aristotle, theophrastus, and parmenides' theory of cognition (b 16)

Aristotle Theophrastus and Parmenidesrsquo Theoryof Cognition (B 16)1

LUIS ANDREacuteS BREDLOW (BARCELONA)Universitat de Barcelona

Facultat de FilosofiaMontalegre 6ndash8

E-08001 Barcelonae-mail luisbredlowubedu

Abstract

This paper proposes a new interpretation of Parmenides B 16 After a short reviewof the status quaestionis (section 1) I will proceed to a detailed examination of thecontext of quotation in Aristotle (section 2) and Theophrastus whose report will beshown to disclose some new possibilities for our understanding of the fragment Ishall argue that B 16 is not a theory of sense-perception but a fragment of a com-prehensive theory of cognition (section 3) This theory is consistent with Parme-nidesrsquo own claims to genuine knowledge of Being (section 4) once we recognize thatneither a dualism of ontological domains (ldquointelligiblerdquo vs ldquosensiblerdquo) nor of cogni-tive faculties (ldquoreasonrdquo vs ldquothe sensesrdquo) can be consistently ascribed to ParmenidesMoreover our discussion will provide some elements for a reappraisal of Aristotleand Theophrastus as interpreters of their predecessors

Keywords Parmenides Aristotle Theophrastus cognition

1 Introduction

Aristotle and Theophrastus have had a rather bad reputation as historiansof philosophy ever since the ground-breaking studies of Cherniss (1935)and McDiarmid (1953) on the subject Aristotle when discussing earlierphilosophers was not interested in historical fact as such ndash it was said ndash

apeiron vol 44 pp 219ndash263copyWalter de Gruyter 2011 DOI 101515apeiron2011015

1 This paper is part of the work of the research project NOacuteESIS La tradicioacuten gnoseoloacute-gica aristoteacutelica y los oriacutegenes de la filosofiacutea de la mente (FFI 2009-11795 Ministeriode Ciencia Spain) I am indebted to an anonymous referee of Apeiron for helpfulcomment and criticism

Brought to you by | Fordham University LibraryAuthenticated | 15010816171Download Date | 5213 204 PM

but in finding support for his own system of philosophy to this end hedid not hesitate to modify or distort the views of his predecessors2 Theo-phrastusrsquo accounts on the Presocratics in the extant fragments of his Phy-sical Opinions are essentially simple repetitions of some of the interpreta-tions he found in Aristotle and hence have the same deficienciesaggravated by isolation from their context even his direct reading of theauthors he dealt with was thoroughly biased by his dependence on Aristo-tle to the point of distorting the meaning of his quotations in order toadjust it to the Aristotelian interpretation3

I shall not deny that there is a certain part of truth in this view Itshould be uncontroversial that Aristotle was not writing as a historian ofphilosophy His interest in earlier philosophers is systematical not histor-ical so when discussing their views he regularly reshapes them in terms ofhis own philosophy making them often take sides on problems that wereclearly not their own Theophrastus obviously shared Aristotlersquos terminol-ogy and his general outlook on the history of science and philosophyBoth Aristotlersquos and Theophrastusrsquo accounts rely on a thoroughly sche-matic systematization of what they took to be the real problems of philo-sophy which would easily lead them to misrepresent the views of theirpredecessors and thus become a major source of misunderstanding thoughprobably not the only one

But an all too hasty dismissal of the historical value of Aristotlersquos andTheophrastusrsquo testimonies has its own dangers If Aristotle and Theo-phrastus were capable of utterly misunderstanding the views of the ancientphilosophers whose writings they had at their disposal then anyone towhom as to ourselves these writings are not available anymore will findhimself in even far worse a position to assess what these authors reallymeant to say Giving the fragmentary evidence we have on Presocratic phi-losophy one may all too easily risk replacing the authority of Aristotleand Theophrastus by the authority of modern interpretations4 which atthe end may turn out to be hardly less questionable than Aristotlersquos own

2 See McDiarmid 1953 86 summarizing the results of Cherniss 19353 See Mc Diarmid 1953 1334 This danger was pointed out already by Guthrie 1957 40 in a lucid and well-argued

criticism of some of the more extreme conclusions of Cherniss and McDiarmid ldquoTosubstitute uncritical rejection for sympathetic criticism of Aristotlersquos account leads inthe absence of any better source of information to the erection of a purely moderndogmatism in its placerdquo For further discussion of the Cherniss-McDiarmid-Guthriecontroversy see Stevenson 1974 and Collobert 2002 cf also Palmer 2009 2ndash8 Amore equitable judgment of Theophrastusrsquo historical work has been convincingly ar-gued for by Kahn 1960 17ndash24 and in a most detailed way by Baltussen 2000 esp27ndash29 (against Chernissrsquo and McDiarmidrsquos view that Aristotle and Theophrastus areguilty of gross misrepresentation of their predecessorsrsquo theories instead of ldquodistor-

Luis Andreacutes Bredlow220


A striking example can be found in modern discussion on Aristotlersquosand Theophrastusrsquo accounts on Parmenides At the end of the nineteenthcentury Burnet and Diels had put forward the hypothesis that the physi-cal theories expounded in the second part of the poem ndash the so-calleddoxa part of which but a few literal fragments have survived ndash did notactually reflect Parmenidesrsquo own convictions but rather the theories ofearlier philosophers he described for polemical or simply informative pur-poses (a ldquodoxographyrdquo as Diels put it or on Burnetrsquos view a Pythagoreandoctrine criticized by Parmenides himself)5 Cherniss taking this hypoth-esis for historical fact argues that Aristotle interpreted the second part ofthe poem as the authorrsquos own theory just in order to find support for hisconviction that all philosophers regarded the elements as principles6 or forthe claim that almost all ancient philosophers identified knowledge withsensation in spite of the fact that Parmenides denied the truth of ordinarysense-perception ldquoAristotle has misunderstood Parmenides as usualrdquo7 Si-milarly McDiarmid blames Theophrastus for basing his account on Par-menides on the supposition that the second part of the poem presentsParmenidesrsquo own views even though ldquothe care with which he distinguishesthe two parts of the poem shows clearly that he is aware that the secondpart of the poem does not represent Parmenidesrsquo orthodox doctrinerdquo thisfact ldquoreveals how much he is disposed to follow the pattern of Aristotlersquosaccounts even when hellip he appears to know that Aristotlersquos interpretationis contrary to the Presocratic writingsrdquo and in de Sensibus 3ndash4 he evenldquoderives his report of Parmenidesrsquo psychology from the Way of Opinionwithout giving a hint that the views he is stating are not Parmenidesrsquoownrdquo8 On McDiarmidrsquos view it would seem that Theophrastus was readyto carry blind faith in Aristotlersquos authority to the point of outright dis-honesty we should conclude that only the worst can be expected from ahistorian of philosophy capable of manipulating his sources in so unscru-pulous a manner

During the last half century however a growing number of scholarshave reached the conclusion that the physical theories of the second partof the poem actually were after all Parmenidesrsquo own9 just as Aristotle and

tionrdquo we should rather think of ldquoreception as determined by the scope of Peripateticdialecticrdquo) 90ndash94 168ndash169 (evidence for Theophrastusrsquo ldquoserious interpretative ef-fortrdquo) 238 (ldquoThe great amount of detail in the reports indicates that he had access togood sourcesrdquo) etc

5 Diels 1897 63 Burnet 1930 183ndash1966 Cherniss 1935 48 referring to Ph 188a20 GC 318b6 330b14 and Metaph 986b337 Cherniss 1935 81 on Metaph 1009b12ndash258 McDiarmid 1953 121ndash29 See Verdenius 1964 45ndash63 Clark 1969 Heitsch 1974a 72ndash80 1974b 416 Finkel-

berg 1986 and 1999 Schmitz 1988 20ndash21 Kerferd 1991 Reale and Ruggiu 1991

Aristotle Theophrastus and Parmenidesrsquo Theory of Cognition (B 16) 221


Theophrastus ndash and for that matter all ancient readers of the poem whoare known to us ndash took them to be This would entail that Parmenidesdid not simply deny the existence of the sensible world10 rather the twoparts of the poem should be read as presenting two different and comple-mentary views on the same reality11 the physical universe or as Aristotlewould say the reality of ldquosensible thingsrdquo again this was exactly how Aris-totle and Theophrastus understood it12 whatever be their mistakes onother points

This should suggest the advisability of a more cautious reassessment ofour judgment on Aristotlersquos and Theophrastusrsquo accounts on Presocraticphilosophy13 In the present paper I will limit myself to one particularfragment of Parmenides B 16 DK cited both by Aristotle (Metaphysics Γ5 1009b22ndash25) and Theophrastus (de Sensibus 3)14 and its context ofquotation in both authors To this end I will begin with a rather sum-

226ndash234 Conche 1996 28 Thanassas 1997 165ndash170 Palmer 1999 ch 9 and2009 159ndash188 Cerri 1999 69ndash85 and passim Hermann 2004 204ndash208 Graham2006 172ndash179 Robbiano 2006 Bollack 2006 Solana Dueso 2006 21 GemelliMarciano 2009 62ndash63 Palmer 2009 162 states that ldquoit is now generally and rightlyrecognized that the cosmology must be judged the product of Parmenidesrsquo own re-flection on the worldrsquos origin and operationrdquo It should be noted however that therehabilitation of the doxa is not unanimous the contrary view is still defended byGranger 2002 and Cordero 2004 151ndash163 (but see now Cordero 2008 for a radi-cally different view the physical theories as opposed to the ldquoopinions of mortalsrdquo arepart of the Way of Truth)

10 As he is still taken to do eg by Taraacuten 1965 28311 What Parmenides in the first part of his poem calls ldquothat which isrdquo is best under-

stood as being ldquothe world of seeming as such when this world is correctly understoodand is stripped by the application of Parmenidean logic and cleansed of the pluralityof names which mortals assign to itrdquo (Kerferd 1991 6) In other words ldquowhat isdescribed in the Way of Seeming is not a different reality from that described in theWay of Truth but a different knowledge of the same realityrdquo (Finkelberg 1986 405)I will not try to show here that this view is right (since a detailed discussion of thedoxa problem would largely exceed the limits of this paper I will deal with this topicin another paper ldquoParmenidesrsquo Physics and the Beliefs of Mortalsrdquo [in progress]) butit is surely consistent with the interpretation of B 16 I will suggest (see section 4)

12 See eg Metaph 986b31 Cael 298b22ndash28 cf Kerferd 1991 and section 2 text cor-responding to ns 50ndash52

13 A valuable advance in this direction has been accomplished by Mansfeldrsquos (1996) andBaltussenrsquos (2000) thoroughly well-documented studies on Theophrastus de Sensibusand its relation to the writings of Aristotle Baltussen (cf n 4) however pays scarceattention to the passage on Parmenides (Sens 3ndash4) I shall be concerned with heremy agreements and disagreements with Mansfeldrsquos point of view will emerge through-out this paper

14 The fragment is quoted also by Alexander of Aphrodisias (in Metaph 306 29ndash30and 306 36ndash307 1 Hayduck) and Asclepius (in Metaph 277 19ndash20 and 24ndash27)but these quotations depend on Aristotle and therefore lack any independent source



mary review of the present state of discussion on the problems of interpre-tation posed by the fragment B 16 in itself (this section) then I will pro-ceed to re-examine its context of quotation in Aristotle (section 2) andTheophrastus I hope to show that a careful reading of Theophrastusrsquo re-port may disclose new possibilities for our understanding of Parmenidesrsquoown words at B 16 (section 3) and to a certain extent of his conceptionof knowledge as a whole (section 4)

According to a majority of recent scholars (Taraacuten Mourelatos Kirk-Raven-Schofield OrsquoBrien-Fregravere Collobert and Conche among others)the text of B 16 should be read as follows

ὡς γὰρ ἑκάστοτrsquo ἔχει κρᾶσις μελέων πολυπλάγκτωντὼς νόος ἀνθρώποισι παρέστηκενmiddot τὸ γὰρ αὐτὸἔστιν ὅπερ φρονέει μελέων φύσις ἀνθρώποισινκαὶ πᾶσιν καὶ παντίmiddot τὸ γὰρ πλέον ἐστὶ νόημα

1 ἑκάστοτ(ε) Theophr Arist E1J ἑκάστῳ Ab ἕκαστος E2 ἔχει Arist AbJ ἔχη (ἔχε )15 E ἔχειν Theophr κρᾶσις Stephanus κρᾶσιν libri πολυπλάγκτων Theophr FOπολυκάμπτων Arist sec Ross Coxon DK πολυκάμπον sec Cordero2 παρέστηκεν Karsten (-κε Theophr) παρίσταται Arist16

As to the understanding of these lines we may take OrsquoBrienrsquos (in OrsquoBrienand Fregravere 1987) rendering as fairly representative of the present day stan-dard interpretation

For as at each moment is the condition of the mixture in the wandering limbs sothe mind turns out to be for menFor what the limbs think of is just the same for all men and for every ltmangt Forwhat there is more of is thought

For a number of minor problems concerning text and translation I see noneed to question this consensus So we may accept for verse 1 with mosteditors πολυπλάγκτων as making better sense than Aristotlersquos πολυκάμπτωνand at verse 2 παρέστηκεν as clearly preferable to the unmetrical (or if readᾱται grammatically awkward) παρίσταται17 At verses 1 and 3 μέλεα is best

value though they may shed ndash at least in the case of Alexander ndash some indirect lighton the manuscript tradition of the Metaphysics itself

15 ldquoἔχε Arist E S Bbrdquo Cordero 1984 33 in his app crit to the fragment Ross 1924app crit ad loc and Coxon 1986 91 give ἔχη as the reading of E

16 For a full apparatus criticus to the fragment see Cordero 1984 33 Coxon 1986 91and OrsquoBrien-Frere 1987 73ndash74 here I give only short notice of the main textualvariants relevant to the discussion

17 See Snell 1958 cf Fraumlnkel 1955 175 Heitsch 1974a 191ndash192 and Coxon 1986249 Among recent editors παρίσταται is still preferred by Cordero 1984 33 and2004 190 and Reale and Ruggiu 1991 Alternative conjectures like παρέστηκεmiddot αὐτὸγὰρ αὐτό (Ellis 1902 269) or παρέσταmiddot ταὐτὸ γὰρ αὐτό (Garciacutea Calvo 1981 221)might be worth considering but are of scarce relevance for interpretation



understood as ldquomembersrdquo (in the Homeric sense of ldquobodyrdquo18) rather than asldquoorgans of the sensesrdquo19 ldquoelementsrdquo20 or even ldquomusical harmoniesrdquo21

The only strictly textual problem that is still to a certain degree con-troversial concerns the beginning of verse 1 The variant ἕκαστος ἔχει κρᾶ-σιν is all too evidently a lectio facilior22 At first sight ἑκάστοτ(ε) seems tobe best supported by the MSS23 if we choose this reading we may eitheraccept with most editors Stephanusrsquo correction κρᾶσις or else supposethat ἔχει depends on some implicit subject (for example man or νόος bothmentioned in the next verse)24 On any of these interpretations theseverses would refer not so much to discrepancies between individuals as tothe inconstancy of each individualrsquos mind as in the well-known verses ofHomer (Od 18136ndash7)

τοῖος γὰρ νόος ἐστὶν ἐπιχθονίων ἀνθρώπωνοἷον ἐπrsquo ἦμαρ ἄγῃσι πατὴρ ἀνδρῶν τε θεῶν τε

and Archilochus (fr 68 Diehl = fr 70 Bergk)

τοῖος ἀνθρώποισι θυμός Γλαῦκε Λεπτίνεω πάιγίγνεται θνητοῖσrsquo ὁκοίην Ζεὺς ἐφrsquo ἡμέρην ἄγῃκαὶ φρονεῦσι τοῖrsquo ὁκοίοισrsquo ἐκυρέωσιν ἔργμασιν

Fraumlnkel saw in these verses Parmenidesrsquo source of inspiration for this pas-sage and hence a compelling reason for preferring ἑκάστοτrsquo25 His argu-

18 It should be remembered that Epic Greek lacks a special term for the living body asan organic whole in Homer σῶμα means only the dead body the corpse what we(and later Greeks) would call a personrsquos body was usually referred to by plural nounssuch as μέλεα or γυῖα see Snell 1953 5ndash8 for Parmenides Fraumlnkel 1955 175 Coxon1986 248 Conche 1996 245

19 Diels 1897 11220 Verdenius 1964 6ndash7 (but cf the authorrsquos retraction 1949 126 n 51) Schwabl 1953

70 Bollack 1957 67 Laks 1990 6 n 5121 Philip 1958 64ndash6522 Nevertheless this was the reading of Diels-Kranz and is still accepted by Cordero

1984 33 and 2004 19023 See Ross 1924 275 for some critical discussion of this generally accepted judgment

see section 3 text corresponding to ns 92ndash9424 For Diels 1897 45 Bormann 1971 107 Coxon 1986 248 Cassin and Narcy 1987

