Early Greek Philosophy & Other Essays: Collected Works, Volume TwoNietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm
PhilosophyPhilosophy
Early Greek Philosophy & Other Essays: Collected Works, Volume Two
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm
Philosophy, Ancient
Moreover against Parmenides could be produced a strong couple of
_argumenta ad hominem_ or _ex concessis,_ by which, it is true, truth
itself could not be brought to light, but at any rate the untruth of
that absolute separation of the world of the senses and the world of
the ideas, and the untruth of the identity of "Being" and Thinking
could be demonstrated. Firstly, if the Thinking of Reason in ideas is
real, then also Plurality and Motion must have reality, for rational
Thinking is mobile; and more precisely, it is a motion from idea to
idea, therefore within a plurality of realities. There is no subterfuge
against that; it is quite impossible to designate Thinking as a rigid
Permanence, as an eternally immobile, intellectual Introspection of
Unity. Secondly, if only fraud and illusion come from the senses,
and if in reality there exists only the real identity of "Being" and
Thinking, what then are the senses themselves? They too are certainly
Appearance only since they do not coincide with the Thinking, and
their product, the world of senses, does not coincide with "Being."
If however the senses themselves are Appearance to whom then are
they Appearance? How can they, being unreal, still deceive? The
"Non-Existent" cannot even deceive. Therefore the Whence? of deception
and Appearance remains an enigma, yea, a contradiction. We call these
_argumenta ad hominem:_ The Objection Of The Mobile Reason and that
of The Origin Of Appearance. From the first would result the reality
of Motion and of Plurality, from the second the impossibility of the
Parmenidean Appearance, assuming that the chief-doctrine of Parmenides
on the "Being" were accepted as true. This chief-doctrine however only
says: The "Existent" only has a "Being," the "Non-Existent" does not
exist. If Motion however has such a "Being," then to Motion applies
what applies to the "Existent" in general: it is increate, eternal,
indestructible, without increase or decrease. But if the "Appearance"
is denied and a belief in it made untenable, by means of that question
as to the Whence? of the "Appearance," if the stage of the so-called
Becoming, of change, our many-shaped, restless, coloured and rich
Existence is protected from the Parmenidean rejection, then it is
necessary to characterise this world of change and alteration as a
_sum_ of such really existing Essentials, existing simultaneously
into all eternity. Of a change in the strict sense, of a Becoming
there cannot naturally be any question even with this assumption. But
now Plurality has a real "Being," all qualities have a real "Being"
and motion not less; and of any moment of this world--although these
moments chosen at random lie at a distance of millenniums from one
another--it would have to be possible to say: all real Essentials
extant in this world are without exception co-existent, unaltered,
undiminished, without increase, without decrease. A millennium later
the world is exactly the same. Nothing has altered.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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