Parmenides' grand deduction [Texte imprimé] : a logical reconstruction of the way of truth / Michael V. Wedin

Bibliogr. p. 264-267

Michael V. Wedin presents a new interpretation of Parmenides' 'Way of truth': the most important philosophical treatise before the work of Plato and Aristotle. The 'Way of truth' contains the first extended philosophical argument in the western tradition-an argument which decrees that there can be no motion, change, growth, coming to be, or destruction; and indeed that there can be only one thing. These severe metaphysical theses are established by a series of deductions and these deductions in turn rest on an even more fundamental claim, namely, the claim that it is impossible that there be something that is not. This claim is itself established by a deduction that Wedin calls the Governing Deduction. Wedin offers a rigorous reconstruction of the Governing Deduction and shows how it is used in the arguments that establish Parmenides' severe metaphysical theses (what Wedin calls the Corollaries of the Governing Deduction). He also provides successful answers to most commentators who find Parmenides' arguments to be shot through with logical fallacies. Finally, Wedin turns to what is currently the fashionable reading of Parmenides, according to which he falls squarely in the tradition of the Ionian natural philosophers. He argues that the arguments for the Ionian Interpretation fail badly. Thus, we must simply determine where Parmenides' argument runs, and here there is no substitute for rigorous logical reconstruction. On this count, as our reconstructions make clear, the argument of the 'Way of truth' leads to a Parmenides who is indeed a severe arbiter of philosophical discourse and who brings to a precipitous halt the entire enterprise of natural explanation in the Ionian tradition

Parmenides' canonical paths of inquiry -- Path II and the governing deduction -- Path I and the corollary to the governing deduction -- Modal extension and the third path -- A covert fallacy in the governing deduction? -- Self-defeat and the second-order defense of the governing deduction -- The Ionian interpretation of fr. 6 -- Does Parmenides argue for the existence of something? -- A remark on quantification and the subject of [estin] -- Consequence (A): that what is is uncreated and imperishable (fr. 8, 5-21) -- Against an emendation and a proposal about the subject of (A1) -- Consequence (B): that what is is indivisible and continuous (fr. 8, 22-5) -- Monism and deductive consequence (B) -- Consequence (C): that what is is motionless (fr. 8, 26-31) -- Consequence (D): that what is is complete (fr. 8, 32-49) -- A causal theory of thought and fact monism: D2 (fr. 8, 34-41) -- Fact monism and Gödel's slingshot -- Parmenides' anomalous sphere: D3 (Fr. 8, 42-9) -- The Eleatic inference ticket -- The perils of prescription: the deductive consequences at risk -- Four proposals that won't save the governing deduction -- Was Parmenides an identity theorist? On [einai] and [noein] in fr. 3 -- More on miscasting Parmenides as an Ionian philosopher -- Plato's response to Parmenides -- Appendix: Articulated text of the way of truth