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Parmenides and the Pluralists

A.P.D.Mourelatos

A widely current modern reconstruction of the history of metaphysics

and cosmology among the 'pre-Socratic'philosophers of the fifth century

BC E runs l ike this. Parmenides, relying purely on reason, deduced that

there exists only a single undifferentiated entity, the One, and that thiscosmic One is unborn, imperishable, unchanging, and inherently com-

plete. The famil iar world of pluralityand change was thus to be regarded

either as a grand phenomenal illusion or as an arbitrary human posit.

Two of Parmenides' philosophical successors, Melissus of Samos andZeno of Elea, endorsed this paradoxical monism — with some variation

of the direct argument in the case of Melissus, and with recourse toindirect argument (a reductio ad absurdum of plurality and change) in thecase of Zeno. B y contrast, nearly all other mid- and late-fifth century

cosmologists rejectedParmenidean monism. They sought rather to 'save'

the obvious evidence of a world of plurality and change while selectively

making concessions to Parmenides' deduction. Accordingly, they devel-

oped pluralist ontologies the fundamental realities of which conform,

more or less loosely, to Parmenides' constraints on the One. Modem

scholars, ruling that not one of these projects answers successfully the

arguments against pluralism brought forward by the three 'Eleatics',

proceed to give various estimates of the extent to which one or the other

of the fifth-century pluralists came close to giving 'an answer to Elea'.Much of this reconstruction of the course of philosophy in the fifth

century B C E i s disputed in Patricia Curd's recent book, The Legacy o f

Parmenides: E leatic M onism and Later Presocratic Philosophy.1

Curd does not

read Parmenides as a philosopher of the One. Her view is that Parmen-

1 Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 1998. Pp. xvi + 280. US$45.00. I S B N

0-691-01182-6.

APEIRON a journal fo r ancient philosophy and science

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118 Α.Ρ.Ό. Mourelatos

ides sought to establish f o r m a l criteria for what should properly count

as 'what-is' or 'the real' (the physis or 'nature' of things) in a rationally

constructed cosmology. Such an entity — or such entities — should

indeed be unborn, imperishable, unchanging, and inherently complete.And it should also be homou pan hen, syneches, 'all of it together one,

cohesive' (B8.5-6; cf. B8.22), or oulon, mounogenes te, whole and of a single

kind' (B8.4). But the latter attributes are to be interpreted not as specify-

ing a numer ica l ly single entity (the One) but as generic characterizations

of the internal unity of 'what-is'. Moreover, when Parmenides argues

oude diaireton estin, 'nor is it divisible' (B8.22), the target of his denial is

not ordinary physical divisibility but 'metaphysical divisibility', i.e., any

duality or conceptual split in a thing's nature.

It fol lows, o n Curd's account, that Parmenides' deductions, fa r f rom

ruling out a pluralist cosmology, proclaim openly and consciously a

challenge to philosophers to develop pluralist ontologies that meet his

f o r m a l criteria. He does not himself embark on such a project except

obliquely: in the second part of his poem, the Doxa, he exhibits a dualist

cosmology of Light and Night. These two morphai, 'perceptible forms,

kinds', are basic entities (and in this respect unborn, imperishable, andunchanging) that come together to form through 'mixing' the perishable

and changing composites that are the familiar denizens of the kosmos.But the two morphai fal l conspicuously short of the requirement of unity

and completeness. Light cannot be conceived of except in a contrast with

Night, and vice versa. Neither of the two morphai is in itself complete,

neither is 'a whole of a single kind'. The Doxa is thus both a model of

how a pluralist ontology could be developed (basic metaphysical units

in mixture) and a warning as to how such an ontology may nonethelessfail the Parmenidean test.

