Monthly Archives: April 2012

Parmenides, expressibility and pure being

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In my previous post I translated Parmenides fragment 8. Among the most perplexing frustrations, and trust me, there are many in an ancient epic hexameter poem, was the phrase I translated as, “Thought and that thing on account of which thought exists are both the same thing. For not without being, within which thought has been expressed, will you discover thinking.

I had previously struggled to understand what the sentiment was which Parmenides was conveying.  On reflection, and perhaps with an appreciation for the midnight startle I woke up with pondering this sentence over and over again, and moreover, with the over-familiarity I have gained in having translated this sentence “into being”, I now think it rather a straightforward, but not obvious argument.

If there were no existence, nothing existing at all, we would not be able to express anything, for that very expression of something would itself be existing, (because it is something) and then something would, in fact, exist.  The fact that something is verbally expressed demonstrates that something exists, namely at least the expressed and the expresser.  In this sense they are the same thing.

Does Descartes simply steal a version of this argument away from Parmenides, or adapt it?  “I think, therefore I am”, is closely akin to “I speak, therefore I am”, or perhaps more basically, “It is expressed, therefore it exists.”

Any Cartesians out there have a thought (and who also exist)?

 

Parmenides Fragment 8 Translation

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And yet one narrative of the path remains, that it exists. And on this path are a great many signs: namely, that being had no beginning nor can it have an end because it is firmly established, unmoved and eternal. It did not exist once in the past nor will it exist, since it exists at the same time all together, (5) one and continuous. For what origin of it will you seek out? In what way and from where has it increased? I defy you to speak and to think by that which does not exist. For it is not possible that the unspeakable and unthinkable exist. And what compulsion roused it to grow, either sooner or later, even though it began from nothing? (10) Therefore, it is necessary that it exists entirely or not at all. Not once from non-being will credibility allow anything to come-to-be alongside being. On account of this, Justice did not allow being to come-into-being nor for it to pass away by loosening its shackles, but she holds it fast. The judgment concerning these things amounts to this. (15) It either exists or does not exist. It has been decided, as a logical necessity, to leave the one path unthought and unnamed (because it is not a true path), while the other path exists and is true. And how then would what exists perish?  And how could it come into being? For if it was becoming, it is not being, and if it will come-to-be at some time, it is not being. (20) Thus coming-to-be has vanished and passing away is unheard of. It is not divisible, since all is the same. Nor is anything more there, which would hinder it from being held together, and it is not lesser, but it is entirely full of being. Everything is continuous for being. For it is being that engages with being. (25) Moreover, unmoving in the limits of a great bondage, it is without a beginning and without end, since coming-to-be and passing away wandered very far off, and it is good sense which pushed it away. And it remains the same in the same thing in conformity with itself, and it is ordained and in this way it stands fast in that position. (30) For stern Fate holds it in a constrained determinancy, which binds it all around, because it is established that being is not imperfect. For being does not lack. But non-being lacks everything. Thought and that thing on account of which thought exists are both the same thing. For not without being, within which thought has been expressed, will you discover thinking. (35) For nothing else either exists or will exist except being, since Fate fettered it to be whole and unmoving. Every name will belong to being, as many names as mortals establish which they believe are true, believing that named things are coming-into-being and being destroyed, and that they are existing and not existing, (40) and that they exchange one location for another and alter their conspicuous color. But since there is a determinate limit, being is complete from all directions, resembling the body of a well-rounded globe, equally balanced in every direction from the middle. For it is necessary that being exists neither greater to an extent here, nor that it exists greater to an extent there. For neither does non-being exist, which would prevent being from attaining this unification, nor does being exist in any way whatsoever that there would be more of being here and less of being there, since in every way being is an inviolable sanctuary. For equal to itself from every direction, it equally attains itself within the limits. So at this point, I stop the trusted account and thought concerning truth; (50) instead, learn the opinions of this mortal, by listening to the cunning arrangement of my epic poem. For they have settled their mind on naming two forms; of the two, it is not right to name one— on this point they have strayed— and judged them to be opposite things in form and gave them identities apart from each other, (55) for one form there is an etherial flaming fire, it is favorable, surpassingly light weight and not dense, the same to itself from every direction and not the same as the other. But the other is opposite in comformity to itself, a dark night, a dense and heavy body. I declare to you that this arrangement is probable in every way, so that some judgment of mortals will never overtake you.

Epictetus on the Perishing of Pots and People (Part 1)

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 Concerning each of those things that are alluring or have any usefulness or you are fond of, remember to say, what type it is, even beginning from the smallest things: If you are fond of a pot, that, “I am fond of a pot.”  For if it breaks you will not suffer.  If you kiss your very own little child or wife, that you are kissing a human: because if they die, you will not suffer. Epictetus, Enchiridion I.3

ἐφ᾽ ἑκάστου τῶν ψυχαγωγούντων ἢ χρείαν παρεχόντων ἢ στεργομένων μέμνησο ἐπιλέγειν, ὁποῖόν ἐστιν, ἀπὸ τῶν σμικροτάτων ἀρξάμενος: ἂν χύτραν στέργῃς, ὅτι ‘χύτραν στέργω.’ κατεαγείσης γὰρ αὐτῆς οὐ ταραχθήσῃ: ἂν παιδίον σαυτοῦ καταφιλῇς ἢ γυναῖκα, ὅτι ἄνθρωπον καταφιλεῖς: ἀποθανόντος γὰρ οὐ ταραχθήσῃ.

Epictetus has thus far lead us to believe that things either are or are not in our control, and that the former only properly belong to the domain of our concerns.  Chiefly, if not exclusively among those “things” in our power, are our mental states: hupolepsis– plan; horme– desire; oreksis– volition; and ekklisis– avoidance (the opposite of choice).

The practical takeaway amounts to this: If I love a thing I am to tell myself that I love a thing.  But what exactly does this mean?  Epictetus has just introduced three categories of “things” as they relate to us: the alluring, the useful and those things we are fond of.  A pot then, we are to remind ourself, fits into one of these three categories.  Epictetus places it into the “fond of” category.*  Note, not uncoincidentally, that it is we who are to remind ourselves.  If we told other people or vice versa, about this self-reflective protocol, we would in fact be transgressing Epictetus’ injunction to concern ourselves only with what is in our power.  If anything is not in our power, it is certainly the thoughts of other men.  For our own part however, conjuring up the thought, or perhaps even audibly voicing the words, “I am fond of a pot” is not necessarily supposed to sef-consciously evoke the brute absurdity of the utterance.  What I understand Epictetus to be doing is that when we say, “I am fond of a cup” we are to mentally categorize the object, the cup, into one of the three previous categories.  Either it is alluring, useful or loved.  It is the third, and after this recognition we are to note that if either of the two elements out our control, ourself (including our body) or the cup, is taken out of the equation, whether through destruction, theft, or injury, then we are immediately dealing with a concern not properly our own.  We can and must engage only with that in our control.  A destroyed pot, out of our control, is by definition something we should not concern ourselves with.  We should not say of a non-existing pot, “I am fond of a pot” just as we could not say, “I am fond of a pot” if we ourselves were to cease to be.

*(“Be fond of”, translated in three different places above, is here from the verb stergo, a term not normally associated with erotic love nor love for a friend, but often concerns the mutual love of parents and children.)