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#Post#: 55--------------------------------------------------
Parmenides essays
By: xavierhn Date: September 12, 2017, 3:52 am
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Q. Provide a philosophical interpretation of the Proem (or part
thereof) of Parmenides. If you don’t see the Proem as
philosophical at all, what purpose does it serve?
Parmenides Proem details a poetic stint of travel. Our first
question is, what kind of travel is being undertaken here? And
is this ‘travel’ philosophical or not? I will argue that the
proem serves the purpose of foreshadowing, framing that ‘truth’
is to be taken in an unexplored way, which is valuable in a
philosophical way, for it alerts readers to be themselves
critical of their own relation to ‘truth’.
The travel starts with an individual upon a chariot led by
maidens to a gate, ending through a small speech given by a
goddess. Our first indication of what kind of travel this poem
is referring to is given in second line, where the traveller is
placed “upon the much-speaking route”(1.2). Continuing onto the
next line “Of the goddess, that carries everywhere unscathed the
man who knows”(1.3). So the pathway is firstly, somewhat
‘famous’, and further, in some respect ‘divine’ and related to
mortals who have knowledge. These two lines indicate to the
listener a sense of familiarity of this pathway to themselves,
but is contrasted immediately, with a divine direction that is
being pursued by a mortal having the opposite sense, unexplored.
Something very familiar to mortals yet unexplored is being
proposed here as characterising the pathway to be travelled.
It is not until the end of the proem that this familiar yet
unexplored pathway is further explicated. The mortal having been
welcomed by a goddess in hand is spoken to and told first that
this pathway is “far indeed from the beaten track of men”(1.27).
What exactly is so far removed here? In the remaining lines we
have an answer. These following lines read like a proclamation:
“it is right that you should learn all things/ both the
steadfast heart of persuasive truth,/ and the beliefs of
mortals, in which there is no true trust.” (1.28-30).
The unexplored pathway appears to require the traveller undergo
a specific experience, of experiencing the “steadfast heart” of
truth along with the “no true trust” of mortals. It is
interesting to note, that we are within a divine perspective as
the goddess is telling the mortal man what is to be experienced
about truth. Thus already, the pathway that is spoken of places
the traveller off the ‘beaten track of men’, not onto this
experience just yet, but prepares the traveller in foreshadowing
it.
This experience of foreshadowing by the goddess appears to me
essential. Without having a clue or indication of what the
pathway requires of the traveller, there is every chance that
the traveller will, so to speak, drift off course back onto the
‘beaten track of men’. It is precisely here that we can speak of
a philosophical purpose of the proem. In spite of no substantive
claims or arguments presented, there is merit in the guiding
declaration, that truth in its essential gripping nature and
lack of trust by mortals will be “learn[t]” (1.27).
In conclusion, we can see that the foreshadowing speech of the
goddess, while not providing the ‘goods’ of an argument, does
provide or set the tone for what the arguments will be about.
Thus, the proem guides the listener himself to be on the lookout
for an unexplored yet familiar way of experiencing ‘truth’
(aletheia).
References
Parmenides. Parmenides of Elea. Translated by David Gallop.
University of Toronto Press, London. 1984.
#Post#: 56--------------------------------------------------
Re: Parmenides essays
By: pdrsn Date: September 12, 2017, 6:42 am
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I will argue that there is some merit to interpreting the proem
as revealing the difficult journey toward wisdom and revealing
the nature of wisdom.
I say the nature of wisdom because in last lines:
“It is proper that you should learn all things, both the
unshaken heart of well-rounded truth, and the opinions of
mortals, in which there is no true reliance. But nonetheless you
shall learn these things too, how what is believed would have to
be assuredly, pervading all things throughout.”
The goddess clearly states that there is more to learn than just
truth, but also the opinions of mortals. We must speculate as
to why is it essential to learn what at first sounds like
useless knowledge, perhaps to know what is defective is
beneficial, just like debaters wish to know bad arguments well
so that they can always dismantle them and feel triumphant.
Although, there may be an additional way of reading this which
is more in line with my interpretation and that somehow these
‘mere’ opinions even with their unreliability is “proper” to
learn because it is good to know, perhaps unreliable knowledge
in tandem with “the unshaken heart…” of truth are essential. I
think that despite the elevation of truth and the disrepute of
opinion, absolutely no individual can claim that they live only
doing what is based on truth, so many actions are done without
even thinking but just by ill-thought intuition. The last line
of the above quote implies the dominate status of “what is
believed” but still without explicit judgement on the utility of
opinion, this subtle ‘ambiguity’ seems to lead us to rethink the
value of knowledge based on opinion. That is, wisdom is more
than just the dogmatic opinion of what ‘truth’ is, an example of
this would be positivists who consider anything not ‘objective’
as nonsense.
