Exploring Parmenides and the Origins of Idealism

In this episode we delve into the philosophical contributions of Parmenides. We examine his impact on idealism, distinguishing between ordinary and philosophical uses of the term. The discussion covers Parmenides' ideas about the nature of reality, including his belief that change and plurality are illusions and that true reality is unchanging and indivisible. We also tackle how Parmenides influenced later philosophers like Plato and the challenges his ideas pose to internal coherence and rational explanation.

00:00 Introduction and Greetings

00:12 Defining Idealism

02:45 Philosophical Context and Examples

07:22 Parmenides' Life and Influence

09:01 The Way of Truth vs. The Way of Opinion

19:45 Evaluating Parmenides' Philosophy

27:27 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

All right.

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All right.

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All right.

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Welcome back to philosophy and Faye.

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I'm here with Daniel Jepsen.

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Daniel.

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Good morning.

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How are you?

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Good morning.

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You sound like a cheesy

seventies radio DJ right now.

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I'm excited to talk about

Parmenides and idealism.

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Yeah.

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Parmenides and the beginning of idealism.

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. Cool.

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So why don't you situate us and tell

us a little bit about who we're going

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to be talking about, why, and all that.

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So let's talk about the why first.

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We're going to be tackling one

of the big ideas in philosophy.

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So we're gonna, we're gonna

capitalize some words today.

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So capitalize big idea in your mind.

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There are going to be certain themes,

ideas that come back again and again

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in different ways in philosophy.

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And one of those is idealism.

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Idealism.

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Idealism.

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And we're going to be looking

at a philosopher who many people

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regard as a father of idealism.

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Gotcha.

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So what is idealism?

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It can mean a lot of things.

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It has one meaning in ordinary

usage, and then two in philosophy.

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In ordinary language, idealism simply

means someone who is so enamored with

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some value or idea that it's often to

the expense of practical considerations.

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Think of a politician who refuses

to compromise on some principle.

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Even though compromising another

principle might allow some

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legislation to be passed or something.

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Sometimes we think of an idealist

as an incurable optimist.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Always pushing toward an ideal even

though, like you said, it's not

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necessarily always realistic or can't

necessarily come without compromise.

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Right.

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So, in the normal sense of the word,

idealism, there is some ideal, and we're

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so devoted to that, that we focus on that,

maybe sacrifice things towards that ideal,

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and that's not how we're using it today.

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I call it visionary, that's why.

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Well, yeah, I can see that.

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But that's not how we're going

to be talking about idealism.

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In philosophy, it has

a more technical use.

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Okay, so what's that?

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In philosophy, it has two different uses.

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I'm going to say one is Idealism

with a small i and one is

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Idealism with a capital I.

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And the first of these, Idealism with

a small i, mainly means to emphasize

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ideas and concepts rather than

material objects or physical sensations

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in trying to understand reality.

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So it's mainly what you're focusing on.

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You're focusing on ideas or concepts.

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That's one meaning of the word Idealism.

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But the second thing it could mean, and

this is idealism with a capital I, is that

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you argue that reality is fundamentally

mental or spiritual in nature.

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It's not material or physical.

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First, a question about

the first definition.

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Is that kind of like philosophers

who focus all on theory

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instead of the practicality?

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Is that, is that kind of

what that's getting at?

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It's not so much theory and

practicality as how do you

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understand the world around us.

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And for them it's mainly ideas or concepts

or rather than focusing on the experiences

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of the world or the data of the world.

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Um, let me give you an example.

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Um, I heard this from

my philosophy professor.

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I'm sure he got it from somewhere.

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He was talking about the difference

between rationalism and empiricism,

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which is kind of what we're getting at.

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Rationalism is focused in ideas,

rationality, and it minimizes sense

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experience or physical data in

trying to understand reality and

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empiricism is just the opposite.

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So the old joke, the old line is if

you want to ask how many teeth a horse

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has, An idealist or rationalist will

think about the idea of a horse, they

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will think through the idea of how

many teeth a horse should have, and

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they will come up with an answer.