In Curd's telling of the story of post-Parmenidean cosmology,

Anaxagoras is entirely faithful to the Parmenidean requirements. Even

the Opposites' in Anaxagoras (moist and dry, hot and cold, etc.) pass the

test, inasmuch as each, regarded in itself, is conceptualized as self-

sufficient, totally independent of the other. 'Themoist',and likewise each

of the other opposites, is just another variety of s t u f f — f u l l y on a par with

entities such as air, earth, cloud, and stone. Curd tells the same story with

respect to each of the four 'roots' (the cosmic elements) of Empedocles

and of the two forces of Love and Strife that operate on them.

The dialectic takes a different turn with Zeno, who, in his paradoxes

of plurality, attacks divisibility broadly. Curd does find it likely that it is

the pluralist ontologies of Anaxagoras and Empedocles that are Zeno's

target. But she holds that Zeno argues neither as a worshipful followerrought to you by | UNAM





Parmenides and the Pluralists 119

of Parmenides nor as a paradox-mongering Sophist. Rather,he raises, in

effect, a problem with which both Plato and Aristotle later had to wrestle:

'[C]an a metaphysically single nature be physicallydivisible?' (178).

Zeno's paradoxes may have played some role, Curd allows, in moti-vating the Atomists to postulate basic entities that are 'indivisible', the

atoms (201). But conceptually more profound, in her estimate, is the

connection with Parmenides. She stresses that '[a]toms differ in shape

and size, but not in their essential nature,' and that 'the Parmenidean

requirement that what-is be one in its nature' is observed (188). Further-

more, pointing to the Atomists' insistence that the void too qualifies as

'what-is', she comments: 'to be an atom is to be a full and indivisible

occupier o f space, to be void is to be that emptiness in space that

separates atoms' (204). So, then, both atoms and the void are fully

knowable, inasmuch as stretches o f space, whether full o r empty, can be

the object o f science.

Curd recognizes that Melissus argues explicitly fo r an undifferenti-

ated and all-encompassing One. Given the uncertainties o f chronology,

it is hard to determine whether he was philosophically activebefore the

Atomists, and thus may have influenced them, or whether he came afterthe Atomists and includes Atomism in his refutation of philosophies that

uphold the Many. Curd cautiously opts for the latter view. In any event,

and in agreement with what I have called above the 'widely current

modem reconstruction', she notes that Melissus has an argument that

seriously challenges any pluralist ontology that claims to adhere to

Parmenidean principles: when plural basic entities undergo metako-

smesis, 'rearrangement', a kosmos, 'arrangement, structure', that was not

there before has come into being, and the old kosmos has perished — anobvious violation of the Parmenidean ban on generation and perishing.

She rules that our ancient sources fail to support suggestions made by

modern scholars that some of the pluralists may have had an answer to

this challenge.

Her story concludes with a chapter o f 'Final Remarks', which offers

brief accounts of the realization of the Parmenidean criteria o f what-is in

the philosophies of Philolaus, of Diogenes of Apollonia, and of Plato. Thethird of these she suggestively characterizes as 'the last Presocratic'. The

monism o f Diogenes, which allows fo r 'alteration' in the single cosmic

reality o f air, she judges least successful in its observance of Parmenidean

strictures.

This conceptually attractive alternative story o f 'the legacy o f Par-

menides' is narrated with admirable clarity, through step-by-step phi-rought to you by | UNAM





120 A.P.D. Mourelatos

lological and philosophical examination of the sources, and with pains-

taking and intelligent adjudication of issues that are in controversy

among modern scholars. Indeed, Curd shows masterly command of the

literature on each of the philosophers she discusses. The criticism orargument she develops is careful and gentle; but it is often compelling.

Occasionally, when she dwells on particular figures in her story, she

indulges the temptation to discuss at length topics that do not directly

relate to her theme — as though the book's scope were that of a compre-

hensive history ofTarmenides and laterPresocratic thought'. Digressive

in this sense are, for instance, segments of her discussion ofAnaxagoras,

her discussion of poroi, 'channels', in Empedocles, and her discussion of

equipollence arguments (ou mallon arguments) in the Atomists.But even

in these cases the alert reader may discern some appreciable indirect

contribution to her theme.

