Practice question · Put in order
Arrange the steps of Parmenides’ central argument in order.
- There is nothing there for thought or speech to fasten onto
- None of these is possible
- Coming to be, perishing, division and motion all require what-is-not
- What exists is one, unchanging and whole
- Any reasoning requiring what-is-not is therefore illegitimate
Hints
- The argument begins with a claim about thought, not about the world.
- The metaphysical conclusions come last, derived from the ban.
Show the answer
- There is nothing there for thought or speech to fasten onto
- Any reasoning requiring what-is-not is therefore illegitimate
- Coming to be, perishing, division and motion all require what-is-not
- None of these is possible
- What exists is one, unchanging and whole
Why
It begins as a claim about what can be thought and ends as a claim about what is. That transition, from the limits of thought to the structure of reality, is the move every later critic has had to examine.
Practise Parmenides
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More questions on Parmenides
- Why does Parmenides conclude that motion is impossible?
- Parmenides insists that what is not cannot even be an object of thought. What follows from taking this…
- Parmenides holds that where reason and the senses conflict, the senses should be trusted.
- Which responses to Parmenides did later Greek thinkers actually make?
- Sort each claim by whether Parmenides assigns it to the Way of Truth or the Way of Opinion.