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Whereas an empiricist will go out

and find a horse and count the teeth.

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So that's kind of the idea, and

of course that's a little bit of a

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caricature of rationalism or idealism.

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I, I think the empiricists probably

came up with, with that particular

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example, but that's, that's kind

of where we're going with that.

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Okay.

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So, I mean, I could see how both,

both can be helpful, but the idealists

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are going to really, really focus

on the, uh, I don't even know

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what word to use other than ideal.

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Yeah.

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Just think of idea instead

of actual physical thing.

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Gotcha.

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The second one you said is a technical

term that means people who view reality

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as fundamentally mental or spiritual in

nature instead of material and physical.

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Right.

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Probably the clearest example of

this would be George Berkeley.

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He was an English philosopher

in the 18th century.

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And he argued that the material

world simply does not exist.

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All things are simply

thoughts in the mind of God.

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And maybe you can think

of the matrix example.

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I thought of that as I was reading this.

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Okay.

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So kind of the same idea that what we

are in is a thought world of God that

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doesn't have an independent reality.

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It's a simulation.

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In a sense, but it's more simply

the expression of God's thoughts.

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And that if he stopped thinking

of us or something, those

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things would simply not exist.

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That's interesting.

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Yeah, I got all sorts of questions

because it just seems bizarre.

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But then our reality is just kind

of a figment of our imagination,

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which is an expression of God's

thoughts or something, or?

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I don't think he'd say it's

a figment of our imagination.

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Probably he would say it's a

projection of our imagination.

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Yeah.

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That's very interesting.

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Well, you're, you're saying that this kind

of thought of idealism is grounded in.

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Well, I'm going to say

that it is partly yes.

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Think of Plato here as probably the best

example of a more mainstream idealist.

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Plato argued that reality is fundamentally

ideas, fundamentally concepts.

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He would call these ideas or forms

or sometimes categories, depends

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on how you want to translate that.

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That is the ultimate reality.

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Now he does not necessarily

deny that physical things exist,

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but they are simply a temporary

manifestation of those eternal ideas.

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What's important are the ideas,

the concepts, the spiritual reality

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in which all those things dwell.

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What's less important, because

it's transitory, because it's

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derivative, it's secondary, is this

physical world that we live in.

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So that's a more classic

understanding of idealism.

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It makes sense it's more classic

because it's not either or.

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Right.

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It's kind of a blend and you can see how

the material world is kind of a secondary

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but I mean it just combines both.

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Right.

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But that idea, that the most reality

is the spiritual or the ideas,

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is going to come back again and

again in various ways to various

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degrees in different philosophers.

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Gotcha.

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Gotcha.

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So, yeah, it's a little confusing

at this point, but maybe as we go

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on, it'll Yeah, it can be confusing.

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Hopefully by the end of the

episode, maybe a little less so.

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Yeah.

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Okay, so, Permanentees.

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Right.

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He was born towards the close of

the 6th century, maybe 510 BC,

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515, because we're told that in 450

BC, when he was 65, he conversed

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with the young Socrates in Athens.

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Nice.

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So now we finally have a

link to Socrates and Plato.

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And Socrates was Plato's, well,

Plato was Socrates disciple.

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Right.

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Socrates was the mentor of Plato and Plato

based a lot of his philosophy upon that.

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And then Aristotle was mentored by Plato.

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Yeah.

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So Socrates is kind of the guy that we,

we talked about pre Socratic philosophers

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and post Socratic philosophers.

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He's kind of the hinge there.

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Exactly.

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Okay.

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Nice.

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Cool.

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So we've done some good work with some of

the philosophers leading up to Socrates.

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Yeah.

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And I think we'll get to him

in probably two episodes.

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Okay.

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Cool.

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All right, so Parmenides lived in

Elea, which is a city about 70 miles

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south of what is now Naples, Italy.

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And so he and his followers are

sometimes called the Eleanic School.

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We actually have a poem he wrote.

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It's about 120 lines of

very clumsy Greek verse.

