Parmenides And The Illusion Of Motion Analysis

Parmenides was a pre-socratic philosopher from Elea. Elea was a small town in southern Italy, which was home of the Pythagorean movement. A movement which Parmenides came after. Parmenides had strong views and answers about knowledge, being, and change. Parmenides ideology consisted of the belief that change is an illusion. He believed that everything was apart of a larger whole. His stance on motion being impossible relies on his belief that time is constructed of moments. The illusion of motion was just a bunch of moments put together. He was also a strong believer that it is impossible for something to go from non-being to being. Essentially non-being is nothing and nothing can’t become something. Socrates disagreed with Parmenides, but his

He used sensible experiences to falsify Parmenides views which isn’t a fair objection. Sensible evidence is just the evidence that is impossible if Parmenides theory is correct. Although Parmenides makes good points, his argument for motion not existing is based solely on his extreme viewpoint of non-being equating to absolutely nothing. Referencing absolutely nothing on many occasions to push his argument. He also uses absolutes in comprehending. In his mind if he can’t absolutely comprehend it, then it must not be real. This mindset of absolutes works in making his ideology sound correct but wrong in reality, since we don’t live in absolutes, we live in a world full of gray areas.

Parmenides is a monist. He believes everything is apart of a whole. In fragment 8 Parmenides is quoted saying “Thus coming to be has vanished and passing away is unheard of.. The terminology of coming to be and passing away means motion. With the use of the terms vanished and