one seems to have resemblance to Anaximander, and the other to the dual principle of the Pythagoreans. To the theory of right and left in pro- creation corresponds indirectly the Pythagorean idea of right and left as two first principles. To the postulate that "that which thinks is the nature of mingled parts in man and the excess is thought" there is no parallel in the Pythagorean doctrine. But Parmenides' own postulate on this point that "thinking will not be found without being, in which it is expressed" corresponds in substance to the belief of the Pythagoreans that soul and mind are properties of number (being), though Parmenides makes no mention of this Pythagorean symbol." (pp. 92-93)

(...)

"It seems evident, then, from this study (1) that the " opinions" of Parmenides refer in large part to the doctrines of the early Pythagoreans; (2) that his treatise on "truth" is largely concerned with a refutation of their arguments; (3) that not only his astronomical views but also his cosmological and ontological views generally were affected by the Pythagorean system; (4) that no violence to fact is done in setting the elementary metaphysical number theory of the Pythagoreans as early in time as the ascendency of Parmenides." (p. 94)
Evans, Matthew. 2021. "The Work of Justice in Parmenides B 8 " Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy no. 60:1-44.

Abstract: "Near the end of an early argument in Parmenides B8, the figure of ‘Justice’ is said to hold ‘what-is’ within shackles, so as to prevent it from being either generated or destroyed. Interpreters standardly assume that this claim is to be understood, not as a premise of that argument, but as a picturesque expression of the logical or rational necessity that binds the truth (or the acceptance) of its premises to the truth (or the acceptance) of its conclusion. The aim of this paper will be to cast doubt on this interpretation, and to develop an alternative to it. If this is right, then the work of Justice, both in B8 and in the poem as a whole, is far more robust than we have often been led to believe. The implications of this discovery for our understanding of Parmenides in particular, and of European thought in general, are both momentous and unsettling."
Ferella, Chiara. 2018. "‘A Path for Understanding’: Journey Metaphors in (Three) Early Greek Philosophers." In Paths of Knowledge. Interconnection(s) between Knowledge and Journey in the Greco-Roman World, edited by Ferella, Chiara and Breytenbach, Cilliers, 47-73. Berlin: Topoi.

Summary: "This paper analyzes the use of journey metaphors by three early Greek philosophers, Heraclitus, Parmenides, and Empedocles. My investigation emphasizes the powerful, malleable and polyvalent nature of this metaphor cluster both with reference to diverse authors and in the same text. It highlights, moreover, the relationship between metaphor, imagination and philosophical argumentation, above all when a fresh metaphorical stratum is introduced within an already established metaphor. Finally, it investigates to what extent the introduction of a fresh metaphorical stratum contributes to creative thinking and, by structuring and organizing new insights, to theoretical argumentation."
———. 2019. "Ζεὺς μοῦνος and Parmenides’ What-is." In The Derveni Papyrus: Unearthing Ancient Mysteries, edited by Santamaría Álvarez, Marco Antonio, 65-75. Leiden: Brill.

"In this paper I attempt to analyse one particular echo, in Parmenides' poem, of the ancient Orphic poem quoted in the Derveni Papyrus: one of the attributes of Parmenides' what-is, i .e. μονογενής (fr. 8-4 DK}, might hint at a line of this poem quoted in column XVI of the Derveni Papyrus: αὐτὸς δ᾽ ἄρα μοῦνος ἔγεντο (OF [Albertus Bernabé (ed.), Orphicorum Et Orphicis Similium Testimonia Et Fragmenta]12.4).(3) This line concludes a passage that recounts the result of an extraordinary swallowing by Zeus, at the climax of his power over the cosmos and his predecessors. My aim here is to enquire into this particular echo with reference to its implications for Parrnenides' philosophy. I will argue that this parallel is not a mere rhetorical device connected to the epic form, like, say, a literary topos, but has a function on a philosophical level. Consequently, I will first analyse whether an intentional echo of this Orphic myth may make sense in Parmenides' philosophical system and, if this is the case, I shall deduce from this evidence both Parmenides' intention behind his reference to this myth, which is philosophically meaningful in the Orphic theogonic plot, and the implications it has for Parrnenides' account of what-is." (p. 65)

(3) This echo has been already highlighted by scholars of Orphism, such as Burkert 1999: 79-80, 2005, 2008, Bernabé 2002b, and 2004b: 130-1. It seems, however, completely overlooked by scholars of Parmenides'

philosophy of whom, as far as I know, only S. Ranzato 2015: 160-1 noticed and registered it.

References

Burkert, W. 1999. Da Omero ai Magi. La tradizione orientale nella cultura greca, Venezia.

Burkert, W. 2005. "La teogonia originale di Orfeo secondo ii Papiro di Derveni," in G. Guidorizzi - M. Melotti (eds.), Orfeo e le sue metamorfosi. Mito, arte, poesia, Roma, 46-64 (=Burkert 2006, 95-111).

Burkert, W. 2006. Kleine Schriften III: Mystica, Orphica, Pythagorica, ed. by F. Graf, Gottingen.

Burkert, W. 2008. "El dios solitario. Orfeo, fr. 12 Bernabé, en contexto," in A. Bernabé - F. Casadesus (eds.), Orfeo y la tradicion órfica: un reencuentro, Madrid, 579-89.

Ranzato, S. 2015. Il kouros e la verità. Polivalenza delle immagini nel poema di Parmenide, Pisa.
Ferreira, Fernando. 1999. "On the Parmenidean Misconception." History of Philosophy & Logical Analysis no. 2:37-49.

"Plato wrestled with the problem of falsehood on several occasions. His mature position on this issue appears in the Sophist. In this paper, I do not propose to analyse Plato’s work on the problem of falsity. However, I do find that Plato’s Sophist is an important tool, even a reasonably accurate guide, for understanding Parmenides and the sources of his misconception. I make two main claims in this paper. Firstly, I claim that Parmenides had an erroneous conception of the meaning of sentences, a conception that in Parmenides’ hands took the strong form not only of being unable to make sense of falsehoods but also of being unable to make sense of true negative predications. I call such a conception a referential theory of the meaning of sentences (henceforth, an RTMS). Secondly, I claim that Plato’s double-theory of “limited mixing” plus “negation as otherness” – as expounded in the Sophist (251a–259d) – is still a form of an RTMS, even though of a weaker kind than that of Parmenides.

This paper is organized as follows. In the next section, I focus on the weaker gradation of an RTMS and I argue that this gradation, while still unable to make sense of falsehoods, nevertheless enlarges greatly the scope of significant sentences (albeit at an ontological price) and is able to make sense of true negative predications. The relation between a weak RTMS and Plato’s above mentioned double-theory is suggested in the text via what I call Plato’s maneuver. However, this relation is not fully discussed in this article since I believe that a proper treatment of such an issue requires a discussion that is beyond the scope of the present paper. In my view, this discussion must include an account of the finale of the Sophist (after 259e), in which Plato tries to make sense of falsehoods.

I plan such an undertaking at a latter date. In the third section, I discuss the first part of Parmenides’ poem in light of a strong RTMS. In the course of this discussion, I propose a rather strong correlation between verses 3–4 and verses 40–41 of fragment 8 of the poem. This correlation is, to my knowledge, new in the literature. Finally, in the last section, I briefly consider an objection to the interpretation of the poem of Parmenides proposed in this article." (p. 38)
Finkelberg, Aryeh. 1986. "The Cosmology of Parmenides." American Journal of Philology no. 107:303-317.

"Our main source of information about the cosmological component of Parmenides' doctrine of Opinion - apart from the first three and a half abstruse lines of fr. 12 - is Aëtius' account. This, however, is generally regarded as confused, garbled and incompatible with fr. 12.

The reconstruction of Parmenides' cosmology is thus considered a hopeless task, for "it must inevitably be based on many conjectures."'