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In this poem, he does something unusual.

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He contrasts the path of truth, or

the way of truth, with With the way

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of opinion or the way of belief.

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And so this path of opinion

or belief, this is how things

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seem from a normal viewpoint.

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But the way of truth is the revealed truth

that he has received and he is passing on.

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So he describes this vision in which the

daughters of the Sun take the poet, him,

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on a ride in the sky towards the light

and reveal the true nature of reality.

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So you have these two ways, the way of

truth, which is what he's advocating,

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which you find by reason alone, and then

the way of opinion, or the way of belief.

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It's not exactly clear why he does this.

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Why does he give us a way of opinion

that seems contrary to the way of truth?

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Different thoughts on his motive there.

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But one thing is clear, and that

is the profound effect this has.

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He is the first one to posit that there

is a profound difference between the

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reality we see, and sense, and experience.

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And the reality that really is.

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Yeah.

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That's true reality.

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Yeah.

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But he's not going to be the

last to do so far from an event.

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So this idea that there is a way of

thinking about the world, which is a way

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of belief and opinion, and then there's

a way that's deeper, the way of truth.

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You're going to find that again

in Plato, but that's going to be

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carried on through much philosophy.

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So there's a reality that is, and then

there's how I perceive reality and

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there's a distinction between those two.

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Right.

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Okay.

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And the second of those, the

way I sense things is going to

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be based on sense experience.

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So now you've also got a dichotomy between

my reasoning and rationality and then

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what I experience within this world.

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And that dichotomy is going to be

very fundamental in philosophy.

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So to me, that's probably

his most important influence.

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And then we'll talk in a

little bit about why that is.

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So you've been talking

about the way of truth.

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So what's the main truth

in the way of truth?

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In a sentence, it would be this.

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Nothing changes, and nothing moves,

either through space or time.

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Nothing changes, and nothing moves,

either through space or time.

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Yeah, that sounds very

intuitive, doesn't it?

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No.

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It seems as if I change and I

move through space and time.

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It seems that way, but

that's not the way of truth.

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Okay, so what's, yeah, break

this down for us a little bit.

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Okay, how does he get there?

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Well, this is all through human

reasoning, so it's revealed,

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but the way it's revealed, the

goddess says, or the goddesses say.

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Think through these things.

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So this is something that's gonna

come about by human reasoning.

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And basically what he's going to be doing

then is reasoning or arguing about this

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concept of being, or the nature of being.

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And again, for him, he's gonna

think of being, especially with the

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capital B, that there is one being.

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And when we think about the category

of being as a whole, he asks, you

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know, what do we mean by this?

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For him, being is, and non being is not.

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So there cannot be a category of

things which exist and another

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category of things which are not.

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For if they are not, then you can't

even think of them, or speak of them.

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If you could speak of them or think of

them, then they would be, and not not be.

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By the way, nothing comes to be either.

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For if anything comes to be, then it comes

out of either being or non being, but if

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it comes out of being, then it already

is, in which case it doesn't come to be.

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If it comes out of non being,

then it is nothing, since

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out of nothing comes nothing.

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So becoming, then, is an illusion.

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You can't become.

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You can't change.

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There's no way for something to

be something that it's not or to

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change into something that it's not.

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Being simply is.

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And being is one, since

plurality is also an illusion.

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Okay, so Makes sense, huh?

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Let me, let me see if I can try to

summarize, because I'm processing

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through this for the first time,

like everyone else probably.

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Yeah.

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Um, you have two foundational categories.

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Mm hmm.

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One is existing, and the

other is not existing.

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Yes.

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And he says you can't go from

not existing to existing because

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something doesn't come from nothing.

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Mm hmm.

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Yeah, that's part of it.

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And then if you exist, you just

exist, like that's just the

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category, there's no change in that.

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So, fundamentally, if it's in the non

existence category, it just doesn't exist,

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you can't think about it, it's nothing.

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Exactly.

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It's not going anywhere, it's not doing

anything because it isn't anything.

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Right.