In offering my own critical comments on the book, let me start by

posing this question: Given that the basis for Curd's larger narrative is

her interpretation of Parmenides, what exactly is that basis and how

secure is it? Since half of the book is devoted to Parmenides, let me take

up separately and at some length four salient theses in Curd's interpre-tation of Parmenides.

Curd argues, first, that the notoriously subjectless esti, 'is', or einai, 'to

be', that occurat crucial junctures in Parmenides' argument (initiallyand

most conspicuously in his statement of the two 'routes of inquiry' in B2)

do not bear the sense of existence ('exists', 'to exist') but a special predi-

cative sense. She explains: Ίtake Parmenides' esti to be an informative

identity claim, an assertion that, when true, reveals the nature of a thing,

saying just what something is' (39).Curd acknowledges repeatedly andgenerously the affinity between this account and the account I had

myself offered in The Route of Parmenides and in other publications of

mine in the 1970s. But, even though she is careful to take note of varying

nuances in our respective arguments, she overlooks a major difference.

In the account I had offered, the 'X' of the Parmenidean 'X is F scheme

in the passages at issue ranges over any and all ordinary physical objects,

whereas the 'F ranges over the physis or aletheia ('nature', 'reality', or

'true identity') of the ordinary object at issue. It is precisely this ranging

over ordinary physical objects that permits and justifies — in my view

— Parmenides' eliding of both subject and predicate complement. On

the construe I had offered, realizations of the characteristically Par-

menidean 'X is F scheme would be found in claims such as these: 'Wool

is compacted air'; 'The human body is a mixture of Light and Night';

"This world is ever-living fire'. To be sure, some of Curd's commentsrought to you by | UNAM






(e.g., the one I cited earlier in this paragraph here) suggest that this may

also be her construe. But the more studied formulationsshe offers are

tellingly different: 'As I read the "is" of Parmenides, the subjectcan only

be something that would count as a basic entity in an explanationof howthings are, and the arguments of B8 indicate how such a thing must be

i f it is indeed a genuine or basic entity' (40n46);'... the thing which is F

is a thing that genuinely or reliably is' (42); Parmenides is arguing for

th e proper understanding of the character o f theoretically fundamental

entities' (47); 'Parmenides' subject is the nature of a thing' (81); '[we

should not] take Parmenides as concerned with Existence, Being, or "the

all", but rather with what it is to be the genuine nature o r charactero f a

thing' (82, cf. 91). In other words, in Curd's account, it is already the 'X'

of the 'X is F' scheme that ranges over putatively basic theoretical

entities, whereas the 'F' has the function of representing the attributes

that might serve as fo rmal criteria fo r selecting such entities.

The drawbacks in this account are not hard to discern. Any proposal

(including those made by me in the 1970s) that the Parmenidean esti/ei-

nai, in their thematically crucial occurrences, are doubly incomplete

(with both subject and predicate complement elided) is vulnerable to theobjection of specious complexity and artificiality. The objection only

gains force if we are also to suppose that the elided subject envisages

quite special objects: the 'theoretically fundamental entities' posited in

early speculative cosmologies.

The second of Curd's salient theses is that Parmenides' rejection of the

negative route of inquiry ('is not', 'not to be') is a transparent corollary

to his special theoretical use of 'is'. Those who give an existential con-

strue to esti/einai assume, naturally, that the rejection is motivated byissues of semantic reference. Not so for Curd. Once the existential con-

strue is set aside, we shall not find, Curd argues, Parmenides 'ruling out

the possibility of negative predication per se' (75n28); rather, the rejec-

tion targets only uses of 'is not' or 'not to be' that might be deployed in

inquiry into the nature of things. 'For what would itbe/ sheasks, 'to give

a negative account of what something really is?' She answers: 'I t would

be to say "it is not this, or this, or this ..." and such a route can never be

completed; it is not anuston. Something that was negative in this sense

would be nothing in particular ... ' (49). Again: '[t]o say that X is really

not-F, or to attribute to X a nature or character that contains negative

elements is to make a statement that is steeped in vagueness, which gives

one nothing on which to pin one's thought and so noos is left wandering'