In regards to the part of my interpretation concerning the
“difficult journey” toward wisdom some of this fact is contained
above. However in more explicit ways we counter the standard
interpretation and wonder if the individual being conveyed in
the chariot is going willingly? The mares “carry” him, “they”
set him on the road, the chariot was “straining”, the axles gave
out a “whistle”, “blazing” and the wheels were “pressed hard”;
altogether already at the beginning of the proem we almost get a
sense that the individual is being forced to his lesson on
wisdom and it is out of his control. Does this suggest something
of the nature of wisdom? Even more so he is “escorted” by the
daughters of the sun and we hear that these creature of the
light came from the halls of night? Taken metaphorically why
does ‘truth’ if it is associated with light mingle and inhabit
‘darkness’ or falsity? We see more of what could be out of
character behaviour from Justice, she is “avenging” but not only
Night but also Day locking them up and only letting them free
by “cunning” from the daughters of the sun. We have unexplained
metaphors of light being associated with cunning and deceit but
also being against Justice.
There are a lot of questions and clashing actions that do not
sit well with the connotations we have of the concepts of good,
bad, light, dark, justice and injustice. We also have an
individual that seems to not seek wisdom but it forced toward it
and given advice that is confusing because it lumps truth with
opinion. I conclude that there is some precedent from all that I
have presented in the interpretation that Parmenides is speaking
about nature of wisdom.
Works Cited
Kirk, Raven, Schofield. The Presocratic Philosophers. Cambridge
University Press: New York. 2007
#Post#: 61--------------------------------------------------
Re: Parmenides essays
By: StircrazyReality Date: September 14, 2017, 10:51 pm
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I would love to have a discourse on this reading of the Proem.
Feel free to comment.
Reflections
I received a mark of 95 for this essay, which is quite a
improvement on my previous 74. I kept a similar level of
analysis, but learnt how to improve the clarity and structure of
my essay (Thanks Ruell [He stopped me saying 'choosing the
choice' instead of choosing. I don't know why I seem to tend
towards such language]).
One of Aidan's comments was a question on how to deal with the
apparent catch-22 of having to be 'one who knows', before
embarking on the 'path to knowledge'. My response would be based
on clarifying that it is not the path to knowledge, but the path
to Truth.
Another of his comments was querying why I chose to thematise
'elevation'. I must admit, I had difficulty naming this theme, I
thought maybe 'ascendence' or 'transcendence' may capture it
better, but in the end stuck to 'elevation'. The basic concept
is that the movement of the journey is not on a flat 'plane',
but is rather 'up'. If we tentatively choose the word value,
then the journey is not between two places of equal value, or
towards a place of lesser value, but is rather towards a place
of greater value (what ever value here means). As if one is
climbing a mountain path, one can later look down and observe
the lower paths from above. The word transcendence seems to have
a extra note of surpassing that I did not want. I also note that
the origin of the word 'elevate' contains the Latin 'levare' for
'lighten'.
I suppose a final note is that I actually spliced translations
here to get the sense of words that I wanted. It feels a bit
dishonest, but as I can't read Greek (And didn't have the time
to look up each word on Perseus), and as translation is reliant
on a 'second author' (I have a post on this concept on the
forum), it is perhaps partly justified to choose a translation
of a given word based on personal preference.
#Post#: 63--------------------------------------------------
Re: Parmenides essays
By: xavierhn Date: September 16, 2017, 5:58 am
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The question we have for Parmenides is why is his poem at the
beginning of philosophy? We have to keep this in mind, as a
guiding question throughout our studies.
Proem
What is the message of the proem?
Aletheia:
i) to be experienced
ii) is the pathway itself
iii) guides the traveller
That aletheia is to be experienced, i.e., the 'being' of
aletheia as that which belongs solely to aletheia is the
experience being sought. The unfolding of the experience and the
pathway are, therefore, the same. The traveller is placed along
and is travelling to end upon 'aletheia'.
First point - aletheia as a pathway is being thought of as a
'place', neither a destination a (mountain peak) nor a track to
walk down. You're on the right track Mitchell, with elevation
and placement, but we to hold off on making imagery speak the
thoughts of Parmenides. How can we better understand 'place'
(residence, location, dwelling, appointment etc.) qua aletheia?
Three main clarifying questions
1)
Form - 'poem'
Content - 'philosophy'
How can we better think of didactic poem?
2)
God -
Christain
Greek
What is the difference between these? And in particular, how do
they differ in the relationship of 'mortals' to the divine? We
need to know so we can better understand why Parmenides has a
goddess delivering the way toward aletheia.