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But in the other category,

you've got the, just what is,

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and that just is, is what it is.

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Yeah.

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It is what it is.

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It is.

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Yeah.

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Being is.

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Yeah.

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Whatever is non being is not.

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There's just a very, like if it's in

that second category of existing or

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being or is ing, it's not changing.

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Think of a leaf that we would say in

the autumn changes from green to red.

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He would say he can't do that

because where would the red come

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from unless it was already red there.

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So you can't, there's no room in

his thought for something to change

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from one thing to another because it

would already have to be that thing

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or in that, in that thing to change.

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So that change from green

to red is an illusion.

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It's not really a change.

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Exactly.

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That makes sense.

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Because I mean, from the perception, uh,

the, The seed turns into something else

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to a tree or whatever, but he's saying

that, no, the tree has always been there.

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It's just, it just is, it's in a seed.

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It just, it's always been there.

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I don't know.

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This is another one of those categories

where it's like, you don't even

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have the language to really process.

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In one sense is that he's kind of playing

a game with language here a little bit.

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Um, but the tree can't come from nothing

because something can't come from nothing.

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So where does the tree come from?

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Well, it has to come from the

seed, which has always been there.

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It just is.

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So it's almost like what is,

yeah, I don't, I don't even know.

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I don't even have language to use it.

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I want to talk about like potential.

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But that doesn't even

really make sense here.

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Yeah, it's funny, Aristotle will

talk about potentiality as one of the

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factors of change and he'll give it

a pretty good explanation for change,

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partly as a response to permendities.

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So you're anticipating that, nice.

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Yeah, I mean, it, it, it makes sense.

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It's like, well, from our experience,

how does that green turn into a red leaf?

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But.

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Right.

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Right.

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And so.

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We could go into a lot of detail

about why, again, you know,

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the technical arguments for why

he thinks things don't change.

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I'm not going to do that because it

would bog us down and it's really not

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that important for where we're going

or for the history of philosophy.

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But for him, becoming is an illusion.

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Being simply is.

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And becoming is one, since

plurality is also an illusion.

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Being is one thing, it's

not separate things.

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And movement, too.

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is an illusion.

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So if there's nothing outside of the

one that it could move towards, and

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if something really moves, then it

changes, and change is impossible.

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So you have this idea that all

thing is part of this one, this

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one being, and this one being, the

one with a capital O, as it were.

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It's the only thing that

exists and it's eternal.

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So it sounds like he's playing off

of the past philosophers that we've

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seen who have said, yeah, all is

one and that one is water or that

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one is fire or that one is whatever.

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Is that kind of?

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Yeah, I think that's definitely in

the background of his mind that helps

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form some of what he's thinking about.

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Cause one of the questions that

immediately jumped out is he said that

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plurality is an it makes sense if,

if he's got reality being one thing.

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If that's playing in the background,

that makes sense why he would

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say plurality is an illusion.

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So is the one a physical

thing or a non physical thing?

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Yeah, that's a good question

and an important one.

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And I'm going to answer that

for him, it is a physical thing.

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The one is physical.

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Why do you say that?

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Well, first he says that the

one is finite, not infinite.

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It is infinite in time, because

it doesn't have a beginning or an

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end, but it is spatially finite.

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So that implies that it has some sort

of physical boundary, as it were.

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Second, he makes paints to say that

it is equally real in all directions,

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and so is spherical in shape.

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He says, uh, quote, The one is equally

posed from the center in every direction,

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for it cannot be greater Or smaller

in one place than another, end quote.

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If this is a sphere, then obviously he's

thinking of it as something physical.

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Yeah, it takes up space.

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Right.

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It has a shape.

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Yeah.

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This is where we get back to this idea,

was he the father of Idealism or not?

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Now, Idealism with a capital I,

which believes that all things are

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mental or spiritual and not physical?

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No.

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Because he believes the One is physical.

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In fact, in that way, he's more

the forefather of the materialists

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and the atomists that we'll

come to in the next episode.

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But in another sense, he can be called

the father of idealism for two reasons.