(61). Here too Curd (with equally gracious acknowledgment) adopts an

interpretation put forward in my own studies f rom the 1970s. So, I haverought to you by | UNAM





122 A.P.D. Mourelatos

some familiarity with the objection this interpretation almost inevitablyelicits: W hy should there be any problem in using negation in f raming astatement of the nature of something? What could be vague in specify-

ing, for example, that the rainbow is really not a goddess, or that the Oneof Melissus is not corporeal, or that Democritean atoms are in their nature

not divisible, penetrable, malleable, and neither light nor heavy. Andw h a t could be the problem in saying, using Curd's own words, thatEmpedoclean elements 'are not naturally antagonistic to one another' (m yitalics, 160)? I believe this objectioncan be m et — but only by taking fullaccount of Parmenides' commitment to a 'naive metaphysics of things,'2

a context that is touched on only marginally in Curd's account.

Her third salient thesis, that of 'predicational monism', has alreadybeen adumbrated in my summary of the book. Curd notes that inaddition to the familiar options of 'material monism' (all things are oneconstituent stuff) and 'numerical monism' (there exists just a singleentity), a philosopher may well hold that 'each thing that is can be onlyone thing; it can only hold the one predicate that indicates what it is.'Sheadds: '[T]he thing itself must be a unified whole. If it is, say F, it must be

all,only,

andcompletely

F'(66).

It is in this sense andonly

inthis

sense,argues Curd, that Parmenides is a monist. Those lines in Parmenides'poem that have widely been thought to state numerical monism (B8.5-6,8.22-5,8.36-8; cf. B4) are read by Curd as statements of the intrinsic unityand simplicity of what-is. She finds the key in the preferred manuscriptreading at B8.4, oulon m ounogenes te , 'whole, and of a single kind' (assign-ing to the second adjective not the sense Only begotten, unique' butrather 'monogenous', Of a single genos').

This interpretation of Parmenides' monism may be heterodox; but itis by no means far-fetched. Indeed, I find nothing in the preserved textto preclude it. The difficulty I see is in offering some Parmenideanmotivation for predicational monism. Granted that the F at issue is noaccidental predicate but the entire physis, 'nature', of a thing, whyshouldn't that physis be complex, why should it not comprise predicatesG, H, ... K , as well as F? If pluralism per se is not incompatible withParmenides' argument, why does complexity within a thing's nature

2 See my 'Heraclitus, Parmenides, and the Naive Metaphysicsof Things', inΕ.Ν. Lee,A. P. D. Mourelatos, and R. M. Rorty, eds., Exegesis and Argument: Studies in Greek

Philosophy Presented to Gregory Vlastos [= Phronesis, suppl. vol. 1] (Assen: Royal vanGorcum, and New York: Humanities Press 1973), 16-30 and 40-6.







have to be ruled out? Internal complexity need not import negativityor

contrariety any more than ontological plurality does.

Some light on the rationale for predicational monism is shed by

Curd's fourth salient thesis, her diagnosis of the fateful error ofmortalsin the Doxa. The error lies not in allowing pluralitybut in resorting to

'enantiomorphism'. Curd introduces this concept as an adaptation from

modem philosophical discussions of 'incongruent counterparts' in theo-

ries of space. She should also have pointed out that the widest and most

characteristic modem use of the concept is in chemistry and crystal-

lography (enantiomorphs are those molecules or crystals that are iden-

tical in composition but are structurally mirror images of one another).