3) Aletheia
Translates literally as 'unconcealment'. How are we to
understand this word better?
Αληθεια - noun., literal -
unconcealment.
α - alpha is a privative. What does the privative relate to
in the meaning of the word?
What is ‘un-concealed’?
Beings as a whole.
How do we understand beings as a whole? Like
φυσις and
λόγος concerns beings as a whole, i.e.,
the manifold of beings. What do φυσις
and λόγος mean, and, additionally, how
do they help us understand beings as a whole?
The basic meaning of φύσις is
self-emergence, and λόγος gathering.
As a whole in the way of saying ‘manifold’ means as a unity with
respective to what holds a unity together. The key here is what
enables a holding together? When we speak of being as a whole,
if we are to speak of it in a Greek way, we must clarify what
this kind of holding together of an unity is. In other words,
enables beings to hold together?
Heraclitus gives us the word έν
πάντα translated by Robinson as one
thing. This interpretation is incorrect and misleading.
Incorrect for Heraclitus is not referring to a ‘thing’, but to
what unifies, and misleading, because the one and whole are not
separate. The proper meaning of έν
πάντα is the holding together of all
beings. The holding together characterises all beings to which
we have the first meaning of a manifold, neither one nor many
but what unifies the one and many.
Our first question is what is un-concealed? We now can answer
the holding together of beings is ‘un-concealed’. Concealing and
unconcealing respectively relate to how beings hold together. We
still need to answer, however, what enables beings to hold
together.
What enables beings to be? This is the underlying question that
αληθεια presents to us. With
this question we can better approach Heraclitus and Parmenides
as thinkers who provide an answer to the enabling of being - how
is this possible?
#Post#: 64--------------------------------------------------
Re: Parmenides essays
By: StircrazyReality Date: September 16, 2017, 9:15 pm
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On the Three main clarifying questions
1. Form and Content
How do we understand a didactic poem?
Answer: There is no distinction between form and content in
ancient Greek.
The Standard Interpretation takes content, philosophical
propositions, and discards the rest as 'artistic dressing'. I
think this is misguided.
As a side note: There is no 'Art' in Greek. There is Techne.
(From this we get technology in English). We can see there is a
unity in technology and art in Greek. More importantly, there is
a unity in thinking and art.
This is only a rough exploration on my part, but I found this in
'The Question Concerning Technology'
[quote]techne is the name not only for the activities and skills
of the
craftsman, but also for the arts of the mind and the fine arts.
Techne belongs to bringing-forth, to poiesis; it is something
poietic[/quote]
I will try and expand on Techne in a new post at a later date
(This gives us a lot to think about concerning what art is)
2.
God
Christian and Greek
What is the place for the divine?
A place for further reading
Heidegger, Martin. Parmenides. Translated by Andre Schuwer and
Richard Rojcewicz. Indiana University Press, 1982
Part one §6 f.
Chapter Summery
The difference between the Greek gods and the Christian God. The
word as naming Being in its looking-into, and myth as a mode of
the relation to appearing Being. Man: the God-sayer. "Decline"
of cultures (Nietzsche, Speng-ler). The basic character of the
oblivion of being: A-theism.
3.
Aletheia
I have to gain an understanding on how concealing and
unconcealing are fundamentally related. Xavier has mentioned
this point.
#Post#: 69--------------------------------------------------
Re: Parmenides essays
By: StircrazyReality Date: September 18, 2017, 2:06 am
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Further clarifying questions
4.
Why is truth distant from us?
Why is truth not right before us?
5.
Can we discard Doxa? Can we set this discarding as a goal once
the Way of Truth has been traveled.
Our preliminary answer is no. It appears Doxa is something
fundamental. There is more to be thought here.
Sub Question: Why is the relation between Doxa, concealedness
and untruth
#Post#: 81--------------------------------------------------
Re: Parmenides essays
By: xavierhn Date: September 27, 2017, 10:54 pm
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To help us form our thoughts with our ongoing questions I've
made a google document that we can all access. Here we can write
on the specific questions we have, and add more questions in
relation to Parmenides poem. So far we have five questions for
our study.
Here's the link:
HTML https://drive.google.com/open?id=1bI-dl_LBpgE9W33qQVPXjJ263lO77whsYURFUhM2naM
#Post#: 84--------------------------------------------------
Re: Parmenides essays
By: StircrazyReality Date: October 26, 2017, 7:03 pm
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τὸ γὰρ αὐτὸ
νοεῖν ἐστίν
τε καὶ εἶναι
(B3)
…“for the same is apprehending as well as Being.” (B3).
Question
What is the relationship of νοεῖν to
εἶναι?
Why are they ‘the same’?
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