Biography of Parmenides of Elea | Greek philosopher.

(Elea, current Italy, h. 540 BC.-ID., h. 470 BC) Greek philosopher. Reliable data on the biography of Parmenides are hardly known. His doctrine, still subject to multiple debates, has been rebuilt from the few fragments which is preserved his only work, a long didactic poem entitled on nature.

Starting from the identification of the flat logical with the ontological, i.e., after considering that nothing in the world can contradict what is necessary from the point of view of thought, Parmenides performs an analysis of the «be» or «the body» which takes you to deny the plurality and the movement.

Parmenides

This is because being not can be generated, because in that case he would not be the Arché (principle) of all things; cannot change, because in that case it would become a different thing from what it is, i.e., non - being and not - being is inconceivable; You can neither be divided, as it should then be separated by something other than itself, which again would mean non - being. All this suggests that the entity is immutable, unique, eternal and indivisible, and that the plurality and the movement are irrational and unintelligible, pure appearance.

There is still controversy about whether this statement should be understood literally or otherwise. In any case, attributes that Parmenides attributed to being were transferred by Democritus and Empedocles to the atom, and are at the origin of philosophical materialism.

On the other hand, his doctrine began the Eleatic school, whose most representative figure was Zeno of Elea, who dedicated their efforts to discuss the possibility of movement through a series of paradoxes that would become famous.

Extracted from the website: Biografías y Vidas