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The Interpretation of Parmenides by The THE INTERPRETATION OF PARMENIDES BY THE NEOPLATONIST SIMPLICIUS Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/monist/article/62/1/30/1051769 by guest on 27 September 2021 The doctrines of Parmenides of the one being and of the world of seem­ ing were—as is well known—interpreted in different ways in the course of the history of philosophy, and even in twentieth-century historic-philosophical research, there is no agreement on the meaning of the two parts of the poem. Regarding the one being there are four attempts of explanation to be dis­ tinguished: (1) The being is material; (2) the being is immaterial; (3) it is the esse copulae or must be seen as a modal category; (4) it is the entity of being ("Sein des Seienden"). This latter interpretation, if we can call it an in­ terpretation, is chiefly influenced by Heidegger. The Doxa-part, however, is seen as (1) a more or less critical doxography; (2) a second-best, hypothetic explanation of phenomena which is not truth but verisimilitude; (3) a systematic unit together with the first part, the aXijdtLa. We do not have to discuss the differences between the outlined explanations separately;1 in the following, we shall show that some modern interpretations were already ex­ pressed in a similar way in antiquity. With this, we shall concentrate especially on the Neoplatonist Simplicius who in his commentary on Aristotle's Physics expounds the first part of the Parmenidean poem completely and, in addition, the most important doctrines of the second part. I Aristotle says2 that Melissus and Parmenides had not conceded any reality besides the essence of sensible things, but that they had been the first to recognize that objects of knowledge are ungenerated and unchangeable— the unchangeable is the object of necessary and universal cognition—and that they had applied the characteristics of the ungenerated and unchanging to the sensible.3 Alexander of Aphrodisias4 explains Aristotle's statement in this way: According to Parmenides and Melissus only the sensible is being. Knowledge concentrates upon being. That, of which there is knowledge, is unchangeable. Thus, the sensible is unchangeable. On basis of these con­ siderations, Parmenides and Melissus transferred by mistake to the sensible what is to be applied to unchanging substances. Yet it is clear that the single sensible thing is not identical with the unchangeable one being; for the single sensible things come to be and perish, but the being is ungenerated and imperishable. From this, there arises the problem how we must understand— insofar as its accuracy is not contested—Aristotle's statement on the Parmenidean being, namely, just what in the realm of the sensible is un- SIMPLICIUS ON PARMENIDES 31 changeable being, TUV aladrtrccv ovaia5 could mean the unchangeable univer­ sal essence of sensible things, yet it could as well be conceived as something else. From Eudemus, fr. 12, quoted by Simplicius6 emerges that considera­ tions like this were made soon after Aristotle, "In the first book of Physics, Eudemus is talking about Parmenides, and he wrote this, as it is reported by Alexander; for I did not find it in the Eudemus-text, 'He hardly means the Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/monist/article/62/1/30/1051769 by guest on 27 September 2021 universal.7 For an object of that kind was not yet looked for, and that what Parmenides attributes to being does not permit this assumption, but it emerged from the considerations later on. For how will the universal be "equal from the centre"8 and such as this? As is said, almost all statements like this will be true of the sky'." According to Eudemus9 reason for equating the Parmenidean being with the sky is Parmenides, fr. 8, 43, "On every side it is like the bulk of a well-rounded sphere." Simplicius10 rejects this exposition referring to Parmenides, fr. 8, 22, "Nor it is divisible, since it is all alike": The sky is not indivisible, nor is it alike to a sphere, but it is the most accurate sphere of all natural things." The exposition given by Eudemus is akin to that given by Theophrastus: The Parmenidean being is the cosmos.12 The identification of the being with the essence of sensible things, or the sky, or the cosmos seems to be in contrast with Parmenides, fr. 3. In all probability, the words TO yap avrb votiv eariv Tt nal tlvoti mean with Parmenides, "For the same thing can be thought of as can be."13 Plotinus un­ derstood them in another way, "Parmenides . identified being and mind and thus did not place the being among the sensible things: 'For the same is to think and to be' says he."14 So Plotinus identifies the Parmenidean being with the voiis: Being is mind; and this interpretation of Parmenides made its way in Neoplatonism. As Simplicius is transmitting the greatest number of frag­ ments of the way of truth and is giving a continuous interpretation,15 we are going to treat his exposition here. II Parmenides distinguished