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Stronger Reality

The Epistemological and Theological Innovations of Melissus to Parmenides’ Philosophy
  • Enrico Piergiacomi EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: November 8, 2014

Abstract

Melissus is often considered a naïve thinker, mostly because of the famous judgment of Aristotle, who in Phys. 185a10–11 defined him as a less polished philosopher than Parmenides. But is this contempt really deserved? This paper argues that it is not. Melissus made two important and original innovations to Eleatism. Firstly, he showed that we humans fail to know reality since we do not recognize a conflict between our senses and our conventional language. Secondly, he demonstrated the non-existence of the traditional Homeric gods by arguing that divinity may be granted only to an inactive-changeless God identical with Being. Both these innovations (1) demonstrate a point which was assumed without argument by Parmenides, namely the unreliability of sensation, (2) deny the presence of a divine regulative factor in our world and (3) show how a study of the empirical world allows humans to progress in their quest for knowledge.

Acknowledgement

The idea for this paper came from the participation at the four-day symposium “Melisso tra Mileto ed Elea”, held by Jaap Mansfeld during ‘Eleatica 2012’ (Ascea, 15–18 April 2012). I owe my thanks to Maria Michela Sassi, who helped to improve a first rough draft of the paper, and to Constance Haynes ant to Caterina Musolino, who kindly revised the English text.

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Published Online: 2014-11-8
Published in Print: 2014-11-1

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