gay_Aleks
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The 9 paradoxes of Zeno
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warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
What do you mean when you say "there is just one" ?
Do you mean that you think that reality can be broken down to basic building blocks that are all the same? Such as .. for example.. strings?
Or are you talking about some sort of a BirdJaguar type oneness? (which I still don't quite understand) (BirdJaguar - hope you don't mind me using your name here, but you are sort of associated with the phrase "we are one" in my mind)
While the implications may include what the 'illusionary' world of many would have as a 'basic building block', Parmenidian Oneness is about 'reality' being a One in the first place, ie no distinct objects being there 'in reality', since all are a One and a spherical entity.
So indeed in this theory there literally is no movement (or other states, such as volume etc), cause they only are claimed to be appearances in an illusionary perception, that of humans. According to Parmenides humans are from the start locked outside of 'reality'.
Useful to note that dialectic starts with the eleatics (eg Aristotle argues it starts with Zeno and reductio ad absurdum), and their model is the bleakest in regards to a gap between human perception/thought/sense and 'truth'. Heraklitos also is pretty bleak, but not as distinct in what he means
warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
Yeah, but what exactly does that mean?
"Everything is one." .. What do you mean by this statement? Let's say I have a notebook and a pen in front of me. "They are one" - what does this mean? How are they one? Can you explain like I'm 5?
I'm not disputing that they are or aren't, I just don't understand what you mean. Do you mean that the universe is some sort of a blob that's uniformly the same throughout? Because that seems to be clearly not true.
Well... for a human observer (eg me) my desk and the computer on it, as other objects there, are readily sensed as distinct. I also can focus on any of them without blurring between that and other items i observe. Furthermore i can focus on parts of them, and also theoretical notions tied to them in some way. But i am human. In theory those items don't have the qualities i pick up through sense/thought for other beings which have other mechanisms of sensing/identifying stuff, which brings us to the core philosophical (and also very eleatic, but still hugely prominent in a variation of it) idea of 'thing-by-itself', which means that some object has 'by itself' other qualities than those picked up by specific observers of it. (eg: if for me a train is moving, will it be moving for a being not sensing movement as a phenomenon in the first place? And if it would then why is movement inherently tied to the object when it requires myself to observe it and not a being unable to?).
So if the cosmos is indeed One, it could just as well be sensed by us as Many, like it now is.
Oh, in case you ask for Parmenides offering proof it is One: there isn't any... Closest to that is Zeno's work where he tries to showcase how the OTHER view (ie that the world has Many things in reality, and not One) also suffers from paradoxes
warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
Well, I still don't get it at all. But thanks for trying to explain. 
In my mind - of course the universe is "one". It is a thing. But it has other things in it, if you want to look at it that way. My hand is "one" too - but inside are other things - if you choose to look at it from that perspective. Same with the cell in my hand, and an atom in that hand, and so on.
In my mind - of course the universe is "one". It is a thing. But it has other things in it, if you want to look at it that way. My hand is "one" too - but inside are other things - if you choose to look at it from that perspective. Same with the cell in my hand, and an atom in that hand, and so on.
Well, I still don't get it at all. But thanks for trying to explain.
In my mind - of course the universe is "one". It is a thing. But it has other things in it, if you want to look at it that way. My had is "one" too - but inside are other things - if you choose to look at it from that perspective. Same with the cell in my hand, and an atom in that hand, and so on.
That is pretty much how Socrates begins talking to Zeno, and attacking him, in the dialogue titled 'Parmenides'. Then Socrates gets attacked himself ^^
One has to keep in mind, of course, that Socrates and Zeno never met; they were from different time periods. Both 'Socrates' and 'Zeno' are Plato's constructs in this dialogue, with 'Socrates' merely puppeting Plato's own views (or Ideas). And he presents Zeno as 'having written a book'; we know of no such book.)
They aren't from a different period. Socrates fought in some pelop war battles (the earlier ones), ie he was very young at around 440 BC, and Zeno along with Parmenides are from the start of the fifth century BC. In the dialogue they are at Athens during the 'great Panathenean games', which iirc were just prior to the start of the pelop war, and Socrates is argued to be 20 something then (with Zeno 40 something, and Parmenides over 65). Remember that Socrates dies at 399 BC with his trial, at old age.
Which doesn't mean the dialogue happened as noted down by Plato, but it does mean they met. Socrates always echoes Parmenidian ideas anyway
Even Diogenes the Cynic met Zeno anyway, (as mentioned already) according to later authors.