I, however, cannot accept this conclusion, for, as I argue below, it is possible to provide a reasonably intelligible account of Aëtius' report (except for the corrupt sentence about the goddess) which is also compatible with fr. 12, provided, of course, that we are not bent upon proving our sources incompatible, but rather seek to reconcile them." (p. 303)

"Aëtius' report reads as follows:(2)

"Parmenides says that there are rings wound one around the other, one made of the rare, the other of the dense, and between them there are others mixed of light and darkness. What surrounds them all like a wall is solid, beneath which there is a fiery ring, and what is in the middle of all rings is ˂solid>: around which there is again a fiery [sc. ring]. The middlemost of the mixed rings is for them all the ˂origin> and ˂cause> of motion and coming into being which he calls steering goddess, and key-holder, and Justice, and Necessity. Air has been separated off from the earth vaporized because of the latter's stronger compression; the sun is an exhalation of fire and such is the Milky Way. The moon is a mixture of both air and fire. Aether is topmost, surrounding all; beneath it there is that fire-like part which we call sky; beneath it is what surrounds the earth." (p. 304, notes omitted)

(2) Aët. II 1, 7 (DK 28 A 37):
———. 1986. "'Like by Like’ and Two Reflections of Reality in Parmenides." Hermes.Zeitschrift für Klassische Philologie no. 114:405-412.

"The main problem confronting the student of Parmenides' doctrine is the nature of the relation between the two pictures of reality posited in his poem: reality as Being and reality as a mixture of the two 'forms', light and night.

To characterize the Parmenidean doctrine as ontological dualism explains nothing - the question is, what is the motivation for this dualism? Moreover, the Parmenidean teaching is epistemological rather than ontological dualism, for what is described in the Way of Seeming is not a different reality from that described in the Way of Truth, but a different knowledge of the same reality - the universe(1) - a knowledge declared inferior. On the assumption that the Parmenidean dualism is epistemological, we must therefore examine how man cognizes reality, with a view to isolating the conditions which determine the cognition of reality as Being or as a mixture of the 'forms'." (p. 405)

(1) That Parmenides conceived of Being as the unity of all things is the view of Plato (e.g. Parm. 128 A, 152 E), Aristotle (e.g. Met. 986b 27), and Theophrastus (e.g. ap. Hippol. Ref. I 11).
———. 1988. "Parmenides: Between Material and Logical Monism." Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie no. 70:1-14.

"To recapitulate. The problem of the monistic conception of reality, insoluble when approached on physical terms, was solved by Parmenides by inventing the notion of Being. When translated into terms of the doctrine of Being, monism became the logical necessity to conceive Being as the only thing that exists, while pluralism, that is, the assumption of the existence of something beside Being, revealed itself as the fallacy of admitting the existence of such a thing as not-Being. However, it was not the problem of Ionian monism to which Parmenides' thought was committed: the idea of cosmic Fire underlying the notion of Being shows that it was the failure of his own vision of reality as a material unity, a vision which he shared with the Ionians, to be truly monistic, that prompted Parmenides to a thorough examination of the pattern of current monism, resulting in a new idea of unity and a revision of the standing of cosmology in the monistic doctrine. In its genesis, the Parmenidean teaching is then a material monistic doctrine in which the material principle, Fire, is replaced by Being, while the cosmology is reinterpreted as a pluralistic misconception and demonstrated to be untenable on the application of true names as they are established in the ἀλήθεια.

However the underlying material monistic pattern still remains operative: Fire persists as a visualisation of Being, thus providing the rationale for the cosmology and determining its specific profile, while the cosmology remains - not a true but nevertheless to some degree a valid account. The Parmenidean system is thus not self-contained, for the formative conception of Fire, the vision which mediates the transition from Being to the cosmology, thus making the teaching into a coherent whole, remains outside the formally posited doctrine." (pp. 12-13)
———. 1988. "Parmenides' Foundation of the Way of Truth." Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy no. 6:39-67.

"The problem of the subject of estin and ouk estin in B 2.3 and 5 is one of the most controversial issues in Parmenides scholarship. The usual approach is that estin and ouk estin have a subject, which, however, remains unexpressed. Now by unexpressed subject one may mean that (a) a given utterance has a logical subject which is not expressed grammatically but is supplied by the immediate context, or (b) a given utterance has a logical subject which is neither expressed by means of a grammatical subject nor supplied by the immediate context. The case (a) is an instance of an ordinary linguistic phenomenon called ellipsis; the case (b) is either grammatically nonsensical or an example of unintelligible speech." (p. 39)

(...)

"Below I argue that einai is the only subject that meets this requirement. Proceeding from this assumption, I argue that einai should be distinguished from eon and that the 'ways' of B 2 are not so much ontological statements as logical-linguistic patterns whose truth and falsehood are self-evident.

These patterns serve in Parmenides as the basis of the subsequent deduction of true existential assertions about Being and not-Being, and I try to show that, if taken in this perspective, all the extant fragments preceding B 8, from B 2 to B 7, constitute a single argument whose detailed reconstruction I propose in the second section of the article. Finally, in the third section, I examine, proceeding from the conclusions arrived at, the question of truth and falsehood in Parmenides in a more general context, which helps to shed light on the respective logical standing of the two parts of Parmenides' poem, the Aletheia and the Doxa." (p. 42)
———. 1997. "Xenophanes' Physics, Parmenides Doxa and Empedocles Theory of Cosmogonical Mixture." Hermes.Zeitschrift für Klassische Philologie no. 125:1-16.

Abstract: "Although the resemblances between Empedocles' and Parmenides' physical theories are commonly recognized, in speaking of the former's philosophical debt to the latter commentators usually focus on theἀλήθεια, paying much less attention, if any, to the δόξα (1). To me, this approach suggests that the role of the δόξαin fashioning Empedocles' physical doctrine is not sufficiently appreciated and calls for further discussion; consequently I propose a brief survey of Parmenides' δόξα with a view to elucidating systematic correlations between his and Empedocles' physical theories. Further, I intend to argue that Empedocles' physical doctrine is the final stage of a development which can be traced through Parmenides' δόξα back to Xenophanes' 'physics'. I believe that the novelty of

Xenophanes' 'physics' has not been duly appraised and its role as a forerunner of Parmenides' δόξα largely overlooked."

(1) Thus, for example, in speaking of Parmenides' influence in the 'Conclusion' to his investigation of Empedocles' thought, D. O'Brien, Empedocles' Cosmic Cycle, Cambridge 1969, 237-249, does not even mention the δόξα; similarly, B. Inwoord, The Poem of Empedocles, Toronto 1992, 22-28, addresses only theἀλήθεια.
———. 1999. "Being, Truth and Opinion in Parmenides." Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie no. 81:233-248.

"The traditional premise of Parmenidean scholarship is that the theory of Being renders the phenomenal world merely apparent and the account of this world in the Doxa fallacious. Accordingly, commentators find themselves reckoning with the tantalizing question of the rationale of Parmenides' supplementing a true theory with a false one. In what follows, I propose to consider the thesis that Parmenides' Being is consistent with material heterogeneity and that, accordingly, the two parts of the poem combine to yield an exhaustive account of reality." (p. 233)

(...)

"This construal of Parmenides' thought enables an understanding of his poem as a unified philosophical project in which the Doxa has its rightful place, and extricates us from the hopeless dilemma that either Parmenides' acceptance of his own conclusions was qualified for the upheld their truth unqualifiedly and was mad.(37)" (p. 248)

(37) As stated by M. Furth, "Elements of Eleatic Ontology," in A. P. D. Mourelatos (ed.), The Pre-Socratics, Princeton, 1993, 268; cf. C. H. Kahn, "The Thesis of Parmenides," Review of Metaphysics 22, 1969, 715.
Floyd, Edwin. 1992. "Why Parmenides Wrote in Verse." Ancient Philosophy no. 12:251-265.