288 and Cassin 1998 142 the implicit subject of ἔχει is νόος for Schwabl 1953 70with n 22 ἄνθρωπος and for Mansfeld 1964 176ndash177 the goddess who determinesthe mixture while Laks 1990 5 n prefers ldquoa word like τὰ στήθηrdquo Cerri 1999 280conjectures ἕκαστος as an implicit subject perhaps mentioned in one of the precedinglines Dilcher 2006 43 suggests an indefinite τις ldquosomeonerdquo Gemelli Marciano2009 94 infers from the context of Theophrastusrsquo quotation that the subject mightbe ldquodas Warme oder das Feuerrdquo Palmer 2009 387 states more cautiously that it islikely ldquothat the subject could originally be inferred from the contextrdquo of the poem

25 Fraumlnkel 1955 174



ment however is somewhat less cogent than it seems Both discrepanciesbetween the νόοι of different individuals or nations and the fluctuations ofeach individual mind were recurrent topics of Greek thought fromHomer to the sophists26 moreover both were of interest to Parmenideswho shows himself concerned with the inconstancy of human affairswhich never remain in the same state (cf B 829 with B 838ndash41) no lessthan with distinguishing the νοεῖν of truth (B 88 34 36 cf νόος B 41)from the vagrant νόος of mortals who know nothing (B 66) Thereforethe mere resemblance of his verses to those of Homer and Archilochusdoes not prove all too much even if he deliberately imitated them sinceParmenides habitually uses his ndash mainly Homeric ndash models quite freelyand sometimes with a sense quite different from the original27

The last two lines of the fragment are fortunately free of textual pro-blems but not of syntactical and semantic ambiguities which pose seriousproblems for interpretation Thus it is far from evident whether Parme-nides is saying that the nature of the members is the same as that whichthinks or as what it thinks or rather that what thinks ndash or what it thinksndash is the same for each and every man or even that νόος is the same aswhat the nature of the members thinks still other translations are possi-ble28 And finally at v 4 τὸ πλέον can be understood as ldquothe morerdquo (theelement which prevails in the mixture)29 or as ldquothe fullrdquo30

Even the general scope and purpose of the fragment is controversialare we dealing with a physiological theory of sense-perception31 or with acomprehensive theory of knowledge or cognition in general32 or even witha theory about the general nature of ldquomental statesrdquo33 And if one of thelatter how does this as it seems rather materialistic conception of knowl-edge relate to the knowledge of true Being expounded in the first part of

26 For the first motif in Homer see Von Fritz 1943 81ndash82 a juxtaposition of bothtopics is found in Democritus (68A112 DK = Arist Metaph Γ 5 1009a38) Prota-goras (80A14 DK = Sext P I 218ndash219) and Gorgias (apud [Arist] MXG 980b9ndash17)

27 The most notorious example is the play of ἀλλότριον φῶς (B14) with the Homericἀλλότριος φῶς (Il 5214)

28 For a detailed discussion of this passage and its interpretations see section 3 textcorresponding to ns 95ndash103

29 This is what we might call the standard interpretation shared by Zeller 1876ndash81529 n 2 Diels-Kranz Kirk Raven and Schofield Coxon and OrsquoBrien-Fregravere andstill accepted in the recent works of Conche 1996 243 cf 251ndash252 Cassin 1998115 cf 143 Cerri 1999 159 cf 281ndash282 Hermann 2004 161 Bernabeacute and Peacuterezde Tudela 2007 31 and Palmer 2009 375 (ldquothe greaterrdquo)

30 See ns 88 and 11331 See eg Vlastos 1946 66 and 71ndash72 Cerri 1999 277ndash27832 See Philip 1958 Verdenius 1964 10 Finkelberg 1986 Laks 1990 1133 Hussey 2006 16



the poem In particular how would this notion of νόος as dependent onthe mixture of the ldquowandering membersrdquo fit in with those passages of theWay of Truth (B 3 B61 B 83 34ndash6 cf B 41) where νόος and νοεῖνseem to be inextricably connected with what-is and hence with knowledgeof truth34

If one thing should be evident from this rapid overview it is that thepossible interpretations of B 16 on the basis of the text alone (and eventaking into account the rest of the extant fragments) are far more numer-ous than we would desire So before engaging in a detailed discussion ofthe fragment (which I will give in the second half of section 3) it may beuseful to ask what exactly Aristotle and Theophrastus would have under-stood when quoting these lines even if their interpretations might possiblyturn out to be wrong but at any rate this should be carefully proved indetail rather than assumed from the outset Although Theophrastusrsquo com-mentary on the fragment is doubtlessly far more informative I will beginwith Aristotle since Theophrastusrsquo account is generally held to be largelydependent on Aristotle35 some important qualifications on this point willemerge from the discussion (see section 3 at the end)

2 The Aristotelian context

Aristotle cites the four lines of our fragment rather surprisingly in thecontext of his polemic against Protagorean relativism After having out-lined the relativistic argument drawing from the relativity of sense-percep-tion (Metaphysics Γ 5 1009a38ndashb12)36 he continues

In general it is because they suppose sense-perception to be understanding and theformer to be alteration that they say that what appears to sense-perception is neces-sarily true For it is for these reasons that Empedocles Democritus and one mayalmost say all the others have become liable for this sort of opinions For Empedo-cles actually says that a personrsquos understanding changes as he changes his state [Aris-totle quotes Empedocles 31 B 106 and 108 DK] and Parmenides pronounces inthe same sense [here follows the quotation of Parmenides B 16]37

34 See von Fritz 1945 236ndash242 and Mourelatos 1970 175ndash177 and 253ndash25935 It should be pointed out that there is no strictly compelling chronological reason to

prefer this order since it seems at least probable that most of Theophrastusrsquo historicalwritings were composed still during the lifetime of Aristotle (see Steinmetz 1964350) we might even consider the possibility ndash suggested by Gigon 1969 122 ndash thatAristotle relied for his historical accounts in the Physics and Metaphysics on the spe-cialized research of Theophrastus in his Physical Opinions

36 For detailed discussion of this argument and Aristotlersquos refutation see Kenny 1967and the commentaries ad loc of Ross 1924 273ndash278 and Kirwan 1971 108ndash112

37 Metaph Γ 5 1009b12ndash22 ὅλως δὲ διὰ τὸ ὑπολαμβάνειν φρόνησιν μὲν τὴν αἴσθησινταύτην δrsquo εἶναι ἀλλοίωσιν τὸ φαινόμενον κατὰ τὴν αἴσθησιν ἐξ ἀνάγκης ἀληθὲς εἶναί



The quotation as it seems is meant to substantiate merely the claim thatfor Parmenides as for Empedocles ldquoa personrsquos understanding changes ashe changes his staterdquo As far as it goes this may be correct but is not veryilluminating The beginning of the passage is frankly disconcerting ldquoTheysuppose sense-perception to be understandingrdquo This claim is paralleled inTheophrastusrsquo commentary on his own quotation of B 16 this time withexplicit reference to Parmenides ldquoHe speaks of perceiving and understand-ing as being the same thingrdquo (τὸ γὰρ αἰσθάνεσθαι καὶ τὸ φρονεῖν ὡς ταὐτὸλέγει de Sensibus 4) Theophrastusrsquo wording reproduces here almost lit-erally that of another passage of Aristotle (de Anima 417a21) where heremarks that ldquothe ancients say that understanding and perceiving are thesame thingrdquo (οἵ γε ἀρχαῖοι τὸ φρονεῖν καὶ τὸ αἰσθάνεσθαι ταὐτὸν εἶναί φασιν)Aristotle supports this claim by the same quotations of Empedocles heused at Metaphysics Γ although Parmenides is not explicitly mentionedthis time

We may assume of course that Aristotle and Theophrastus meant tosay only that Parmenides and the other ancient thinkers had not yetclearly distinguished thinking or understanding from sense-perceptionrather than explicitly asserting their identity38 But even if this is righttheir assertions seem still objectionable Certainly in archaic Greek ndash andin non-philosophical usage frequently even later ndash the semantic fields ofφρονεῖν and αἰσθάνεσθαι were not yet clearly differentiated in the way of aneat opposition between intellectual and perceptual processes39 so weshould hardly expect Presocratic writers to have used these terms in thespecific sense they were to acquire in Aristotelian and post-Aristotelianphilosophy But this fact of language would surely not have precludedthem from distinguishing if necessary processes of thought or reasoningfrom acts of direct sense-perception in fact there is evidence that at leastDemocritus (68 B 11) and probably Alcmaeon40 actually did make quite

φασινmiddot ἐκ τούτων γὰρ καὶ Ἐμπεδοκλῆς καὶ Δημόκριτος καὶ τῶν ἄλλων ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν ἕκασ-τος τοιαύταις δόξαις γεγένηνται ἔνοχοι καὶ γὰρ Ἐμπεδοκλῆς μεταβάλλοντας τὴν ἕξιν μετα-βάλλειν φησὶ τὴν φρόνησιν καὶ Παρμενίδης δὲ ἀποφαίνεται τὸν αὐτὸν τρόπον For adetailed discussion of this passage see Bredlow 2010a

38 Zeller 1876ndash81 530 n 1 Stratton 1917 158 n 7 Ross 1924 275 Cherniss 193581

39 Thus φρονεῖν could also mean ldquoto be sensiblerdquo ldquoto be in possession of onersquos sensesrdquo(see LSJ s v φρονέω IV with references) whereas αἰσθάνεσθαι could sometimes referto mental perception or understanding (eg Hipp Off 1 τῇ γνώμῃ αἰσθέσθαι cf LSJs v αἰσθάνομαι I2) The fact that αἴσθησις as denoting the totality of the five sensesis nowhere found in Presocratic writings was already emphasized by Langerbeck1967 44

40 24 A 5 DK = Theophr Sens 25 cf Cherniss 1935 299 n 32 For other probableinstances of a distinction between intellectual and perceptual processes in the Preso-



explicitly such a distinction and so did ndash at least according to a onceinfluential interpretation ndash Parmenides when he opposed λόγος to ldquotheunseeing eye and the echoing ear and tonguerdquo (B 73ndash6)41 Moreover ithas been argued42 that Aristotle seems to contradict his own statementswhen he speaks elsewhere of Parmenides and Melissus as ldquopassing oversense-perception and disregarding it on the ground that one ought to fol-low reason (τῷ λόγῳ)rdquo (GC 325a13ndash15) or of Parmenides as ldquoassumingthat what is one κατὰ τὸν λόγον is many according to sense-perceptionrdquo(Metaphysics 986b31ndash33)

Now before deciding whether Aristotlersquos view is in accordance with itselfor with available evidence on Parmenides or other Presocratic writers weshould try to understand what exactly he meant to say If we do not want toassume that Aristotle when claiming that the ancients failed to distinguishthought from sense-perception simply ignored what he emphasizes himselfin other contexts43 we might suppose his remarks were meant in some morespecific sense eg that the ancient thinkers did not yet have an elaboratedtheory of sense-perception or of reasoning44 or ndash more probably ndash that theysimply considered thought and sensation to be essentially the same kind ofnatural phenomenon45 But the most obvious interpretation I think wouldbe that he blames the ancients for not having distinguished thought fromsense-perception in the exact terms these should be distinguished on his ownview And what these terms are is quite plain from the discussion in thefollowing chapters of de Anima (III 4ndash8) Thought or intellect (νοῦς) is de-fined there as that which is capable of receiving the ldquoformrdquo of an object (δεκ-τικὸν τοῦ εἴδους 429a15) or even with a somewhat Platonic turn of phraseas ldquothe place of formsrdquo (τόπος εἰδῶν 429a27) Thus by means of the sensitivefaculty we discriminate the sensible qualities (hot and cold etc) which con-stitute eg flesh or water but the fact that something is flesh or water itsform or essence is apprehended either by a wholly different faculty or by thesame faculty in a different state (429b10ndash18)

The distinction between νοεῖν and αἰσθάνεσθαι as Aristotle under-stands it is hence strictly correlative to the distinction between νοητά andαἰσθητά (de Anima 429a17 cf 431b21)46 And this distinction seems to

cratics (Heraclitus Xenophanes and Parmenides) see Lesher 1994 for a similar dis-tinction in the Homeric poems Lesher 1981 14 and 1994 6ndash7

41 For a critical discussion of the traditional interpretation of B 7 see the end of thissection text corresponding to ns 53ndash7

42 Lesher 1994 12 Mansfeld 1996 165ndash166 1999 34243 Mansfeld 1996 165 ldquo lui permet drsquoignorer ce qursquoil souligne dans drsquoautres contextsrdquo44 Mansfeld 1999 34245 Lesher 1994 12 similarly Caston 1996 26 and Dilcher 2006 3746 This correlation reflects the general principle ndash set out in de Anima II 4 415a16ndash22

ndash that each psychic faculty is to be identified in terms of its function and its func-



be in Aristotlersquos opinion what the ancient thinkers cannot account forsince they ldquosuppose thinking to be something bodily just like perceivingand that the like is perceived and known by the likerdquo (427a26) The fun-damental flaw of like by like theories of cognition as Aristotle sees it hasbeen pointed out already in the first book of de Anima (409b26ndash410a13)even if one concedes that each element present in the soul perceives orknows its like when present in external objects ndash fire is perceived by fireearth by earth etc (cf Empedocles B 109) ndash this will still not explainhow we can perceive or know not only elements but actual objects such asldquomanrdquo ldquofleshrdquo or ldquobonerdquo which are not simply the same as the elementsthey are composed of but those elements combined in a certain propor-tion and composition If we confront this aporetic discussion of the pro-blem (where Aristotle still avoids introducing his own terminology) withAristotlersquos own solution given in Book III it seems obvious that what likeby like theories fail on his view to account for is knowledge of forms (εἴδη)ie the specific function of νοῦς as distinct from sense-perception

This should make plain that when Aristotle says that the ancientstook thinking and perceiving to be the same thing he does not mean toconvey that these thinkers were unable to see any difference betweenthought or reasoning and direct sense-perception nor does he mean onlythat they conceived both as physical or bodily processes although this te-net is clearly one important aspect of the conviction he ascribes to themWhat Aristotle means is as I take it that the early philosophers did notconceive thought or intellect as a distinct function or faculty whose speci-fic objects are the ldquoformsrdquo and other intelligible objects and since no Pre-socratic philosopher is known to have posited any such intelligible objectsin the Aristotelian or the Platonic sense he might well have been rightafter all

However the view Aristotle ascribes to the ancient thinkers in Meta-physics Γ 5 where Parmenides is explicitly included is not quite exactlythat thinking and perceiving are the same thing but that sense-perceptionis φρόνησις This might simply mean that sense-perception is an instance ofthought knowledge or understanding ndash or as Mansfeld puts it a speciesof the genus knowledge ndash47 without entailing that inversely all knowl-

tion in terms of its objects ie what Wedin 1988 13 calls the ldquoFFO (facultyfunc-tionobject) conditionrdquo For the sake of accuracy it should be noted that the νοητάinclude for Aristotle in addition to εἴδη also abstractions (ἐν ἀφαιρέσει ὄντα) such asnumber or geometrical properties (de An 429b18) but this is of secondary relevanceto the present discussion

47 Mansfeld 1996 165 According to Mansfeld (ibid 166) Aristotle could attribute toParmenides the view that ldquoperception is (a species of the genus) knowledgerdquo (MetaphΓ 5) but not that perception and knowledge are identical (de An III 3) withoutflagrantly contradicting his own remarks on Parmenidesrsquo distinction between reason-



edge is the same kind of thing as sense-perception Moreover the morespecific formulation of this view is not that ldquothe like is perceived andknown by the likerdquo but that sense-perception is an ldquoalterationrdquo (ἀλλοίω-σις) Nevertheless the line of argument is strictly parallel to that of deAnima III 3 just as the like by like theory the alteration theory of cogni-tion is unable to account for the difference of truth and error48 and henceleads up to the fatal consequence ndash surely unforeseen by the ancient thin-kers ndash that ldquowhat appears to sense-perception is necessarily truerdquo(1009b13)