As it turns out, the central component of the concept, spatial structure,

is marginal in Curd's adaptation. For she quickly generalizes enantio-

morphism to encompass such opposites as large/small, up/down,

light/dark, hot/cold — provided these are not taken as ambiguous

characterizations of a single underlying subject (i.e., of a subject that is

in d i f f e r e n t respects both large and small, etc.). So, then, Curd's enantio-

morphs can be adequately categorized in traditional philosophical ter-

minology. They are not mere contraries or incompatibles (such asblue/red, square/circular); they are complementary opposites or reciprocat-

ing privatives — the one is precisely what the other is not.Bu t in order to

keep my own discussion on track with Curd's, I suspend the qualms I

have about her adaptation of the technical concept of enantiomorphism;

I adhere in what follows to her terminology.

In Parmenides, the enantiomorphs are, of course, the cosmic morphai

of the Doxa, Light and Night, together with their respective cognates. At

the most fundamental level of Parmenides' argument, enantiomorphicdiscourse runs afoul of the rejectionof the negative route of inquiry. Bothmembers of a pair of enantiomorphs characteristically present them-

selves as positive entities, but negativity (the underlying logic of priva-

tion) is lurking below the sur face—hence the deceptiveness of the Doxa.

Moreover, enantiomorphism violates one of the deduced attributes ofwhat-is, that of completeness. Mind cannot focus j us t on Lightor just on

Night; the complementarity of the two opposites always brings the other

in its train. "This suggests/ Curd observes, 'that Parmenides well under-

stands the implications of the Heraclitean unity and identity of the ορρό-

sites' (108). Here we can see how the rejection of enantiomorphism may

be cited in support of predicational monism. Bu t the objection I voiced

earlier still has its force: What is there in Parmenides' argument to rule

out the possibility that the physis of X is constituted by predicatesF, G, H,... K, if no two of these predicates are in a relation of enantiomorphy?rought to you by | UNAM






And now an unsettling consideration. Curd argues that Parmenides

rejects enantiomorphs, in the first instance, because they import negativ-

ity. But the reference to Heraclitus in the observation of Curd's that was

cited above shows how the negative route may be navigable after all.Curd's Parmenides holds that a statement of the form 'X is really not-F'

has the effect of turning our mind away from physis, of making us gesture

vaguely and indefinitely away from the physis of a given thing, and,

therefore, that such a statement is panapeuthes, One that imparts alto-

gether no information'. If , however, the negated F bears a relation of

enantiomorphy to some G,then the charge ofvagueness and indefinite-

ness rings hollow. When I say 'not even' I mean precisely 'odd', and vice

versa. And if 'not dark' should be understood to allow for a range of

brightness, the negated enantiomorph decisively confines us to that

range, saving us from wandering over the bewildering infinity of things

that are 'non-bright', anything-other-than-bright. The lesson ofHeracli-

tus is that we need have no fear ofnegation that isbounded by the limits

of complementarity.

Thedifficulties I have raised propos the latter three ofCurd's theses

are obviously inter-related. So, let me forge a combined statement ofthem. I agree that enantiomorphism is of paramount importance in an

interpretation of Parmenides. And I agree (with Curd and with Par-

menides) that implied in any statement of the physis of an enantiomorph

is a negative predication: 'not-F'. My own view is that Parmenides was

simply wrong in ruling that there was something vague and uninforma-

tive about negation in a context of enantiomorphy — but I am not sure

that Curd would agree with me in this regard. As I see it, Parmenides'

error arose from assimilating the conceptually and semantically well-

charted privation involved in enantiomorphy with thebald and inchoate

'is really not-F ' of the second route of inquiry cited in B2. But to make

some sense of the baldness and the inchoate character of the second

route, we need to tell the story of Parmenides' controlling assumptions:

his commitment to a 'naive metaphysicsof things.'3

Let me next take up some smaller points in Curd's Parmenides

interpretation.Her interpretation of the Doxa as both a positive and a negative model

is very attractive: 'Parmenides supposes that his model in the Doxa

3 Seeabove,n. 1.Brought to you by | UNAM






would yield a rationally grounded cosmology if the basic entities of such

a theory met the criteria of B8 for what-is' (6); '[s]uppose that Light andNight were indeed the whole, complete, and independent entities sug-