"Parmenides chose verse (instead of prose) for its many resonances highlighting deception. Prophron at 1.22, for example, has an apparently straightforward meaning "kindly", but in Homer it is used in contexts of divine disguise. Later on in Parmenides' poem, the focus on the immobility of Being (8.37-38) recalls Athena's fateful deception of Hektor in Iliad, book 22. Even more clearly, Doxa shows the pattern too, since the transition from Aletheia at 8.52 parallels a context (Solon, fr l.2, ed. West) in which feigned madness brings about the Athenians's regaining Salamis."
Folit-Weinberg, Benjamin. 2022. Homer, Parmenides, and the Road to Demonstration. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Parmenides the Late Archaic Poet, pp. 65-116.

"Parmenides’ many other astonishing achievements do not, however, eclipse the fact that his confection of these three features – (i) proceeding from a starting point that has to be accepted (ii) by strict deductive arguments (iii) to establish an inescapable conclusion – marks a fundamental inflection point in the history of Western thought. The clarity with which we may state this is matched only by the intractable obscurity surrounding the development and fusion of these three features in Parmenides’ poem.

This remains so despite agreement about Parmenides’ importance, and despite the quantity (and quality) of recent scholarship devoted to understanding Parmenides in relation to his Presocratic predecessors and successors. Exploring the origins of this complex of features (i–iii) and providing an account of their emergence, both as individual items and as a complex formed from them (viz. a ‘demonstration’), forms the central task of this book." (pp. 2-3, a note omitted)

(...)

"First: archaic Greek roads were not at all like our own. The physical nature and social function of archaic Greek roads (to be discussed in Chapter 1.1) have been neglected by analysts of Parmenides, but have a crucial bearing on our understanding of Fragment 8." (p. 12)

(...)

"Second: the semantics of the word hodos and its neighbours in the Homeric semantic field impose a distinctive shape upon the overarching contours of Parmenides’ hodos dizēsios. The semantic analysis conducted in Chapter 1.2 will suggest a conceptual footprint whose outlines are defined by the fact that in the Homeric semantic field, a hodos is always a hodos to somewhere, a journey oriented towards, and undertaken with reference to, a fixed, stable final destination, to an end.(54) The thematic use of the word hodos thus inscribes the endeavour denoted by the phrase hodos dizēsios within a distinctively teleological framework." (p. 12, a note omitted)

(54) This is part of a larger study of the semantics of road words in Homer; see Folit-Weinberg (forthcoming, 2022). ["The Language of Roads and Travel in Homer: hodos and keleuthos." Classical Quarterly, 72(1):1-24]
———. 2023. "Parmenides’ hodos dizēsios, Models, and the Emergence of to eon." Gaia. Revue interdisciplinaire sur la Grèce archaïque no. 26:1-15.

Abstract: "Parmenides is widely credited with inventing the concept of to eon, “being” or “what‑is”; in this article, I argue that Parmenides’ use of the image and model of the hodos—of the “road”, “route”, or “journey”—played an important role in this invention. I begin by exploring the genealogical model that forms the intellectual backdrop to Parmenides’ poem. Next, I introduce the discussion of models developed by the historians and philosophers of science Mary Hesse and Mary Morgan; this section identifies three roles that models can play in the development of new concepts.

Finally, I explore which of these options best describes the relationship between Parmenides’ use of the model of the hodos and the emergence of the concept of to eon in his poem."
Frank, Luanne T. 2012. "Nietzsche is Said in Many Ways: Nietzsche's Presences in Heidegger's Parmenides." In Heidegger & Nietzsche, edited by Babich, Babette, Denker, Alfred and Zaborowski, Holger, 247-262. Amsterdam: Rodopi.

"My intent in what follows is to show that Heidegger's Parmenides is suffused with Nietzsche, making it essential, if this work is to be apprehended as a whole, that Nietzsche be accorded a recognition there that he typically fails to receive. I also wish to show how and to what ends he appears there. But first: since much of what is to be said here will depend for its point on an awareness of given aspects of the work, it will be necessary to review certain of them preliminarily.

The Parmenides is a lecture course of Winter Semester l942-43 that saw print only in 1982. Page for page, it is thematically one of Heidegger's richest,(2) and one of his most intricately constructed. It also marks crucial philosophical and political developments in his thought. Nietzsche figures prominently in these developments and among Heidegger's primary themes, as we shall see." (p. 247, a note omitted)

(2) Agnes Heller, "Parmenides and the Battle of Stalingrad", Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 19, no. 2 (1996), and 20, no. 1 (1997), 247, lists for the work thirty-one themes, acknowledging the list to be incomplete. One would want to add to her list at least an additional twenty.
Fränkel, Hermann Ferdinand. 1962. Early Greek Poetry and Philosophy. A history of Greek epic, lyric, and prose to the middle of the fifth century. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovic.

Translated from the German Dichtung und Philosophie des frühen Griechentums (second revised edition 1962) by Moses Hadas and James Willis.

Chapter VII Philosophy and Empirical Science at the end of the Archaic Period: (c) Parmenides, pp. 349-370.

"The core of Parmenides' philosophy is metaphysical in its nature.

To come face to face with that reality beyond the senses which had disclosed to him, the poet had to mount in spirit beyond this world in which we live. Whenever he reflected upon his lofty ideas, he felt himself' carried away into a realm of light beyond all earthly things. In the introduction to his poem he describes this experience, and since ordinary words are incapable of conveying anything so far beyond the ordinary, he conveys it in images and symbols.(2) (pp. 350-351)

(...)

"We have now in all essential points come to the end of our information about the philosophy of Parmenides. It unites grandeur of intuition with strictness of logic. He had gazed upon Being in all its plenitude and glory, but also in all its austerity and exclusiveness.

Just as Xenophanes had chosen to believe in god as god and as nothing else, so Parmenides worked out his notion of Being as pure Being and nothing else; and he used his razor-edged dialectic to defend it against all common-sense doubts as the unique and perfect actuality, The metaphysical spirit here rules supreme.

This metaphysical spirit (cf. 1, 1 θυμός) is most completely expressed in the opening, in which the philosopher describes his own ascent into pure and inerrant reason in dramatic and vigorous images. There is a sequence of three scenes: the furious journey from night into day; the passing of a gate that opens to one man only; the gracious reception on the other side. The autobiographical 'I' at first appears quite openly; then it is latent and implied in the horses, chariot, maidens, etc.; then directly again in the address (1, 22ff.), where it is ennobled by the goddess' hand-clasp, to be replaced by 'you' on the lips of the divine speaker. This 'you' has a personal character as long as it is denoting (as in 24-32) the recipient of an exclusive favour, one who has raised himself above the fluctuations of humanity. But when the 'you' recurs later, as it sometimes does, it denotes only the audience of the lecture-in one instance Parmenides particularly (8, 61), elsewhere anyone who through his intermediacy will hear or read the poem." (p. 365)

(2) Probably this was why Parmenides chose verse: fr. 1 could not have been expressed in the Greek prose of his time.
———. 1975. "Studies in Parmenides." In Studies in Presocratic Philosophy. Vol. II: The Eleatics and Pluralists, edited by Furley, David J. and Allen, R. E., 1-47. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Partial English translation of Parmenidesstudien (Nachrichten der Göttinger Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften 1930, 153-192).

"My intention in the following studies is to correct and extend certain essential aspects of our present knowledge of the system of Parmenides by criticism and interpretation of original fragments and testimonia. In so doing, I shall take particular care to keep dose to the wording of the original text, as is done as a matter of course in the interpretation of 'pure' literature, but is easily neglected in the case of a strictly philosophical text, where the content appears to speak for itself, quite independently of the words which happen to be used. And yet much will be radically misunderstood, and many of the best, liveliest and most characteristic features of the doctrine will be missed, if one fails to read the work as an epic poem which belongs to its own period, and to approach it as a historical document, through its language.