The parallelism with de Anima III 3 on the interpretation I have sug-gested becomes even more evident in the passage immediately followingin the text where Aristotle explains that ldquothe ground of this opinion oftheirs was that in searching for the truth about the things-that-are theysupposed to be things-that-are only the sensible thingsrdquo49 This seems tobe a somewhat Platonizing way of saying that the ancient thinkers failedto conceive formal causes these were according to Aristotle the great dis-covery of Plato and his school (cf Metaphysics 988a34ndashb1) For Aristotleafter all τὰ ὄντα are divided just like for Plato into αἰσθητά and νοητά (deAnima 431b21) ndash with the main difference that for Aristotle the latterare not ldquoseparaterdquo but ldquoinherent to sensible formsrdquo (ibid 432a4) ndash andνοῦς is related to the νοητά just as the αἰσθητικόν is to αἰσθητά (ibid429a17) Thus it becomes transparent why the supposition that only theαἰσθητά are ὄντα is said to have been for the pre-Platonic philosophersthe origin or cause (αἴτιον Metaphysics 1010a1) of their opinion thatsense-perception is knowledge or understanding their failure to conceive adistinct ontological domain of thinkable or intelligible objects (νοητά)made them equally unable to conceive thought or intellect (νοῦς) as a dis-

ing and sense-perception at Metaph Α 5 and GC I 8 On the interpretation I suggestthere would be no such contradiction The more restricted formulation of the an-cient philosophersrsquo view at Metaph Γ 5 ndash rdquoSense-perception is (an instance of)knowledge or understandingrdquo ndash may be readily explained by the fact that only thisside of the equation is relevant in the context since the relativistic argument Aristotleis concerned with here (1009a38ndashb12) draws exclusively on examples of divergentsense-perceptions with the obvious implication that these are to be taken as represen-tative instances of ldquoknowledgerdquo and this is the first flaw of the relativistic argumentAristotle wants to point out (though by no means the only nor the most importantone see his refutation of the argument at 1010b3ndash26)

48 Metaph 1009b9ndash11 b25ndash1010a1 cf de An 427a29ndashb6 For an explicit rejection ofthe view that sense-perception is an ldquoalterationrdquo see de An 431a4ndash6 for a more de-tailed argument ibid 417b2ndash19 cf also Ph 247b1ndash13 and the discussion of thesepassages in Bredlow 2010a 214ndash219

49 Metaph 1010a1ndash3 αἴτιον δὲ τῆς δόξης τούτοις ὅτι περὶ τῶν ὄντων μὲν τὴν ἀλήθειανἐσκόπουν τὰ δrsquo ὄντα ὑπέλαβον εἶναι τὰ αἰσθητὰ μόνον



tinct mental function or faculty correlative to this kind of objects ie asδεκτικὸν τοῦ εἴδους (de Anima 429a15)

On this interpretation it should be plain that Aristotle does not mod-ify ndash or even contradict ndash his general judgment on the pre-Platonic philo-sophers when he speaks elsewhere of Parmenides as ldquoassuming that what isone κατὰ τὸν λόγον is many according to sense-perceptionrdquo (Metaphysics986b31) We may doubt whether κατὰ τὸν λόγον means here ldquoaccordingto the argumentrdquo ndash the famous (and surely apocryphal) ldquoargument of Par-menidesrdquo50 reported immediately before (986b28ndash30) ndash or rather ldquoaccord-ing to definitionrdquo51 But at any rate there is nothing to suggest that itshould mean ldquoaccording to reasonrdquo understood as a distinct mental func-tion or faculty and even less as a faculty concerned with a specific kind ofobject distinct from objects of sense-perception Quite at the contraryAristotle explicitly states that for Parmenides the same objects which aremany according to sense-perception are but one according to argument ordefinition and he is even more explicit on this point when he states else-where that Parmenides and Melissus supposed only sensible things to bereal and hence misapplied to these the argument that knowledge orscience requires eternal and unchanging objects ndash the very same argumentwhich led Plato to postulate intelligible objects distinct from sensiblethings ndash denying generation destruction and change in the physicalworld52 But if Parmenides and Melissus like all other pre-Platonic thin-kers did not conceive any object of knowledge distinct from things per-ceived it is evident that on Aristotlersquos view they could not distinguishthought from sense-perception in the only exact way this distinctionshould be made according to Aristotle himself ie in strict correlationwith the respective object fields of νοητά and αἰσθητά

But this would not mean of course that they were wholly unable todistinguish logical argument from observation and this latter distinction iswhat Aristotle has in mind at Metaphysics 986b31 as well as when herefers to Parmenides and Melissus as ὑπερβάντες τὴν αἴσθησιν καὶ παρι-δόντες αὐτὴν ὡς τῷ λόγῳ δέον ἀκολουθεῖν (GC I 8 325a13) ie ldquopassingover sense-perception and disregarding it on the ground that one ought

50 See Simplicius in Ph 11511 Diels (Parmenides 28A28 DK) τὸν Παρμενίδου λόγονwith detailed reference to the earlier commentators of Aristotle

51 Cf 986b19 with Rossrsquo 1924 153 commentary ad loc52 Cael 298b14ndash25 (Parmenides 28 A 25 DK) esp b22ndash25 ἐκεῖνοι δὲ διὰ τὸ μηθὲν μὲν

ἄλλο παρὰ τὴν τῶν αἰσθητῶν οὐσίαν ὑπολαμβάνειν εἶναι τοιαύτας δέ τινας νοῆσαι πρῶτοιφύσεις εἴπερ ἔσται τις γνῶσις ἢ φρόνησις οὕτω μετήνεγκαν ἐπὶ ταῦτα τοὺς ἐκεῖθεν λόγους(cf the remark on Plato at Metaph 1078b15 ὡς πάντων τῶν αἰσθητῶν ἀεὶ ῥεόντωνὥστrsquo εἴπερ ἐπιστήμη τινὸς ἔσται καὶ φρόνησις ἐτέρας δεῖν τινὰς φύσεις εἶναι παρὰ τὰςαἰσθητὰς μενούσας) for a well-argued defense of Aristotlersquos view on this point seeKerferd 1991



to stick to the argumentrdquo rather than ldquohellip to follow reasonrdquo Aristotle is notdistinguishing here two mental faculties ldquoreasonrdquo and ldquosense-perceptionrdquonor does he ascribe any such distinction to Parmenides and Melissusrather he opposes abstract reasoning or argument to elementary facts ofobservation such as change and plurality of physical objects This is evi-dent already from the immediately following remark that ldquoalthough ac-cording to the arguments (ἐπὶ μὲν τῶν λόγων) all this [sc the supposedEleatic negation of change and plurality] may seem fairly consistent ac-cording to the facts (ἐπὶ δὲ τῶν πραγμάτων) it would be next door to mad-ness to believe itrdquo (ibid 325a17)

To sum up on Aristotlersquos view Parmenides and Melissus surely distin-guished logical argument or reasoning (λόγος λόγοι) from observation andpreferred the former to the latter but they failed to recognize thought asa distinct mental function or faculty correlative to a kind of object whichis fundamentally different from sensible things and in this precise sensehe could still maintain without contradicting himself that they tookthinking and perceiving to be ldquothe same thingrdquo Presocratic thought ishere as usual thoroughly recast in Aristotlersquos own terminology but if weaccept reading his statements in the precise terminological sense they wereintended they may appear much less discordant with historical evidencethan on a more superficial reading

Now before going on I have to deal with an apparent difficultyfor this interpretation which does not arise from Aristotlersquos testimonybut from a certain interpretation of Parmenidesrsquo own words It hasbeen held by many interpreters both ancient and modern that Parme-nides explicitly opposes reason (λόγος) to sense-perception when hewrites (B 73ndash6)

μηδέ σrsquo ἔθος πολύπειρον ὁδὸν κατὰ τήνδε βιάσθωνωμᾶν ἄσκοπον ὄμμα καὶ ἠχήεσσαν ἀκουήνκαὶ γλῶσσαν κρῖναι δὲ λόγῳ πολύδηριν ἔλεγχονἐξ ἐμέθεν ῥηθέντα

Let not habit aacutetoontilde full of experiences drag you along this way aacuteand force yountilde toexercise an aimless eye an echoing ear and tongue but judge by reason the refuta-tion that has been uttered by me aacutea refutationntilde arousing much controversy (Trans-lation OrsquoBrien)

Sextus when quoting these lines comments that Parmenides ldquomakes plainthat one ought not to trust in sense-perceptions but in reasonrdquo53 But thisis not what Parmenides says As a growing number of scholars have cometo recognize the ldquoechoing tonguerdquo is not the organ of taste but quite

53 Sext M VII 114 (Vors I 23316) προσδιασαφεῖ τὸ μὴ δεῖν αἰσθήσει προσέχειν ἀλλὰ τῷλόγῳ



evidently the organ of language54 for Parmenides it is indeed language ndashor more exactly ldquonamesrdquo or ldquonamingrdquo ndash not trust in sense-perceptionthat is at the origin of the error of mortals55 What Parmenides condemnsin these lines is not sense-perception but the vulgar attitude which givesmore credit to hearsay and established belief than to what is seen withonersquos own eyes

On the other hand λόγος is probably to be understood here as ldquorea-soningrdquo ldquoargumentrdquo or ldquodiscourserdquo56 rather than ldquoreasonrdquo as a faculty ofrational thought57 Parmenides in a word is not concerned here withmental faculties at all but with mental attitudes with judging by argumentand reasoning as opposed to passive acceptance of established belief Adualism of cognitive faculties (ldquoreasonrdquo vs ldquothe sensesrdquo) cannot be attribu-ted to Parmenides neither on the grounds of his own extant fragmentsnor of the testimonies of Aristotle

3 The Theophrastean context and B 16

Theophrastusrsquo comment on B 16 should be read taking into account thewhole context of the first chapters of de Sensibus The treatise begins witha schematic classification of views on the subject ldquoConcerning sensationthe most widespread and general opinions are two some attribute it tothe like others to contrariesrdquo (de Sensibus 1) Parmenides is ranged to-gether with Empedocles and Plato with the representatives of the firstopinion After enumerating what he takes to be the main reasons support-ing either view Theophrastus goes on

περὶ ἑκάστης δὲ τῶν κατὰ μέρος οἱ μὲν ἄλλοι σχεδὸν ἀπολείπουσιν Ἐμπεδοκλῆς δὲ πειρ-ᾶται καὶ ταύτας ἀνάγειν εἰς τὴν ὁμοιότητα 3 Παρμενίδης μὲν γὰρ ὅλως ουδὲν ἀφώρικενἀλλὰ μόνον ὅτι δυοῖν ὄντοιν στοιχείοιν κατὰ τὸ ὑπερβάλλον ἐστὶν ἡ γνῶσις ἐὰν γὰρὑπεραίρῃ τὸ θερμὸν ἢ τὸ ψυχρόν ἄλλην γίνεσθαι τὴν διάνοιαν βελτίω δὲ καὶκαθαρωτέραν τὴν διὰ τὸ θερμόνmiddot οὐ μὴν ἀλλὰ καὶ ταύτην δεῖσθαί τινος συμμετρίαςmiddot lsquoὡς

54 See Gigon 1945 259 Calvo 1977 252ndash253 Barnes 1982 297 Conche 1996 121Curd 1998 13ndash14 Mansfeld 1999 331ndash333 Narecki 2003 45ndash46 and 49ndash50 Dil-cher 2006 38

55 See Parmenides B 838ndash39 and 53 B 91 B 193 For a pertinent interpretation ofthese passages see the fundamental paper of Owens 1975 cf also Coxon 1986 256Conche 1996 195ndash196 and Barrett 2004 282ndash287

56 This was already seen by Burnet 1930 173 n 1 and Verdenius 1964 64 cf Lesher1994 24 n 46

57 As Lesher 1994 24 n 46 remarks ldquothis would move forward the earliest use of λόγοςin this sense by about a centuryrdquo cf Guthrie 1962ndash81 I 423ndash424 Despite this in-sight Lesher still clings to the other half of the traditional interpretation of B 73ndash6when he writes in the same paper that Parmenides in this passage expressly contrastsdeductive inference ldquowith the faculties of senserdquo (Lesher 1994 9) cf the accuratecritical remarks of Mansfeld 1999 331ndash333



γὰρ ἑκάστοτε φησίν ἔχει νόημαrsquo 4 τὸ γὰρ αἰσθάνεσθαι καὶ τὸ φρονεῖν ὡς ταὐτὸ λέγειδιὸ καὶ τὴν μνήμην καὶ τὴν λήθην ἀπὸ τούτων γίνεσθαι διὰ τῆς κράσεωςmiddot ἂν δrsquo ἰσάζωσιτῇ μίξει πότερον ἔσται φρονεῖν ἢ οὔ καὶ τίς ἡ διάθεσις οὐδὲν ἔτι διώρικεν ὅτι δὲ καὶ τῷἐναντίῳ καθrsquo αὑτὸ ποιεῖ τὴν αἴσθησιν φανερὸν ἐν οἷς φησι τὸν νεκρὸν φωτὸς μὲν καὶθερμοῦ καὶ φωνῆς οὐκ αἰσθάνεσθαι διὰ τὴν ἔκλειψιν τοῦ πυρός ψυχροῦ δὲ καὶ σιωπῆςκαὶ τῶν ἐναντίων αἰσθάνεσθαι καὶ ὅλως δὲ πᾶν τὸ ὂν ἔχειν τινὰ γνῶσιν οὕτω μὲν οὖναὐτὸς ἔοικεν ἀποτέμνεσθαι τῇ φάσει τὰ συμβαίνοντα δυσχερῆ διὰ τὴν ὑπόληψιν

As to each particular kind of sensation the others almost leave them aside whereasEmpedocles tries to relate them to likeness also (3) Indeed Parmenides did notdefine anything except that there are two elements and that cognition occurs ac-cording to the one which is in excess For thinking varies as hot or cold is in excessand the better and purer thinking will be due to the hot however even this re-quires a certain proportion (de Sensibus 2ndash3)

Here follows the literal fragment after which Theophrastus continues

(4) Indeed he speaks of perceiving and thinking as being the same thing hence alsomemory and forgetting come from these [elements] according to the mixture butas to whether there will be thought or not and what will be its disposition whenboth elements are equal in the mixture he did not define anything And that heattributes sensation also to the contrary element in itself is evident from where hesays that the corpse does not perceive light nor heat nor sound due to the loss offire but that it does perceive cold and silence and the [other] contraries and thatabsolutely all there is has some knowledge Thus at any rate he seems to avoid bythis assertion the difficulties resulting from this supposition

The crucial question is obviously how Theophrastus would have under-stood the four lines he is quoting and to what purpose he might havedeemed it useful to cite them To this end we should first try to carefullyisolate Theophrastusrsquo paraphrase-interpretation of the fragment from hisgeneral assessments of ancient theories of sensation (most of them easilyidentifiable from their parallels in Aristotle) on the one hand and on theother hand from what seems to be information derived from other pas-sages lost to us of the poem This short detour will furnish us moreovera general view of Parmenidesrsquo theory as Theophrastus understood it

I begin with the second group there are several points in Theophras-tusrsquo summary that are clearly not paralleled by anything we can find in B16 or any other extant fragment of Parmenides (nor for that matter byany of Aristotlersquos or Theophrastusrsquo own general statements about ancientthinkers) and hence have to be taken with due caution as genuine testi-mony of what Theophrastus read in the lost parts of the poem This isthe case in the last section of the summary of the explanation of memoryand forgetting ldquoaccording to the mixturerdquo and most evidently the passageon the corpsersquos perception for which Theophrastus explicitly invokes adifferent passage of the poem58 the same goes for the cognitive superiority

58 As observed by Laks 1990 5 also Mansfeld 1996 173 adverts that here ldquoTheacuteo-phraste renvoie agrave un passage pour nous perdurdquo



of the hot in the opening section59 The names of the elements ldquohotrdquo andldquocoldrdquo are of course standard Aristotelian terms for what Parmenideshimself named ldquoFirerdquo (πῦρ B 856 B 121) or ldquoLightrdquo (φάος B 91 and 3)and ldquoNightrdquo (νύξ B 864 B 91 and 3 B 122)60 These might have beenmentioned in the immediate context of the fragment or just been deducedby Theophrastus from the mention of the ldquomixturerdquo at B 161 howeversince in the fragment there is no mention of Fire or Light nor of its rela-tion to better and purer thinking it seems necessary to conclude thatTheophrastus must have relied for this specific information on some dif-ferent verses of the poem

On the other hand as we have already seen the statement that Parme-nides ldquospeaks of perceiving and thinking as being the same thingrdquo61 isclearly paralleled in Aristotle (Metaphysics Γ 5 1009b12 cf de Anima427a21) and so is the general principle of ldquolike by likerdquo (de Anima427a28) This does not exclude of course that Theophrastus might havefound ndash or believed he found ndash some direct support for this latter claimin the text of Parmenides At the very least we should expect that what heread would have been in some way consistent with this principle62

This seems all the more plausible since at least some of the assump-tions underlying the ldquolike by likerdquo principle belonged to the common heri-tage of Greek folk science The attraction of like by like is proverbial al-ready in Homer63 in early Greek science this general principle was used toexplain a wide variety of phenomena from the absorption of food ordrugs by the human body in the Hippocratic writers64 to the movementof fire in Empedocles (31 B 626) and of atoms in Leucippus65 It inspiredthe theories of perception of Empedocles (31 B 109) and of Democritus66

59 See Laks 1990 5 This was already seen by Vlastos 1946 68 and Coxon 1986 247Verdenius 1964 23 even conjectured that καθαρωτέραν ldquowas probably one of Parme-nidesrsquo own termsrdquo (cf B 102 and Empedocles B 1102)