Actually, Socrates would be a toddler meeting Zeno. The meeting did not occur; it's a means for Plato to expand his Ideas through 'Socrates'. Which was the point: Plato's Ideas were developed after Socrates and are quite unthinkable without Parmenides and Zenon in between; he in fact takes it to the extreme that Ideas are real, and what we perceive as reality isn't, but is a mere reflection of the Ideas. Which is quite a bit beyond Parmenides' recognition that there is a knowable reality and 'opinions'.
Correct. So your hand, an atom in that hand, and the uiverse are one - one and the same reality. They are One.
Well, I still don't get it at all. But thanks for trying to explain.
In my mind - of course the universe is "one". It is a thing. But it has other things in it, if you want to look at it that way. My hand is "one" too - but inside are other things - if you choose to look at it from that perspective. Same with the cell in my hand, and an atom in that hand, and so on.
Correct. So your hand, an atom in that hand, and the uiverse are one - one and the same reality. They are One.
What follows is a rare moment when i use my so prestigious uni degree:
Okay, your layman view of this can be posted, but it is contrary to research
Socrates was likely in the middle of his 60s when he died, so he would be a late teen when Parmenides and Zeno reached Athens. Their arrival is not a myth either, keep in mind this is a period of historians like Xenophon and Thucydydes
In dialogues Parmenides and Zeno is presented as being in Athens in the period when Anaxagoras also arrived and was working there tied to Pericles, which again places all that a little before the Pelop war's start.
Now it goes without saying that Plato may present Socrates as claiming stuff he did not (he was already accused for that by Diogenes of Sinope), and also other thinkers in his dialogues (eg Protagoras, or even Parmenides himself). It is not like the dialogue with Parmenides is written as a believable recording, and itself is the recollection by Antiphon of a dialogue happening some 20 years prior. Generally it is accepted that any actual dialogue had different form, or there were many dialogues.
As to the book by Zeno, again your claim that it is a fabrication seems quite bizarre. While the book is not named it fits perfectly with 'the paradoxes against the view there are Many things', fragments of which remain in Aristotle, Simplicios, Diogenes Laertios, and also in Archimedian works on proto-calculus.
warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
But conceptually this doesn't seem to be saying anything interesting. It seems 100% equivalent with saying: "My hand exists". or "My hand exists and can be thought of as a 'thing' or it can be thought of as a thing made up of other things".
What am I missing?
For the record: As i alluded, this is pretty much how Socrates starts talking in the dialogue "The Parmenides".
More specifically, Socrates says to Zeno that (not word for word, but you get the idea) "If i am to claim that things can be termed as One and Many at the same time, then it is not that impressive, since i myself am only One next to the other people in this room, and yet my body has many parts" etc.
The issue here is that the 'both one and many' there is still in the context of human senses. Parmenides is interested in whether there is some other field, more 'real' (actually the only 'real') in which things are different to what they seem to us due to specific human sense or thought. The dialogue then introduces the term of Eidos, which means type/category.
(btw, if you feel like it the Parmenides is free as a 20-page etext to be read in many sites, including Project Gutemberg)
Eg: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1687
That's not quite the as 'my hand, the atoms in my hand, and the universe are one'. Your hand, while appearing to the senses as one thing, are actually made up of kazillions of atoms. Similarly, each individual atom is even amde up of 'many things'. The universe (the Big one) obviously is too; it is, strictly speaking, not even a - thing, but rather a phenomenon. Yet all these many different things are one, and that at a very basic level.
So, going back to the big picture, all the many things (as they appear to our sense) are One. They are, in reality, One Big Thing. Call it the universe, if you will.
That's one (in all senses). Now you say 'my hand exists' and that is rather obvious. Well, maybe. Because the many things that make up that 'existing' hand, are still there even if the hand didn't exist. (Those atoms, remember?) In this point in time however, these atoms make your hand exist. (Just as, on a very different scale, they make the universe exist. It's really quite wonderful.) There's this remarkable saying 'we are all stardust'. Well, actually, it goes deeper than that: the stuff that makes up stars also makes up us. So, in that sense, again, the stars and your hand really are one. And now we are back at the beginnning: the many are one.
Socrates was likely in the middle of his 60s when he died, so he would be a late teen when Parmenides and Zeno reached Athens. Their arrival is not a myth either, keep in mind this is a period of historians like Xenophon and Thucydydes
In dialogues Parmenides and Zeno is presented as being in Athens in the period when Anaxagoras also arrived and was working there tied to Pericles, which again places all that a little before the Pelop war's start.
Now it goes without saying that Plato may present Socrates as claiming stuff he did not (he was already accused for that by Diogenes of Sinope), and also other thinkers in his dialogues (eg Protagoras, or even Parmenides himself). It is not like the dialogue with Parmenides is written as a believable recording, and itself is the recollection by Antiphon of a dialogue happening some 20 years prior. Generally it is accepted that any actual dialogue had different form, or there were many dialogues.