These studies are presented in such a way that only Diels-Kranz is required as a companion." ( p. 1)

"As Parmenides himself says (B 3), his thought runs in a circle; it proves itself by itself, just as Being rests in itself: For equal to itself symmetrically on all sides, symmetrically it meets its πείρατα (104) to translate more exactly the vivdly empirical έγκύρειe: 'it happens everywhere upon its final forms.' Being has reached its formation symmetrically in every direction.

So has the theory of Reality; and with these words it is concluded." (p. 36)
Fratticci, Walter. 2020. "« Apeonta », « pareonta » : on fragment B4 DK " Anais de Filosofia Clássica de Rio de Janeiro no. 14:246-270.

Abstract: "The hermeneutical horizon of my work is provided by the extent of the discussion of the relationship between the doctrine of the truth and the doctrine of opinion as are dealt with in Parmenidean thought and work. Rejecting the vision of any separation or opposition between the two parts in which the Parmenidean poem has traditionally been divided, I argue in favour of its theoretical unity. In this way, the ontology lays the foundations for an innovative explanation of natural phenomena. After having highlighted how this unity is required by the general structure of Parmenides' thought, I show how the B4 DK fragment represents the place where Parmenides constructs the passage from ontology to the explanation of natural phenomena."
Frère, Jean. 2011. "Mortals (βροτοί) According to Parmenides." In Parmenides, 'Venerable and Awesome' (Plato, Theaetetus 183e), edited by Cordero, Néstor-Luis, 135-146. Las Vegas: Parmenides Publishing.

Summary: "It is a common opinion that when Parmenides refers to “mortals,” he is referring to all human beings. But in fact, when he talks of “mortals,” he implies only a limited fraction of humanity: those thinkers who have elaborated clever but nevertheless insufficient or misleading theories about the origin of things and the cosmos. This can be observed in fragment 6, where the formula “mortals who know nothing,” far from implying all humanity, refers only to Heraclitus and his disciples. In the same way, in fragment 8.53–61, “mortals” who acknowledge two separate types of light and night to apprehend the structure of the cosmos are only the Pythagoreans, not all humans."
Frings, Manfred. 1988. "Parmenides: Heidegger's 1942-1943 Lecture Held at Freiburg University." Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology no. 19:15-33.

"In what follows, I wish to present a number of essentials of Heidegger's lecture, originally entitled, "Heraclitus and Parmenides," which he delivered at Freiburg University in the Winter Semester of 1942/1943. This was at a time when the odds of World War II had turned sharply against the Nazi regime in Germany. Stalingrad held out and the Germans failed to cross the Volga that winter. Talk of an impending "invasion" kept people in suspense. Cities were open to rapidly increasing and intensifying air raids. There wasn't much food left.

It is amazing that any thinker could have been able to concentrate on pre-Socratic thought at that time. In the lecture, there are no remarks made against the allies; nor are there any to be found that would even remotely support the then German cause. But Communism is hit hard once by Heidegger, who says that it represents an awesome organization-mind in our time.

There are two factors that somewhat impeded my endeavor of presenting the contents of this lecture:

1. Heidegger had originally entitled the lecture "Heraclitus and Parmenides." The 1942/43 lecture was followed in 1943 and 1944 by two more lectures on Heraclitus. 2 When I read the manuscripts of the 1942/43 lecture for the first time, I was stunned that Heraclitus was mentioned just five times, and, even then, in more or less loose contexts. I decided that the title of the lecture should be reduced to just "Parmenides" in order to accommodate the initial expectations of the reader and his own thought pursuant to having read and studied it.

2. While reading the lecture-manuscripts for the first time, another troubling technicality came to my attention: long stretches of the lecture hardly even deal with Parmenides himself, and Heidegger seems to get lost in a number of areas that do, prima facie, appear to be irrelevant to Parmenides. And Heidegger was rather strongly criticized for this in the prestigious literary section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung to the effect that it was suggested that I could have done even better had I given the lecture an altogether different title and omitted the name Parmenides." (p. 15, notes omitted).
———. 1991. "Heidegger's Lectures on Parmenides and Heraclitus (1942-1944)." Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology no. 22:197-199.

"This is a discussion of the coverage of three Lectures Heidegger held on Parmenides and Heraclitus from 1942 to 1944. It is designed on the background of his personal experience during the trip he made to Greece in 1962 as recorded in his diary. The question is raised whether his 1943 arrangement of 10 Heraclitus fragments could be extended by "refitting transformations" of other fragments. The three Lectures are seen as tethered to Heidegger's 1966/67 Heraclitus Seminar. Central to his trip was the island of Delos where he seemingly experienced the free region of Aletheia. A "fragment" in his diary is suggested as a motto for all three Lectures."
Fritz, Kurt von. 1945. "Νοῦς, νοεῖν, and Their Derivatives in the Pre-Socratic Philosophy (Excluding Anaxagoras). Part I. From the Beginnings to Parmenides." Classical Philology no. 40:223-242.

Reprinted (with the second part) in: Alexander P. D. Mourelatos, The Pre-Socratics: A Collection of Critical Essays, New York: Anchor Press, 1974; second revised edition, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993, pp. 23-52 (on Parmenides see pp. 43-52).

"In an earlier article (1) I tried to analyze the meaning or meanings of the words noos and noein in the Homeric poems, in preparation for an analysis of the importance of these terms in early Greek philosophy. The present article will attempt to cope with this second and somewhat more difficult problem, but to the exclusion of the nous of Anaxagoras, since this very complicated concept requires a separate investigation." p. 23 of the reprint.

So far it might seem as if Parmenides' concept of noos is still essentially the same as that of his predecessors, including his contemporary Heraclitus. In fact, however, Parmenides brings in an entirely new and heterogeneous element. It is a rather remarkable fact that Heraclitus uses the particle gar only where he explains the ignorance of the common crowd. There is absolutely no gar or any other particle of the same sense in any of the passages in which he explains his own view of the truth. He or his noos sees or grasps the truth and sets it forth. There is neither need nor room for arguments. Homer and Hesiod, likewise, when using the term noos, never imply that someone comes to a conclusion concerning a situation so that the statement could be followed up with a sentence beginning with "for" or "because." A person realizes the situation. That is all. In contrast to this, Parmenides in the central part of his poem has a gar, an épei, oun, eineka, ouneka in almost every sentence. He argues, deduces, tries to prove the truth of his statements by logical reasoning. What is the relation of this reasoning to the noos?

The answer is given by those passages in which the goddess tells Parmenides which "road of inquiry" he should follow with his noos and from which roads he must keep away his noema.

These roads, as the majority of the fragments clearly show, are roads or lines of discursive thinking, expressing itself in judgments, arguments, and conclusions. Since the noos is to follow one of the three possible roads of inquiry and to stay away from the others, there can be no doubt that discursive thinking is part of the function of the noos. Yet -- and this is just as important -- noein is not identical with a process of logical deduction pure and simple in the sense of formal logic, a process which through a syllogistic mechanism leads from any set of related premises to conclusions which follow with necessity from those premises, but also a process which in itself is completely unconcerned with, and indifferent to, the truth or untruth of the original premises. It is still the primary function of the noos to be in direct touch with ultimate reality. It reaches this ultimate reality not only at the end and as a result of the logical process, but in a way is in touch with it from the very beginning, since, as Parmenides again and again points out, there is no noos without the eon, in which it unfolds itself. In so far as Parmenides' difficult thought can be explained, the logical process seems to have merely the function of clarifying and confirming what, in a way, has been in the noos from the very beginning and of cleansing it of all foreign elements.