gested at first glance by lines B8.56-59; as such they might indeed formthe basis of a cosmology' (112); 'if there were a cosmology that was based

on entities that pass the tests of B8, Parmenides might well be willing to

count it as acceptable' (114). And yet, in spite of the hypothetical con-

structions in these comments, Curd does not assign hypothetical mean-

ing to the main verb at the crucial passage of Bl .32, ehren. The latter form,

significantly in imperfect tense here, should bear, in accordance with its

widest and characteristic use, the sense 'it were right/would have been

right.' Curd, however, translates: 'how it was right that the things that

seem [should] be reliably, being indeed [reading per onto] the whole ofthings' (21 and 113). The hypothetical tenor she accurately detects in

Doxa encourages me to propose here a translation which, I believe, has

not been previously considered: 'how it were right [or"would have been

right"] for the things-that-seem to be reliably, if only all of them were

[panta per onto , i.e., if only all of them had being, were real] in every way[ d i a

pantos].'Line B6.3 has come down to us without the operative verb: 'from this

first route of inquiry < ... > you.' The long-favored remedy is to supply

eirgo, Ίbar, hold back'. This draws on the compelling parallel with

B7.1-2, eirge noema, 'hold back your thought.' Unfortunately, whereas atB7.12 the prohibited route isunambiguously one that includes reference

to what-is-not, at B6.1-3 what immediately precedes thephrase 'this firstroute of inquiry' is ostensibly a statement of the positive route. So,unless

we assume an even bigger lacuna, it is most natural to take 'this' withwhat precedes. Curd adopts the alternative conjecture proposed by

Alexander Nehamas, arxo, which yields the translation: Ίshall begin for

you from this first route of inquiry.' This reading does connect smoothly

with the preceding statement of the positive route; but I do not find the

Nehamas solution plausible. If there is no bigger lacuna (and, if there is,

any conjecture is gratuitous) the verb must also govern what follows:

'and, moreover, [understood "I shall begin for you"] from the route

mortals...' (B6.4). Twobeginnings? The fitfulness seems at the very least

incongruous in Parmenides' bee-line argument. Revisiting the perplexi-

ties of this passage, I found myself drawn to a simple adjustment of thelong-favored remedy: not eirgo but rather eirgon, Ί (earlier) barred you/

the past tense serving the function of transporting us to the rejection of

the negative route in B2. The infelicity in this case would be in Par-

menides' having said tautes, 'this', when ekeines, 'that', would be therought to you by | UNAM






appropriate pronoun — a more tolerable infelicity, to my mind, than

those entailed by other conjectures.

In Curd's analysisof the specific attributes of what-is thatare deduced

by Parmenides in B8, I find least satisfactory her account of atremes,'unshaking', and akineton, 'immobile'. She interprets these not as consti-

tutive properties of fundamental entities but as figurative and meta-

theoretical comments on nature or reality. What is being ruled out is that

'the nature of a thing — what it is to be that thing — might undergo

displacement, understood as alterationof development'; 'what is being

argued for is the internal stability of what-is rather than its literal

immobility' (86). That this gloss on akineton is significantly connected to

Curd's overall argument is obvious. If Parmenides had ruled out mobil-

ity in the standard and literal sense of locomotion, the pluralists could

hardly qualify as faithful Parmenideans; for they introduce fundamental

entities that are mobile in the standard sense. But I see a major obstacle

to Curd's gloss in the phrase kai topon aliassein, 'and change of place', at

B8.41. The emphatically literal reference to locomotion here appears as

third in sequence out of a tetrad that recalls each of the four proofs of B8.

