The enduring significance of Parmenides : unthinkable thought / Raymond Tallis.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Tallis, Raymond.

Series:

Continuum studies in ancient philosophy

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Parmenides.

Physical Description:

xvi, 240 pages ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : Continuum, [2007]

Summary:

Parmenides of Elea is widely regarded as the most important of the Presocratic philosophers and one of the most influential thinkers of all time. He is famous, or notorious, for asserting that change, movement, generation and perishing are illusions arising from our senses, that past and future do not exist, and that the universe is a single, homogeneous, static sphere. This picture of the world is not only contrary to the experience of every conscious moment of our lives, it is also unthinkable, since thoughts themselves are events that come into being and pass away.

In this important new book, Raymond Tallis critically examines Parmenides' conclusions and argues that, although his views have had a huge influence, they are the result of a failure to allow for possibility, for what-might-be, which neither is nor is not. Without possibility, there is neither truth nor falsehood, nor thought. Tallis explores Parmenides' ideas, their origin and their subsequent influence on Plato and, through him, Aristotle and finally why Parmenides is still relevant today. In his writings we see the first head-on encounter of human knowledge with itself which casts indirect light on the nature of human consciousness and has been decisive for the subsequent history of Western science and philosophy. Tallis argues that a return to the fundamental intuitions of Parmenides may help us out of our present cognitive impasse.

Contents:

Preface: The once and future philosopher

The strange dawn of western thought

The central thoughts

The unthinkability of Parmenides' thought

A multiple legacy

The significance of Parmenides : preliminary observations

The existence of what-is-not

'Surely not is not?'

An historical excursus : Russell, Strawson and reference to non-existent objects

The origin of what-is-not : possibility

Some further thoughts on being, thinking, existence and possibility

Propositional awareness encounters itself

The nature of propositional awareness

The self-encounter of propositional awareness

Thought and stasis

Reflections on matter

Summary

Why Parmenides happened

Introduction

The greatest presocratic

The presocratic cognitive revolution

The rise of the city as polis

The city : cognitive density

The obligation to make one's self clear : trading and colonization

Storing human consciousness outside of the human body

Parmenides' footnotes : Plato and Aristotle

The passage from presocratic to post-socratic thought

Plato's wrong turn

Aristotle's wrong turn

The problem of the generality of propositional awareness

Parmenides today

Taking Parmenides seriously

A debit register

Thoughts about the unthinkability of thought

Thinking, knowing and being

The Parmenidean challenge.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [189]-194) and index.

ISBN:

9780826499523

082649952X

OCLC:

131064166