So for Parmenides himself, what, for lack of a better word, may be called the intuitional element in the noos is still most important. Yet it was not through his "vision" but through the truly or seemingly compelling force of his logical reasoning that he acquired the dominating position in the philosophy of the following century. At the same time, his work marks the most decisive turning-point in the history of the terms noos, noein, etc.; for he was the first consciously to include logical reasoning in the functions of the noos. The notion of noos underwent many other changes in the further history of Greek philosophy, but none as decisive as this. The intuitional element is still present in Plato's and Aristotle's concepts of noos and later again in that of the Neoplatonists. But the term never returned completely to its pre-Parmenidean meaning." (pp. 51-52 notes omitted)

(1) "Noos and Noein in the Homeric Poems," Classical Philology, 38 (1943), 79-93.
———. 1946. "Νοῦς, νοεῖν, and Their Derivatives in the Pre-Socratic Philosophy (Excluding Anaxagoras). Part II. The Post-Parmenidean period." Classical Philology no. 40:12-34.

Reprinted (with the first part) in: Alexander P. D. Mourelatos, The Pre-Socratics: A Collection of Critical Essays, New York: Anchor Press, 1974; second revised edition, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993, pp. 52-85.
Fronterotta, Francesco. 2007. "Some Remarks on Noein in Parmenides." In Reading Ancient Texts. Volume I: Presocratics and Plato. Essays in Honour of Denis O'Brien, edited by Stern-Gillet, Suzanne and Corrigan, Kevin, 3-19. Leiden: Brill.

"In this paper I will confine myself to O’Brien’s works on Parmenides. I refer in particular to the two volumes of Études sur Parménide, to which he contributed so substantially. In the first volume we find his magisterial version of Parmenides’s fragments, with French and English translations and commentary, and a critical examination of the main interpretative and philosophical questions that they pose. The second volume includes two essays by him. One of these looks at a number of textual problems, and it aims to elucidate the “ideological” background which often conditions the study of texts because of a pre-existing historico-philosophical understanding of their contents.(1) O’Brien shows that many variants of the texts of frr. 1 and 8 DK reveal a Neoplatonic origin — very likely because Neoplatonic commentators felt the need to establish a convergence between the meaning and the spirit of the Parmenidean text and their own doctrinal positions. O’Brien’s essay is a model of its kind, both as a reading of and commentary on the Parmenidean fragments (and on pre-Platonic thinkers in general) and for my more modest objective here, that of reflecting upon the significance of νοείν.

I shall look at translations of the verb νοείν, and, more especially, the species of activity to which this verb, according to Parmenides, refers us." (p. 3)

(1) See P. Aubenque (ed.), vols. 1 (Le poème de Parménide) and 2 (Problèmes d’interprétation).

The essay I am now referring to is in vol. 2: Problèmes d’établissement du texte, pp. 314–50.
Furley, David J. 1967. "Parmenides of Elea." In Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edwards, Paul, 47-51. New York: Macmillan.

Reprinted in Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Second Edition, edited by Donald M. Borchert, New York: Thomson-Gale, 2006, pp. 122-127, with an Addendum by Patricia Curd, pp. 127-129.

"David Furley's original entry remains an exemplary introduction to Parmenides' thought. Since its publication, philosophers have focused on the character of the routes of inquiry that the goddess lays out in the poem, suggesting different interpretations of the subjectless is (or esti), and of the nature of to eon, the subject of inquiry. In addition, scholars have continued to study the Proem (the opening lines of the poem) and the Doxa (the goddesses' statement of mortal opinion), but there is no consensus about either." (p. 127)
———. 1973. "Notes on Parmenides." Phronesis.A Journal for Ancient Philosophy:1-15.

Supplementary vol. I: E. N. Lee, A. P. D. Mourelatos, R. M. Rorty (eds.), Exegesis and Argument. Studies in Greek Philosophy presented to Gregory Vlastos, Assen: Van Gorcum.

Reprinted in: D. J. Furley, Cosmic Problems: Essays on Greek and Roman Philosophy of Nature, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989 pp. 27-37.

"There is a set of problems, much discussed in the literature, concerning the nature of the journey described in B1 of Parmenides, its destination, the revelation made to him by the goddess, and the connection between the symbolism of B1 and the two forms, Light and Night, which are the principles of the cosmology of the Way of Doxa. Some of these problems, I believe, have now been solved. The solution, which is mainly the work of scholars writing in German, (1) has been either overlooked or rejected by the English-speaking community, (2) and it seems worthwhile drawing attention to it and developing it." (p. 27 of the reprint)

(1) The essential suggestion was made, without much argument, by Morrison [Parmenides and Er] (1955). For detailed arguments, see Mansfeld [Die Offenbarung des Parmenides und die menschliche Welt] (1964) 222-61, and Burkert [Das Proömium des Parmenides und die Katabasis des Pythagoras] (1969).

(2) For example, by Guthrie [A History of Greek Philosophy] (1965) II, Tarán [Parmenides] (1965), myself [Parmenides of Elea] (1967), Kahn [The Thesis of Parmenides] (1969), and Mourelatos [The Route of Parmenides] (1970), 15 and n. 19.
———. 1976. "Anaxagoras in Response to Parmenides." Canadian Journal of Philosophy no. Supplementary volume II:61-85.

Reprinted in John P. Anton, Anthony Preus (eds.), Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy, Vol. II, Albany: State University of New York Press 1983, pp. 70-92.
———. 1987. The Greek Cosmologists: Volume I: The Formation of the Atomic Theory and Its Earliest Critics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Chapter 4: Two philosophical critics: Heraclitus and Parmenides, pp. 31-48; Chapter 5: Pythagoras, Parmenides, and later cosmology, pp. 49-60.

"If we are to inquire into something, or seek for it (the nature of the cosmos, for example, or its archê - but initially at least Parmenides leaves the object quite open), then we can envisage at once two possibilities concerning the object of our inquiry: that there is and must be such an object, and that there is not and cannot be such an object. But the second of these ways can be dismissed almost as soon as it is articulated. Nothing (a thing that is not) cannot be; hence it cannot be recognized or spoken of; hence it

cannot be an object of inquiry.(11) Parmenides then sets out an argument to show by elimination that only the first way remains: he calls it the Way of Persuasion, but it is usually referred to as the Way of Truth.

What then can be said about the object of inquiry, if we take the Way of Truth? Parmenides discusses the properties that it must have in the long fragment 8. First, what is is ungenerated and indestructible. The only thing that it could be generated from or destroyed into is what is not, and so we could not describe its generation or destruction without using this now forbidden notion. Secondly, it is one and indivisible, because the only thing that could divide it is something other than itself, and that could

only be what is not(12) Thirdly, it is motionless and unchanging, since there is nothing other than itself into which it could move or change. Fourthly, it is complete, or perfect, without defect: or as he expresses it, 'like the mass of a well rounded ball, equally balanced from the center everywhere,' since it contains no element of what is not, which alone might constitute a variation in its texture.(13)" (p. 38)

(11) The argument is complicated by the modal verbs, 'cannot' and 'must.' Jonathan Barnes has set out a clever and plausible analysis of the structure of this argument in his recent book The Presocratic Philosophers, pp. 163—5.

(12) Barnes, ibid., and in his article, Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 61 (1979), has raised doubts about whether Parmenides produced any argument to show that what is is all one. I believe it is to be found in fr. 8.22-5, where he aims to show that what is is undivided and continuous. Barnes thinks that this shows only that if a thing exists then it is undivided and continuous. It seems to me to work just as well if we take the expression 'what is' to mean 'all that is'; in that case the conclusion means that there is just one thing in existence.

(13) I have more to say about the fourth of these properties of what is: see below, pp. 54-7.
———. 1989. "Truth as What survives the elenchos. An idea in Parmenides." In The Criterion of Truth. Essays Written in Honour of George Kerferd, together with a Text and Translation (With Annotations) of Ptolemy's on the Kriterion and Hegemonikon, edited by Huby, Pamela and Neal.Stephen, 1-12. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.