60 Cf Metaph 986b34 Ph 188a2061 As Baltussen 2000 91 rightly remarks the qualifying ὡς (ldquoas if identicalrdquo) shows how

carefully Theophrastus distinguishes his own interpretation from Parmenidesrsquo actualwording

62 Unless of course we suppose that blind faith in Aristotlersquos authority misguided himup to the point of inflicting overt violence to the texts he read but this is very un-likely since Theophrastus proves well capable of critical distance from Aristotlersquospoints of view eg when he introduces correcting his teacher the group of ancientthinkers who explained sense-perception ldquoby the contrariesrdquo (Sens 1) cf Mansfeld1996 169ndash170 for some other instances of Theophrastus correcting Aristotle seeKahn 1960 19ndash20 and Hussey 2006 24ndash25

63 Od 17218 cf Arist Rh I 11 1371b13ndash1764 Hipp Morb IV 33ndash4 L VII 544 Nat Hom 6 L VI 4465 Diogenes Laertius IX 31 = Leucippus 67 A 166 Democritus 68 B 164 (Sext M VII 116ndash17) A 128 (Aetius IV 19 3 = Dox 408)



(in the latter the reference to the folk tradition is explicit) and hence maywell have been present in the mind of Parmenides as well

Moreover for a theory of perception of like by like there was also amore specific precedent in archaic beliefs about visual perception For thearchaic Greeks the eyes not only receive light from the outside but alsoemit light of their own67 the association of sight with the emission of lightis patent in the belief that Helios universal source of light is also the oneldquowho sees everythingrdquo68 or ldquolooks down with his raysrdquo69 From there itwould have been only a short step to the conclusion that vision occurswhen the light emanating from the eyes meets with external light This iswhat we find in the optical theories of Empedocles and Plato70 but thebasic assumption may well have been of much earlier origin so it wouldnot seem all too surprising that Parmenides should have held some vaguelysimilar belief71

But Theophrastus says that Parmenides extended the ldquolike by likerdquoprinciple to the dark and cold elements also and generally to ldquoall thereisrdquo without shrinking away from the implication that any contact of likewith like must consequently produce some sort of perception hence hehad to conclude (even if only in order to ldquoavoid the difficulties resultingfrom this suppositionrdquo as Theophrastus insinuates72) that all there is hassome kind of knowledge or consciousness We may doubt of coursewhether this last point was explicitly stated by Parmenides or is Theo-

67 Cf Onians 1951 76ndash7 The ldquofieryrdquo nature of the eye commonly assumed by earlyphilosophers (Arist Sens 437a22) was already familiar to Homer eyes are ldquobrilliantrdquoor ldquosparklingrdquo (ὄσσε φαεινώ Il 133 and 7 φαεινά 13435 the same adjective appliedto fire [Il 5215] dawn [Od 4188] and the moon [Il 8555]) or simply ldquolightsrdquo (φάεαOd 165 1739 19417) they contain ldquofirerdquo visible in angry persons or animals (Il12466 13474 Od 4662 19446)

68 Il 3277 14345 Od 11109 12323 cf Classen 1965 100ndash101 and Bultmann 194814ndash15 An association of the emission of light with seeing might have been suggestedalso by the polysemy (from our perspective) of the verb δέρκομαι ldquoseerdquo ldquolook atrdquoand ldquoflashrdquo ldquogleamrdquo (see LSJ s v cf Snell 1953 1ndash5)

69 καταδέρκεται ἀκτίνεσσιν Od 1116 cf h Cer 7070 Empedocles A 86 (Theophr Sens 7ndash8) B 84 Plat Tim 45b 67e see Beare 1906

44ndash49 Schneider 1923 66ndash8 and Onians 1951 76ndash7971 This does not imply of course that Parmenides elaborated an explicit theory of vi-

sion Aetius (413910= Parm A 48) remarks somewhat hesitantly that some peopleattributed to Parmenides a theory of vision similar to that of the Pythagorean Hip-parchus but this second-hand notice can hardly be trusted since Theophrastus statesexplicitly that Parmenides ldquodid not define anythingrdquo about each particular kind ofsensation

72 That this is the difficulty Theophrastus has in mind can be inferred from his objec-tions to Empedocles (Sens 12) Anaxagoras (36) and Diogenes (46) their theories ofsensation do not allow for any distinction between animate and inanimate matter cfBaltussen 2000 181 with n 146



phrastusrsquo own conclusion73 but I think the former is far more probablefor grammatical as well as logical reasons grammatically the infinitiveἔχειν is still dependent on ἐν οἷς φησι and hence meant as a part of thequotation logically if Theophrastus goes on commenting that ldquoby thisassertionrdquo (τῇ φάσει) Parmenides tried to avoid the difficulties resultingfrom his theory we are to understand that the assertion at issue is Parme-nidesrsquo own and not a courtesy of the commentator Moreover the lostverse of Parmenides referred to by Theophrastus seems to be echoed ndash likeso many other well-known ones ndash 74 by Empedocles when he declares thatldquoall things have intelligence and a share of thoughtrdquo75 It might be worthnoting also that a strikingly similar theory was attributed to DemocritusldquoAll things have a share in some kind of soul even dead bodies becausethey obviously share always something hot and sensitive even when mostof it has been expiredrdquo76

Now in Parmenidesrsquo theory as Theophrastus summarizes it each onersquosshare of thinking depends on the proportion of ldquohotrdquo and ldquocoldrdquo in thebody so that thinking is ldquobetter and purerrdquo when hot is in excess WhenTheophrastus says rewording another lost portion of the poem that alsoldquomemory and forgetting come from these elements according to the mix-turerdquo we should infer that a better memory corresponds to a greater pro-portion of heat or Light while forgetfulness is due to a cooling-down ofthe mixture as ndash according to the doxographers ndash are sleep and old age77Still more extreme is the ldquoloss of firerdquo in the dead body whose faculty ofperception is minimal The gist of all this seems to be that there is noexclusive opposition between thinking and sense-perception betweenmemory and forgetfulness or even between life and death but only aquantitative difference in the proportions of the mixture78

73 As suspected by Calogero 1932 48 n and Taraacuten 1965 26174 See the Empedoclean parallels to Parmenidesrsquo verses in the app crit of Coxon 1986

55ndash9175 Empedocles B 11010 πάντα γὰρ φρόνησιν ἔχειν καὶ νώματος αἶσαν cf B 103 and B

107 Coxon 1986 248 already conjectured that Empedocles B 103 and 11010 maybe ldquomodelled on lines of Parmenidesrdquo As to the sense of these fragments Verdenius1964 24 rightly acknowledged that ldquothere is no ground for doubting that Empedo-cles like Parmenides attributed the faculty of knowing and knowledge to all realityrdquo

76 Democritus 68A117 = Aetius 447 πάντα μετέχειν φησὶ ψυχῆς ποιᾶς καὶ τὰ νεκρὰτῶν σωμάτων διότι ἀεὶ διαφανῶς τινος θερμοῦ καὶ αἰσθητικοῦ μετέχει τοῦ πλείονος δια-πνεομένου The belief that the dead still conserve some residual degree of life sensa-tion or awareness was rather common in archaic Greek tradition see Untersteiner1958 CCVIIIndashCCIX

77 A 46a (Aetius 530 = Dox 44312) Π γῆρας γίνεσθαι παρὰ τὴν τοῦ θερμοῦ ὑπόλειψινA 46b (Tert de An 45) somnum refrigerationem

78 Reduction of apparently exclusive oppositions to mere differences of degree (ie dif-ferent proportions of the mixture of elements) seems to be a general feature of Par-



This would give a quite precise meaning to the remark that Parme-nides ldquospeaks of perceiving and understanding as being the same thingrdquo inParmenidesrsquo theory as Theophrastus understands it sense-perception andthought are not two distinct faculties but merely different degrees of oneand the same physical phenomenon the mixture of hot and cold in thebody Moreover this remark should be read in close connection withTheophrastusrsquo introducing statement that Parmenides ldquodid not define any-thing at allrdquo Some recent interpreters have taken this to mean that ldquowhatParmenides did not define at all is not sensation but the distinctive me-chanism of each of the five sensesrdquo79 But I think it is quite plain from theentire context that what Theophrastus actually means is just as this phrasehas been traditionally understood that Parmenides did not define any-thing at all with regard to sensation or sense-perception which is the sub-ject of Theophrastusrsquo study

Indeed it should be noticed that actually none of Theophrastusrsquo refer-ences to the text of Parmenides bear any direct relation to sense-percep-tion In the verses of B 16 Parmenides speaks of νόος and νόημα The exactmeaning of these words is certainly problematic the verb νοεῖν can meanldquoto knowrdquo or ldquoto understandrdquo80 or simply ldquoto thinkrdquo81 so νόος might beldquoknowledgerdquo ldquounderstandingrdquo or just ldquothoughtrdquo But at any rate there isnothing to suggest that νόος or νοεῖν could refer in Parmenides or any-where else to what one would normally regard as instances of sense-per-ception82 I think this should suffice to exclude any possibility of interpret-ing B 16 as a ldquodoctrine of sense-perceptionrdquo

On the other hand Theophrastusrsquo paraphrases of Parmenidesrsquo text re-fer to ldquothinkingrdquo (διάνοια) memory forgetting and the residual percep-tions of the corpse Surely none of these is an instance of normal sense-perception But Theophrastus was writing after all a treatise περὶαἰσθήσεων so if Parmenides had something to say on this topic whyshould Theophrastus have failed to point this out explicitly instead ofbothering to bring up these rather irrelevant quotes on thinking memory

menidesrsquo physical world-view a closely similar pattern can be discerned in his genetictheory see B 18 with the accurate commentary of Fraumlnkel 1955 182 n 2

79 Laks 1990 10 followed by Mansfeld 1996 172 n 4980 According to Mourelatos 1970 164 this would be ldquothe more suitable translation for

νοεῖνrdquo in Parmenides similarly Kahn 1969ndash70 703 n 4 ldquoa term like lsquocognitionrsquo orlsquoknowledgersquordquo and Coxon 1986 174 ldquoνοεῖν in Parmenides denotes always intellectualapprehensionrdquo

81 For the text of Parmenides this rendering is argued for by Barnes 1982 158ndash159and Lesher 1994 27 n 54 cf also Conche 1996 257

82 Indeed as von Fritz 1943 88 has pointed out already in Homer νοεῖν is ldquoif we useour modern terminology hellip a purely mental act and does not belong to sensual per-ception properrdquo



and the mental life of corpses For this time I think the argumentum exsilentio is decisive if Theophrastus does not mention any passage of Par-menides specifically referring to his subject of inquiry we may safely con-clude that there was none to be found in his text Indeed Theophrastusfar from trying to conceal this fact from the reader makes it plain fromthe outset ὅλως οὐδὲν ἀφώρικεν

Nonetheless Theophrastus clearly thinks that something can be gotout of the text for his subject since he expressly remarks that Parmenidesspeaks of φρονεῖν as ldquothe same thingrdquo as αἰσθάνεσθαι If taken merely as acomment on Parmenidesrsquo use at B 16 this is probably not right althoughφρονέειν in archaic usage could sometimes refer to sensibility or sensualawareness in a broad sense83 the connection with νόος and νόημα makesquite clear that this is not the meaning intended here But since Parme-nidesrsquo theory of mixture at least as Theophrastus understands it refers toldquocognitionrdquo (γνῶσις) in general and since thinking νόος memory and eventhe residual awareness of dead matter count for him as legitimate instancesof γνῶσις Theophrastus sees fit to conclude that so should normal sense-perception too even though Parmenides does not explicitly mention it Inthis broad sense he could say that Parmenides speaks of perceiving andunderstanding as ldquothe same thingrdquo ie as instances of ldquocognitionrdquo depend-ing on the same physical mechanism of the mixture of elements

If we return now to our initial question of what might exactly corre-spond in Theophrastusrsquo summary to his reading of our fragment B 16we are left with the few phrases of the opening section especially the men-tion of ldquoexcessrdquo (τὸ ὑπερβάλλον) and ldquoproportionrdquo (συμμετρία) On thispoint most modern interpreters seem to agree but the exact relation ofthe fragment to Theophrastusrsquo paraphrase is still controversial On themost widely accepted interpretation τὸ ὑπερβάλλον is taken as referring tothe preponderance of one of the two elements over the other (ldquothe ele-ment which prevails over the otherrdquo) and hence as equivalent to τὸ πλέον(understood as ldquothe morerdquo) in the last line of the fragment84 correspond-ingly συμμετρία is understood as the proportion of the two elements inthe mixture supposedly referred to in the first two lines of the fragment

However this interpretation is not free from difficulties Several scho-lars have noted that if τὸ πλέον is understood as ldquothe morerdquo the logicalconnection between the last two sentences and especially the explanativevalue (γάρ) of the last remains obscure85 We might add that even if τὸ

83 See n 3984 This interpretation goes back to Alexanderrsquos commentary on Aristotlersquos Metaphysics

(3071ndash3 Hayduck) cf Zeller 1876ndash81 529 n 2 Verdenius 1964 17 n 3 Coxon1986 250

85 Fraumlnkel 1955 175 Taraacuten 1965 256ndash7 Laks 1990 8



πλέον were to be understood in this sense thought would not be ldquothatwhich prevailsrdquo but ldquoaccording to that which prevailsrdquo (κατὰ τὸ πλέον)thinking varies in quality according to the relative excess of Light orNight but without ever becoming identical to either one of them onlythis is at least what Theophrastus insists in when he states that even betterand purer thinking ldquorequires a certain proportionrdquo86

Furthermore it seems at least doubtful whether συμμετρία can meanthe proportion between the two elements in the mixture Fraumlnkel observedthat in Theophrastusrsquo text the term is regularly used to express the ideathat ldquoan organ of perception (eg an eye or ear) is ldquocommensurablerdquo withits object (light sound) and so arranged as to receive it adequatelyrdquo87 sowe should expect it to have the same meaning in this context Indeed ifthinking grows ldquobetter and purerrdquo as hot becomes preponderant over coldthen why should this require ldquoa certain proportionrdquo ndash ie why would notjust any proportion do as long as hot prevails ndash if not because someproportions are adequate to the object and others are not This is justplain common sense But then does this reading of συμμετρία find anysupport in the text of Parmenides Or are we to conclude that Theophras-tus misunderstood his text

Both these difficulties have been accurately pointed out and extensivelydiscussed by Laks (1990) but I think the solution he proposes raises moreproblems than it succeeds at resolving Laks suggests following Bollackand Untersteiner that τὸ πλέον at B 164 is not to be understood as ldquothemorerdquo (neuter of the comparative πλέων) but as ldquothe fullrdquo (neuter of πλέοςldquofullrdquo) just like in the two other occurrences of πλέον in the fragments of

86 This incongruity has been accurately observed by Dilcher 2006 44 who concludesthat Theophrastus misunderstood the text and changed its meaning by adding thepreposition κατά But since ldquoWhat is more is thoughtrdquo if taken as literally identifyingthought with only one of the two elements ndash the one that prevails ndash does not seemto make any acceptable sense (indeed it would virtually annihilate ldquothe explanatorypower of the theory of mixturerdquo) he suggests that πλέον should be understood asldquothat which is more than the mixturerdquo (πλέον τῆς κράσεως) ie mind as separatedfrom the physical constitution of the body (Dilcher 2006 45) But I doubt that theGreek can bear that meaning τὸ πλέον τῆς κράσεως would be most naturally under-stood as ldquothe greater part of the mixturerdquo (like Il 1165 τὸ πλεῖον πολέμοιο) ldquomorethan [in the sense of ldquodifferent from and of higher rank thanrdquo] the mixturerdquo wouldrather be μεῖζον τῆς κράσεως Moreover since in the world of the doxa ldquoall is fullrdquo ofLight and Night (B 93) there is no room left for there being anything ldquomore thanthe mixturerdquo just as in the Way of Truth there is no room for anything more thanwhat-is itself Therefore the ldquofirst vague formulation of the transcendence of mindrdquo(Dilcher 2006 46) is probably not to be found in these verses of Parmenides

87 Fraumlnkel 1955 175 (see Sens 7ndash11 = Empedocles A 86 cf Plat Men 76cndashd AristGC I 8 324b26ndash35) This was already observed by Stratton 1917 157 n 5 cf thediscussion in Laks 1990 15ndash16



