Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates, 3rd ed. Volume 1Grote, George
Philosophy
Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates, 3rd ed. Volume 1
Grote, George
Philosophy, Ancient; Plato; Socrates, 470 BC-399 BC
[Footnote 60: Parm. Frag. v. 81.
[Greek: au)ta\r a)ki/nêton mega/lôn e)n pei/rasi desmô=n
e)sti\n, a)/narchon, a)/pauston], &c.]
[Footnote 61: Zeller (Die Philosophie der Griech., i. p. 403, ed. 2)
maintains, in my opinion justly, that the Ens Parmenideum is conceived
by its author as extended. Strümpell (Geschichte der theor. Phil. der
Griech., s. 44) represents it as unextended: but this view seems not
reconcilable with the remaining fragments.]
[Footnote 62: Parm. Frag. v. 102.]
[Side-note: He recognises a region of opinion, phenomenal and
relative, apart from Ens.]
In this subject Ens, with its few predicates, chiefly negative,
consisted all that Parmenides called Truth. Everything else belonged
to the region of Opinion, which embraced all that was phenomenal,
relative, and transient: all that involved a reference to man's
senses, apprehension, and appreciation, all the indefinite diversity
of observed facts and inferences. Plurality, succession, change,
motion, generation, destruction, division of parts, &c., belonged to
this category. Parmenides did not deny that he and other men had
perceptions and beliefs corresponding to these terms, but he denied
their application to the Ens or the self-existent. We are conscious of
succession, but the self-existent has no succession: we perceive
change of colour and other sensible qualities, and change of place or
motion, but Ens neither changes nor moves. We talk of things generated
or destroyed--things coming into being or going out of being--but this
phrase can have no application to the self-existent Ens, which _is_
always and cannot properly be called either past or future.[63]
Nothing is really generated or destroyed, but only in appearance to
us, or relatively to our apprehension.[64] In like manner we perceive
plurality of objects, and divide objects into parts. But Ens is
essentially One, and cannot be divided.[65] Though you may divide a
piece of matter you cannot divide the extension of which that matter
forms part: you cannot (to use the expression of Hobbes[66]) pull
asunder the first mile from the second, or the first hour from the
second. The milestone, or the striking of the clock, serve as marks to
assist you in making a mental division, and in considering or
describing one hour and one mile apart from the next. This, however,
is your own act, relative to yourself: there is no real division of
extension into miles, or of duration into hours. You may consider the
same space or time as one or as many, according to your convenience:
as one hour or as sixty minutes, as one mile or eight furlongs. But
all this is a process of your own mind and thoughts; another man may
divide the same total in a way different from you. Your division noway
modifies the reality without you, whatever that may be--the Extended
and Enduring Ens--which remains still a continuous one, undivided and
unchanged.
[Footnote 63: Parm. Frag. v. 96.
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