Reprinted in D. J. Furley, Cosmic Problems: Essays on Greek and Roman Philosophy of Nature, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1989, pp. 38-46.

"My starting point in this paper is a couple of lines from Parmenides' poem. There is some reason to claim that they are the most remarkable lines in that astonishing document:

κρίνοι δε λόγφ πολύδηριν ελεγχον έξ έμεθεν ρηθεντα, μόνος δ' ετι μύθος οδοιο λειπεται ώς εατιν.

Judge by logos the hard-hitting refutation ( elenchos ) that I have uttered. Only one single account of a way is left: that it is. (DK 2SB7.5-8.2)

The paradox of Parmenides is presented in the strongest outline here.

It is a goddess who speaks these lines, revealing the way of Truth to the initiate. Instead of standing on authority or using the persuasive power of religious ritual, she tells him to take away her message and subject it to criticism: judge by logos. Moreover, the revelation itself takes the form of a criticism: what she first offers Parmenides on his arrival , when he has passed through the gates of which Justice holds the key, is described as an έλεγχος (elenchos). This is the aspect of Parmenides' vision that I want to elaborate on this occasion. I am aiming to do two things: to improve the case for thinking that ελεγχος does indeed mean 'refutation ' here, rather than 'proof'; (1) and to see what this tells us about the underlying conception of truth." (p. 1)

(1) I argued briefly for this thesis in 'Notes on Parmenides' in Exegesis and Argument: Studies in Greek Philosophy presented to Gregory Vlastos, ed. E. N. Lee, A. P. D. Mourelatos, and R. M. Rorty, Phronesis suppl. vol . I ( Assen 1973), 1 -15. I was stimulated to more about it by some contrary arguments in a paper by Mr. James Lesher , which he was kind enough to send me in typescript.

A year or so later I was invited to present a paper at a conference on "Truth" at Brown University, and without again looking at Mr. Lesher's paper I wrote the present article. Shortly afterwards I sent it to the Editors of this volume, being very happy to have the opportunity to join in honouring my old and admired friend, George Kerferd.

Some time later, Mr. Lesher published his article ("Parmenides' Critique of Thinking: the poluderis elenchos of Fragment 7", Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 2 (1984), 1-30.

On re-reading it, I see that although we come to different conclusions, we cover much of the same ground. To take proper notice of Mr. Lesher's arguments now would mean rewriting my paper and expanding it quite a lot. But since we worked independently of each other, I think it best to leave the reader to make the comparisons.
Furth, Montgomery. 1968. "Elements of Eleatic Ontology." Journal of the History of Philosophy:111-132.

Reprinted in: Alexander Mourelatos (ed.), The Pre-Socratics. A Collection of Critical Essays, Garden City: Anchor Press, 1974; second revised edition: Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993, pp. 241-270.

"The task of an interpreter of Parmenides is to find the simplest, historically most plausible, and philosophically most comprehensible set of assumptions that imply (in a suitably loose sense) the doctrine of `being' set out in Parmenides' poem.' In what follows I offer an interpretation that certainly is simple and that I think should be found comprehensible. Historically, only more cautious claims are possible, for several portions of the general view from which I 'deduce the poem' are not clearly stated in the poem itself; my explanation of this is that they are operating as tacit assumptions, and indeed that the poem is best thought of as an attempt to force these very assumptions to the surface for formulation and criticism-that the poem is a challenge. To be sure, there are dangers in pretending, as for dramatic purposes I shall, that ideas are definite and explicit which for Parmenides himself must have been tacit or vague-that Parmenides knew what he was doing as clearly as I represent him; I try to avoid them, but the risk must be taken. I even believe that not to take it, in the name of preserving his thought pure from anachronous contamination, actually prevents us from seeing the extent to which he, pioneer, was ahead of his time-the argument works both ways. So let me hedge my historical claim in this way: the view I shall discuss could have been an active- indeed a controlling-element of Eleaticism; to suppose that Parmenides held it not only explains the poem, but also helps explain the subsequent reactions to Eleaticism of Anaxagoras, Democritus, and Plato (though there is not space to elaborate this here). In addition, it brings his thought astonishingly close to some contemporary philosophical preoccupations.

In the first of the following sections, I lay down some sketchy but necessary groundwork concerning the early Greek concept of 'being.' Then in Section 2 an interpretation is given of what I take to be the central Parmenidean doctrine, that 'it cannot be said that anything is not.' This section is the lengthiest and most involved, but it also contains all the moves that appear to be important. Of the remaining sections, Section 3 explains the principle: 'of what is, all that can be said is: it is,' Section 4 deals briefly with the remaining cosmology of "The Way of Truth," and Section 5 considers the question whether Parmenides himself believed the fantastic conclusions of his argument. There is a short postscript on a point of methodology." ( pp. 111-112)
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. 1998. The Beginning of Philosophy. New York: Continuum.

See chapter 9: Parmenides and the Opinions of Mortals pp. 94-106 and chapter 10: Parmenides on Being, pp. 107-125.

"The last line of the second fragment says that it is not possible to formulate that which is not (7) (me eon), for this can neither be investigated nor communicated.

It is possible that the third fragment forms the continuation of this text: to gar auto noein estin to kai einai. (8) In the meantime, Agostino Marsoner has convinced me that fragment 3 is not a Parmenides quotation at all but a formulation stemming from Plato himself, which I believe I have correctly interpreted and which Clement of Alexandria has ascribed to Parmenides. In order to interpret this fragment, we must confirm that estin does not serve here as a copula but instead means existence (9) and, in fact, not just in the sense that something is there but also in the characteristic classical Greek sense that it is possible, that it has the power to be. Here, of course, "that it is possible" includes that it is. Secondly, we must be clear about what is meant by "the same" (to auto). Since this expression stands at the beginning of the text, it is generally understood as the main point and therefore as the subject. On the contrary, in Parmenides "the same" is always a predicate, hence that which is stated of something. Admittedly, it can also stand as the main point of a sentence, but not in the function of the subject, about which something is stated, but in the function of the predicate that is stated of something. This something in the sentence analyzed here is the relationship between "estin noein" and "estin einai," between "[is] perceiving/thinking" and "[is] being." These two are the same, or, better yet: the two are bound together by an indissoluble unity. (Furthermore, it should be added that the article "to" does not refer to "einai" but to "auto." In the sixth century, an article was not yet placed in front of a verb. In Parmenides' didactic poem, where the necessity arises of expressing what we render with the infinitive of a verb together with a preceding article, a different construction is used.

This interpretation, the one I am proposing for the third fragment, was, as I recall, the object of a dispute with Heidegger. He disagreed altogether with my view of the evident meaning of the poem. I can well understand why Heidegger wanted to hold onto the idea that Parmenides' main theme was identity (to auto). In Heidegger's eyes, this would have meant that Parmenides himself would have gone beyond every metaphysical way of seeing and would thereby have anticipated a thesis that is later interpreted metaphysically in Western philosophy and has only come into its own in Heidegger's philosophy. Nevertheless, in his last essays Heidegger himself realized that this was an error and that his thesis that Parmenides had to some extent anticipated his own philosophy could not be maintained." (pp. 110-111)

(7) das Nichtseiende.

(8) 'For the same thing exists [or, is there) for thinking and for being' (Gadamer will argue against this reading; see below); alternatively, "For thinking and being are the same."

(9) Existenz.
Galgano, Nicola. 2020. "Non-being in Parmenides, DK B2." Anais de Filosofia Clássica no. 28:1-34.