Parmenides (B 824 B 93)88 This reading however entails a difficultywhich seemed to have gone unnoticed by its former proponents if Theo-phrastus had indeed correctly understood the role of ldquopreponderancerdquo (τὸὑπερβάλλον) in Parmenidesrsquo theory ndash as all of these interpreters seem toagree he had ndash where then did he find this expressed in the text of thepoem if not in the last half of B 164 Laks suggests that the relevantpassage of Theophrastusrsquo report (up to ἄλλην γίνεσθαι τὴν διάνοιαν) para-phrases the first two lines of the fragment plus some lost verse in theimmediate context of the quotation where he might have read τὸ ὑπερ-βάλλον or its Parmenidean equivalent89 But this solution gives rise to afresh problem if the first two lines of B 16 correspond to the beginningof Theophrastusrsquo report and not as habitually understood to the immedi-ately preceding remark on συμμετρία and if moreover συμμετρία as Laksargues (I think rightly) does not refer to the proportion of the elementsin the mixture but to the adaptation of the perceiving organ to its objectwhere then did Theophrastus read in Parmenides about such a theory ofadaptation Laks proposes to understand συμμετρία in an Empedocleansense as the adapting of emanations from the objects to the sensibleldquoporesrdquo or ldquopassagesrdquo they are to ldquofill uprdquo hence Theophrastus would haveunderstood (correctly in Laksrsquo opinion) the last phrase of the quotation(B 164b) τὸ γὰρ πλέον ἐστὶ νόημα as meaning ldquothe full is thoughtrdquo90

But this reconstruction is hardly convincing After all there is no evi-dence for a theory of pores in Parmenides except the hardly trustworthyreport of Aetius (496 = A47) where Parmenides is summarily rangedtogether with Empedocles Anaxagoras Democritus Epicurus and Hera-clitus If there had been any such notion in Parmenides we surely shouldhave expected Theophrastus to say so Instead Theophrastus explicitlystates that Parmenides ldquodid not define anythingrdquo concerning the specificmechanisms of sense-perception We might understand this to mean ofcourse as Laks argues that Parmenides did not define the distinctive me-chanism of each of the five senses in particular this would leave him withthe chance of having theorized about sensation just in general terms Butshould we really believe that Parmenides was able to formulate a generaltheory of sense-perception including such details like ldquoemanationsrdquo ldquopas-sagesrdquo and their ldquofilling uprdquo without ever referring to how this would

88 Laks 1990 8ndash9 cf Bollack 1957 68ndash69 and Untersteiner 1958 CCV n 134 Thesame reading ndash anticipated already by Ritter 1836 I 508 who translated ldquodenn dasVolle ist der Gedankerdquo ndash has been accepted since by Deichgraumlber 1959 71 Mansfeld1964 191ndash192 and 1996 173 Taraacuten 1965 256ndash257 Mourelatos 1970 253ndash255Hershbell 1970 13 Gallop 1984 87 Cordero 1984 42 and 2004 195 Schmitz1988 78 Colli 2003 190 and Gemelli Marciano 2009 95

89 Laks 1990 1290 Laks 1990 17ndash18



work for any particular sense I think this is rather incredible and with-out such detailed theoretical context the relation of συμμετρία to ldquothe fullrdquolacks any ground

To sum up I think we may retain the idea that συμμετρία means in abroad sense the adaptation of the perceiving or thinking organ to its ob-ject though without Empedoclean-style technical details such as emana-tions or passages to be filled up altogether unwarranted by the fragmentsand testimonies concerning Parmenides What Theophrastus means is asI take it that even for ldquobetter and purerrdquo thinking the mixture of elementsin the thinking subject must be ldquoproportionalrdquo to the mixture found inthe object to be known or thought of91

But where after all did Theophrastus find this notion of συμμετρίαexpressed in the text of Parmenides I suggest that the passage of referenceis to be found just where it is most natural to expect it that is in the firsttwo lines of B 16 Indeed almost all modern interpreters agree that thequotation of these two lines was meant to illustrate the immediately pre-ceding remark on συμμετρία We have seen however that this term cannotdenote the proportion of the two elements in the mixture to each otherbut must refer to the commensurability of the mixture of Light and Nightin the thinking subject (the ldquomixture in the wandering membersrdquo) withthat of its object

Now it should hardly be mere coincidence that this is precisely thesense we obtain if accepting together with Stephanusrsquo correction κρᾶσιςthe Aristotelian variant ἑκάστῳ though understood not as masculine butas neuter (cf B193) ldquoFor such as the mixture of the wandering membersis in relation to each thing so is mind present to menrdquo92

This reading I think is palaeographically far less implausible than itmight seem at first sight Indeed ἑκάστῳ is the reading of Ab (Laurentia-nus 87) a manuscript of the twelfth century AD and hence more recentthan the other two main MSS of the Metaphysics E (Parisinus gr 1853)and J (Vindobonensis phil gr C) both from the tenth century but whichaccording to Christ and Ross ldquopresents more traces of uncial corruptionand other evidence which points to an original older than that of EJrdquo93This would suffice to credit ἑκάστῳ as corresponding to the older textualtradition On the other hand the variant ἑκάστοτε found in all MSS ofTheophrastus can be easily accounted for as a later correction of Theo-phrastusrsquo text It should be remembered that the textual tradition of the

91 On this general sense of συμμετρία in the text my view is closest to that of Conche1996 253ndash254 with some discrepancies in detail I will address later (see text corre-sponding to n 104)

92 For ἔχω + dat see LSJ s v B II b93 Ross 1924 CLXI



de Sensibus is far more recent than that of the Metaphysics the oldestextant MSS P (Parisinus gr 1921) and F (Laurentianus gr 8720) fromwhich all the others descend are both of the fourteenth century and bothseem to be independent copies of a common original94 Since ἑκάστοτ(ε) isfound in the manuscript tradition of the Metaphysics at least from theninth or tenth century onwards ndash it must have been the reading alreadyof the archetypus common to E and J ndash some four or five centuriesbefore the date of the oldest MSS of de Sensibus it seems quite possiblethat at some moment of this long period some scholar had corrected histext of Theophrastus replacing the original reading by what he found inhis copy of Aristotle

Moreover the reference of ἑκάστῳ ldquoto each [thing]rdquo probably explicitin the immediate context of the fragment must have been obvious toTheophrastus himself who had the complete text of the poem beforehim but was surely opaque to his readers and copyists who would haveeasily misunderstood these verses ndash just like most of their modern inter-preters ndash as referring only to the mixture of elements in the thinking sub-ject and therefore may have adjusted the text deliberately or by distrac-tion to their own understanding of it

The lines which follow in the fragment (B 162bndash4a) are probably themost difficult to relate to anything said by Theophrastus and perhaps themost difficult to make sense of τὸ γὰρ αὐτό|ἔστιν ὅπερ φρονέει μελέων φύσιςἀνθρώποισιν|καὶ πᾶσιν καὶ παντί Scholars disagree as to whether ὅπερ is to betaken (a) as the subject or (b) as the object of φρονέει and whether τὸ αὐτόis to be understood (1) as referring to ἀνθρώποισιν (ldquothe same for all menrdquo)(2) as connecting ὅπερ φρονέει with μελέων φύσις or (3) with νόος or finally(4) as pronominal The resulting possibilities for interpretation are

(1a) ldquoFor that which thinks is the same namely the substance of thelimbs in each and every manrdquo95

(1b) ldquoFor the same thing is that the nature of the body thinks in eachand in all menrdquo96

(2a) ldquoFor the nature of the members is the same as that which thinksin each helliprdquo97

94 On the manuscript tradition of the de Sensibus see Diels 1879 114ndash118 andMcDiarmid 1962

95 Burnet 1930 177ndash178 similarly Diels 1897 45 Diels-Kranz Guthrie 1962ndash81267 Austin 1986 171 Collobert 1993 24 Colli 2003 189 Hermann 2004 161Palmer 2009 375

96 Taraacuten 1965 169 similarly Heitsch 1974a 198 OrsquoBrien and Fregravere 1987 74 Wiesner1996 60 Hussey 2006 18 Dilcher 2006 43 Gemelli Marciano 2009 95

97 Cordero 1984 42 and 2004 195 (ldquofor men both in general and in particular thenature of the limbs is the same that thinksrdquo) Conche 1996 243 (ldquoCar chez les



(2b) ldquoFor the nature of the members is the same as what it thinks ineach helliprdquo98

(3b) ldquoFor mind is the same as what the nature of the members thinksin each helliprdquo99

(4b) ldquoFor this is precisely what the nature of the members thinks ineach helliprdquo100

None of these interpretations is satisfactory Against (1a) and (1b) it hasbeen objected that the identity of what thinks (or of what is thought) ldquoineach and every manrdquo would hardly agree with the universal variance ofminds stated immediately before101 On the other hand on interpretations(2a)ndash(4b) these very same words ldquoin each and every manrdquo become utterlyredundant102 This should make us suspect that it is precisely in thesewords where we have to seek the root of the problem I suggest that themistake common to all these translations was to have taken καὶ πᾶσιν καὶπαντί as an apposition to ἀνθρώποισιν and hence as masculine withoutnoticing that these datives if understood as neuter offer a ready comple-ment to τὸ αὐτό This seems indeed the most natural reading of the pas-sage for a Greek reader or listener in a sentence introduced by saying thatsomething is τὸ αὐτό the most normal thing to expect would be a dativecomplement just as in English when someone says that ldquox is the samerdquowe would normally expect him to continue ldquothe same ashelliprdquo (even thoughother constructions are equally admissible in Greek as well as in English)The subject is ὅπερ φρονέει so we have ldquoFor what the nature of the mem-bers thinks in men is the same as each and every thingrdquo103 This seems to

hommes en tous et en chacun la nature du corps est cela mecircme qui penserdquo) Cerri1999 159 and 281

98 This interpretation was first proposed in 1930 by Fraumlnkel 1955 175 ldquo(Der Artnach) dasselbe wie das ltwasgt man denkt ist die Beschaffenheit der Gliederrdquo andfollowed by Cherniss 1935 80 n 330 Vlastos 1946 66 n 5 Verdenius 1949 66 n5 Bollack 1957 68 n 39 Finkelberg 1986 406 and Laks 1990 7 with n 18 amongothers

99 Mansfeld 1964 188 Coxon 1986 90 (ldquofor it [sc mind] is the awareness belongingto the nature of the body for all and eachrdquo) Thanassas 1997 187 n 69

100 Houmllscher 1968 115 (cf 1956 396ndash397) ldquoDenn dies eben ist es was die Beschaffen-heit der Gliedmassen denktrdquo

101 Austin 1986 170 n 35 Conche 1996 249ndash250102 As observed by Fraumlnkel 1955 175 n 3 against version (2a) though the same criti-

cism may be applied to his own translation (see n 98) where these words simplydisappear

103 On this reading the syntax (and even the sense) of these lines becomes strictly paral-lel to that of Aristotlersquos famous sentence (de An 430a19) τὸ δrsquo αὐτό ἐστιν ἡ κατrsquoἐνέργειαν ἐπιστήμη τῷ πράγματι I would not exclude the possibility of a deliberatereminiscence of Parmenidesrsquo verses well-known to Aristotle as his quotation at Me-



be after all the Parmenidean formulation of the principle of ldquolike bylikerdquo the varying mixture of Light and Night in the body can indeed re-produce any object so to speak in a scaled-down version whenever thereis the right proportion (συμμετρία) between both mixtures in this sensethought is ldquothe samerdquo as its object

Now before passing over to the last half verse of the fragment we willhave to address a difficulty which the interpretation suggested here shareswith several others If we accept as genuine Theophrastusrsquo notice that forParmenides the preponderance of the hot in the mixture produces betterand purer thinking and if at the same time we understand the συμμετρίαrequired for this kind of thinking as the ldquoright proportionrdquo between themixtures of the elements in the object and in the thinking or perceivingsubject then we run into a serious problem For what should this ldquorightproportionrdquo consist in The principle of ldquolike by likerdquo might suggest atfirst blush that the mixture of Light and Night in the members of thethinking subject must simply be of the same proportion as in the objectknown104 But this will not work since in this case any increase of Lightbeyond the just proportion would unfailingly entail instead of better andpurer thinking a progressively deficient perception analogous ndash though ininverted direction ndash to that which in sleeping persons and in the dead iscaused by lack of Light or heat a subject suffering from an excess of Lightwould become gradually blind to the dark sides of things just as corpsesare to the bright

Fraumlnkel who proposed to understand συμμετρία in the technical senseof an ldquoadjustmentrdquo or ldquocommensurabilityrdquo between the object and the re-ceiving organ held that ldquofor Parmenides knowledge which is due to thehot is better and purer but is not sufficient in itself since that which is tobe perceived must in a certain way fit with the organ (so that the hotelement in the perceiving subject is so to speak blind to the cold)rdquo105The final parenthesis shows that also Fraumlnkelrsquos interpretation fails to ex-plain how a kind of perception blind to half of the world could be consid-ered ldquobetter and purerrdquo than another more balanced and comprehensivealbeit less luminous one If Parmenides really held some version of the likeby like theory or of a symmetry between the perceiver and the perceived

taphysics Γ 5 shows and Presocratic writers were surely present to his mind whenwriting the last chapters of de Anima as shown by the ndash unusually well-humored ndashreferences to Anaxagoras (429b24) and Empedocles (430a28) in the immediate con-text

104 This is the interpretation of Conche 1996 254 ldquo pour que soit perccedilu tel objetlumineux et chaud comme il est en reacutealiteacute il faut que le rapport de la lumiegravere agrave lanuit ou du chaud au froid dans le meacutelange corporel corresponde agrave ce qursquoil est danslrsquoobjetrdquo




then the problem in one word is how to bring this principle into linewith the superiority of thinking in which Light prevails106

In order to get out of this dilemma we should remember again thatTheophrastus though the subject of his study is sense-perception expresslystates that Parmenides in the verses he paraphrases was referring toknowledge or cognition (γνῶσις) in general Within the frame of this theo-ry as Theophrastus construes it sense-perception would be but a particu-lar case of ldquocognitionrdquo on a continuous scale with memory and thoughtthe difference between these various levels of cognition depends on theproportions of the mixture of Light and Night Now the simplest supposi-tion to start from would be that according to the principle of ldquolike bylikerdquo correct sense-perception occurs whenever our senses contain bothelements in the same proportion as the perceived object does (if this seemsgratuitous any other level for the ldquoright proportionrdquo will do just as well)Moreover we already know that any decrease in the luminous componentbelow this just proportion causes a deficiency in perception progressivelyconfining sensation to the dark and cold aspects of reality But inverselyas Theophrastus states an increase in Light above this very proportion farfrom producing a symmetrically inverse deficiency gives rise to ldquobetter andpurerrdquo thinking I take this to refer to those mental functions which trans-cend mere sensation such as memory or reason In any case it seems tocorrespond to the νόος mentioned in the fragment (B 162) in which wemay perhaps recognize the same νόος to whom according to another frag-ment absent things become ldquofirmly presentrdquo (B 41)107

Now these ldquobetter and purerrdquo forms of thinking are said to requirealso ldquoa certain proportionrdquo This refers as we have seen to the proportionbetween the respective mixtures of elements in the thinking subject and inthe object of thought But this proportion cannot consist in simple equal-ity for in this case there could be no other form of consciousness butdirect sense-perception moreover Theophrastus clearly distinguishes συμ-μετρία and τὸ ὅμοιον (see de Sensibus 13 and 15) Rather we will have to

106 Von Fritz 1945 239 n 90 seems to have most clearly seen this problem when hewrote ldquoIt is not easy to determine how the preference for one side of the contrast fitsin with the postulated symmetryrdquo though the solution he proposes (perception byLight only seems purer to us mortals who lack a balanced or ldquosymmetricalrdquo percep-tion ibid 240 n 92) seems rather hard to bring into agreement with the text ofTheophrastus

107 It should be remembered that νόος in archaic use includes not only reasoning butalso the functions of imagination and memory and generally any mental representa-tion of what is not present see Calvo 1977 247 On νόος see also the fundamentalstudies of von Fritz 1943 and 1945ndash46 on Parmenides 1945 236ndash242 some rele-vant modifications of von Fritzrsquos views have been suggested by Mourelatos 1970175ndash177 and Lesher 1981 9ndash10 and 1994 27 n 54



understand συμμετρία as a certain commensurability between differentmagnitudes approximately in the sense in which the diagonal of a squarecannot be commensurable (σύμμετρος) with its sides In Greek medicinehealth was identified with the just proportion (συμμετρία) among the ele-ments within the body and between these and the physical environ-ment108 By a similar concept of συμμετρία Parmenides may have explainedwhy we are able at each moment to remember imagine or conceive cer-tain objects and not others

Thus we begin to see how the principle of ldquolike by likerdquo could becomecompatible with the superiority of Light Let us call LB and NB the respec-tive portions of Light and Night in the body of the cognizing (thinkingperceiving remembering hellip) subject LO and NO the portions of these ele-ments in the object Then on the one hand the simple proportion of Lightand Night to each other within the body LBNB will determine the natureand quality of the different degrees of cognition from more or less completesense-perception to memory and reasoning (the ldquobetter and purerrdquo kind ofthinking) On the other hand the adaptation of mind to its objects willdepend on the complex proportion (συμμετρία) between the mixture of ele-ments in the body and the mixture of elements in the object LBNB LONO ie their ldquolikenessrdquo in a broad sense which only in the particularcase of direct sense-perception coincides with simple equality (LBNB =LONO) For the ldquohigherrdquo mental functions ndash ie those where LBNB gtLONO ndash we might suppose that in order for adequate cognition to bepossible LBNB would have to be eg some integer multiple of LONOor any other determinate kind of proportion we might think of In any caseit is plain that if there is to be knowledge or perception the mixtures ofelements in the body and in the object must have an adequate proportionto each other the mere preponderance of Light in the body will not grantby itself the cognition of any specific object (though presumably it wouldentail a far higher probability of knowing a wider range of possible objects)in this sense it ldquorequires a certain proportion toordquo