physics and metaphysics as did ihe Pythagoreans, Xenophanes, Empedocles, and Anaxagoras.16 Regarding Parmenides, this issues from the two parts of the poem and from the state­ ment made by Aristotle,17 "As to the question, whether the being is one and unchanging, this is no question concerning nature."18 In his metaphysics, i.e., in the part dealing with truth, Parmenides revep'.o nis doctrine of the one be­ ing, while in the physics, i.e., in the Doxa, he is pleading a two-principles- theory.19 At a surface inspection, however, the distinction spoken of cannot be seen; it escapes most people because of its indistinct treatment.20 The problem of apxv rules the thinking of Parmenides in the same way as that of his predecessors; accordingly, the two parts of the poem have but one subject, though it is revealed in different ways: the principle of everything. 32 KARL BORMANN Nevertheless, the two parts must be sharply distinguished: In the metaphysics, Parmenides knows the principle to be one, unchangeable, and determined;21 that means that Parmenides is not speaking of a natural ele­ ment, nor is Melissus, but "of the true being";22 in the physics, Parmenides regards a pair of contraries as the principles of becoming and perishing things. Before we discuss how Simplicius gave a new interpretation to the Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/monist/article/62/1/30/1051769 by guest on 27 September 2021 Parmenidean doctrine of being, let us show how he comprehends the Doxa- part. Ill Light or "aitherial fire" and night,23 the principles of the Doxa-part, were expounded by Aristotle as fire and earth, "... Parmenides erects hot and cold, which he calls fire and earth, into principles";24 "Parmenides . supposes that there are ... in some sense two causes . hot and cold, or fire and earth . .";25 "Parmenides . posits two causes and two principles, calling them hot and cold, i.e. fire and earth. ,"26 Moreover, Aristotle states27 that Parmenides ranged the fire with the existent and the earth with the non-existent. This is a misunderstanding of Parmenides, fr. 8, 53-54, "For they made up their minds to name two forms, of which they must not name one only." On the identification of the principles of the Doxa-world with fire and earth, see furthermore Theophrastus, Phys. Op. fr. 628 and Hippolytus I 11, l;29 these two passages identify fire with the active principle and earth with potentiality. Theophrastus, Phys. Op. fr. 6 is transmitted by Alexander of Aphrodisias and quoted by Simplicius as well.30 The equation of the night-element and earth is obviously a mistake, as is remarked by Simplicius31 according to Alexander:32 Parmenides posited in the Doxa "fire and earth, or better, light and darkness" as principles, what did not prevent Simplicius from calling—under the influence of Aristotle, Theophrastus, and Alexander—the principles of the world of seeming 'fire' and 'earth'.33 If we do not take account of Simplicius naming the two "forms"34 fire and earth, his expositions are correct; for further characterization, he closely follows Parmenides, "Parmenides posited the first pair of opposites as elementary principles of the becoming things; he called the pair of opposites light and darkness,35 or fire and earth, or dense and rare,36 or the same and the other."37 It is conditioned by Aristotle that Theophrastus and Hippolytus called fire the active and earth the passive principle,38 "for they treat fire as having a nature which fits it to move things, and water and earth and such things they treat in the contrary way." Aristotle probably understood Parmenides, fr. 8, 57-59 in this way. The polemics of Simplicius against this interpretation arise from the Theophrastus-fragment transmitted by Alexander:39 If Alexander like Parmenides sees the sensible as the subject of the Doxa, then his rendering, SIMPLICIUS ON PARMENIDES 33 which says that Parmenides—according to the opinion of "the many"—has expounded the phenomena as coming from natural causes, is right, as far as he is taking the sensible for the subject of the Doxa. But if Alexander thinks the words of the Doxa-part to be utterly wrong,40 and if he thinks Parmenides to be positing light or fire as efficient cause, then his assumption is not correct.41 To prove this, Simpiicius42 quotes Parmenides, fr. 8, 50—61. Parmenides does Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/monist/article/62/1/30/1051769 by guest on 27 September 2021 not call the account of the Doxa-part "simply false" but "deceitful," "because it slipped from the intelligible truth down to the region of seeming, to the sensible."43 David Ross44 takes the view that Simpiicius explains the transition from truth to Doxa in the same way as Aristotle,45 "Aristotle describes the transition from the 'way of truth' to the 'way of opinion' by say­ ing that though Parmenides thinks that of necessity only TO bv exists, he is forced to follow the observed facts and therefore to admit two causes, TO bv and TO fir) bv.
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