Les avatars d’une démone: à propos de Parménide fr. 28B13

Gérard Journée

doi:10.1515/elen-2014-350102

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Les avatars d’une démone: à propos de Parménide fr. 28B13

Gérard Journée

Published/Copyright: September 28, 2018

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From the journal Elenchos Volume 35 Issue 1

Abstract

It is a striking fact that the role played by Parmenides’ female divinity (he daimon) in the Doxa is not adequately reflected in ancient doxography. While Parmenides’ description, known from Simplicius’ quotation of fr. B12, makes of her the main origin of generation (she steers all things and initiates the “odious birth and mixing of everything”), she does not seem to have featured as a cause in the ancient doxographical reports about Parmenides’ causal principles, starting with Aristotle. Even more puzzling: while Simplicius reports that this female divinity was the one who “devised to make Eros, the first of all gods” (according to fr. B13, which Simplicius quotes in the wake of fr. B12), Plato and Aristotle, who also quote the fragment, leave the verb of this sentence without any clear subject, so that we can’t elicit from them that the divinity in question was responsible for the origin of Eros. This paper tries to show how and why the status of Parmenides’ female divinity in Plato and Aristotle and then in later doxography was reduced to that of a sheer metaphor.

Keywords: Parmenides; demoness; Eros; Plato; Aristotle

Published Online: 2018-09-28

Published in Print: 2014-03-01

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https://doi.org/10.1515/elen-2014-350102

Keywords for this article

Parmenides; demoness; Eros; Plato; Aristotle