Parmenides, answered from the texts and cited to the page.
There remains, the goddess said, only one story of the way: that a thing is.1 On this way there are very many signs — that Being is ungenerated and imperishable, entire, unique, unmoved and perfect.2 The routes of inquiry are two, and only two are conceivable for thinking.3 The first: that a thing is, and that it is not for not being — this is the journey of persuasion, for persuasion attends on reality.
The second: that a thing is not, and that it must needs not be — this I tell you is a path wholly without report, for you can neither know what is not, since it is impossible, nor tell of it.4 The second route is no route at all. It cannot be walked, cannot be said, cannot even be thought to its end. So hold your thought back from it. What remains, then, is the way of is.
And the goddess marked it with signs, enumerated as predicates of Being itself — ungenerated, imperishable, whole, indivisible, motionless, complete.5 These are not names mortals have assigned by convention; they are objectively real, in contrast to the marks mortals have placed on the two Forms they invented for their cosmology.6 The semata follow necessarily from the bare fact that Being is: for if it came to be, it would have come from what is not, and what is not is not a route; if it could perish, it would pass into what is not, and again, never shall this be forced — that things that are not are.7
The poem is dominated by the conviction that human beings can attain genuine knowledge of reality, nous, and the apocalyptic form is itself the analysis of what that requires.8 What must reality be, if it is knowable? It must be such that it either intrinsically is something or of necessity is not anything — nothing else qualifies as real.9
The way of truth is the way that meets this criterion without remainder: the way of is, followed without deviation, from which the semata are drawn one by one as consequences. Do not let habit do violence to you on the empirical way — the unseeing eye, the noisy ear, the tongue that names without knowing.10 Decide by discourse, by the controversial test the goddess enjoined. Only one story of the way is still left.
Only one story of the way is still left: that a thing is.The Fragments of Parmenides, pp. 62–65
On this way there are very many signs: that Being is ungenerated and imperishable, entire, unique, unmoved and perfect.The Fragments of Parmenides, pp. 62–65
those ways of enquiry which are alone conceivable.The Fragments of Parmenides, pp. 55–57
The one, that a thing is, and that it is not for not being, is the journey of persuasion, for persuasion attends on reality; the other, that a thing is not, and that it must needs not be, this I tell you is a path wholly without report, for you can neither know what is not (for it is impossible) nor tell of it.The Fragments of Parmenides, pp. 55–57
the remaining way is marked by signs or monuments, which are enumerated in ll.3-6 as predicates of Being.The Fragments of Parmenides, pp. 313–314
the contrast indicates that, while the characteristics of the two Forms into which P. analyses the physical world are, like the Forms themselves, empirical and conventional in status, those of Being are objectively real.The Fragments of Parmenides, pp. 313–314
For this principle shall never be vanquished, so as to allow things to be that are not.The Fragments of Parmenides, pp. 62–65
Parmenides' poem is dominated by his conviction that human beings can attain knowledge of reality or understanding (νόος).The Fragments of Parmenides, pp. 20–21
nothing is to be so considered, unless it either is intrinsically something or of necessity is not anything.The Fragments of Parmenides, pp. 20–21
let not habit do violence to you on the empirical way of exercising an unseeing eye and a noisy ear and tongue, but decide by discourse the controversial test enjoined by me.The Fragments of Parmenides, pp. 62–65