Philosophy was not born in Greece.
Socrates was poisoned…
Philosophy rises in the 6th century B.C. in the Greek world.
In a lot of major decisions, the Oracle had to be consulted. All of these oracles are in mainland Greece. If you’re in Athens, going to consult the oracle takes at most a week. If you’re in Syracuse or Elea, it takes at least several months, and there’s a good chance of not coming back. So, the colonies had to be more independent - you can’t consult the oracle each time.
So, a lot of early great thinkers are Greek, not of Greece.
Parmenides wrote a very well-known poem about nature, however, some parts of that poem are lost. Hence, the required reading for next week is “Fragments”, by Parmenides.
All of the fragments still existing today are a consequence of other contemporaries referencing the work, rather than surviving copies.
There is an implicit consensus that Philosophy is something created through discussion and sedimented in publishing, in the form of articles, books, arguments, and a whole lot of words.
However, this isn’t the only way philosophy is done -
notes from students, dialogues, letters, poems, etc.
Philosophy is not married to any literary genre, even if each historical period may have a preferred method of noting it.
Literary genres are not neutral - if you write something in poetry, in a letter, in a dialog or in a treatise, you may write the same content, but it’s framed in different ways. You follow different rhetorical rules: in a poem you pay attention to a rhythmic and musical dimensions that aren’t as important in treatises.
A lot of translations maintain and require references to many other ancient works, which is why the prof. wrote and added his own in plainer language.
In this poem, Parmenides starts with a picture of himself entering a cortege/chariot on the main street of the city of Elea, toward the gate. At a certain point, arriving to the gate, there is a goddess that speaks to Parmenides, and tells him how things are. It is a sort of revelation, that takes the form of a god and speaks to Parmenides, and tells him the principle of all things.
Already, we have a characteristic that allows the historians of philosophy to see something that sets this text apart from earlier philosophical texts - the ambition to speak of everything, and rationalize things beyond the ways it was done before (gods).
All philosophers then try to answer what the principle of “arche” (the start / a spring / producer) means. To ask this question, you need a notion of principle, from which the rest derives. You also need the notion of “everything”. “Everything” is not something obvious. How do you make sure that when you say “all things” nothing is excluded?
The mysterious notion of negation - thanks to negation, we are able to speak of things that are not present, even things we do not know. So, negation allows one to grasp things that may even be outside our understanding (?). Like so, negation allows one to obtain the world (“everything”). “Everything that is, in any way, is opposed to its negation”. If we obtain the limit of something, by negation, you obtain everything that is inside that limit. The limit of “everything” is “to be”. “The absolute nothing” (nihil negativum) is our absolute limit of thinking - it is something we simply cannot even think of.
In his work, Parmenides tries his best to avoid “the ontologization” of “nothing”.
If something is, the only way to change is to become not. So change is kind of impossible, as you can’t really just “stop existing”.
The goddess tells Parmenides - “you have to learn the ways of day and the ways of night”. In night, you have to ignore whether things are coherent, and look at things in a practical way. The path of light, however, is the path of philosophy. To be, to think and to speak are one. You cannot speak of something that you cannot think of. It is impossible to think of something that is not. Therefore, there is an identity between being, thinking and expressing. To him, the Logos isn’t just connected to the rule of speech, but also the rule of reality. The principle of that particular reality in which human speech and conversation is held. He writes that a philosopher must understand both ways. As a philosopher, he believes, you may tread the path of light, but should also be able to explain the path of night. To him, there are two nothingness - one in the colloquial sense (“I know nothing” obviously not completely nothing), while the other is the nihil negativum - the limit of all being.
There’s no school of Parmenides, unlike with Plato’s school. Rather, Parmenides’ school is a term that refers simply to people heavily influenced by his works.