Abstract: "In fragment DK 28 B 2 of his poem, Parmenides presents his method for distinguishing true persuasion from the lack of true persuasion. The famous two ways for thought that he suggests are the enunciation of a complex system which aims to assure the assertions’ truthfulness and finally a credible discourse, the only one capable of real persuasion. The present article tries to show the central role attributed to non-being in the Parmenidean argumentation. The entire fragment is interpreted from this central notion, surely attained by a reflection on the impossibility of negating being, shedding light on Parmenides’ discovery of that impossibility, which we currently call “contradiction”. He enunciates that the way to avoid contradiction in thought and discourse is through a rule that we call a principle of non-contradiction. The study featured here makes a detailed inquiry into the notion of non-being in fr. 2, finally offering a new translation. "
Galgano, Nicola Stefano. 2016. "Amēkhaníē in Parmenides DK 28 B 6.5." Journal of Ancient Philosophy no. 10:1-12.

Abstract: "The paper examines closer the notion expressed by the word amēkhaníē in DK 6.5. In his analysis of problematic of knowledge Parmenides alerts about amekhaníē of mortals, a word generally translated with 'lack of resources' or 'perplexity', a kind of problem that drives the thinking astray. Scholars point out in many passages of the poem the opposition between imperfect mortals and the eidóta phōta of DK 1.3, the wise man. However, as much as I know, nobody noticed that, if mortals have a lack of resources, the goddess is teaching exactly how to fix it with a kind of method given through her precepts, which are an authentic mēchané. The paper shows that this is the genuine didactic aim of Parmenides, as he says in 1.28-30, i.e., to point out where is the error of mortals and how the wise man fixes it. Starting from a reinterpretation of 1.29 and following with the analysis of fr. 6, the paper shows that the method of fr. 2 is indeed the mēchané that can do that. Although the word is not present in the poem, it is one of its main topics. It seems (by the extant fragments) Parmenides had no clear word to call his mēchané, a psychological cognitive tool we call today principle of non-contradiction."
———. 2017. "Parmenides as Psychologist - Part One: Fragment DK 1 and 2." Archai. Revista de Estudos sobre as Origens do Pensamento Ocidental no. 19:167-205.

"The aim of this essay is to examine an aspect of Parmenides' poem which is often overlooked: the psychological grounds Parmenides uses to construct his view. While it is widely recognized by scholars that following Parmenides' view requires addressing mental activity, i.e. both the possibility of thinking the truth, as well as thinking along the wrong path that mortals follow, a closer examination of the psychological assumptions involved have, to my knowledge, not yet been attempted.

I argue that by identifying and analyzing the psychological vocabulary in his poem, it is revealed that Parmenides was a keen observer of human mental behavior. Through these psychological (perhaps “cognitivist,” following some recent categories) observations of thought processes, Parmenides gains insight into the structure of thought itself. The outcome of this inquiry reveals three notable conclusions: First, the poem contains a remarkably extensive use of strictly psychological vocabulary.

Second, the presence of this psychological material and the lack of scholarly attention to it means there is a significant aspect of Parmenides intellectual legacy that remains unexplored — Parmenides as psychologist, keen observer of human mental behavior. Furthermore, the recognition of this material helps shed important light on Parmenides' philosophical message.

Ultimately, I intend to provide an exhaustive treatment of Parmenides' psychological language, which requires close examination of DK B 1, 2, 6, and 7. Due to spatial constraints, I have divided the inquiry into two parts, and will only address DK 1-2 below." (pp. 167-168)
———. 2017. "Parmenides as Psychologist - Part Two: Fragment DK 6 and 7." Archai. Revista de Estudos sobre as Origens do Pensamento Ocidental no. 20:39-76.

For the abstract, see part One.
Gallop, David. 1979. "'Is or 'Is Not'?" The Monist no. 62:61-80.

"In this article I reopen some basic problems in the interpretation of Parmenides' 'Way of Truth' familiar to anyone who has wrestled with his poem. The hub of my discussion is fr. B2, in which the goddess formulates two 'routes of inquiry', an affirmative one — 'is', and a negative one — 'is not'. The former she commends, while the latter she rejects as 'wholly unlearnable', on the ground that 'thou couldst not know what is not, nor couldst thou point it out' (B2.7-8). What is the meaning of 'is' and 'is not' in these two routes? Is it existential, predicative, or veridical? Or should we suppose a fused notion of 'being', in which various uses of the verb είναι are somehow combined? These questions are clearly fundamental for determining the nature of the two routes, upon which everything else in the Way of Truth depends. The answer that I wish to defend is the classical interpretation of 'is' as existential. This reading of it, adopted by Professor G. E. L. Owen in his influential study, 'Eleatic Questions', (2) remains preferable, in my view, to various alternatives that have been canvassed before and since his article appeared. I shall therefore first review and criticize those alternatives. I shall then reconstruct the argument of B2-3 and B6.1-2, putting forward a modified version of Owen's account. Finally, I shall defend this version against its rivals by considering Parmenides' disproof of coming-to-be and perishing in B8.6-21." (p. 61)

(2) Classical Quarterly N.S. 10 (1960), 84-102.
Gemelli Marciano, Maria Laura. 2008. "Images and Experience: at the Roots of Parmenides' Aletheia." Ancient Philosophy no. 28:21-48.

"Another argument against the thesis that the proem is to be interpreted as an ecstatic journey lies in its connection with the rest of the poem. Kingsley 2003 has recently solved this problem, too, by linking the ecstatic experience of the proem with the goddess' teaching in the central Aletheia section of the poem so as to produce a single, coherent picture (see Gemelli Marciano 2006b [Review of Kingsley 2003 in Gnomon 78: 657-671]). Parmenides' poem is, for Kingsley, neither a purely literary 'didactic' text nor a purely philosophical one. It is an esoteric poem that describes a mystical experience and above all aims through the power of language to induce this same experience in its listeners.

In what follows I develop this approach further and show that if Parmenides' poem is interpreted in this way his enigmatic language, his curious images, and also his so-called logical arguments take on a new meaning.(14) Parmenides' language is performative (it accomplishes what it says). 'Alienation' and 'binding, are the most powerful means to remove listeners from the ordinary, everyday dimension and way of thinking and put them into a different state of consciousness.

Images, repetitions, sequences of words and sounds, supposedly 'logical' arguments all contribute to this end and have a particular meaning and function that surpass conventional human language and ordinary syntactical and semantic relationships.

Here I will draw attention especially to the proem and to fragments 2 and 8. I refer to Kingsley 2002 and 2003 for treatment of the other fragments and the problems relating to them." (pp. 26-27; note 15 omitted)

(14) I formulated some of the observations contained in this article, concerning the divine epiphanies in the proem and the images in fr. DK 28B8, some years ago independently of Kingsley 1999 and 2003, while preparing my forthcoming edition of the Presocratics (Gemelli Marciano 2008 [Die Vorsokratiker. Band II: Parmenides, Zenon, Empedokles. Düsseldorf: Artemis & Winkler.]). However, in Kingsley's books I have found the answers to questions and textual problems that have enabled me to organize my earlier unsystematic intuitions into a coherent picture.
Gershenson, Daniel E., and Greeberg, Daniel A. 1962. "Aristotle confronts the Eleatics: two arguments on 'the One'." Phronesis no. 7:137-151.

"In our review of Aristotle's two arguments against the Eleatics we have pointed out several features which mark off one from the other. The two sections are different primarily in the point of view from which each proceeds, and in the terminology each employs. Further evidence for the independence of the two passages is the following: [Physics] lines 186A34- 186B1 repeat in Eleatic jargon what lines 185A27-32 say in common Aristotelian parlance, namely, that if being is an attribute, then the subject will not be; lines 186B1 2-13 repeat the argument in lines 185A32-185B5, that if being is a magnitude, it will no longer be one, because all magnitudes are continua, and all continua by definition are divisible; lines 185B25-1 86A3 present a historical survey of Eleatic thought similar to that in lines 187A1-10, although the two passages accentuate different aspects of its later development. The evidence taken together makes it clear that we are dealing here with two independent written accounts of two separate Aristotelian attacks against Parmenides and the Eleatics. One need only compare the second argument, where the competence of the Eleatics as philosophers is not denied, and where, indeed, the fact that Aristotle carries on a dialogue with them lends them a certain respectability, with the first argument, where he spares the Eleatics no abuse and evinces contempt for their reputation as physicists and logicians, to see that this is so. Each account displays within itself a coherent organization and a consistent point of view. The two together make up Aristotle's main case against Eleatic philosophy." (pp. 150-151; notes omitted)
Giancola, Donna. 2001. "Towards a Radical Reinterpretation of Parmenides' B3." Journal of Philosophical Research no. 26:635-653.