So, the reference to locomotion must surely carry back to atremes andakineton in the third proof.M y smallest point. In the sphere passage, Curd rightly resists at

B8.42-3 assuming an effect of enjambment; she does not adopt thepunctuation that has (albeit with little warrant) become common. She

takes the entire predication to be tetelesmenon esti, 'it is complete', and

correctly attaches th e adverb pantothen to eukyklou, 'well rounded from

every side'. She misses, however, the agreement of the genitive with

sphaires. Thus her translation, 'well-rounded from every side like th ebulk of a sphere,' directly attributes uniform rotundity to what-is. Thecorrect translation is : 'similar to the expanse of a sphere that is well-

rounded from all sides.' The comparison, it needs to be stressed, is not

directly between what-is and a sphere but between two attributes of

these two entities in the simile: the perfection of a well-made sphere; the

completeness of what-is.

Let me now return to the larger theme of the relation between Par-

menides and the pluralists. It is relevant to appreciate Curd's concern to

show that the arguments of Parmenides 'were accepted and followed'

by the pluralists (242;cf. 4, 8, and passim). Yet,on the terms of her ownanalysis, there are some blatant divergences from the Parmenidean

criteria. Some of the pluralists openly embrace enantiomorphism. I shall

not press the case of the opposites in Anaxagoras; we could well acceptrought to you by | UNAM






Curd's point that the enantiomorphy in this case is purely verbal, inas-

much as Anaxagoras emphasizes the ontological independence of all thechremata. But what about Love and Strife in Empedocles? These entities

are undoubtedly basic in Empedocles' ontology; they are opposed to oneanother essentially,constitutively; and the action of either is understood

as countervailing the action of the other. And what about the full and

the empty of the Atomists? Recall Curd's explanation (cited above): 'to

be an atom is to be a full and indivisible occupier of space, to be void isto be that emptiness in space that separates atoms' (204). This is unmis-

takably a characterizationof atomic nature, and the statement bears thehallmarks of enantiomorphy: tw o reciprocally privative determinations

bound into complementarity by a unifying matrix, in this instance, the

matrix of space. Surely, at least these two pairs deployed in pluralist

metaphysics — Love and Strife, the full and the empty — are no less

recognizable as enantiomorphic than the two forms of Parmenides'

Doxa, Light and Night.

Quite apart from the issues raised by the complementarity of the full

and the empty, how convincing, on other grounds, is Curd's claim that

'the atomic theory ... follows the Parmenidean requirement that what-isbe one in its nature' (188)? Even the void has, in addition to the property

of not excluding any body, at least one other property, that of spatial

spread — the property it shares with atoms. With respect to atoms, Curd

makes the curious comment that 'they differ in shape and size, but not

in their essential nature' (188). True, it is not part of the nature of atoms

that they should have some determinate shape and size; but it is undeni-

ably a part of their nature that they have determinable shape and size

(some shape or other, some sizeor other). Idon't see how we can reason-ably attribute predicational monism to the Atomists.

Finally, might there not be other plausible narrativesof 'the legacyofParmenides'? Curd does understand that we could have an interpreta-

tion of Parmenides that leaves the door open to pluralism without

insisting either on the predicative construe of the thematically crucial

'is/to be' or on predicational monism. Her remarks to this effect are,

however, rushed and compendious (mainly in footnotes, 5n5, 65n5,

66n9); so, the point may be worth developing here. Suppose oneadopts

an existential or a veridical construe of the relevant uses of 'is/to be' and

then proceeds to interpret Parmenides' rejection of generation, perish-

ing, splitting (or division), mobility (or motility), and change along the

lines of what Curd (and I) have called 'the standard interpretation ofParmenides' (9-15). The rationale for these rejections would be that the

proscribed attributes import contrasts, and thus implicitlyrefer to 'whatrought to you by | UNAM






does not exist' or to 'what is not the case'. Granting all this, numerical

monism does not follow. Doubtless, we could take Parmenides' argu-

ment to apply to an all-encompassing One, or to a solitary monad, or to

the one and only state of a f f a i r s that 'is the case'; but we could just aswell take it to apply distributively to a plurality of monads or to a

plurality of atomic facts. To tilt the argument in the direction ofnumeri-

ca l monism we need something l ike the syllogism Theophrastus em-

ployed to this end: 'that which is alongside what-is (to para to on) is

what-is-not (ouk on);what-is-not is nothing; therefore, what-is is one'

