Parmenides Quiz

Why are Parmenides and Zeno called Eleatics? 

They are from Elias in southern Italy (modern day Campania)  

Why is Simplicius important for Parmenides? 

He preserved a big chunk of Parmenides poem on Nature. 

Who is Xenophanes and what did he believe? 

Precursor to Parmenides said to be his teacher 

He believed that there is one god, that god is eternal and perfect; that he is not a he really and is beyond the human. God is not a person. 

Famously said that is cows and cattle and horses had hands, they would draw themselves cow and cattle and horse gods that looked like them. 

Who leads the hero in Parmenides’ poem to meet the Goddess? 

The maidens of the sun 

What does the Goddess reveal to the hero? 

1. The way of truth (way of being) 

2. The way of mortals (way of change or becoming or opposition) 

3. True discourse (science) (identity of thinking and being) 

Why are change and difference, beginning and ending, impossible for Parmenides? 

They all entail nothing.  

Why does the way of mortals lack all conviction? 

Based in sensation (empiricism), empiricism cannot think in terms of concepts. 

Why are Being and Thinking Identical? 

Because if you think anything other than being, you think nothing, and that is absurd. 

What is Ontology? 

Study of being (Parmenides did not use this word) 

What is dialectics? Who invented it? 

Logic of contradiction; Zeno invented it to prove Parmenides right that is something contradicts itself, it’s not rational, and therefore doesn’t exist. 

What are Zeno’s Paradoxes? Why is one called the dichotomy paradox? 

1. Achilles and the tortoise 

2. The Arrow 

3. Because you are forever trying to overcome the space between 2 different points. but there are infinite spaces between those 2 points. 

Who are the sophists? Why do they have a bad reputation? 

The worldly-wise men of ancient Greece who charged money to help people be successful. 

Thought to be Atheist who did not believe in the gods of the state. They are agnostics.  

 

What did Protagoras argue? 

“Man is the measure of all things.” Relativism. There is no objective truth beyond opinion (doxa) 

What did Gorgias argue? What is his argument about nothing only existing?  

Another Sophist and master of rhetoric (art of discourse or speaking well) 

1. If being is eternal and there is only being, then it would have to exist everywhere. But things exist somewhere. Therefore, being exists nowhere and doesn’t exist.  

2. If being finite, then it comes from somewhere. But that somewhere would have to be nothing. But nothing could from nothing. 

3. Language is messy and we can’t think in pure concepts. Being is a pure concept and thus we don’t have access to it. 

What is the difference between rationalism and empiricism? 

Rationalism argues knowledge comes from pure reason 

Empiricists argue knowledge comes from sense experience (sense perception)