Abstract: "It is generally agreed that Parmenides' fragment B3 posits some type of relation between "thinking" and "Being." I critically examine the modern interpretations of this relation. Beginning with the ancient sources and proceeding into modern times, I try to show that the modern rationalist reading of fragment B3 conflicts with its grammatical syntax and the context of the poem as a whole. In my critique, I suggest that rather than a statement about epistemological relations, it is, as it was originally understood, a religious assertion of metaphysical identity."
Girle, Roderic A. 2007. "Parmenides Demythologised." Logique et Analyse no. 199:253-268.

"The impression is often given that the metaphysics of Parmenides is absurd.

This impression is often reinforced with a warning that if philosophers resort to an "extreme" view then they are bound to finish with an absurd view, "like Parmenides". But all this is far too swift. I will argue that there is a way of looking at Parmenides which brings his views very much into line with the views of a substantial number of modern philosophers who are not taken to be putting forward absurd views. They might be somewhat discomforted to be grouped with Parmenides, but if they are, then that in itself should give cause to pause and consider both the issue of Parmenides' alleged absurdity and to what extent they have inherited Parmenides' problems.

So let us first reprise the views of Parmenides. Then we consider some modern doctrines which have consequences of a quite Parmenidean kind.

This will lead us to considering a contrast in the Philosophy of Time of considerable interest to Prior." (p. 253)
Glowienka, Emerine. 1988. "Exorcising the Ghost of Parmenides." Southwest Philosophical Studies no. 10:37-47.

"Yet this paper is not an attempt to offer a scholarly .analysis of Parmenides' own metaphysics; rather, it is a chronology and analysis of the subsequent history of some metaphysicians in dealing with this legacy bequeathed to them by Parmenides. This legacy, which I am calling the "ghost of Parmenides," is the confusion of our concept of "absolute being" ("abstract being") with, and/or the disengagement of this concept from, the objects of our experience. You doubtless recognize this confusion as a move from the mental to the extra-mental, which has been also named the "fallacy of misplaced concreteness" according to Whitehead.(3) For to equate being with unity is really only to describe what a concept of being must be in order for it to be intelligible to human understanding; it does not describe being as found outside that concept." (p. 37)

(3) Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World (Glencoe: Free Press, 1967) 51.
Göbel, Christian. 2002. "Mysticism and Knowledge in Parmenides." The Downside Review no. 120:157-174.

"Nowadays, mysticism and knowledge are often considered opposites. It does not seem possible chat the concepts of experiencing God and rational insight can exist together. But on the other hand, there are many testimonies of ancient authors who

consider reason and divine experience to be related.

(...)

This is the case in the speculative system of Plato, but it is also valid for the man who stands at the beginning of metaphysical thinking: Parmenides of Elea (fl. c.5 00 BC).

Modern consciousness, however, has lost an immediate understanding of traditional symbols. It is therefore important to decipher the meaning of the ancient texts and make the - often very clear - ideas behind the mythic and symbolic speech visible again.

Such an attempt will be made in the following, focusing on Parmenides' poem 'On Nature'. Our interpretation will be restricted to some explanations of the symbolic speech of the Eleatic philosopher in so far as it is relevant to the context of knowledge and

mysticism. It will become clear how and why the ancient thinker could express knowledge as mysticism, and it will be shown that ancient wisdom contains assertions about human knowledge that may still be valid today, especially in a Christian context, once mystical and mythical elements of Greek philosophy are understood - and 'translated' - as symbolic language." (pp. 157-158, a note omitted)
Goldin, Owen. 1993. "Parmenides on Possibility and Thought." Apeiron.A Journal for Ancient Philosophy and Science no. 26:19-35.

"Given the evidence and the nature of Parmenides' writing, it seems that Mourelatos (1979,5) is right in his suggestion that it is time for a 'tolerant pluralism' in Parmenidean scholarship. But if a definitive interpretation is beyond our reach, we may yet make progress in understanding what is to be gained or lost in the depth, cogency, and clarity of our interpretation of the whole poem when we interpret a line or an argument in one manner rather than another.

For this reason, I do not here defend a complete interpretation of what remains of Parmenides' poem. In most important respects I pursue the interpretive path taken by G.E.L. Owen ([Eleatic Questions, reprinted in] 1987a) in his highly influential interpretation of the poem. But I take issue with Owen's claim that Parmenides' argument for the existence of any object of reference or thought rests on fallacious modal logic. I also take issue with the view of Tugwell (1964) that Parmenides' argument rests on a naive and philosophically unsatisfactory blurring of the distinction between the potential and existential uses of είναι. I suggest that Parmenides' argument for the being of the object of thought and speech takes a different course. On my view, Parmenides explicitly denies that there are unreal but possible things or states of affairs, on the grounds that possible beings can be understood only as beings and hence as real. Since any object of thought or speech is a possible thing or state of affairs, any object of thought or speech is. On my view, Parmenides thus draws attention to what has come to be a perennial metaphysical problem: what status is to be given to possible beings?" (p. 19)
Gomes, Henrique. 2020. "Back to Parmenides." In Beyond Spacetime: The Foundations of Quantum Gravity, edited by Huggett, Nick, Matsubara, ‎Keizo and Wüthrich, ‎Christian, 176-205. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Abstract: "After a brief introduction to issues that plague the realization of a theory of quantum gravity, I suggest that the main one concerns a quantization of the principle of relative simultaneity. This leads me to a distinction between time and space, to a further degree than that present in the canonical approach to general relativity. With this distinction, one can make sense of superpositions as interference between alternative paths in the relational confguration space of the entire Universe.

But the full use of relationalism brings us to a timeless picture of Nature, as it does in the canonical approach (which culminates in the Wheeler-DeWitt equation). After a discussion of Parmenides and the Eleatics' rejection of time, I show that there is middle ground between their view of absolute timelessness and a view of physics taking place in timeless configuration space. In this middle ground, even though change does not fundamentally exist, the illusion of change can be recovered in a way not permitted by Parmenides. It is recovered through a particular density distribution over configuration space which gives rise to `records'. Incidentally, this distribution seems to have the potential to dissolve further aspects of the measurement problem that can still be argued to haunt the application of decoherence to Many-Worlds quantum mechanics. I end with a discussion indicating that the conflict between the conclusions of this paper and our view of the continuity of the self may still intuitively bother us. Nonetheless, those conclusions should be no more challenging to our intuition than Derek Parfit's thought experiments on the subject."
Graeser, Andreas. 2000. "Parmenides in Plato’s Parmenides." Bochumer Philosophisches Jahrbuch für Antike und Mittelalter no. 5:1-14.

Abstract: "This essay examines the role of Parmenides in Plato’s dialogue of the same name.

Over against the widely held view that this literary figure exemplifies the philosopher par excellence of an all-encompassing systematic of Eleatic provenience, it is maintained that Parmenides represents a particular frame of mind about certain philosophical matters, namely one which regards forms in a reified manner. It is suggested that by means of the literary figure of Parmenides, Plato is addressing in his dialogue inner-Academic debates about the theory of forms, especially Speusippus' conception of Unity, which betrays a kind of naive metaphysics of things, as can be seen especially in the first three deductions of the second half of the dialogue."

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