Parmenides · Philosophy
Parmenides’ doctrine of the two ways of inquiry - the Way of Truth (‘It is’) and the forbidden Way of Not-Being (‘It is not’) - and his momentous denial of the void, the empty space that the Atomists would later resurrect to rescue motion and plurality.
At the heart of Parmenides’ poem stands a stark choice between two paths of inquiry, presented by the goddess as the only two ways that can even be conceived. The first is the Way of Truth: ‘that It is, and that it is impossible for it not to be.’ This way, the goddess says, is the way of conviction, for truth accompanies it. The second is the way of Not-Being: ‘that It is not, and that it must needs not be.’ This way, she declares, is utterly impassable - ‘a path that none can learn of at all,’ for ‘what is not’ can neither be known nor uttered. To set out on the second way is not to reach a false destination; it is to set out on no road at all, to think nothing, to speak nothing.
This sharp fork - between the thinkable ‘It is’ and the unthinkable ‘It is not’ - is the engine of Parmenides’ entire philosophy. Everything follows from closing off the second way. If ‘what is not’ cannot be thought or spoken, then it cannot figure in any account of reality; and since change, plurality, and motion all seem to require ‘what is not’ (empty space to move into, the not-yet for things to come from, the not-this that separates one thing from another), all of these are ruled out along with it. The two ways are not two competing theories to be weighed; one is the only possible way of truth, and the other is a blind alley that the careless mind only imagines it can travel. The discipline of philosophy, for Parmenides, begins with refusing the second way - refusing to let the mind drift into the illusion that it can think ‘nothing.’
One of the most consequential applications of Parmenides’ logic is his denial of the void - empty space, the ‘nothing’ between things. To common sense, and to physics, empty space seems obviously real: things move through it, are separated by it. But for Parmenides, empty space is precisely ‘what is not’ - a region where there is nothing - and since ‘what is not’ cannot be, there can be no void. Reality is a plenum: completely full, with no gaps, no empty space, no nothingness anywhere. Being is ‘whole and continuous,’ for any gap would be a patch of not-being, and there is no not-being.
This is the opening of the lesson. The rest — the dialogue, the primary source, and the recall — is in the app.
You learned that Parmenides distinguished two ways of inquiry - the true ‘It is’ and the impossible ‘It is not’ - and denied that the void (empty space, ‘nothing’) could exist, which (since motion seems to need empty space to move into) led him to deny motion, and forced the Atomists to resurrect the void. Explain the…
Leads to Gorgias.
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