As to the book by Zeno, again your claim that it is a fabrication seems quite bizarre. While the book is not named it fits perfectly with 'the paradoxes against the view there are Many things', fragments of which remain in Aristotle, Simplicios, Diogenes Laertios, and also in Archimedian works on proto-calculus.
First, I did not mention any fabrication. Second, the only person mentioning a book 'having just being written' is Plato in his dialogue. Third, Plato's dialogues are not meant to represent actual events.
As for not being acquainted with research, scholars generally agree that a 'meeting' between Socrates and Zeno is unlikely. In fact, what is most probable is that Plato dated Zeno up and Socrates down to make such a meeting even plausible.
The fact that you take such a meeting in one of Plato's dialogues as literally true merely shows a lack of comprehension of the purpose of Plato's dialogues. Let's assume, however, that Socrates was in his late teens and did meet old Zeno. As mentioned before, he still couldn't have represented Plato's Ideas, as they were developed after Socrates. Ergo, socrates did not meet Zeno, and thewhole meeting is just a construct of Plato for his dialogue, in which he pits his Ideas against the thoughts of Zeno (and Parmenides). (Not to mention that, although Plato is credited with the invention of dialogue as a technique, his dialogues are in fact quite wooden, with people regularly going 'That is so', 'Indeed, you are right' and so on. To Plato the 'dialogue' is primarily a means to expose his ideas in a fashion more or less comprehensible to the audience - or the reader, to be more precise. And what better way to do that then to pit a proponent of your ideas - 'Socrates' - against opponents - 'Zeno' -? It is a rather brilliant idea, although the execution leaves something to be desired.)
Eh, you don't make sense, cause:
1) Zeno was not old next to Socrates in the dialogue. Zeno was in his early 40s, and Socrates around 20. Parmenides was indeed old (65 or more).
2) Socrates is not propped up by being placed next to Zeno. Maybe read the dialogue?
In fact the dialogue even starts with a put-down of Socrates to Zeno, and then a worse put-down by Zeno to Socrates (he likens him to a female dog examining things), and then Parmenides takes center stage and Socrates is reduced to saying 'yes Parmenides', or 'it seems so' etc.3) Plato did not invent the dialogue form, where do you even get that? Even drama predates Plato by nearly a century
4) The relation between what Plato thinks, and what Socrates may have thought, is not the issue regarding whether Socrates met Zeno, Parmenides, or both of them.
Maybe. But i think the mood of the thread made you forget (maybe not as surprisingly) it is RD
According to Plato, in his dialogue. (Zeno's exact dates are, in fact, not known.) The 20 year interval doesn't strike you as typical? It became a cliché way to indicate that one person was a student of another person.
2) Socrates is not propped up by being placed next to Zeno. Maybe read the dialogue?
Again, this is not what I said. But you illustrate perfectly the woodenness of Plato's 'dialogues'.
Drama isn't dialogue. It was sung. Quite a basic fact, actually.
Possibly. But we know Plato's thoughts, in part, from the dialogues attributed to him. Knowing Plato used the dialogue form to represent his ideas we should use some caution at least in thinking they represent actual events. They don't necessarily do. They certainly shouldn't be taken as literal representations of actual events; Plato is not a historian and seems very uninterested in actual historical events. He is a philosopher expounding his ideas. The Dialogues are one way of his expounding - but not the only one.
They easily fall in the mid 5th century timeline of his trip to Athens, following the latter's victory over Persia in Asia Minor and the rise to supremacy (which is why philosophers flocked there at the time, eg Anaxagoras who was a teacher of Pericles, and Protagoras).
Not if one actually reads them... Those parts are not the center of the dialogue, and in the Parmenides they are not un-natural either, cause the discussion leads Socrates to concede in the first place. I even gave a link to the etext of the 20-pages of the dialogue, you can just check
Eh... The CHORUS was sung. The rest of the plays are not sung at all... This isn't a musical, you know.
Yes, and? No one here claimed that the dialogues are how it all happened. In fact their form (most of them are recollections of old events) makes that from the beginning not the point, even to an ancient Greek reader. The Parmenides, as noted, is supposedly a recollection of a discussion happening 20 years before, and by a person who claims (Antiphon) to have lost interest in philosophy by then (blame Parmenides
). So Plato himself rather clearly did not aim to present the dialogues as recording of actual discussion. This has nothing to do with whether Socrates had met Zeno and/or Parmenides and talked to them, which is rather the hugely likelier event. Even his student Diogenes of Sinope was noted to have met Zeno, etc.Similar threads