I am aware that this reconstruction is to a large degree conjectural but Ithink something on these lines is needed if we want to make coherent senseof Theophrastusrsquo report We may doubt whether this theory was actuallyworked out in much detail in the text of the poem Parmenides might havelimited himself to a rather vague outline ndash perhaps not much more than whatTheophrastus gives in paraphrase ndash leaving the details to oral teaching109This would account for Theophrastusrsquo perplexity on some minor points

108 Arist Ph VII 3 246b5 Hipp Nat Hom 4109 On the probable relation of Parmenidesrsquo writing to a context of oral teaching and

discussion see the ndash somewhat speculative but highly suggestive ndash remarks of Cerri1999 93ndash95



For if this conjectural reconstruction of Parmenidesrsquo theory is approxi-mately right this would entail three important consequences for the un-derstanding of our text First τὸ ὑπερβάλλον cannot be as it is habituallytranslated and as already Theophrastus himself seems to have understoodthe element which prevails over the other but must be the one which ex-ceeds the just proportion required for normal sense-perception an excessof Light above this proportion produces ldquobetter and purerrdquo thinking(memory imagination and reason) an excess of Night or darkness defi-cient perception110

Secondly this would readily explain why Theophrastus could not findin the poem any indication as to ldquowhether there will be thought or notand what will be its dispositionrdquo when both elements are equalled in themixture The problem simply disappears if we suppose that excess (τὸ ὑπ-ερβάλλον) is not measured in relation to the equality of both elementswithin the members of the knowing subject but with respect to the pointwhere both mixtures of elements in the subject and in the object ofknowledge are equalled

And thirdly if Theophrastus did not properly grasp the exact sense ofτὸ ὑπερβάλλον (ldquothe element which exceeds the proportion equivalent tothat of the objectrdquo but which he takes to mean ldquothe element which pre-vails over the otherrdquo) we must infer that this expression is not as mostinterpreters would have it a prosaic substitute for Parmenidesrsquo τὸ πλέον(B164) but reproduces more or less faithfully something he read in someverse lost to us of the poem111

Thus the interpretation I suggest would confirm the suspicion alreadyavowed by Taraacuten and Laks112 that τὸ πλέον cannot be equivalent to Theo-phrastusrsquo τὸ ὑπερβάλλον as so many interpreters have taken it to be un-derstanding ldquothe predominant (element)rdquo since for Parmenides as itseems τὸ ὑπερβάλλον is not the element which prevails over the other (τὸπλέον) but the one which exceeds the normal proportion of the thinkingmixture to the object On the other hand the alternative interpretation ofτὸ πλέον as ldquothe fullrdquo does not seem to offer any very plausible senseeither113 Therefore since none of the proposed interpretations has suc-

110 Cf Democritusrsquo (B 11b) distinction between rational or genuine knowledge and theldquoobscurerdquo (σκοτίη) knowledge of the senses though this is of course only a meta-phor as probably is σκοτόεσσα δόξα in Empedocles (B 1322) the Parmenidean in-spiration of this expression was noticed by Classen 1965 112

111 This would confirm though for entirely different reasons Laksrsquo conjecture thatldquoTheophrastus read τὸ ὑπερβάλλον or its Parmenidean equivalent in the immediatecontext of the quotation (before the first line for example)rdquo (Laks 1990 12)

112 See n 81113 Bollack 1957 68ndash69 Untersteiner 1958 CCV n 134 Hershbell 1970 13 Schmitz

1988 78 Colli 2003 190 and Gemelli Marciano 2009 70 and 95 relate ldquothe fullrdquo



ceeded so far at making any really coherent sense of the manuscript text asit stands we might consider accepting the conjecture τὸ πέλον proposed byGarciacutea Calvo114 but understanding τό as a demonstrative pronoun τὸ γὰρπέλον ἐστὶ νόημα ldquoFor being this (sc the same as each and every thing) itis knowledgerdquo This reading would offer at least a perfectly coherent logicalconnection with the preceding sentence what the nature of the membersthinks is knowledge or understanding precisely insofar as it is ldquothe samerdquoas the object of thought and this is the case when the mixture of elementsin the thinking subjectrsquos body is proportional to the composition of theobject

Thus the whole of the fragment should be read as follows

ὡς γὰρ ἑκάστῳ ἔχει κρᾶσις μελέων πολυπλάγκτωντὼς νόος ἀνθρώποισι παρέστηκενmiddot τὸ γὰρ αὐτὸἔστιν ὅπερ φρονέει μελέων φύσις ἀνθρώποισινκαὶ πᾶσιν καὶ παντίmiddot τὸ γὰρ πέλον ἐστὶ νόημα

For such as the mixture of the wandering members is in relation to each thingso is understanding present to menfor what the nature of the members thinks in men is the sameas each and every thing for being this it is knowledge

If we return for a moment to Theophrastusrsquo report we may observe thatafter a first general remark on cognition and the two elements the exposi-tion follows a clearly descending order of mental functions (1) ldquobetterand purer thinkingrdquo due to an excess of hot (probably the νόος of B 162)(2) memory and forgetting according to the mixture of hot and cold and(3) the minimal degree of perception in the corpse due to the ldquoloss offirerdquo the summary concludes with another generalizing statement ldquoAllthere is has some knowledgerdquo I think the most likely explanation of thisarrangement is that this was the exact order in which Theophrastus found

to the plenitude of Being (B 824) or of the two elements (B 93) but this seems ofrather doubtful pertinence in this context On Laksrsquo 1990 interpretation see textcorresponding to ns 88ndash91

114 Garciacutea Calvo 1981 221 understands τὸ πέλον as equivalent to τὸ ἐόν and translatesldquoFor that-which-is is the ideardquo (ldquoPues aquello que es es ideardquo ibid 220) The corrup-tion of the rare epic form πέλον into πλέον can be easily explained by the influence ofπλέον at B 824 and B 93 Garciacutea Calvorsquos conjecture ndash which as it seems has not yetreceived due attention by scholars outside Spain ndash has been accepted also by A Ber-nabeacute in the two editions of his Spanish Fragmentos presocraacuteticos (Bernabeacute 1988 1582nd ed 2001 154) In his recent edition of Parmenides however Bernabeacute returns tothe manuscript reading arguing that this was what Theophrastus read and inter-preted as τὸ ὑπερβάλλον (Bernabeacute and Peacuterez de Tudela 2007 38) I have tried toshow in this section that this view is implausible ndash The same conjecture πέλον wasproposed independently two years later by H Tarrant 1983 77 with the rather un-convincing translation ldquofor what is is what he is conscious ofrdquo



these topics treated in the text of the poem also the fact that the sum-mary both begins and ends with a generalizing statement on the matter(γνῶσις occurs in both contexts)115 points to a pattern of circular composi-tion characteristic of archaic poetry and of Parmenidesrsquo way of writing inparticular The remarks on sleep (A 46b) and old age (A 46a) as due to adecrease in heat remembered by the doxographers116 would probably havefollowed between (2) and (3)

On the whole on the interpretation I suggest Theophrastusrsquo readingof Parmenides would deserve a far more favorable judgment than it hasusually received in recent times His remarks on Parmenides are clearlynot simple ldquorepetitions of some of the interpretations that he found inAristotlerdquo117 even if the similarity of wording is sometimes almost literalWhen Theophrastus ranges Parmenides with the partisans of the like bylike theory he is not just mechanically applying Aristotlersquos general view onthe ancient philosophers (in fact he corrects this view118 at the same mo-ment remarking that some of these philosophers attributed sensation tocontraries) but offers an interpretation based on his own reading of thepoem supported not only by the passage on the corpse perception butalso by the literal quotation of B 162ndash4 where we read that ldquowhat thenature of the members thinks in men is the same as each and every thingrdquoParmenides it is true speaks here of νόος or as Theophrastus says of ldquobet-ter and purer thinkingrdquo not of sensation Theophrastus is aware of thisfact and ndash if his initial statement that Parmenides did not define anythingabout sensation but referred to ldquocognitionrdquo (γνῶσις) in general should notbe sufficient ndash adds that Parmenides ldquospeaks of perceiving and thinking asbeing the same thingrdquo Again despite the almost literal resemblance toAristotlersquos general statements on the ldquoancientsrdquo at de Anima III 3 andMetaphysics Γ 5 Theophrastusrsquo remark has in this context as we haveseen a much more precise meaning he is not simply saying that Parme-nides still ignored the correct distinction between thought and sense-per-ception set forth by Aristotle in the last book of de Anima nor that hesomehow conceived both as bodily processes rather he is pointing out that

115 Since both occurrences of this word at the beginning and at the end of Theophras-tusrsquo summary belong to passages referring to lost verses of the poem rather than tothe text of B 16 it seems likely that γνῶσις was Parmenidesrsquo own wording or at leastsomething quite close to it rather than an equivalent for νόος at B162 indeed Theo-phrastusrsquo equivalent for νόος seems to be διάνοια since the fragment is quoted in orderto illustrate the statement that even better and purer διάνοια ldquorequires a certain pro-portionrdquo

116 See n 77117 McDiarmid 1953 133118 Mansfeld (1996 169 ldquoTheacuteophraste corrige son maicirctre en deacuteclarant que les doctrines

portant sur la perception peuvent ecirctre diviseacutees en deux ldquo



for Parmenides thought and sense-perception as well as memory and for-getting are but different manifestations of the same physical phenomenonthe mixture of elements in the body119 Indeed as Theophrastus has madeclear at the beginning of his summary Parmenides ldquodid not define any-thingrdquo in particular about the senses but spoke of cognition (γνῶσις) ingeneral and at least some of its various degrees of manifestation thinkingmemory down to the minimal awareness of the corpse and of matterSince the underlying physical mechanism ndash the mixture of hot and cold ndashis the same throughout Theophrastus consequently ndash and I think cor-rectly ndash concludes that what is exemplified for the upper (νόος) and thelower end (the corpse) of the scale ndash viz that the like perceives the like ndashshould apply as well to ordinary sense-perception which is after all thesubject of his study although Parmenides as it seems had nothing veryspecific to say on this point Theophrastus is well aware that the textualreferences he is able to give are of rather indirect relevance to his subjectso he feels compelled to remind the reader that Parmenides did not makeany essential difference between thinking and perceiving At any rate thisis not a simple repetition of Aristotlersquos opinions but an honest effort tosubstantiate his interpretation by a scrupulous examination of the text

Even Theophrastusrsquo remark on συμμετρία might perhaps be seen as animplicit criticism of Aristotlersquos views According to Aristotle (de Anima409b26ndash410a13) the notion that ldquothe like is known by the likerdquo could atmost account for perception of the elements but not for knowledge ofobjects (σύνολα) such as flesh bone or man ldquofor each of these is not justthe elements put together in any way whatever but combined in a deter-minate proportion and composition (λόγῳ τινὶ καὶ συνθέσει)rdquo (410a1ndash2)Aristotle continues

So nothing will be gained by the presence of the elements in the soul unless therebe present in it also their proportions and composition (οἱ λόγοι hellip καὶ ἡ σύνθεσις)For each element will indeed know its like but there will be nothing to knowldquobonerdquo or ldquomanrdquo unless these too are present in the soul There is no need to pointout that this is impossible for who would suggest that there is a stone or a man inthe soul (410a7ndash11)

The argument seems not entirely convincing a partisan of the like by liketheory might object that even if the soul does not actually contain stonesor men nonetheless the elements could be present in the soul in an analo-

119 Therefore I cannot agree with Mansfeldrsquos 1996 173 suggestion that Theophrastusrsquoquotation of B 16 ldquoa comme but principal de souligner la justesse de lrsquointerpreacutetationaristoteacutelicienne de ces versrdquo Indeed Theophrastus is quite ready to correct whennecessary Aristotlersquos view on the ancient philosophersrsquo identification of sense-percep-tion and thought as he does in the case of Alcmaeon (Sens 25 = Alcmaeon 24 A 5DK)



gous ldquoproportion and compositionrdquo as in external objects producing somesort of scaled-down images of things But this seems to be just the kind oftheory Theophrastus ascribes to Parmenides knowledge occurs when thecombination of hot and cold in the members is proportional to that inthe object not only the elements are the same within the body and out-side but what the nature of the members thinks is ldquothe same as each andevery thingrdquo So on Theophrastusrsquo account Parmenidesrsquo version of the likeby like theory would be able to explain knowledge of objects in a muchmore sophisticated manner than Aristotle had envisaged in his summaryrefutation

4 Theory of knowledge and knowledge of Being

The picture emerging from this reconstruction is that of a comprehensivetheory of knowledge or cognition (γνῶσις) conceived as a feature inherentto all there is Knowledge varies in degree from a residual awareness inher-ent even to dead matter up to human intelligence (νόος διάνοια) accordingto the proportion of Light and Night in each part of the mixture themore Light prevails in the body of the knowing subject the more thinkingbecomes better and purer But actual knowledge of objects occurs onlywhen both mixtures in the thinking subject and in the object are in anadequate proportion (συμμετρία) to each other human understanding var-ies as the mixture of Light and Night in the body is more or less propor-tional to each object (B 161ndash2) knowledge or understanding is possiblebecause what the human body thinks is ldquothe same as each and every thingrdquo(B 162ndash4) ie because the mixture of the elements in the body can re-produce the composition of any object in adequate proportion The textof B 16 refers explicitly to human understanding only but Theophrastusinfers that the same mechanism would explain sense-perception since Par-menides takes perceiving and understanding to be ldquothe same thingrdquo ieinstances or degrees of γνῶσις depending on the mixture of the elementsas Parmenides explicitly states for the case of memory Indeed even thecold and the silence the dead body perceives might still be said to be ldquothesamerdquo as what the nature of its members thinks so it seems plausible thatthe same mechanism of mixture and proportion should work for any de-gree of γνῶσις throughout the scale

This seems to be at any rate Theophrastusrsquo reconstruction of Parme-nidesrsquo theory but could this theory really be Parmenidesrsquo own To answerthis question we should ask how this theory of knowledge would fit inwith the whole of what we know about Parmenidesrsquo philosophy and inparticular with his claims to true knowledge about Being set forth in thefirst part of the poem The problem would not arise of course if onetakes for granted that the second part of the poem does not reflect Parme-



nidesrsquo own convictions anyway But if we assume that the physical theoriesset out in the second part were actually a genuine part of Parmenidesrsquophilosophy120 we should expect his physiological theory of cognition to besomehow consistent with the doctrine of the Way of Truth and even tobe able to account for Parmenidesrsquo own proclaimed knowledge of Beingor ldquowhat-isrdquo

However scholars ndash even those who share our basic assumption con-cerning the coherence of the two parts of the poem ndash have usually beenrather skeptical about this point According to Reinhardt ldquoit should beevident that his [Parmenidesrsquo] knowledge is of a different and superiorkindrdquo than that of ordinary mortals121 An extreme variant of this view isdefended by Mansfeld for Parmenides the knowledge available to ordin-ary men is nothing but the mixture of their members but his own knowl-edge is of supernatural origin122 Thus the knowledge revealed to Parme-nides by the goddess would bear no relation whatsoever to the mixture ofelements which determines the knowledge of ordinary mortals But thesymbolism of Light and Night in the proem points to the contrary thesunmaidens divinities of Light leave the abode of Night and move to-wards Light (B 110) to escort the ldquoman of knowledgerdquo (B 13) on his wayto the goddess crossing the gates of night and day (B 111) All this seemsto fit quite neatly with the theory of mixture reported by Theophrastushowever intricate the details of this symbolism may be it is patent at leastthat the two elements Light and Night play a prominent role in it andthat Parmenidesrsquo quest for knowledge is fostered by potencies of Light(the sunmaidens) So we might surmise that his own ldquobetter and purerrdquounderstanding of reality is due to a preponderance of Light too albeit in amuch higher degree than in ordinary mortals The theory of mixture afterall might account for knowledge of Being as well

120 The same goes obviously for those interpreters who hold that B 16 actually belongedto the first part of the poem such as Loenen 1959 58ndash60 Hershbell 1970 Schmitz1988 70ndash71 or Cordero 2008 72