(from Simplicius In phys 115,11; cf. Diels-Kranz 28A28). Of course, even

though Theophiastus' syllogism does reflect and capture the interpreta-

tion of Parmenides that was promoted by Platoand by Aristotle, neither

the syllogism nor some reasonably close equivalent of it is found in the

Parmenides fragments. And Theophrastus' syllogism is not inherently

cogent:sheer otherness doesnot necessarily import negation. To be sure,

a doctrine of monadism — a pluralism of monads or of atomic facts —

is a fa r cry from the pluralist systems of the fifth century BCE But the

point I am making here is conceptual: the door to pluralism can be left

open even by the Parmenides of the 'standard interpretation'.Here is another plausible narrative. Curd concedes that the pluralists

were, by and large, unmoved by Melissus' argument in f avo r of numer-

ical monism. She also recognizes that they either ignored Zeno or gave

selective and oblique responses to the challenge posed by his paradoxes.

So, then, why may we not suppose that they approached Parmenides in

the same spirit? Indeed, it is rare for philosophers to respond to the

challenge posed by arguments put forward by a predecessor exactly on

the terms set by that challenge. Typically there is more than a littledeconstructing of the predecessor's argument — some ignoratio elenchi,some suggestio falsi. Note that it is especially easy to combine this alter-

native with the other one I just cited. Any philosophers who sensed that

Parmenides had left open the door to pluralism might well have in-

dulged in a tendentious gloss on the Parmenidean criteria forwhat-is—

a gloss that would permit something looser than strict monadism.

The book is elegantly produced. Nearly twenty pages of indexes (lo-corum, nominum, rerum) are availableto the reader. Theorganization and

content of all three indexes isexcellent. There isample evidenceof careful

canvassing of the book's contents both for sub-topics in the indexes and

in the selection ofpassages for reference. (This is sadly often not the case

today, when indexes are produced mechanically through software.)

Mistakes or misprints in the Greek are neither numerous nor bother-rought to you by | UNAM






some: those who have good knowledge of Greek orthography can easilymake the needed corrections, and those who do not,will not be seriouslymisled. There is, however, one mistranslation that could be mischievous

to the unwary. In citing Anaxagoras B2, Curd correctly adopts a variantreading that has been convincingly established by David Sider

4: polou,

Of the celestial vault '. Her translation, however, adheres to the readingpollou, Of the multitude', which is the reading commonly found in othereditions.

The queries and critical comments in this review are not intended todetract from, or qualify, the favorable assessment of the book I offered

earlier. The topic of comparison of Parmenides with one or another ofhis fifth-century philosophical successors is certainly one of the staplesin the study of the pre-Socratics. But Curd has produced a book ofaltogether special value by making that topic into her major and sus-tained project. And the execution of the project has all the desiredscholarly virtues: it is well-structured, methodical, judicious, intelli-gently searching; and it shows both synoptic philosophical vision andclose attention to interpretive ramificationsand controversies. Any stu-dent of pre-Socratic philosophy, whether a seasoned specialist or alearner in graduate school or in college, will be treated to a healthyregimen of education by working carefully through Curd's book.

5

Department of PhilosophyThe University of Texas at Austin

316 Waggener HallAustin, TX 78712-1180

U.S.A.apdm@ mail.utexas.edu

4 The Fragments o f Anaxagoras Editedwith an Introduction and Commentary.Beiträge

zur klassischen Philologie, 118 (Meisenheim am Glan: Anton Hain 1981), 52-3.

5 I am indebted to Nathan Powers for the several helpful discussions the two of us

engaged in as we studied the book, and to Olive Forbes for well-placed improve-ments in my style.







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Mourelatos, A. P. D._parmenides and the Pluralists_1999_Apeiron, 32, 2, Pp. 117-130

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