以前寫過的作業，看看就好不要太認真XD Parmenides’ claims are best shown in his famous poem. In the poem, the goddess put two paths for us to choose from. The one is Being (what is) while the other is Not-being (what is not). The latter path is not the one we can go through, for whatever can be spoken of or thought of is, that is, to exist or to be. Reference to not-being thus must be excluded. So it is in this sense that Parmenides says “What is is, what is not is not”. It is also to be noted that there is no third way out. Ordinary people tends to combine Being with Not-being in virtue of contingency qualification. But this is invalid. Some qualified, namely partly limited, propositions such as “My coffee is hot at 8 pm” and “My coffee is not hot at 9 pm” may be said to be both true. But the unqualified proposition “My coffee is hot” must be true or not true. There is no third choice. Then what we are left is Being. The goddess continues to deduce the attributes of Being (or of what is, of that-which-is, of the One and so on). These attributes of that-which-is violate what we think about this world which we empirically perceive. It is unborn and unperishing, an indivisible whole, unmoved and perfect, complete and balanced. The reasons are what follow: First, it is unborn. It cannot come into being. This is because if it could, there would be not-being before it is. Similarly, It cannot cease to be, for if it could, there would be not-being after it is. Furthermore, it must be totally; otherwise not at all. Parts of it can neither come into being nor cease to be, too. They are all together or they are not. This point brings us to the next attribute of it. Second, it is a whole. It is continuous, indivisible and homogeneous. Talks of parts of it and relations among parts make no sense. Third, it is unmoved. It has no motion. This is because starting to move is the coming-into-being of motion while coming to a halt is the ceasing-to-be of motion. Since both are denied by the first attribute, it does not move. It fills towards the boundary, leaving no room for motion. And the boundary is essential, for lacking boundary is lacking something and lacking something is lacking everything. This is also proved by the first attribute. And this point leads to the fourth attribute. Fourth, it is complete and balanced. It fills towards the boundary symmetrically, and only the shape of sphere can do this. It cannot be the case that a part of it is shorter, thinner or smaller whereas another part is longer, thicker or larger. There cannot be Not-being which prevents it from reaching to the same distance in all different directions. The above is the first half of the poem. In the second half, the goddess offers an explanation of the world we normally experience, in terms of a pair of ultimate elements, light and fiery opposing to heavy and dark. This is the “opinions of mortals” which are deceitful. But when we talk about empirical objects and their properties and relations, we are not speaking of nothing, but of that-which-is, though our descriptions are extremely radically misdescribing. --

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