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First, we talked about this, his

undoubted influence on Plato, the

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great idealist, and the one who spread

idealism farther than any other thinker.

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And then, here we're coming back

to this, but let's emphasize it.

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Parmenides.

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Makes the first explicit separation

between thought and sense, and

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declares that sense objects The

objects we see and experience are

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not the objects of true knowledge.

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There are two ways, the way of a belief

or opinion, the kind of belief you get

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from the rational analysis of sense

experience within this world, and the

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way of truth, the way things really are.

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Not the way that they seem.

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And this distinction between the way that

things seem and the way that things really

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are is going to be implicit and central

in many of the other Greek philosophers.

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And he is the first one,

Parmenides, to make this distinction

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explicit, formal, and central.

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So that's why I say, in some sense, he

can be labeled the father of idealism.

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Yeah, I can see how he's labeled the

father of both because he's the one

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who's making a distinction between both.

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Okay, now that we have a little bit

of an understanding of some of his

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thoughts, the two ways, the way of

truth and the way of belief, let's,

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let's maybe evaluate that a little bit.

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Alright, let's look at some

evaluation as we begin to wrap up.

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One thing I'm trying to do is

ask two questions again and

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again of these philosophers.

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First, does this person

succeed in building an adequate

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philosophy on the foundation of

autonomous human reasoning alone?

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And the second, is his

viewpoint internally coherent?

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So does that make sense?

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Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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For sure.

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We've been asking those questions

throughout this whole thing, it seems.

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Right.

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And we talk about the livability, but

I mean, as an early philosopher, he's

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probably not dipping too much into

ethics, at least the way that later

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philosophers are going to build upon it.

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So I like that you're framing it around

those two questions first and foremost.

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Well, let's take the two questions

that you're asking about whether

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or not we're building an adequate

philosophy on the foundation of

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autonomous human reasoning alone.

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And then we'll look at the

internally coherent question.

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Let's do the second of those first.

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Oh, okay.

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Sure.

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I think it will help answer the first one.

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Sounds good.

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So is the viewpoint internally coherent?

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I think no.

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Okay.

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So Parmenides is making a claim about

the truth of ultimate reality, a claim

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based upon his own human reasoning.

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and appealing to our human reasoning.

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Surely, our human reasoning

is marked by change, isn't it?

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I mean, how can we think at

all unless we advance from less

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adequate to more adequate ideas?

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And yet, Parmenides dismisses

the idea of change altogether.

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Now, perhaps someone could say,

well, yeah, but he's talking

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about physical change, not mental.

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Point taken, but then if everything

is part of the one being, And the one

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being is both unchanging and physical,

then how could we ever account for a

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legitimate change of only a mental kind?

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So I don't see how Parmenides could

give an adequate answer to that

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on the basis of his own worldview.

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Does that make sense?

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I know it's a little bit abstract.

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It's a little bit abstract.

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Well, okay.

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So I guess we could just ask the question.

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If all things are one, and the one

is physical and unchanging, then how

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does my mind fit into that scheme?

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Is it simply part of the

one and unchanging, or is

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it separate from the one?

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Because you're saying from your own

experience, your mind does change.

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Yes.

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So it seems not internally coherent.

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Well, it has to change

in at least one sense.

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If I'm to adopt this viewpoint that he

is advocating instead of a different

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one, then there is a change in my mind.

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But wouldn't he be saying that that has

been there all along, just like the red

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in the leaf has been there all along?

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Ooh, I don't know.

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Maybe he would.

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I mean, the potential for

change has always existed.

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I think the hard thing for me is

like, Our experience is just to

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change, our experience is changing.

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And so it does seem, I don't know if it

seems internally and philosophically,

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logically incoherent, but the truth that

he's saying is true does seem to differ

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from my opinion or my sense, my sense of

that truth, which is this whole point.

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So yes, and I'll get back to that.

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Okay.

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Going back to the idea you mentioned

though, would he regard the change

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in our mind as as a delusion as

well, because it's already one thing?

