The gap between Parmenides’ argument on Being and his cosmology in the Aristotelian account

• Autor(a) principal: Loureiro Conte, Bruno
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Revista Archai (Online)
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.unb.br/index.php/archai/article/view/52265
• topic: Parmenides; Eleatism; Aristotle; Monism; Cosmology

In some of the Aristotelian accounts, Parmenides’ thesis is construed in opposition to the philosophy of nature; on the other hand, he is also depicted, in a different context, as a cosmologist, to whom the Stagirite (and a long tradition afterwards, ending with Simplicius) ascribes a theory of becoming and its principles. In this paper, I exhibit and analyse the relevant passages from Physics I 1-3, Metaphysics I 3 and 5 and On generation and corruption I 3, providing an interpretation that aims to solve the apparent paradox, making sense of the information we can gather from Aristotle’s and Simplicius’ testimonies. Eventually, I propose a construal of the Two Ways of fr. 2 with an emphasis on the predicative reading of einai, which could hint at the Parmenidean approach to cosmology that runs in parallel with the argument on Being.