“This will never be forced: that things which are not are.”
— ParmenidesFragment B7, line 1 (Diels-Kranz numbering), preserved in Sextus Empiricus; approximate English rendering
Commentary
This line opens the fragment in which Parmenides warns against following habitual opinion, which he associates with the senses, and insists that reasoning must reject the claim that non-being exists. Kirk, Raven, and Schofield present the sentence as a rejection of the ordinary belief that things come into being and pass away, a belief that the poem treats as an error of the mortal mind. Alexander Mourelatos argues that the contrast between reason and habitual perception is central to the poem's method, and that the line should be read as a directive about how the mind must reason. Jonathan Barnes cautions that the fragment's relation to the senses has been variously interpreted, with some commentators reading it as a rejection of empiricism and others as a criticism of unreflective belief. Patricia Curd emphasises that the line set the terms of the later debate between rational and sensory knowledge that runs through Greek philosophy. The English rendering is approximate and should be checked against the Greek text in Diels-Kranz or in the Kirk, Raven, and Schofield collection.
Commentary
This line opens the fragment in which Parmenides warns against following habitual opinion, which he associates with the senses, and insists that reasoning must reject the claim that non-being exists. Kirk, Raven, and Schofield present the sentence as a rejection of the ordinary belief that things come into being and pass away, a belief that the poem treats as an error of the mortal mind. Alexander Mourelatos argues that the contrast between reason and habitual perception is central to the poem's method, and that the line should be read as a directive about how the mind must reason. Jonathan Barnes cautions that the fragment's relation to the senses has been variously interpreted, with some commentators reading it as a rejection of empiricism and others as a criticism of unreflective belief. Patricia Curd emphasises that the line set the terms of the later debate between rational and sensory knowledge that runs through Greek philosophy. The English rendering is approximate and should be checked against the Greek text in Diels-Kranz or in the Kirk, Raven, and Schofield collection.