121 Reinhardt 19161985 23122 ldquoIl nrsquoy a pour Parmeacutenide et Empeacutedocle drsquoeacutechappatoire que dans le surnaturel per-

sonnifieacute ou dans la personnaliteacute qui eacutechappe agrave la condition humaine comme le prou-vent lrsquoappel agrave la Muse drsquoEmpeacutedocle et la reacuteveacutelation de la Deacuteesse dans le cas de Parmeacute-niderdquo writes Mansfeld 1999 344 cf already his 1964 261 But for the archaicGreeks divine intervention in human life was surely nothing ldquosupernaturalrdquo ratherthey conceived the order of nature itself as resulting from the action of living divi-nities so did Parmenides himself in his theory of the physical world (B 12ndash13 cf A37 for detailed discussion of this point see Bredlow 2011) Hence the divine originof his own knowledge ndash even if taken literally and not only as a metaphorical devicendash would not conflict with the possibility of an explanation in terms of physical pro-cess



But a reconstruction of the theory on these lines as attempted byFraumlnkel Vlastos and Finkelberg raises some problems as soon as we askwhat should exactly be the proportion of Light and Night in our membersthat would furnish us the kind of knowledge of Being Parmenides claimsto possess Vlastos holds that the knowledge of Being represents ldquoa state ofunmixed lightrdquo where ldquothe ratio of light to darkness must be one tozerordquo123 But this means to ignore Theophrastusrsquo explicit observation thateven the purest thinking needs some proportion of both elements (indeedVlastos disposes of this important clue in a footnote dismissing it as amere evidence of Theophrastusrsquo ldquoconfusionrdquo124) moreover this interpreta-tion presupposes Aristotlersquos identification of Parmenidean Being withLight125 reasonably questioned by most modern scholars126

Finkelbergrsquos reconstruction takes account of these difficulties butraises other no less serious ones On his interpretation ldquothe cognition ofthe universe as being takes place when the ratio of lsquoformsrsquo in an indivi-dualrsquos body is identical with that in the universe as a wholerdquo This wouldcertainly save proportion but at the cost of sacrificing the law that lumi-nous thinking is better and purer which would become invalidated assoon as the component of Light grows above the just proportion henceFinkelberg has to conclude ndash once again ndash that Theophrastus was ldquocon-fusedrdquo on this point127

After all for Finkelberg just as for Vlastos Theophrastus was utterlymistaken about the meaning of his text although in the inverse sense onVlastosrsquo view Theophrastus took for a general theory of knowledge whatactually was no more than ldquoa doctrine of sense-perceptionrdquo on Finkel-bergrsquos interpretation at the contrary he misread Parmenidesrsquo words onthe cognition of Being as ldquomerely a doctrine about the nature of percep-tionrdquo128 I hope to have shown however that what Theophrastus foundin the text of Parmenides neither was a doctrine of sense-perception nordid he take it as such (in fact he makes plain from the outset that Parme-nides ldquodid not define anythingrdquo on the subject) rather he took it quite

123 Vlastos 1946 66 cf 72 Similarly Fraumlnkel 1955 177ndash178 imagines Parmenides inhis moments of enlightenment as ldquonothing else but a being of light (nichts als einlichthaftes Sein) conscious only of his own beingrdquo

124 Vlastos 1946 71 n 38125 Arist Metaph Α 5 987a1ndash2 GC I 3 318b6ndash7126 See Burnet 1930 182 186 Cherniss 1935 48 n 192 Verdenius 1949 130 n 61

Fraumlnkel 1955 180 Untersteiner 1958 61ndash62 Houmllscher 1968 117 Stokes 1971144 Furley 1973 6 among others For a defense of Aristotlersquos interpretation seeapart from Vlastos 1946 73ndash74 Schmitz 1988 45 and Sedley 1999 124

127 Finkelberg 1986 410ndash411128 Finkelberg 1986 408



plainly as what it probably was as a comprehensive theory of cognition inthe widest sense

In order to see how Parmenidesrsquo own knowledge of Being would fit inwith this theory we just have to take seriously Theophrastusrsquo words as-suming that thinking grows better as Light increases though without everlosing a well-proportioned admixture of the dark element a mind made ofpure Light would not be able to perceive anything but Light itself Hencethe most faithful image of true knowledge of Being as conceived by Par-menides would not be that of Light contemplating Light but rather ofLight penetrating down to the utmost depths of darkness thanks to theminimal proportion of darkness it carries within itself This would be con-sistent with all we know about archaic light symbolism as Bultmann hasshown in archaic and classical Greece light is never conceived as the objectof direct contemplation (as it was to be later in the Hellenistic mysterycults and in Neoplatonic mysticism) but as the medium through whichobjects in general become visible129

As the component of Light within the mixture of the body increasesso increases also and above all the scope of awareness in time giving riseto memory and in space bringing to presence what is absent (cf B 41)As Houmllscher130 observed the cognitive superiority of Light is not due toits rather dubious kinship with Being but to the fact that vision the lumi-nous sense par excellence is distinguished from the other senses by itsability to reach instantaneously even the most distant objects and thisability must be even more developed in νόος itself to which absent thingsare immediately present

At the beginning of his proem Parmenides pictures himself as beingcarried ldquoas far as ever the spirit reachesrdquo (ὅσον τrsquo ἐπὶ θυμὸς ἱκάνοι B 11)guided by the daughters of the sun possibly sunbeams131 and in any casedivinities of light and hence of velocity132 We may surmise that this velo-city is that of thought itself It may be useful to remember that the velo-city of thought is proverbial in Greek tradition according to a saying at-tributed to Thales (11 A 1 DK Vors I 7112 = Diogenes Laertius I 35)ldquothe quickest of all things is thought (νοῦς) for it runs through every-thingrdquo In Homer Hera travels ὡς δrsquo ὅτrsquo ἂν ἀίξει νόος ἀνέρος ὡς κραιπνῶς(Iliad 1580ndash83) and the ships of the Phaeacians are ldquofast like wings orthoughtsrdquo (ὠκεῖαι ὡς εἰ πτερὸν ἠὲ νόημα Odyssey 736)

These similes may seem trivial to modern readers accustomed to tak-ing them as mere metaphors but to the archaic mind they doubtlessly had

129 Bultmann 1948 21ndash23130 Houmllscher 1968 117 and 1969 115131 Fraumlnkel 1955 169 n 2 cf Pindar Ol 770132 Deichgraumlber 1959 657 cf Od 12374



a much more literal meaning The velocity of thought was conceived of asbeing of the same kind of fact as that of physical bodies so the author ofthe Pseudo-Aristotelian treatise On Indivisible Lines (969a30ndashb2) still feelsthe need to explain to his readers that the difference between the move-ment of thought and that of material bodies consists in something morethan greater velocity and still for Epicurus the unsurpassable speed ofatoms is quite literally that of thought (ἅμα νοήματι Ep 48 and 61)Nevertheless Epicurus takes pains to point out that even an atom how-ever fast it moves cannot actually arrive at more than one place at thesame time (Ep 47) hence any velocity even that of light is necessarilyfinite Parmenides as it seems was bold enough not to resign himself tothis sort of limitation on his view the movement of the enlightened νόοςtravelling along the Way of Truth grasping at once the totality of what-isimplies the suppression of any distance in space and time Absent thingsbecome present to the mind (B 41) what-is ldquonever was nor will be sinceit is now all together one and continuousrdquo (B 85ndash6) Such formulationsmay become more plausible to us if we recognize them as a first attemptto express the universality of logical truth for which determinations oftime and space are indeed irrelevant In a situation in which logical ab-straction had not yet detached itself as a distinct object of thought fromthe physical world this discovery of the universal scope of abstract reason-ing must have seemed to require some kind of explanation in terms ofmaterial processes and the seemingly unlimited velocity of light wouldhave offered the most coherent available answer to this question

Thus the physiology of knowledge of B 16 would become coherentwith Parmenidesrsquo own claim to a superior knowledge of truth founded onlogical reasoning This account may also resolve a further problem someinterpreters have seen in the use of νόος and νοεῖν in the fragments Severalpassages of the first part of the poem (B 3 B 61 B 88 B 834ndash36) seemclearly to imply that νόος and νοεῖν are necessarily connected with what-isand therefore with truth but at B 66 Parmenides speaks of the πλακτὸςνόος of ldquomortals who know nothingrdquo (B 64) and also the νόος of B 16dependent on the ldquomixture of the wandering membersrdquo seems to be thatof ordinary mortals which would imply that νόος can be in error133 Theessentially correct answer to this problem has already been given by Mour-elatos although νόος and its derivatives are primarily ldquoachievementrdquo wordson occasion they may bear a sense of task or failure134 (just as in Englisheven though to ldquounderstandrdquo something normally means to have got itright nonetheless we may speak of someonersquos wrong or deficient under-standing of something)

133 Von Fritz 1945 237134 Mourelatos 1970 175



This becomes even clearer if we take into account that for Parmenidesνόος is as anything else in the physical world a question of degree Eventhe wandering thoughts of ordinary mortals refer albeit confusedly towhat-is135 since there actually is nothing else they could refer to Sincewhat the nature of their members thinks is ldquothe same as each and everythingrdquo (B 162ndash4) it may be said of them too that νοεῖν is the same asεἶναι (B 3) But νόος varies in degree according to the mixture of the ele-ments in the body In ordinary men the range of νόος does not reach veryfar beyond what they perceive by their senses or even less since blindsubservience to established convention and routine has made their eyesldquounseeingrdquo (ἄσκοπον B 74 cf κωφοὶ ὁμῶς τυφλοί τε B 67) we might inferthat their level of comprehension of reality is even below that of ordinarysense-perception At any rate their γνῶσις is limited and partial they can-not apprehend what-is qua what-is but only those aspects of reality whichare in exact correspondence to the mixture of elements in their bodies ateach moment136 Only the νόος of the ldquoman who knowsrdquo (or perhapsrather that of the divinities of Light to whom he owes his knowledge) inwhose members Light prevails over Night to a far stronger degree than inordinary mortals is able to understand what-is qua what-is his thoughtmoves at the velocity of Light itself beyond the limits of space and timewhich sensation and knowledge are normally subject to and hence cangrasp instantaneously the totality of what-is

There is still a possible objection to this account the νόος of ordinarymortals may be a question of degree but truth as Parmenides understandsit admits no degrees it is a question of ldquoyesrdquo or ldquonordquo ndash you either takethe right path or the wrong one (B 2) ndash and so is Being or what-is itselfit either is totally (πάμπαν) what it is or is nothing at all (B 811 cf B832ndash33) But I think the paradigm of light can account for this differencealso Light propagates in a straight line and for a line being straight ornot is surely a ldquoyesrdquoldquonordquo question whereas a curved line may be so ininfinitely many ways So we may surmise that in ordinary mortals thecomponent of Light in their bodily mixture is constantly bent or reflected

135 As Mourelatos 1970 176 n 31 remarks this was correctly seen by von Fritz 1945239 ldquoeven the πλαγκτὸς νόος of the mortals cannot fail to be linked up inextricablywith the ἐόν But it wanders and errs in splitting the one ἐόν up into many con-trasting qualities finding one here and the other thererdquo

136 Therefore it is not quite exact to ascribe to Parmenides a ldquostrict identification of theepistemic subject and objectrdquo (Crystal 2002 207) for which ldquothere are no separatethinking subjectsrdquo (Sedley 1999 125) as Sedley himself admits this would rendermysterious the possibility of human error Of course it is true that for Parmenidesldquoall thinking is what-is thinking itselfrdquo (Sedley ibid) but there are differences ofdegree ldquoaccording to the mixturerdquo this at least is patent from Theophrastusrsquo reportand from B16 (which neither Sedley nor Crystal take into account)



in infinitely many ways by opaque matter in which ldquoNightrdquo prevailswhereas in true knowledge Light reaches its object directly in a straightline without meeting any obstacles (this would be true indeed already forthe physical mechanism of ordinary vision which seems to have been themodel on which Parmenides constructed his notion of intellectual knowl-edge)

This may seem rather speculative but I think it fits perfectly well withall we know about Parmenidesrsquo scientific theories Parmenides seems tohave discovered that the moon receives her light from the sun137 so wemay assume that light must have been for him something more than avague poetical metaphor of knowledge or enlightenment in order toestablish the simple fact of the solar origin of moonlight he must havehad some insight into the physical and geometrical properties of light andits reflection even if on a level so elementary for us moderns that wehardly appreciate the intellectual effort that such a discovery must haverequired at an archaic stage of scientific reasoning Now we know for cer-tain that Parmenides in the second part of his poem explained all physi-cal processes and in particular mental and cognitive processes in terms ofthe mixture of Light and Night so it would be quite natural to supposethat the same thought pattern that underlies his astronomical discoverymay have played some role in his theory of cognition as well ie that theopposition of absolute knowledge of truth vs relative knowledge of mor-tals might have been accounted for in physical terms by the distinctionof light propagating directly in a straight line vs light reflected in infinite-ly varying ways by ldquonightlyrdquo matter I would not venture the hypothesisthat this relation was explicit in the poem but its mere possibility sufficesto show that Parmenidesrsquo physiological theory of varying degrees of cogni-tion is not inconsistent with his notion of an absolute knowledge of truth

Conclusion

We have seen in the last section how Parmenidesrsquo physiological theory ofcognition in general as tentatively reconstructed here could have ac-counted even for his own knowledge of truth about what-is The mainobstacle to this line of reconstruction I think is that it runs counter to a

137 B 14ndash15 cf Plut de Fac 166 929a (B 15) and Aetius 2262 (A 42 = Dox 357) forrecent discussion on this point see Woumlhrle 1995 and Graham 2006 179ndash182 for anoverall review of Parmenidean cosmology Bredlow 2010b The possible influence ofthis discovery on other aspects of Parmenidesrsquo thought has hardly been taken intoconsideration except by Popper 1998 essays 3ndash6 whose interpretations seem to meon the whole rather difficult to accept but the question would surely deserve furtherexploration



long-standing tradition of interpretation a tradition which has understoodParmenidesrsquo fundamental opposition of Truth and Opinion in terms of (A)a dualism of ontological domains (the ldquointelligiblerdquo vs the ldquosensiblerdquo worldin a broadly Platonic sense) or at least (B) a dualism of cognitive faculties(ldquoreasonrdquo vs ldquothe sensesrdquo) Evidently (A) implies or supposes (B) but notinversely Ancient interpreters in the Platonic tradition from Plutarch toSimplicius attributed to Parmenides both (A) and (B) others like SextusEmpiricus accepted at least (B) Most modern scholars have been ratherskeptical about (A) but some version or other of (B) seems still to be linger-ing on in the minds of many modern interpreters of Parmenides

But as I have tried to show (in section 2 at the end) this dualism offaculties cannot be found in the crucial passage of the poem where it hasbeen believed to be stated (B 73ndash6) after all the basic dichotomy forParmenides is not between ldquoreasonrdquo and ldquothe sensesrdquo but between logicalargument and established belief (the ldquoopinions of mortalsrdquo) Moreoverboth Aristotle and Theophrastus explicitly and as I hope to have shown(sections 2ndash3) consistently denied for Parmenides both (A) and (B) andas it seems they were right at least as to the essential point Parmenidesindeed took perception and understanding to be ldquothe same thingrdquo insofaras he explained all cognitive functions (thought sensation memory etc)as manifestations of one and the same physical phenomenon the mixtureof the elements Light and Night This is at least what Theophrastus saysand his testimony is quite credible if we take it literally enough whatTheophrastus attributes to Parmenides is not a theory of sense-perceptionbut a general theory of cognition (γνῶσις) although the short passage hequotes literally (B 16) refers only to νόος (ie the ldquohigherrdquo mental func-tions of reasoning memory imagination etc) for the rest of it we haveto rely on Theophrastusrsquo paraphrase I have tried to show (section 3) thatthis theory can be indeed quite coherently reconstructed on the lines ofTheophrastusrsquo report which if attentively read not only turns out to notconflict with the textual evidence of Parmenidesrsquo verses but can even giveus a clue for a better understanding of the literal fragment B 16 itself

Nonetheless the tentative reconstruction I propose cannot excuseTheophrastus from some minor misunderstanding concerning the exactsense of τὸ ὑπερβάλλον (or whatever might have been its equivalent in thetext of the poem) but at any rate it burdens Theophrastus ndash and Aristo-tle ndash with a far lower degree of misunderstanding than any other interpre-tation I have met with so far

Bibliography

Aubenque P (ed) 1987 Eacutetudes sur Parmeacutenide ParisAubenque P 1987 ldquoSyntaxe et seacutemantique de lrsquoecirctre dans le Poegraveme de Parmeacuteniderdquo

In Eacutetudes sur Parmeacutenide Ed P Aubenque Paris 102ndash134



Austin S 1986 Parmenides Being Bounds and Logic New HavenLondonBaltussen H 2000 Theophrastus against the Presocratics and Plato Peripatetic Dia-

lectic in the De sensibus LeidenBostonKoumllnBarnes J 1982 The Presocratic Philosophers LondonNew YorkBarrett J 2004 ldquoStruggling with Parmenidesrdquo Ancient Philosophy 24 267ndash291Beare J I 1906 Greek Theories of Elementary Cognition from Alcmaeon to Aristotle