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Uh, maybe, but then if that's the case,

then how do I know that my present idea

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is not a delusion also, but there's

something else it should move to?

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So again, Yeah, that's a good point.

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How does my mind relate to the one

and how can I have adequate basis for

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believing I should adopt this viewpoint?

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Apart from that, I think

it's really problematic.

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I don't see how it can

give a good answer to that.

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Yeah.

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See, that's a good question.

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I could see that point even

feeling self defeating.

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And if the one is all that there is,

the only thing that exists and is

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physical, then what about my mind?

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Are my ideas physical?

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Then certainly there is physical

movement from one thing to

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another, which he denies.

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So.

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I, I think any sort of idealist philosophy

is, seems to me as an untrained lay

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philosopher, seems difficult to defend.

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Yeah, it does.

476

I mean, there are aspects of it that

I think certainly feel right, like,

477

yeah, there, there can be a difference

between the truth and my opinions.

478

Like I get that.

479

Mm.

480

But.

481

To say that there is no movement,

there is no change, there is no

482

plurality, those things just feel

totally different to my experience.

483

Yeah, I get that.

484

And that's not really a logical

argument, you know what I mean?

485

I think it was Dr.

486

Johnson, Samuel Johnson, who when

hearing about Berkeley's philosophy,

487

you know, that physical things don't

exist, he kicked a stone with his

488

foot and said, I refute it thusly.

489

In other words, my experience is, hey,

there's a, there's a physical stone here.

490

Yeah.

491

Yeah.

492

Um, so anyway, that's, and of

course Barclay would say, no,

493

you're missing the whole point.

494

So there's certainly a

disconnect between there.

495

But your point is that to unpack idealism

right now, we just want to explore

496

Parmenides and see how he kind of laid

the groundwork for, especially Plato.

497

And this and talk about whether

or not it's internally coherent.

498

And your point is that it's hard from

human reasoning alone to understand

499

whether or not the interaction

between our minds and the one.

500

Right.

501

As I see it, at least, if his

way of truth is actually true, it

502

undermines the idea of finding the

truth about it or anything else.

503

Yeah.

504

I could be wrong, but

that's my evaluation.

505

Okay.

506

Gotcha.

507

That brings us back to the first question.

508

Does he succeed in building.

509

And again, I would say no, I would say

no, not only because his philosophy

510

is internally consistent, but

because of that, it's not rational.

511

And furthermore, his philosophy requires

us to deny a fundamental fact that we

512

experience daily that things change.

513

And that's just what

you were talking about.

514

So that's a problem.

515

And then lastly, he gives no adequate

reason why the One exists at all.

516

It is eternal.

517

It never comes into being.

518

It simply is.

519

It's a brute fact.

520

But our minds, or at least our

philosophies, want to go beyond that.

521

They want to ask not only what

is, but why it is, what it means.

522

And Parmenides gives no answer to that.

523

Indeed.

524

I can't think of an answer that really

could be possible based on his ontology.

525

And that's, by the way, why he gives us

no guidance at all in the area of ethics.

526

Gotcha.

527

Gotcha.

528

So you don't get an ought from an is?

529

I, I think that that's a good

point there, that we want that.

530

Why?

531

I think any thoroughly materialistic

explanation of reality is

532

going to have the same issue.

533

Our minds don't seem content

with just saying it simply is.

534

And yet, if matter is the

only thing that exists.

535

I don't know that you could ever

get beyond just saying it simply is.

536

There is no reason.

537

Yeah.

538

There is no meaning.

539

That's only my take.

540

I could be wrong.

541

But I don't find that he gives an adequate

explanation for reality on his premises

542

alone or by human reasoning alone.

543

But he is a very interesting stepping

stone to the great idealistic and

544

systematic philosophy of Plato and,

in an interesting way, also to the

545

materialist philosophies that we'll

talk about next time, the atomists.

546

Cool.

547

Well, anything else you want to

talk about before wrapping up?

548

No, I think we're good.

549

Cool.

550

Well, thank you so much.

551

Appreciate it.