Parmenides’ Epistemology and the Two Parts of his Poem

Abstract

This paper pursues a new approach to the problem of the relation between Alëtheia and Doxa. It investigates as interrelated matters Parmenides' impetus for developing and including Doxa, his conception of the mortal epistemic agent in relation both to Doxa's investigations and to those in Alëtheia, and the relation between mortal and divine in his poem. Parmenides, it is argued, maintained that Doxastic cognition is an ineluctable and even appropriate aspect of mortal life. The mortal agent, however, is nonetheless capable of sustaining the cognition of Alëtheia by momentarily coming to think withor as-his divine (fiery, aethereal) soul.

Parmenides on ‘naming’ and ‘meaning’: a disjunctivist reading of the Poem

“…This is rightly remarked upon by Shaul Tor who in fact adopts Diels’ text: It makes no odds to us whether at B8.38 we read τῳ πάντ’ὄνομ(α) ἔσται (to be translated ‘all things will be its name’, with Kingsley 2003, 190-1; Mourelatos 2008, 386-7) or, less likely, τῷ πάντ’ ὀνόμασται (‘to it all things will be named’, Woodbury 1971). On either construal, the point will be that what-is is in fact the only possible referent for categories which purport to get at and capture the fundamental nature of reality (Tor, 2015, note 21, p.58, emphasis mine).…”

“… 14 Coxon (2009, p. 343–44) and Tor (2015, p. 17–22) among others emphasise that the expression ʻκατέθɛντο… γνώμας' is echoing Greek poetry and thus it means ‘they decide’ or ‘they resolved’.…”

“… 17 Along the same lines, though less explicit, Shaul Tor (2015, p. 21): ‘The mortals resolve to “name” the two Doxastic elements (κατέθɛντο . .…”