OxfordBernabeacute A 1988 De Tales a Demoacutecrito Fragmentos presocraacuteticos MadridBernabeacute APeacuterez de Tudela J 2007 Parmeacutenides Poema Fragmentos y tradicioacuten

textual MadridBollack J 1957 ldquoSur deux fragments de Parmeacutenide (4 et 16)rdquo Revue des Eacutetudes

Grecques 70 56ndash71ndash 2006 Parmeacutenide De lrsquoEacutetant au Monde LagrasseBormann K 1971 Parmenides Untersuchungen zu den Fragmenten HamburgBredlow L A 2010a ldquoAristotle on pre-Platonic theories of sense-perception and

knowledgerdquo Filosofia Unisinos 11 204ndash224ndash 2010b ldquoCosmologiacutea cosmogoniacutea y teogoniacutea en el poema de Parmeacutenidesrdquo Emer-

ita 78 275ndash297ndash 2011 ldquoLa theacuteologie des passions dans le poegraveme de Parmeacutenide (frs 12ndash13 D-K)rdquo In

Figures de la passion et de lrsquoamour Eds D Chateau and P Salabert Paris 91ndash107Bultmann R 1948 ldquoZur Geschichte der Lichtsymbolik im Altertumrdquo Philologus 97

1ndash36Burnet J 1930 Early Greek Philosophy 4th ed LondonCalogero G 1932 Studi sullrsquo eleatismo RomaCalvo T 1977 ldquoTruth and Doxa in Parmenidesrdquo Archiv fuumlr Geschichte der Philoso-

phie 59 245ndash260Cassin B 1998 Parmeacutenide Sur la nature ou sur lrsquoeacutetant ParisCassin BNarcy M 1987 ldquoParmeacutenide sophiste la citation aristoteacutelicienne du fr

XVIrdquo In Eacutetudes sur Parmeacutenide Ed P Aubenque Paris 277ndash293Caston V 1996 ldquoWhy Aristotle Needs Imaginationrdquo Phronesis 41 20ndash55Cerri G 1999 Parmenide Poema sulla natura MilanCherniss H 1935 Aristotlersquos Criticism of Presocratic Philosophy BaltimoreClark R J 1969 ldquoParmenides and Sense-Perceptionrdquo Revue des Eacutetudes Grecques 82

14ndash32Classen C J 1965 ldquoLicht und Dunkel in der fruumlhgriechischen Philosophierdquo Stu-

dium generale 18 97ndash116Colli G 2003 Gorgia e Parmenide Lezioni 1965ndash1967 MilanCollobert C 1993 Lrsquoecirctre de Parmeacutenide ou le refus du temps Parisndash 2002 ldquoAristotlersquos Review of the Presocratics Is Aristotle Finally a Historian of

Philosophyrdquo Journal of the History of Philosophy 40 281ndash295Conche M 1996 Parmeacutenide Le Poegraveme Fragments ParisCordero N-L 1984 Les deux chemins de Parmeacutenide Parisndash 2004 By Being It Is The Thesis of Parmenides Las Vegasndash 2008 ldquoParmenide scienziatordquo In Eleatica 2006 Parmenide scienziato Eds L

Rossetti and F Marcacci Sankt Augustin 31ndash80Coxon A H 1986 The Fragments of Parmenides Assen-MaastrichtCrystal I 2002 ldquoThe Scope of Thought in Parmenidesrdquo Classical Quarterly 52

207ndash219



Curd P 1998 ldquoEleatic Argumentsrdquo In Method in Ancient Philosophy Ed J Gent-zler Oxford 1ndash28

Deichgraumlber K 1959 Parmenidesrsquo Auffahrt zur Goumlttin des Rechts Untersuchungenzum Prooimion seines Lehrgedichts Wiesbaden

Diels H 1879 Doxographi graeci Berlinndash 1897 Parmenides Lehrgedicht BerlinDiels HKranz W 1951 Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker 6th ed DublinZurichDilcher R 2006 ldquoParmenides on the Place of Mindrdquo In Common to Body and Soul

Philosophical Approaches to Living Behaviour in Greco-Roman Antiquity Ed RA H King BerlinNew York 31ndash48

Ellis R 1902 ldquoSome Suggestions on Dielsrsquo Poetarum Philosophorum FragmentardquoClassical Review 16 269ndash270

Finkelberg A 1986 ldquolsquoLike by Likersquo and two Reflections of Reality in ParmenidesrdquoHermes 114 405ndash412

ndash 1999 ldquoBeing Truth and Opinion in Parmenidesrdquo Archiv fuumlr Geschichte der Phi-losophie 81 233ndash248

Fraumlnkel H 1955 Wege und Formen fruumlhgriechischen Denkens MunichFritz K von 1943 ldquoΝόος and νοεῖν in the Homeric Poemsrdquo Classical Philology 38

79ndash93ndash 1945ndash46 ldquoΝοῦς νοεῖν and Their Derivatives in Pre-Socratic Philosophy (Exclud-

ing Anaxagoras)rdquo Classical Philology 40 223ndash242 41 12ndash34Furley D J 1973 ldquoNotes on Parmenidesrdquo In Exegesis and Argument Studies in

Greek Philosophy presented to Gregory Vlastos Eds E N Lee A P D Mourela-tos and R M Rorty Assen 1ndash15

Gallop D 1984 Parmenides of Elea Fragments TorontoGarciacutea Calvo A 1981 Lecturas presocraacuteticas MadridGemelli Marciano L 2009 Die Vorsokratiker Band II Parmenides Zenon Empedo-

kles DuumlsseldorfGigon O 1945 Der Ursprung der griechischen Philosophie Von Hesiod bis Parme-

nides Baselndash 1969 ldquoDie ἀρχαί der Vorsokratiker bei Theophrast und Aristotelesrdquo In Natur-

philosophie bei Aristoteles und Theophrast Ed I Duumlring Heidelberg 114ndash123Graham D W 2006 Explaining the Cosmos The Ionian Tradition of Scientific Phi-

losophy PrincetonGranger H 2002 ldquoThe Cosmology of Mortalsrdquo In Presocratic Philosophy Essays in

Honour of Alexander Mourelatos Eds V Caston and D W Graham Aldershot101ndash116

Guthrie W K C 1957 ldquoAristotle as a Historian of Philosophy Some Prelimin-ariesrdquo Journal of Hellenic Studies 77 35ndash41

ndash 1962ndash81 A History of Greek Philosophy 6 vols LondonHeitsch E 1974a Parmenides Die Anfaumlnge der Ontologie Logik und Naturwis-

senschaft Munichndash 1974b ldquoEvidenz und Wahrscheinlichkeitsaussagen bei Parmenidesrdquo Hermes

102 411ndash419Hermann A 2004 To Think Like God Pythagoras and Parmenides Las VegasHershbell J P 1970 ldquoParmenidesrsquo Way of Truth and B 16rdquo Apeiron 4 1ndash13Houmllscher U 1956 ldquoGrammatisches zu Parmenidesrdquo Hermes 84 385ndash397ndash 1968 Anfaumlngliches Fragen Studien zur fruumlhen griechischen Philosophie Goumlttingen



ndash 1969 Parmenides Vom Wesen des Seienden FrankfurtHussey E 2006 ldquoParmenides on Thinkingrdquo In Common to Body and Soul Philoso-

phical Approaches to Living Behaviour in Greco-Roman Antiquity Ed R A HKing BerlinNew York 13ndash30

Kahn C H 1960 Anaximander and the Origins of Greek Cosmology New YorkLondon

ndash 1968 ldquoThe Thesis of Parmenidesrdquo Review of Metaphysics 22 700ndash724Kenny A 1967 ldquoThe Argument from Illusion in Aristotlersquos Metaphysics (Γ 1009-

10)rdquo Mind 76 184ndash197Kerferd G B 1991 ldquoAristotlersquos Treatment of the Doctrine of Parmenidesrdquo In Aris-

totle and the Later Tradition Eds H Blumenthal and H Robinson Oxford 1ndash7

Kirk G SRaven J ESchofield M 1983 The Presocratic Philosophers LondonKirwan C 1971 Aristotlersquos Metaphysics Books Γ Δ Ε OxfordLaks A 1990 ldquolsquoThe Morersquo and lsquothe Fullrsquo On the Reconstruction of Parmenidesrsquo

Theory of Sensation in Theophrastus De sensibus 3ndash4rdquo Oxford Studies in An-cient Philosophy 8 1ndash18

Langerbeck H 1967 Doxis Epirhysmie Studien zu Demokrits Ethik und Erkenntni-slehre 2nd ed Dublin-Zurich

Lesher J H 1981 ldquoPerceiving and Knowing in the Iliad and Odysseyrdquo Phronesis 262ndash24

ndash 1994 ldquoThe Emergence of Philosophical Interest in Cognitionrdquo Oxford Studiesin Ancient Philosophy 12 1ndash34

Loenen J H M 1959 Parmenides Melissus Gorgias A Reinterpretation of EleaticPhilosophy Assen

Mansfeld J 1964 Die Offenbarung des Parmenides und die menschliche Welt Assenndash 1996 ldquoAristote et la structure du De sensibus de Theacuteophrasterdquo Phronesis 41

158ndash188ndash 1999 ldquoParmeacutenide et Heacuteraclite avaient-ils une theacuteorie de la perceptionrdquo Phron-

esis 44 326ndash346McDiarmid J B 1953 ldquoTheophrastus on the Presocratic Causesrdquo Harvard Studies

in Classical Philology 61 85ndash156ndash 1962 ldquoThe Manuscripts of Theophrastusrsquo De sensibusrdquo Archiv fuumlr Geschichte der

Philosophie 44 1ndash32Mourelatos A P D 1970 The Route of Parmenides New HavenLondonNarecki K 2003 ldquoLa fonction du logos dans la penseacutee de Parmeacutenide drsquoEacuteleacuteerdquo In

Logos et langage chez Plotin et avant Plotin Ed M Fattal Paris 37ndash60OrsquoBrien DFregravere J 1987 Le Poegraveme de Parmeacutenide vol 1 Ed P Aubenque ParisOnians R B 1951 The Origins of European Thought about the Body the Mind the

Soul the World Time and Fate CambridgeOwens J 1975 ldquoNaming in Parmenidesrdquo In Kephalaion Studies in Greek Philosophy

and its Continuation Offered to Professor C J De Vogel Ed J Mansfeld and LM De Rijk Assen 16ndash25

Palmer J A 1999 Platorsquos Reception of Parmenides Oxfordndash 2009 Parmenides and Presocratic Philosophy OxfordPhilip J A 1958 ldquoParmenidesrsquo Theory of Knowledgerdquo Phoenix 12 63ndash66Popper K 1998 The World of Parmenides LondonReale GRuggiu L 1991 Parmenide Poema sulla natura Milan



Reinhardt K 19161985 Parmenides und die Geschichte der griechischen PhilosophieFrankfurt

Ritter H 1836 Geschichte der Philosophie alter Zeit HamburgRobbiano C 2006 Becoming Being On Parmenidesrsquo Transformative Philosophy

Sankt AugustinRoss W D 1924 Aristotlersquos Metaphysics OxfordSchmitz H 1988 Der Ursprung des Gegenstandes Von Parmenides bis Demokrit

BonnSchneider A 1923 ldquoDer Gedanke der Erkenntnis des Gleichen durch Gleiches in

antiker und patristischer Zeitrdquo Abhandlungen zur Geschichte der Philosophie desMittelalters Festgabe Clemens Baeumker zum 70 Geburtstag (16 September1923) Muumlnster i W 65ndash76

Schwabl H 1953 ldquoSein und Doxa bei Parmenidesrdquo Wiener Studien 66 50ndash75Sedley D 1999 ldquoParmenides and Melissusrdquo In The Cambridge Companion to Early

Greek Philosophy Ed A A Long Cambridge 113ndash133Snell B 1953 The Discovery of Mind The Greek Origins of European Thought Ox-

fordndash 1958 ldquoΠαρίσταταιrdquo Glotta 37 316Solana Dueso J 2006 De logos a physis Estudio sobre el poema de Parmeacutenides

SaragossaSteinmetz P 1964 Die Physik des Theophrastos von Eresos Bad HomburgBerlin

ZurichStevenson J G 1974 ldquoAristotle as Historian of Philosophyrdquo Journal of Hellenic

Studies 94 138ndash143Stokes M C 1971 One and Many in Presocratic Philosophy WashingtonStratton G M 1917 Theophrastus and the Greek Physiological Psychology Before

Aristotle LondonTaraacuten L 1965 Parmenides A Text with Translation Commentary and Critical Es-

says PrincetonTarrant H 1983 ldquoThe Conclusion of Parmenidesrsquo Poemrdquo Apeiron 17 73ndash84Thanassas P 1997 Die erste ldquozweite Fahrtrdquo Sein des Seienden und Erscheinen der

Welt bei Parmenides MunichUntersteiner M 1958 Parmenide Testimonianze e frammenti FlorenceVerdenius W J 1949 ldquoParmenidesrsquo Conception of Lightrdquo Mnemosyne 2 116ndash131ndash 1964 Parmenides Some Comments on his Poem AmsterdamVlastos G 1946 ldquoParmenidesrsquo Theory of Knowledgerdquo Transactions of the American

Philological Association 77 66ndash77Wedin M V 1988 Mind and Imagination in Aristotle New HavenLondonWiesner J 1996 Parmenides Der Beginn der Aletheia New YorkBerlinWoumlhrle G 1995 ldquoWer entdeckte die Quelle des Mondlichtsrdquo Hermes 123 244ndash

247Zeller E 1876ndash81 Die Philosophie der Griechen in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung

Leipzig



but in finding support for his own system of philosophy to this end hedid not hesitate to modify or distort the views of his predecessors2 Theo-phrastusrsquo accounts on the Presocratics in the extant fragments of his Phy-sical Opinions are essentially simple repetitions of some of the interpreta-tions he found in Aristotle and hence have the same deficienciesaggravated by isolation from their context even his direct reading of theauthors he dealt with was thoroughly biased by his dependence on Aristo-tle to the point of distorting the meaning of his quotations in order toadjust it to the Aristotelian interpretation3

I shall not deny that there is a certain part of truth in this view Itshould be uncontroversial that Aristotle was not writing as a historian ofphilosophy His interest in earlier philosophers is systematical not histor-ical so when discussing their views he regularly reshapes them in terms ofhis own philosophy making them often take sides on problems that wereclearly not their own Theophrastus obviously shared Aristotlersquos terminol-ogy and his general outlook on the history of science and philosophyBoth Aristotlersquos and Theophrastusrsquo accounts rely on a thoroughly sche-matic systematization of what they took to be the real problems of philo-sophy which would easily lead them to misrepresent the views of theirpredecessors and thus become a major source of misunderstanding thoughprobably not the only one

But an all too hasty dismissal of the historical value of Aristotlersquos andTheophrastusrsquo testimonies has its own dangers If Aristotle and Theo-phrastus were capable of utterly misunderstanding the views of the ancientphilosophers whose writings they had at their disposal then anyone towhom as to ourselves these writings are not available anymore will findhimself in even far worse a position to assess what these authors reallymeant to say Giving the fragmentary evidence we have on Presocratic phi-losophy one may all too easily risk replacing the authority of Aristotleand Theophrastus by the authority of modern interpretations4 which atthe end may turn out to be hardly less questionable than Aristotlersquos own

2 See McDiarmid 1953 86 summarizing the results of Cherniss 19353 See Mc Diarmid 1953 1334 This danger was pointed out already by Guthrie 1957 40 in a lucid and well-argued

criticism of some of the more extreme conclusions of Cherniss and McDiarmid ldquoTosubstitute uncritical rejection for sympathetic criticism of Aristotlersquos account leads inthe absence of any better source of information to the erection of a purely moderndogmatism in its placerdquo For further discussion of the Cherniss-McDiarmid-Guthriecontroversy see Stevenson 1974 and Collobert 2002 cf also Palmer 2009 2ndash8 Amore equitable judgment of Theophrastusrsquo historical work has been convincingly ar-gued for by Kahn 1960 17ndash24 and in a most detailed way by Baltussen 2000 esp27ndash29 (against Chernissrsquo and McDiarmidrsquos view that Aristotle and Theophrastus areguilty of gross misrepresentation of their predecessorsrsquo theories instead of ldquodistor-





































































































































































































89 Laks 1990 1290 Laks 1990 17ndash18







































































































































Conclusion








Bibliography




















207ndash219

































































Leipzig





































































































































































































89 Laks 1990 1290 Laks 1990 17ndash18







































































































































Conclusion








Bibliography




















207ndash219

































































Leipzig







































































































































Conclusion








Bibliography




















207ndash219

































































Leipzig






Bibliography




















207ndash219

































































Leipzig


















207ndash219

































































Leipzig

































































Leipzig



aristotle, theophrastus, and parmenides' theory of cognition (b 16)

Documents